“These are days of miracle and wonder,” sang Paul Simon in the opening song of his concert I attended in Forest Hills on Fri Jul 1. The song was from the Graceland album, released 30 years ago. In those three decades, the days have grown more and more miraculous and wondrous. Internet, cell phones, EZPass and GPS, Uber and AirBNB, streaming video soon to overtake broadcast TV, precision-guided cancer treatment, glasses-mounted cameras wired to retinal implants giving vision to the blind, Pokemon Go, and an all-women team of Ghostbusters. Days of miracle and wonder, indeed.
And yet our world seems to be on fire. On Jul 5 and 6, the heart-, soul-, and stomach-sickening list that includes Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, and too many others added Alton Sterling, and Philando Castile. On Jul 7 and 17, another equally distressing list added the names Lorne Ahrens, Michael Smith, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa, Brent Thompson, and then Montrell Jackson, Matthew Gerald, and Brad Garafola – the first five in Dallas, the last three in Baton Rouge, all of them police officers. Say these names – all of them, along with others that you know. Write them on your heart and whisper them in your prayers.
Standing on the side of love, and justice, let us affirm the truth that black lives matter. We affirm it because those lives are too often treated as if they didn’t matter. We also affirm that the lives of police officers matter, that steps that reduce the danger of their inherently dangerous jobs are worth our resources and careful attention. The building of trust and respect between the law enforcement and African American communities will not be easy – it may take generations -- and it will require new levels of commitment from both communities. What is ours to do? Stand with the many in each community who seek bridges over what a few in each community see as only a battle line.
For the last song of the last encore (of what he has said would be his last US concert), Paul Simon turned to an older song that reminded me that there are truly troubled waters, that “evening falls so hard.” Yet we have the capacity to respond with a promise: to lay ourselves down, to make, of our hearts, minds, and bodies, a bridge.
I have been sitting on this blog post for over a month, mainly because I want to make sure that itcarries the nuance and degree of importance that it should. In the face of all that has happen in recent gun violence and police shootings, I find this blog vital.
Over the past two or three months, I have been writing a blog reflecting on the privileges I carry as a white cis-gender bisexual woman. My aim has been to raise awareness around injustices and cause others to reflect on their privilege, especially around race, in congregations with majority white congregants.
However, I recognize that even my attempt to use my privilege to examine injustice is a very privileged and safe space to start from.
Injustice and oppression, if they are to really be stopped and changed, must be heard from the voices of those who experience it. It is not enough to recognize that injustice happens from a perspective of privilege. One must listen to the voices of the marginalized and center the voices of those who face injustice regularly.
I have noticed a trend in blog series, academic writings, newspaper articles, and even in Unitarian Unviersalist congregations. The trend is that the conversations around racial justice tends to start from recognizing privilege. Recognizing privilege is a wonderful place to start, especially for those that carry many forms of privilege. But it is not a place to stay. I see so many communities that simply stay inside what they feel they can talk about, or simply examine the privileges they carry, instead of trying to really find ways of centering the voices of those who are marganlized.
Do you notice that newspaper articles or think pieces that start from perspectives on privilege are shared more often and get more publicity than those that start from those of perspectives of oppression or people of color? Even in activism, there is a sense that those who are white are listened to more often and get more credit for protests or activism than people of color.
Talking about white privilege is easy precisely because it shares the narrative and perspective of those who are white, which is already the dominant voice. The stories and voices of those of oppression, such as those who are black or transgender or both, are less heard in a society that deems as normal the perspective of those who are white and cisgendered.
What seems counter intuitive is that the normal or dominant voice is heard more often even when the topic is about an issues of oppression. You would think that people would listen to the voices of people of color about race more than they would listen to the voices of white people. Yet time and time again, conferences, seminars, or other speakers bring white leadership to talk about race relations. That is a problem, because no matter how informed those voices of privilege may be, they have a very limited scope and cannot ever truly express the depth of truth about oppression and racism.
