November 13 - 19, 2020

On June 19, 2020, I made a commitment to educate myself on the lingering effects of racism, discrimination, and bias in America. Every day through June 18, 2021, I will read an article or book chapter, listen to a podcast, watch a movie or documentary, view a webinar, or do something substantive to educate myself in these areas. As part of that commitment, I will post to this blog each Friday with a list of what I've done over the past week as well as any pertinent thoughts or reflections.

Today's post covers the week of November 13-19, 2020.

 

I'm Still Here: Black Dignity In a World Made For Whiteness

This week's post covers the book I'm Still Here: Black Dignity In a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown. You may remember the author as a guest on the Brene Brown podcast I wrote about in October. Brown's book is a first person account of her life's journey growing up in Ohio, attending college in Chicago, and working with white Evangelical Christians. The book was tough for me to read - similar to how I felt when reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates - but only because it's a new persepective for me and her journey has been difficult. Despite my discomfort in reading it, I felt it was good for me to absorb her story.

 

Here are a few passages from the book that I found moving or interesting:

 

"''We knew that anyone who saw it before meeting you would assume you are a white man. One day you will have to apply for jobs. We just want to make sure you could make it to the interview.' My mother watched my face, waiting for a reaction. My brain scrolled through all the times a stranger has said my name but wasn't talking to me. In every instance, the intended target had been not only a boy, but a white boy."

"Quite frankly, the work isn't just tedious. It can be dangerous for Black women to attempt to carve out space for themselves - their perspective, their gifts, their skills, their education, their experiences - in places that haven't examined the prevailing assumption of white culture."

"My story is not about condemning white people but about rejecting the assumption - sometimes spoken, sometimes not - that white is right: closer to God, holy, chosen, the epitome of being. My story is about choosing to love my Black femaleness, even when it shocks folks who expected something quite different."

"'Even if you put it back on the shelf, Austin, you can't touch store products and then put your hands in your pockets,' he explained as his large hands gently removed mine from their denim hiding place. 'Someone might notice and assume you are trying to steal.' I nodded. It took some time, but eventually I trained myself not to touch my pockets - and nowadays, my purse - when walking through store aisles."

"It felt deeply gratifying to have my own experience named, lifted up, discussed, considered worthy of everyone's attention. And yet, I had no desire to be the Black spokesperson. It felt too risky. I wasn't sure that my classmates had earned the right to know, to understand, to be given access to such a vulnerable place in my experience. For me, this was more than an educational exercise. This is how we survive."

"Then, as we pulled into a parking lot to break for lunch, another white student stood to speak ... 'I don't know what to do with what I've learned,' she said. 'I can't fix your pain, and I can't take it away, but I can see it. And I can work for the rest of my life to make sure your children don't have to experience the pain of racism.' And then she said nine words that I've never forgotten: 'Doing nothing is no longer an option for me.'"

On pages 71-76, Brown takes us through a typical work day for her. The day involves several microaggressions coming from her coworkers, and while I cannot detail all of them in the blog, it's worth spending some time on this particular section of the book.

"Over the years, I have grown used to hearing the response, 'Well, why don't you just leave if you don't like it here?' As if this experience is a unique phenomenon, or specific to only a handful of organizations. Even if it were unique, it's highly privileged to believe that Black women can just quit and find another place to work without missing paychecks or losing benefits."

"Whiteness wants us to be empty, malleable, so that it can shape Blackness into whatever is necessary for the white organization's own success. It sees potential, possibility, a future where Black people could share some of the benefits of whiteness if only we try hard enough to mimic it."

"I love being a Black woman because we are demanding. We demand the right to live as fully human. We demand access - the right to vote, to education, to employment, to housing, to equal treatment under the law. And we do it creatively: Sit-ins, die-ins, signs and songs, writing and filmmaking. We demand because our ancestors did. We demand because we believe in our own dignity."

 

"When you believe niceness disproves the presence of racism, it's easy to start believing bigotry is rare, and that the label racist should be applied only to mean-spirited, intentional acts of discrimination. The problem with this framework - besides a gross misunderstanding of how racism operates in systems and structures enabled by nice people - is it obligates me to be nice in return, rather than truthful."

 

"The more tired I get, the more I have to unglue myself from these offensive, painful stories for which white people expect an absolution I cannot give. They want me to tell them, 'it's okay' and give them a handy excuse for their behavior."

 

"We would rather focus on the beautiful words of Martin Luther King Jr. than on the terror he and protestors endured at marches, boycotts, and from behind jail doors."

 

"We don't want to acknowledge that just as Black people who experienced Jim Crow are still alive, so are the white people who vehemently protected it - who drew red lines around Black neighborhoods and divested them of support given to average white citizens."

 

"One of the most meaningful passages of Scripture for me is found in the New Testament, where Jesus leads a one-man protest inside the Temple walls. Jesus shouts at the corrupt Temple officials, overturns furniture, sets animals free, blocks the doorways with his body, and carries a weapon - a whip - through the place. Jesus throws folks out of the building, and in doing so creates a space for the most marginalized to come in: the poor, the wounded, the children."

 

"We fear the overreaction of white people who clutch their purses in elevators and lock their doors when we walk by. We fear the overreaction of police who assume they are in danger when they have the wrong suspect or when we are unarmed. We fear that appearing guilty means incurring the repercussions of being guilty. We fear that any public imperfection of our children will lead to extrajudicial, deadly consequences. Even when our babies aren't perfect, even when they are rude and disrespectful, even when they make mistakes or fail, even when their sixteen-year-old brains tell them to do risky, stupid things, we still want them to live. We want them to make it another day." 

"I am not impressed that slavery was abolished or that Jim Crow ended. I feel no need to pat America on its back for these 'achievements.' This is how it always should have been. Many call it progress, but I do not consider it praiseworthy that only within the last generation did America reach the baseline for human decency."

"What is left when hope is gone? What is left when the source of my hope has failed? Each death of hope has been painful and costly. But in the mourning there always rises a new clarity about the world, about the Church, about myself, about God. And in this there is new life. Realignment. Rediscovery. And on the really good days: renewal."