Proclaim120714 Nothing Should Divide Us: Beyond
Ferguson
I was meeting with several ministers from Essex,
Wenham and Hamilton the other day to discuss further
our joint attempts to begin a more formal
outreach/ministry to the elder population in our
respective towns. It’s a great group of people and the
convener, a lover of one of my favorite (sacred) libations,
Guinness Stout, always picks great places to meet and
drink. This time it was at the Black Cow in Hamilton. It’s a
brilliant strategy on his part because it assures great
attendance! And, as a total aside, he brought up the fact
that there is a church softball league for all people,
young and old, male and female, and he loves playing but
his only complaint was that none of the other churches
and their players were interested in going out to drink
after the games. When I said the UUs might be able to
field a team, he responded with glee since he was sure
UUs would be very happy to go drinking after the games.
Later in the day one in the group sent an e-mail asking if
anyone planned on preaching about the tragic events in
Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, NY, where in both
cases unarmed African American men were killed by
white policemen. I responded I was and shared some
thoughts with the group.
The shooting death of Michael Brown, an African
American man in Ferguson, and the choke-hold death of
Eric Garner, an African American man on Staten Island,
both at the hands of white police officers, have caused
lots of pain, anger, questioning, doubts, accusations,
soul-searching and protests not only in those
communities, but across the country and here in Boston
and Cambridge. These are tragic events for all police, for
all African Americans, for all citizens, even those of us far
removed from these incidents.
How do we explain these tragedies? How do we respond
to them? How to understand? What lens do we use to
interpret them? I often talk to my favorite retired
policeman, Gavin Keenan, when such events occur. Gavin
is so forthright and balanced in his view. I talked to him
before I knew about the choking of a man on Staten
Island, so our conversation was confined to Ferguson.
Typically, Gavin saw both sides. He presumed the young
man had gotten aggressive and attacked the policeman.
Why? Who knows? Was he provoked? On the other
hand, he judged the very young, inexperienced
policeman mishandled the encounter. It never should
have escalated to the point it did, judged Gavin. No one
should have died. Aberrant, possibly criminal behavior by
the youth; over-reactive, inappropriate armed and
deadly response by the police, possibly raciallymotivated; how do we come down? (Staten Island seems
an even clearer case of police misbehavior). Or is there
more, something deeper and more systemic going on
that might determine such incidents will continue to
occur, maybe even increase.
When I first began to work in ministry in UU in the early
1990s in Pittsburgh, the UUA had begun a very serious
national initiative aimed at educating UUs, a
predominantly white religious movement, about racism,
how it works and how deep and systemic it goes. Racism,
we learned, was something different than prejudice. We
likely all live with prejudice; some cultural or ethnic
group of people, or some class of people, whether rich or
poor, gay or straight people, people who have been in
jail, gypsies, or in Ireland the “traveling people,” etc. You
name it, we likely all have some prejudice, some bias,
either conscious or unconscious. Racism is different. It is
not individual prejudice, it’s systemic, structural,
somehow built into the very fabric of the society we live
in, and for that reason, difficult to name and eradicate.
Racial/ethnic profiling by police is an example; red-lining
(keeping certain groups out of neighborhoods by denying
loans) is another example; different sentencing for drug
violations for poor people of color as opposed to wealth
off white people is an example. If you would like a good
read on how our prison system is a clear example of
racism with disproportionate numbers of poor, African
American men incarcerated, I would suggest you read
Michelle Alexander’s THE NEW JIM CROW.
I learned a lot by attending the workshops on anti-racism
but the problem was that’s all we UUs seemed to do, i.e.,
learn about it, talk about it, with very little action
component. The strategies for dismantling racism or for
any action to begun dealing with racism seemed lacking. I
was frustrated; full of new understandings of how racism
worked but with little guidance as to how to address it.
It’s a 30-40 process I was told. Yikes.
Nevertheless, I ministered in a church on the North Side
of Pittsburgh that was actually a very good laboratory to
test out new insights on what was called structural or
systemic racism. The Allegheny U church was situated in
a neighborhood that was about 50% African American,
and the vast majority was poor. One day at a ministers
meeting with a number of African American ministers, I
brought up this topic and asked how best to address it:
to a person they said we are done having dialogues with
white, well-intentioned ministers; if you are serious
about dismantling racism, join us in a struggle for change;
we need housing, jobs, better schools, etc. I had my
marching orders.