I have been writing about privilege because that is my narrative and is the only perspective I can actively own when it comes to racial justice. But to be honest, I realize that has been an excuse for sloppy and easy writing. I am lucky to have a fiancé, friends, and colleagues who hold me accountable and point out that this is easy writing. They ask me to center the voices of those that are oppressed, by reposting their writings, quoting their blogs, and by reflecting but not speaking to their experiences. Therefore, on this blog in the future, I will repost or display articles others have written from the voices of the oppressed, along with other topics I will blog about.
Centering oppressed voices is not something off-limits to those of privilege. This has taken me time to learn. I know that sometimes we fear tokenizing others or speaking for other people. But with nuanced and careful expression, in our activism, writings, and work we can center voices of oppression and people of color without owning it. It takes work, and a lot of mistakes, but it is more than possible.
I feel it is our mission as Unitarian Universalists to center the voices of the marginalized. Not only because in believing in the inherent, scared worth of each and every person, should we listen to and center the voices that are treated as the least of these. Also because, if we continue to persist in talking about UUs needing to deal with their privilege, UUs who are majority white and cisgender and middle class, or UUs who need to stand in solidarity, we will only promote communities of privilege and leave the voices of those marginalized within UU spaces far behind. If we continue to talk about ourselves as white and middle class, than that is all our churches will ever be. If we continue to only talk about recognizing privilege, then we will perpetuate privilege.
I only hope that in my future writing and activism, I will continue to challenge myself to center voices other than my own, while not misquoting, paraphrasing, owning, or casting wrong lenses on their work. I also hope to engage UU communities with the recognition that being aware of privilege is vital to grow, but centering the voices of the oppressed and of people of color is more important. As all aspirations, I know myself and our communities will continue to make mistakes. But will never grow into our vision of a beloved community of diverse people, who know in their bones their own inherent worth and dignity, if we do not try. May we take the privileges we have to nuance our own perspectives and writings, and center the voices that need, deserve, and want to be heard.
Therefore, I ask every Unitarian Universalist to listen to the wisdom of our Black Lives of UU leaders and members. Their stories and narratives will lead us to understand how our Unitarian Universalism perpetuates privilege. Listen to Kenny Wiley talk about his experience at a recent camp for black and people of color youth.
"I badly want white UUs and other progressive folks to know and see that carrying out white supremacy isn't always obvious. It can look like never asking "How can I help?" or "How are you holding up?" It can be never asking "I wonder how this black person is handling two black persons' murders." It looks like responding to a white person's statement of "next year Kenny can't be the only POC on staff" with "beware of affirmative action," like there aren't fifty wonderful religious professionals/young adults of color we couldn't pay and have join us." - Kenny Wiley
In order to gain the narratives, we need to compassionately ask! We should start asking "How are you?", "What are you feeling?", and "What would you want to see?" in our camps, our churches, and other regular places to gather. We can live into the beloved community, as faithful UUs, if we truly learn the patience and beloved action of listening and centering. So when we have General Assemblies, and have UU denominational asks from groups like the Black Lives of U.U., we should have faith in their stories and demands. We should ask people how they are, who they are, and what they hope for our UU faith.
For their hope is our faith's most sacred calling. The only way to get to our faith's calling, is to ask "How can I help?"
To listen to more stories of the Black Lives of UU, follow the links here:
This is part 8 of an ongoing series, "Traces of Privilege," which explores privileges I possess, and what my faith as a Unitarian Universalist calls me to do about them.
See also
There seems to be very wide agreement that no one is perfect. There is one group of people, however, who don’t say this. New parents. I do not have actual study data on this, but I’m thinking that when their brand new daughter or son is laid in their arms, it’s a pretty rare thing for new parents to say, “well, no one’s perfect.”
The child grows, and certainly there are challenges. They become teenagers, and there are more challenges. Yet if newborns start out perfect, when exactly do they stop being so? Perhaps they – we – never do.
Of course, they do change, but this does not mean they stop being perfect. We want them to change. Indeed, their capacity for change, growth, and learning is a key part of what makes them perfect just as they are on the day they are born. Perfection is not static; it is dynamic. Oh, sure, we all do things that might reasonably be called mistakes – but are they not perfect mistakes? Are they not exactly the mistake we needed to make to learn what we needed to learn?
