To the Black Women Who Loved the Death out of Me

The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman.  The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman.  The most neglected person in America is the Black woman. - Malcolm X

On Sunday, the woman with whom I get to accompany in this lifetime sat down with me to watch the Game of Thrones premiere for a 6th season.  We were interrupted by Lemonade.

Beyoncé has created a sonic and visual novel, deeply rooted in the dark, dangerous Southern halls of past, present, and future Black American womanhood.  It is a modern day collection of Psalms, dripping with anger, lament, longing, confusion, and moving into forgiveness, restoration, redemption, and healing.  Quite simply, it's arc is stunning.  (Afterwards, I fell asleep during Game of Thrones.)  A few weeks back, I wrote about how Beyoncé's video for Formation uplifted the humanity of the young black male by showing a boy dancing before riot cops.   So it's fitting that Beyoncé, and all the many, many artists, poets, thinkers, athletes, dancers, and regular people involved in Lemonade, are the foundation for this post, too.

The visuals of Lemonade paint, with the greatest degree of accuracy I've ever seen, what it felt like to be cared for by the black women of New Orleans at the turn of the century.  No, the turn of the millennium, but maybe I meant that mistake.  It has cracked open a floodwater of gratitude, of which I must tend to now, as my emotions keep welling up and spilling over.  My daughter and my wife are like, okay, Daddy, you okay?  :)  I often try to explain what New Orleans means to me.  Treme comes very, very close.  Lemonade blows in like a hurricane passing through the eye of a needle before morphing into a sort of invisible force.  Joseph Campbell might call this force the thread that holds our American culture together, capable of stitching up any and all heartbreaks and wounds.  Which is the story of Black New Orleans, for me.

My first few weeks as a 6th grade teacher in the upper 9th ward were not stellar.  I can almost feel the collective Amens! from any of you who can recollect a first-year-in-the-classroom chain of memories.  And I was particularly sure that I was going to be great.  I was blessed by Levi, was a "gifted" writer from the University of Michigan, was so excited to serve society as a teacher in a lower income area.

Deshondalisa

By November, I wanted to quit.

And it was a very dark time in my life.  (I was also in an emotional and physically abusive relationship at the time, but that's the subject of a potential future blog, Dismantling Straighteousness)

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, moms from the neighborhood had donated all kinds of food to make a proper feast for all of us teachers and staff in the lounge.  It was amazing.  And I probably ate far too much, because by 5th period, I was suddenly struck with some acute nausea.

I looked up at the class, which had been one of my most challenging groups of students, and Deshondalisa looked back empathetically at me and said, "Mr. Smitch (that's what she always called me), you don't look good.  Go, go, I'll take care of the class."

Yes, I know the New Orleans Public School board could cite me for leaving a classroom unattended, but I really had no choice.

Backstory: on the very first day of school, Deshondalisa lodged herself, in my limited understanding at the time, as my sworn enemy, the biggest thorn in my side.  Of course, it didn't help that when I took attendance that very first day, her name was too long to fully fit in the Scantron printout, so I called her, "Deshondal?  Is Deshondal here?"

If venom could be administered from a glance and float through the air, hers certainly stung me.  The way she seethed her full name was the official start of our time together in period 5.  And it went downhill from there.

Until Thanksgiving.

Cut to the original scene, I run down the hall, take care of my pale green self, and am back within a few minutes.

Deshondalisa is calmly walking up and down the aisles, guiding the class in practicing spelling words.  They are all participating, everyone doing what she says.  "Feel better Mr. Smitch?  Go ahead and sit down, I'll take it from here."

I just observed.  Together with Deshondalisa's leadership, the class showed me that they could, indeed, function.  My single story of Deshondalisa had been that she was a troublemaker.  But in one swift moment,  I learned my error: she is a leader, and leaders sometimes get in trouble because they butt heads with other leaders.  Her leadership also allowed others to step forward and display their own leadership skills later in the year.  That unplanned event was a miracle, a moment where everything was reframed because of the courage and confidence of one eleven year old young Black woman.