I know I’ve shared stories about our work in Pittsburgh
with poor, mostly African American tenants, who were
about to be evicted from their section 8 apartments, as
the neighborhood was gentrifying and the rents were
about to go to market rate. We won that struggle but the
best part of the experience for me was the crossing of
ethnic (racial?), economic and cultural lines to form deep
and lasting bonds of friendship. They referred to me as
the “little white guy with the Afro,” and they issued me
an official “ghetto card,” but mostly they embraced me
as a trusted ally and friend.
At one of my meetings with about 8 or 9 African
American, all female, leaders has shaped my views about
social issues in this country ever since. In response to the
obvious movement by wealthy neighborhood activists
and a real estate agent bent on doubling the prices of
house to move people of color out, one young resident
said they want us out because we’re black, to which an
older, wiser resident responded: they want us out not so
much because we’re black, but because we’re poor. My
friend Nancy, a civil rights’ warrior for many years,
beautifully understood how race or ethnicity and class
work together to keep many poor minorities stuck in
situations of hopelessness and despair, with very few
options to move out and the odds stacked against them.
Nancy nailed the issue we have still not been able to talk
openly about, i.e., class and the growing division
between those that have and those that don’t. And like
racism, it is subtle, yet systemic and hard to overcome.
Related to this insight, I read a fascinating short
essay/interview in Time magazine recently with the
famous retired basketball player, a very thoughtful and
intelligent fellow, Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Some of us knew
him in the 60s as Lew Alcindor. Reflecting on Ferguson,
Jabbar suggests that most people see only racism in the
tragic events in Ferguson, but just as important if we are
to understand what’s really going on here is to
acknowledge the problem of classism, systemic
inequality, deepening poverty, and the resulting sense of
despair and hopelessness in the African American
community. The bigger problem in Ferguson, suggests
Jabbar, besides the deep anger and distrust of the police
and the lack of good relations between the police and
the community, is deep, grinding and endless poverty
and the conviction in the community that there is no way
out. I witnessed this first-hand in my years in Pittsburgh;
there was a deep sense of despair and hopelessness
among so many, especially youth. African American
scholar Cornel West calls it nihilism in the community, a
deep sense of discouragement that things will ever get
better and that many or most feel locked into a lifetime
of poverty and closed doors. And, writes West, such
nihilism, such despair and discouragement, is spreading
to the wider body politic, where more and more people
feel voting is a waste and the system is rigged to the
benefit of fewer and fewer. With 32% eligible people
voting this past election, maybe he’s on to something.
But, you know, I also experienced a deep sense of hope
in my ministry over the years, in the South Bronx, in
Pittsburgh, and now here. I met many deeply faithful and
engaged people, who despite their sometimes desperate
situations, poured lots of energy into organizing to
change their neighborhoods. And I personally view the
virtue of HOPE as one of the most fundamental and
profound and necessary values we human beings must
have and exercise in order to become all we are called to
be. Hope is not optimism; hope is much deeper and more
profound. It is a way of life, even when there is little
reason for optimism. And in this wonderful religious
season of hope, when we UUs anticipate Christmas, and
the arrival, once again of the child Jesus, and Hanukkah,
that wonderful celebration of miracle and liberation and
the re-building of the temple, the Jewish place of
worship, and the Winter Solstice, where we celebrate the
shortest and darkest day of the year in anticipation of
longer days and the return of light, and even Kwanza, the
uniquely American celebration of African cultural
heritage, I find myself full of renewed hope that we,
together, as a people, can transform this society, brick by
brick, but only if we throw aside despair and inaction,
and reach out across lines of difference, race/ethnicity,
class, gender, cultural, etc. and work to bring about the
transformation we dream about every day. I’m convinced
we can do it. There is nothing holding us back, despite
the steep hill we must traverse.
I have always been amazed at how hope persists in
communities that are oppressed and how they struggle
on against the odds. I know and have experienced that in
the African American community hope is re-enforced
through song and celebration. The great theologian and
mystic, Howard Thurman, who grew up under the
oppressive structures of racism and classism in the
South, wrote so eloquently about the “sorrow songs as
the ground of (his) HOPE.” “There is a balm in Gilead, to
make the spirit whole, there is a balm in Gilead, to heal
the sin-sick soul.” And I can hear the great Paul Robeson,
scholar, athlete, Shakespearean actor, baritone vocalist
and opera performer, and political activist, now singing
our middle hymn, BALM IN GILEAD, with such deep
feeling and inspiration! He shattered so many barriers in
his life, despite overwhelming odds.