Rather than saying “no one’s perfect,” perhaps it would make more sense to say no one simultaneously exhibits contradictory qualities. The wisdom of experience vs. youthful exuberance. Speaking your mind freely vs. diplomatically avoiding giving offense. Being tall enough to dunk a basketball vs. being short enough to ride comfortably in the backseat of a subcompact car. If your gift is one of the qualities in each pair, your shadow is that you aren’t the other. What you aren’t and don’t makes possible what you are and do.
Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, looked at a variety of fields and discovered a kind of magic number: 10,000 hours. Ten thousand hours is what it takes to really become outstanding at something. A dedicated athlete or scientist, musician or dancer, can sustain focused, intense practice or study for maybe 20 hours a week – so it takes 10 years to get to 10,000 hours. Whether there’s really something magic about 10,000 hours, or whatever the number is, what this reminds us is: no one can be good at everything. We get good at it by doing it – and we’re inclined to do it if we think we’re good at it – and the hours you put in sharpening your tremolo technique were hours you weren’t practicing your jump shot. The shadow is not some unfortunate, if forgivable, shortcoming. The shadow is the necessary enabling condition of the gift.
And what is more: we often find that the shadow actually is the gift itself. Our brokenness is itself the very thing that is our strength. That’s the paradoxical truth: the weakness is the strength.
A young man loses his leg in an accident, and, in his new handicap, becomes able to guide and inspire others coping with debilitating injury or sickness. His very one-leggedness becomes the way he shines in this world. The brokenness is the gift.
Ram Dass, born Richard Alpert, had a stroke in 1997, at age 65. The stroke left him with expressive aphasia -- he lost the ability to speak fluently. He also became wheel-chair bound. He called the stroke fierce grace. He wrote:
“For me to see the stroke as grace required a perceptual shift. I used to be afraid of things like strokes, but I’ve discovered that the fear of the stroke was worse than the stroke itself....Since the stroke I can say to you with an assurance I couldn’t have felt before, that faith and love are stronger than any changes, stronger than aging, and, I am very sure, stronger than death.”
Twenty years ago, I lost my job as an assistant professor of philosophy. It was wrong -- so obviously wrong. It should not have happened. I was so upset. Stricken. My skin felt like it would really rather be somewhere besides wrapped around my body. I couldn’t make things be what it was so clear to me they should be. I was a failure, broken, inadequate.
Subsequently, I was in a relationship with a woman, Evelyn. The relationship reached the point where it wasn’t working out – at least, it wasn’t working out for her. She “should” have loved me. (I was younger then – trimmer, fitter – smart, funny. Take my word for it, I was adorable.) But she didn’t love me, not anymore. I couldn’t make her, and I was, again, so distraught.
If I hadn’t been cracked, if I hadn’t failed, if things had gone as I was once so sure they “should,” I might still be teaching philosophy, still living in my head, still assessing everything other people said as either something I agreed with or something I had an argument against, rarely simply present to the beauty and fascination of another person – concerned only with whether they were right, rather than with understanding where they were coming from. I might still be with Evelyn. Boy, would that be awful!
In fact, as I play that “what if” game in my head, I realize that: no way. There's no way that old life could have lasted. If those "shoulds" hadn’t failed me when they did, they would have soon after. They were not sustainable. Life has a way of breaking us – but what it’s really breaking is our delusions. This hurts, yet out of that pain we can begin to feel our way, if we are ready to, back to the ground of what is. The brokenness is the gift.
Our lives get complex, step by step, because we choose the complexity. We are drawn to it. There’s more there – more going on. We play complex games like chess or go, and study complex subjects like . . . well, every academic field gets more complex as the student advances. Complexity intrigues us. We enjoy figuring it out. It’s stimulating and enriching.
Musically, we prefer complexity. I mean, how long could you listen to the one-finger version of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"? Much more interesting and enjoyable are Mozart's more complex variations -- in which he gets progressively more complex.
Of course, we don’t like unnecessary complexity. We don’t like being confused by complications. We like elegance – where all the power of a complex thing is presented in a way that seems to make it simple.
Instead of a chalkboard filled with symbols of an enormous equation, Einstein gives us the elegance of e=mc2.