From there, I wondered how true this statement was: "the trouble with these students is that their parents just don't care."  I heard this at least once a day from a variety of sources.  Now, it was true that very few parents would show up at parent-teacher conferences.  But maybe, like Deshondalisa, there was more to their stories.  I decided to buy my first Nokia cellular phone, signed up with Cingular, and committed to calling 5-8 parents every night.  The plan was to cycle this every 2 weeks, calling with primarily good reports on a portion of the students each day, reserving the third week for any trouble areas needing attention.  At first:

"Mr. Schmitt?  Oh no, what my Cedric do now?  You want I should break out the belt?"

It took a minute to dismantle the single story that these parents held surrounding the event of a teacher calling home.  By the second and third rounds, the conversations moved from, "just wanted to say that Geraldnisha did a really good job reading her poem today, you should ask her to read it at home," to "sure, I'd love to come over this weekend, 6pm sounds great."

And the rest is part of the history of me experiencing deep Southern hospitality, a warmth and generosity I had never before seen, smelled, heard, felt, or tasted.  It was 1999 in New Orleans East, and most of my students had remembered the fine detail of me mentioning that I was a vegetarian.  So these mothers, who lay sociologists had been known to describe as "not caring enough," had went out of their way to make me a special pot of gumbo.  We ate, told stories about our lives by the light of a muted television.  Many mothers were holding 2-3 jobs because places like Walmart wouldn't hire them for full-time work, nor would they pay them a living wage.  "Mr. Schmitt, oh, sorry, Matthew, I can't come to a 4pm meeting because if I take time off, I'll probably lose the whole job.  My neighbor had that happen last week."

The truth is that it had very little to do with the function of parental care.  And I believe it has almost everything to do with a new system of economic injustice, one just recycled from the past: put the burden of work on those who live below poverty lines, make it so they can't actually be fully present for their own family members, and blame them for any failures they or their kids may experience.

And yet, those phone calls changed not only my perspective, they changed my entire sense of self.  Those mothers, and some fathers, taught me about life from a vantage point I had not experienced myself.  They fed me, they encouraged me to keep encouraging their kids, they took me to church, they laughed at me when I took myself too seriously, and they let me know some of their greatest hopes and fears.  I learned that Malcolm X's statement is so scandalously and tragically true, and I believe it has been Black women who have carried the moral conscience of our nation from the outset.  They have seen it all, and still believe in taking care of strangers like me, still believe there is hope for their own children and neighborhood nieces and nephews, still believe that despite all that is slung at them, they will keep on keepin' on.  I learned the power of the Holy Spirit from all of those mothers.

To Davon, Troy, Tiffany, Darlene, Donna, Sonya, Marsha, Sylvia, Gina, Mary, Doris, Vicki, Verna, all those mothers, those of you who are college educated and those of you who did not graduate Reed or Abramson High School: thank you.  Collectively, you saved me from certain failure and certain death, because you showed me Jesus through all your kindnesses, all your hugs, all your stories, and all the ways you let me witness your tears.  You picked up many of my pieces and put me back together again.  I fervently pray and hope that my work does not speak for you, but that I can do my part to continually bend the narrative away from the lie: that only white men save.  I owe much of my life to you, so it is no surprise to me that this has been the post that has caused me the most trepidation.  Sometimes, even now, it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble......

I will close first with my favorite movie scene of all time: Baby Suggs preaching in the forest clearing from the movie adaptation of Toni Morrison's Beloved.  I dare you to not be moved, and to not feel the weight of what Black women have had to carry, still have to carry.  And then I dare you not to dance.

But even more important are all of Deshondalisa's classmates, mostly African-American, some Haitian, some Dominican, and some Vietnamese.  These young woman believed in me nearly two decades ago, and they trusted me to trust in them.  They told their stories through poetry and arguments fearlessly, and they reminded me how much true stories matter.  I pray that my work honors all that you taught me, and I pray to discover increasing ways to fight alongside you for justice, for truth, and for a space for all of us at your good, good tables.  With your good, good, jambalaya.  With your good, good prayers.  With your true and good faith that has moved mountains.

Thank you for loving the death out of me - @matthewjschmitt

Daddy, What's the N-Word?

In the midst of writing the previous post, "Ask the Uncomfortable Question," this came through from my 6 year old daughter, a girl with French, German, Dutch, Irish, and Italian (from her momma) ancestry.  I think God has a particularly well-timed sense of humor and nudging.