Just like the prophet Jeremiah, who uttered the words of
the song, hopeful words, while in deep discouragement
over the unwillingness of the people to heed God’s word,
the slaves and many African Americans to this day have
used their condition as a source of power and,
remarkably, gained strength from their oppression and
determined to break free from their shackles. And in the
singing there is hope and joy and passion to carry on
despite the odds. And that hope is ultimately grounded
in a belief that, as the great Theodore Parker, an
outspoken Unitarian minister in the mid-19th century
once said, and it was often repeated by Dr. King, “the arc
of the universe bends towards justice,” i.e., as Howard
Thurman writes, “…that the ultimate destiny of persons
is good. This becomes the raw material of all hope, and is
one of the taproots of religious faith for the human
spirit.” So, Thurman concludes, “we continue to hope
against all evidence to the contrary…,” fed by a deep
conviction that the future will turn out well and it is this
belief, this spirit that the music captures and offers
inspiration.
At our annual ECCO meeting the other night, we
celebrated this year’s organizing victories of raising the
minimum wage and earning sick time for workers with a
wonderful and jubilant celebration led mostly by our
Latin American activists with music and song and rich,
deep and personal interactions. In our organizing and
activism we are breaking down barriers that often divide
people in this country; barriers of ethnicity, color, class,
gender, culture, etc. And in the process of winning
occasionally, we are developing friendships and trust and
helping one another dream of a different community and
country. We are building hope, through faith and trust.
Tudy related that in one of her conversations with a
Latina woman from Lynn, the woman shared how
grateful the community is that the President finally acted
on immigration issues. Similar things happen when we
cook at Open Door or volunteer at Grace Center or host
families with Family Promise. Many years ago I learned
from a Peruvian philosopher that hope comes from
action; doing something, most especially with others. As
Dorothy Day once wrote: “People say, what is the sense
of our small effort…They cannot see that we must lay
one brick at a time, take one step at a time…No one has a
right to sit down and feel hopeless…There’s too much to
do!”
The key in moving to a new moment in this country, and
one of the essential lessons of Ferguson and Staten
Island, I believe, is to acknowledge and attempt to
understand that our biggest problems in this country are
deep and the divisions real. Social and economic
inequality are not primarily issues of individual success or
failure, but they are structural and systemic problems
which will only improve when we change systems, as
difficult as that may be to understand. We all need to
educate ourselves on just how this all works.
One of our UU “sources of wisdom” says we are called to
hear the “words and deeds of prophetic women and men
which challenge us to confront POWERS and
STRUCTURES of evil with justice, compassion, and the
transforming power of love.” And we need to travel
across ethnic and cultural and class lines and develop
relationships which will help to understand the
experiences and the struggles of others. We need to
empathize and listen. Then we need to act together.
Essex (and Hamilton and Wenham and Manchester and
Ipswich) seem far away from the problems that plague
Staten Island and Ferguson and Boston and Lynn (not so
far). But they are our problems and we all need to be
part of the solution. Imagine if there was an initiative to
bring 50 units of low-income housing to Essex or other
surrounding towns; suppose some of our Family promise
guests decided to stay. And they had kids who would use
our schools and drive up the costs. How would we react?
Would we embrace them? Imagine your response. What
would our faith and values suggest?
And while we are imagining and pondering the tragic
events of these past weeks, I would ask us all to imagine
what it might be like to live in a seriously-impoverished
ghetto with high unemployment and no easy way out –
imagine you are Michael Brown. And I would us ask us all
to imagine we are a young, inexperienced policeman in
an area where you are likely not popular or welcomed.
Imagine your fear and trepidation. Despite the tragedy
and systemic dilemmas, my hope is that Ferguson and
Staten Island will be opportunities to understand better
our national problems and work together to make a
better America.
I loved my work in the South Bronx and Pittsburgh and
now here. I have brought the same hope to the North
Shore of Massachusetts and it is affirmed every day! And
we all need to ponder these events of the last days and
weeks and how there are still such divisions in our land. I
am sure this is a hard message to hear. But as people of
faith we bring this great gift of hope to the table,
convinced things can change and we can help make that
difference. We should never underestimate our power to
transform through loving actions together. I have worked
with so many good people in my ministries and through
prayer and celebration and organizing and acting I have
seen change; relationships have been built; barriers have
come down; a better future has been imagined. It has
given me hope that nothing is impossible, despite the
obstacles. And I have brought the same hope to the
North Shore of Massachusetts and it has been affirmed
every single day. And in this Advent, Christmas,
Hanukkah, Solstice and Kwanza time, I rejoice and find
hope in our lives together as a community of faith, hope
and love.