When Apple released the first iPod in 2001, the engineering and electronics were quite complex, but the controls presented to the user were very simple – and iPod fans delighted in its elegance. Competing products were cheaper, had more features – voice recorders and FM transmitters – but the iPod won.
We are attracted to elegance: it presents something complex as simple.
And thereby, it lets us treat the complex thing as a component, which can then be linked up to interact with other components to build a whole new level of complexity. Einstein famously said, “everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” But the reason for making it simple is so we can more easily work with it as a component to build more complexity – more capacity, more ability to do more different things.
And that’s great, right? What’s the problem?
The problem, as Juliet Schor put it, is this:
“Millions of Americans have lost control over the basic rhythm of their daily lives. They work too much, eat too quickly, socialize too little, drive and sit in traffic for too many hours, don’t get enough sleep, and feel harried too much of the time. The details of time scarcity are different across socioeconomic groups, but as a culture we have a shared experience of temporal impoverishment.”
One line from an article in Risk and Insurance magazine last year says a lot:
“In a trend that shows no sign of reversing, American workers are reporting higher levels of stress.”
Do we want complexity with all its interesting, stimulating, power to do more different things? Sure we do.
Do we want simplicity, in the sense of a life that feels in control, manageable, relaxed and gentle? Sure we do.
Take sleep, for example. Life is better when we get enough sleep – and do so consistently – it doesn’t really work to try to catch up on the weekends. On the other hand, most of us would agree that a good life has episodes that are so exciting it keeps us up all night.
Some 17 years ago, LoraKim and I, on our second or third date (depending on what exactly counts as a date), talked until dawn. I was 40 and felt like a kid again. I was not good for much at work the ensuing day – or for the next several days -- but it was so worth it. She and I look back at that night as the moment we knew we wanted to make a life together, with what we had left of it.
I have had projects that were so exciting I worked on them through the night. If that happens very occasionally, we call it excitement, and it’s great. If that happens a lot, we call it stress, and it’s not so good.
We are naturally drawn toward complexity, but sometimes we find we’ve let ourselves be drawn too far. We find that the level of complexity of our life outstrips the level of elegance which makes that complexity manageable.
When life gets – as many of our lives are – too complex, stressed, frenetic – a simpler life begins to look increasingly attractive.
Try looking at it this way: What's more complex, a pile of rocks, or a houseplant? The houseplant has very complex chemical and cellular processes going on as it photosynthesizes sunlight into energy, and as it draws nutrients through its roots. On the other hand, the rocks are many things and the plant is one thing. A random assortment of rocks might have no internal unifying principle making them one existing thing -- so they feel more complicated. What makes the houseplant, for all its complexity, feel simple - even soothing in its simplicity - is its unification.
If life feels like a pile of rocks - or to use a common metaphor - like a lot of balls we're trying to juggle - one strategy for simplicity would be to get rid of a lot of the rocks. Just stop juggling so many discrete and separate balls. Get down to just one simple rock or ball. But that wouldn't satisfy our urge for complexity.
Reducing the balls we're juggling might help. What also helps is that the elements of our lives integrate into a unified, coherent whole. That's the attraction of simplicity: whatever the underlying complexity of its processes, there's an integrity and unity to it. If that could happen, life would make more sense, feel more manageable and easeful -- more simple and elegant. In that way we would achieve both simplicity and complexity.
What is, in contemporary North American life, unintegrated and unintegratable – inherently inelegant -- is how much exploitation and injustice is required to sustain it, how much cruelty out of sight is committed to produce its necessary conveniences, how much resource depletion and environmental destruction it takes. The balance we seek of simplicity and complexity will need to be just and sustainable.
Across the country we are talking about transgendered people. But not for all the advances they have helped in our history, or for their accomplishments, but in an argument over whether or not they can use the restroom. Amidst such news, it’s very easy to see that I have cis-gendered privileges.
Cis-gender is term for those whose gender identity matches the gender and sex they were assigned at birth.Cis-gender is different from those who are transgender, people whose identity matches a specific gender different from the sex assigned at birth, or those who are genderqueer, those who fall on a spectrum, or between different gender identities. There are many other kinds of gender identifications and names, but these are the three most widely used and known terms for those whose gender identity differs from those assigned at birth.