C: Daddy, what's the n-word?

It's a word that was invented to hurt people with brown skin. People with our color skin used it to mean all kinds of things, but it was always mean. 

C: like what?

It meant stupid, lazy, worthless, and it meant that I am better than you. It was meant to hurt.

C: like when those boys said I had poop on my head even though I didn't?

Yes, kind of like that. But this was even meaner, and it has caused pain to many, many of our friends and neighbors.

C: but what IS the word?

So, I really don't want to say it, but I'll spell it for you.

C: but I heard Marvin say that word, was he being mean?

That's a really good question. He was not. A really interesting thing happened with that word. Brown-skinned people were tired of being hurt by the word, so they took it and used it differently sometimes. Sometimes, when a brown skinned person says it, it actually can mean "friend."

C: that's a little confusing.

It is, I know, but sometimes when people are hurt so much by something, they either decide to keep getting hurt, or to make the hurtful thing not hurt so much. It's a little like Jesus flipping death. Death still hurts, but it doesn't hold us back and it's not the end. 

C: why are there mean and confusing words like that?

Why indeed. Let's ask Marvin and Ambar and Nadia and Christian and Toni how they feel about that word and maybe they can help us understand, since they were part of that conversation tonight.

C: okay

Friends of color, feel free to grade this and send me suggestions on ways to explain or correct if I took it down an unhelpful path. When you bring your kids to presentations, sometimes you realize you need to be better prepared for the after-talks.

Ask the Uncomfortable Questions....

Today, Marvin and I leave for St. Louis to connect with the community of Marion, Illinois.  We will present and engage with four gatherings on our personal lives and our work with DOOR Hollywood  around setting tables towards racial reconciliation.  We recognize this to be a long, committed process, one that doesn't get solved at one presentation, but over years of developing relationships built on faith, trust, repentance (especially for those of us who can count our race as being amongst the most privileged) and forgiveness.  But many people are afraid to even try to begin the first conversations.  And this is where we start.  The Bible has all kinds of stories, parables, and verses around why this is important, and Marvin and I firmly believe the church must be on the front lines of engaging these moments of dialogue and fellowship.

And we need your help to develop some of our content.  Could you please answer these two questions?  Feel free to do so either through an anonymous post below, emailing us personally, or bravely posting with your name below.  We know this requires vulnerability, so know in advance that we deeply appreciate your willingness:

Describe a time when you've been personally hurt by someone from another race: either through something overtly and obviously racist, or through something more subtle, systemic, or what some people call these days, micro-aggressions.

Is there a time when you've been personally blessed by someone from another race?  If you're willing, can you share whether or not your were surprised by that blessing?

What is a question you'd like to ask someone of a race different than yours, but you hesitate because you are afraid you might ask the question "wrong," worried you might be seen as offensive or ignorant.

Thank you everyone.  Together, may we move the church towards a stronger expression of the Beloved Community that God always intended for us.

-Matthew

If you're anywhere near St. Louis, MO, come on out this week. 

an opportunity through the PCUSA for 18-30 year olds

If you call 1957 the "good ole' days...."

(thank you Ariel and Travis for educating me this week.)

If you wish life could go back to the Leave It to Beaver era of 1957, watch the video below.  If you are a "normal plain American" who is mad, watch this video.  If you are swayed by the Tea Party rhetoric that we have too big of a government now, it's a fraction of the size it was in 1957.   This video, by anti-racist writer and activist Tim Wise, uncovers the persnickety reality that poor white people are indirectly hurt by the purpose-filled systemic racism unleashed against black and brown folk.

By the way, no black or brown person I've met has ever described the 40s, 50s, or 60s as "good."

When the media covered issues of poverty before 1957, the imagery was of poor unemployed whites in the Depression, those fleeing from the Dustbowl, the rural poor in Appalachia.  The imagery was humanizing and galvanized support for FDR's New Deal and other social safety net programs.