There are constantly privileges for those who are cis-gender, but particularly for those whose gender falls neatly into the divide of masculine and feminine. Simply think about the routine of your day. I have never questioned whether I look enough like a woman. I have never had to feel it was wrong to be a woman. There are clothes designed to fit my body type and to showcase my gender identity that are easily available. There are bathrooms designated for my gender. I have never been questioned about using a bathroom. I have never had a doctor look at me and then decide to refuse service, because they couldn’t take care of concerns related to my gender. When I talk about my gender, I have never had someone immediately ask about the size and type of genitals i have. While I may have been called names because I am female, I have never been perceived as threatening, other-ized, or assaulted because my appearance didn’t align with my perceived gender.
But over and above all of this, is the recognition that I “fit”. I am more than just a cis-gendered woman, but one who likes to present as feminine. That means that all the messages, the pink dolls, the wedding dresses, the constant advertising for yogurt or sleep medicine, and the all magazine ads have told me that I “fit” what it means to be a woman. I have never had to grow up constantly feeling that when it comes to my gender identity, I didn’t "fit".
Transgender and genderqueer persons are consistently told that they don’t “fit” by the subliminal messages and now by the outright laws of our country. These bathroom laws are more than just the peace and privacy of a very intimate bodily need, they are about how transgender and genderqueer persons are dehumanized.
Take the testimony Maddy Goss, a transgender woman from Raliegh who was interviewed by CBC news:
“I think the one thing that's really important to understand about all of this is in the United States, people are trying to pass these bathroom bills by using the trans person as bogeymen, perverts, child molesters, people lurking in bathrooms. No, trans men are just men; trans women are just women. We just want to use the bathroom in peace and live our lives.”
Or take the words of Candis Cox from Raliegh, who quit her job over the humiliation of constantly being forced to use a handicap restroom where she worked since she couldn’t use the restroom of her preference:
"I want people to see I am no different than anyone else. I'm a Christian, I have strong faith. I volunteer as a Wake County Guardian Ad Litem, which is a court advocate for abused and neglected children, but people don't ask me about that. I pay taxes, I go to the grocery store, I have my family who I love, I worry about things. I don't have weird sexual fetishes, I don't have some criminal background, I wasn't abused. I'm an everyday, day-to-day normal person."
The constant dehumanization, and ugly portrayal of fear-based stereotypes has more dangerous consequences then possibly using the restroom. These statistics are taken from the HRC website.
21 transgendered persons were known to be killed in 2015. Of those 21, 15 of them were specifically transwomen of color.
90% of transgendered persons reported harassment at work.
70% of transgender and genderqueer persons reported being discriminated by health care providers.
20% said they were not served equally by law enforcement.
40% of black gender nonconforming persons and 45% of Latina/o gender nonconforming persons were denied access to homeless shelters when they needed them.
As Unitarian Universalists, we are call to dismantle and destroy the narratives that make any one person seem less than fully human and worthy. Our believe in every person’s inherent worth and dignity goes beyond simply believing in people. We demand that everyone feels fully human. The kind of fear-mongering and hate-filled language that demonizes others is not acceptable. Which is why laws like House Bill 2 in North Carolina are more than humiliating for gender nonconforming persons, they are hate laws. May we all work to erase laws like this and the open discrimination and criminalization of gender non-conforming persons.
This is part 6 of an ongoing series, "Traces of Privilege," which explores privileges I possess, and what my faith as a Unitarian Universalist calls me to do about them.
It is the Memorial Day weekend. So let us remember.
I know that many of us are conflicted about glorifying war, violence, and nationalism.
Many of us are cognizant that courage and heroism and sacrifice are found in all vocations. And that, for example, teachers, nurses, social workers, and employees of nonprofits serve and protect our nation’s thriving as much as soldiers do.
I know that many of us believe that US war-fighting has had less to do with preserving freedom than with preserving corporate profits, and that anyone volunteering for armed service must know that, or should. Whatever your beliefs about that, let us remember our fallen warriors.
Let us remember our loss -- the young lives, jewels of their families and their communities, that were taken from us. Let us remember, and discern what meaning we can from of our loss, for, as Archibald MacLeish says:
The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:
who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night
and when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died.
Remember us.
They say: We have done what we could
but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished
no one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,
they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for
peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,
it is you who must say this.
We leave you our deaths.
Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say.
We have died; remember us.
Remembering, then, let us re-commit to building and strengthening institutions of peace, that none of our children’s children will be remembered by the generations following them for having died in war.
As I reflect on this upcoming Memorial Day, I've been thinking about what it means for me to be an American civilian. When people talk about privileges of being American, they start with our freedoms. It is very important to notice the privileges of democracy, civil liberties, and certain freedoms by being an American. However, it's also important to note systemic and cultural privileges of being a civilian in our American culture.
I have systemic privileges because I am an American civilian.
As Americans we have a lot of honor and pride for our veterans, especially around Memorial Day we give incredible respect and honor to our servicemen and service women in the military. We have ceremonies, and we salute them in the streets. But while we have a cultural sense of honor around our veterans, Veterans do not get treated systemically with the same respect or regard that American civilians do.
There are around 21.8 million veterans in the U.S. One any given night nationwide, around 47,725 veterans are homeless. While financial aid for education is a benefit of voluntarily joining military service, veterans overall have a hard time of applying for civilian jobs, due to lack of work experience, education, or training. While many veterans gain support and benefits from the government, their are multiple cases of mistakes with forms and information, and the support never seems to reach enough veterans or be enough those they help.
The systemic issues become clearer when we look at health needs. A significant number of Veterans from every conflict suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, between 11 to 30 percent per conflict. This affects the ability to re-accumulate to civilian life.If left untreated, veterans with PTSD have an increased likelihood of addiction or suicide. Around 2013, the statistic around that around22 veterans committed suicide per day. These are only mental health issues, there are of course several physical disabilities and diseases that are caused by active duty. The V.A. has health insurance, hospitals, and care for all veterans. But recent news shows how unreliable VA care is. The care often takes months or years, is often filled with frustrating hurdles, and routinely filling with clerical mistakes. Several veterans die just waiting for treatment, especially if the VA health benefits are the only ones they can receive.
As a civilian and not a veteran, I have a more likely chance of seeing medical attention as soon as I need it, getting a job and requisite training, and much less likely to encounter situations that cause PTSD. There are plenty of civilians that have any or all three situations, but it is a less likely chance than those who have served in the military.
Secondly, I earn privileges by being an American civilian, then a civilian anywhere else in the world. I have felt like my home town or places of residence were put in the position of war. Since 1945, there have been no conflicts on American soil or the soil of American commonwealth nations. While we continue to be in worldwide war, our nation and it's nation states have not had direct conflict in over fifty years.
There has never been a drone aimed for my town, or village, or home. I have never had to worry if soldiers would barge in to take refuge or seize my property. I have never had to imagine bombs going off day and night. I have never had to have bomb drill for an active war. There are countries still in direct combat with our nation, that have civilians that face this on a daily basis. I have never been a refugee. While we joke about running away to Canada if a particular president is elected, we have never been caught in the middle of a civil or world wide war that forces us to be displaced, continuously harmed, and without a home.
Being an American civilian, I have much to be thankful for. I keep in mind the sacrifices that service men and women worldwide make on a regular basis.The people in our military are the ones doing noble work. But what is our nation doing with the noble work they give? I hear the phrase they are "protecting us", but I wonder what privileges of mine are they protecting and why? There is no threat of direct warfare, at least not in the ways that so many other countries face threats. Why are we still endangering and harming the lives of civilians and service men and women across the world?
I think it's important to ask why as we face Memorial Day, so that the sacrifices given by our veterans aren't just accepted as a duty, but given the thoughtful respect and meaning those actions deserve. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "it is for us the living to rededicate to the work they have so nobly advanced". What work are we as a nation advancing world wide in our military actions through the dedication and service of our military and veterans? Is it noble?And if not, how do we make it noble? Our veterans and service personnel deserve nothing less than our nation's careful and noble discernment.