But during and after the Civil Rights Era, the imagery of poverty shifted primarily to showing poor black folk.  These people are described as "leeching our system," even though, in the very modern era, poor white recipients are on par with poor blacks in terms of welfare, not to mention government bail-outs of big banks, who arguably profited immensely off the backs of lower-class folks of all colors during the low-interest mortgage boons.  There are recordings of political strategist Lee Atwater explaining how to shift the thinking of voters by abstracting overt racism into policy-talk that people wouldn't immediately grasp.  Throw in imagery of poor black people on welfare while hiding the language in racially neutral code (listen in around minute 8), and now we have scapegoats to blame.  Brilliant in the most evil sense of the word.  The "War on Drugs" imagery is just another example of a long line of demonizing people with more melanin in their skin than me.

And, here's the bitter irony: pulling back support for social safety net programs has hurt more white people in sheer numbers than black people.  But, and this is a major reason I'm writing "Dismantling Whiteousness," our media would continue to have us blame black people.  It is probably the primary reason for the outward and overt racism coming from working-class whites.   We have to stand up to these lies, and work to end the way they churn more and more misrepresentations, confusion, and hatred.

Let's look at a few takes on Ephesians 6:12, the famous "powers and principalities" verse:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rules of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. - KJV

For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. - NRSV

This is not afternoon athletic contest that we'll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels. - The Message

As Christians, can we work to recognize the way the Devil has gotten into the details and worked to divide us?  Martin Luther King, Jr.'s final sermons worked to tear down these dividers between working class folks, black and white, especially those who are doing their bests to follow Jesus.  But the system, partially designed by intention and partially a runaway train that keeps plowing forward, thrives when competition between us flourishes, especially when that competition turns ugly and even murderous.  Cain towards Abel.  I am better than you, I work harder than you, I should be rewarded more than you.  God loves me more.  Could the Devil be pumping this system?  Is "Whiteousness," not the flesh of white people, but the mindset of White being the most valuable, is this the principality we should aim our weapons towards, instead of one another?

And if so, how could we ever do this without coming together in the name of Jesus?

When my mother refers to the good ole' days, she's mostly thinking about a time when neighbors lived in stronger network with each other.  She's remembering how people would share sugar when they ran out.  She's remembering how everyone seemed to care about everyone around them.  She's remembering a time before people took jobs far away as a rule instead of an exception.  There is something to this, you know.  Living more interdependently than either false independence or tragic isolation.  However, back then, life was also very segregated.  Today, life is still pretty segregated.  Could we bring the goodness of those days, where we all took care of each other, into legitimately diverse communities and neighborhoods?  Could we begin to reflect the Beloved Community?

The good old days are nothing compared to the Shalom that Jesus promises, when all nations will gather together in the New Jerusalem.  Let's work towards that day through love, patience, forgiveness, mercy, and our best attempts at justice.  Justice for all, not just the people who look like me.

Peace,
m

We Want Our Country Black!!
WE WANT OUR COUNTRY BACK !!!
Posted by Brian Whittle on Sunday, April 3, 2016

a

From Color Blind to Color Brave

Click here for interactive transcript.

The subject of race can be very touchy.  Mellody Hobson says it's a "conversational third rail."  But, she says, that's exactly why we need to start talking about it.

Marvin Wadlow Jr. and I believe that setting tables towards racial reconciliation is critically important.  My faith informs me that true and complete reconciliation will most likely not occur until we march into Zion, but I believe that Jesus commands us to work towards that day, with full faith that he means what he says.  We should not sit idly by.  We should be brave in the face of anything that distorts the Kingdom of God into a cheap replica or even something much, much worse.

Last year, Marvin and I were speaking to a group of about 200 Christian men in a suburb of Phoenix.  Part of our presentation might involve putting an audience member on the spot, and asking them to face someone who looks different than they do.  In this case, that audience member was a white man, probably in his late 40s, and he was facing Marvin.  

Marvin asked, "tell us what you see when you look at me."

The man's answer was along these lines: I see a middle-aged man wearing orange pants, no hair, a little heavier than me.  "Ouch, I'm starting to work out again!" laughed Marvin, and then he asked, "but what about our skins?"   And the man said, "I don't see anything different between you and me.  I'm color blind."

Well, technically, we all knew that not to be something medically diagnosable, as he already noted Marvin's bright orange pants.  Marvin pressed, but the man refused to budge and say anything about skin tone.  And its important to add that he looked very nervous.  (Marvin and he would later sit down and have a heart-to-heart).

The concept of color-blindness in terms of race is a reaction to the intense discrimination that has run rampant in our country.  Now I trust, and this was somewhat confirmed in the more private conversation that followed with this man, that what he was trying to say is this: I do not see you as different in value than me.  Calling you black might make you think that I see you as "less than" because I'm white.  And, I'm not really sure how to even say that correctly, because if I call you "black" and you like to be called "brown-skinned," then you might call me racist in front of all of my friends right here and.....

Watching the man sit and stir when Marvin asked his pointed question demonstrated his discomfort, and one could visibly see his mind was racing through all kinds of thoughts and fears, rendering him, for lack of a better term, paralyzed.

Playing the "colorblind-card", especially by someone with European ancestry, is a cop-out, but one that has become a very socially accepted stance.  It's a denial of reality, it's a denial of the truth that disparity exists and causes great pain, and it's a pledged allegiance to the status quo.  It shuts a conversation down more than any African-American does by bringing up their experiences in a racially discriminating landscape.  Blackfolk are often blamed for killing dialogue by playing the race-card, but the truth is that it's the flashing of the colorblind-card that really hinders progress.

Mellody Hobson, in the video above, discusses moving from colorblindness into Color Bravery.  I love this phrasing, because that's truly what is needed.  Courage.  Now, I wouldn't say it exactly the way she does as a business executive, but she is certainly right.  She pragmatically says that we need to be brave "not because it's the right thing to do, but the smart thing."  I agree that it's smart, but I would say its wise because it is the right thing to do.  Jesus is clear on the truth that diversity matters.

In reflection after that trip, Marvin and I realized that putting someone on the spot reveals the knee-jerk reaction of most people: don't talk about race and you will never run the risk of being labeled a racist.  But, as Christians, it may not always be the most loving and kind way to get at the systemic roots.  So, we went into redraft mode.  Part of our hunting and gathering involved a visit to the Message Center in Torrance.  Pastor Dwight Radcliff helped us get started with some good questions to ask around diverse tables, and then we developed some of our own.

Here are the questions that Marvin and I began to regularly ask our DOOR Hollywood Discover participants, primarily young Evangelical Christians that travel to Los Angeles to engage in serving at homeless shelters and poverty relief centers.  We prime the conversations with ground rules from Romans 14: 6-9 and Galatians 5:25-26:

DOOR Supporter Manny Flores shares testimony about the neighborhood.

What are some of the ways we can determine who our neighbors are?  How should service, both volunteering and public service, work into this?


What are some of the differences at these very tables?  How do we demonstrate love towards each other, or at least, make space for these differences?  Who are the modern day Samaritans (referring to the sense of a despised people group on the other side of the tracks)?

What questions would you ask someone of a different race if you weren't afraid of asking the question "wrong," weren't worried that the question itself might offend?

Paul breaks down the concept of the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12, 14-15: the body is not made up of just one part.  It has many parts.  Suppose the foot says, "I am not a hand.  So I don't belong to the body."  It is still part of the body (NIRV).  Drew G.I. Hart, in what has quickly become my new favorite book in this struggle, says that "people on the bottom [of a social hierarchy] are better situated to know what is real, and that what they know to be reality is closer to the real thing than the perceptions of those in a dominant social position" (Trouble I've Seen, page 85).

In the body of humanity, God says we are all important.  What if we really believed and lived into this?  What if we didn't view service as an opportunity to help "all those poor people," but, instead, a critical moment to listen to their perspectives?  What if we realized that our perception of the Kingdom of God is limited, and that we vitally need to hear from the eyes and ears of our human body, the people who actually see and hear reality?

Because colorblindness is not reality, and as Hart explains, it's all too common for dominant culture (white people) to have trouble locating or noticing it.  When it comes to racism, which is certainly a sin and crisis in this country needing our attention, non-white people are much more likely to have a clearer understanding of what is really going on.

Can we learn to listen?  Can we be bravely humble?

These questions only start the process, but without them, the process will never begin - Peace, m


Marvin and I will be facilitating "Setting Tables Towards Racial Reconciliation" near St. Louis, Missouri on April 20 and 21 at the First Presbyterian Church of Marion, Illinois.  Click here to learn more about attending.