Busted. (The Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers)

Tonight, I had the honor of being a featured storyteller at Busted! with The Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers.

The written story is below the video.

Two months ago, my family and I moved from LA to Detroit, and it’s been a delight watching our daughters experience their first Michigan October. Daddy, are those trees on fire? They are so beautiful. Palm trees don’t do that! There are so many colors!

We moved here to Pingree Park, between Mack and Gratiot on the Eastside. As we work on launching a non-profit called The Table Setters, I’ve taken up a job as a Lyft driver. It’s helping me to re-learn our city, both the roads and the infinitely interesting stories that are shared about real Detroit. You see, I spent my first 18 years in Beverly Hills. Michigan. You know: 13 and Southfield.

Last week, my Lyft route took me past the Mt. Elliott cemetery, and I remembered burying my great aunt Dorothy there about 20 years ago. That was the day I also learned of the very unique flavor of Detroit bigotry.

“Look at what Black people do to nice things. Look at all these old homes, such beautiful designs, but look what happens when black people live in them. It’s a disgrace,” said someone at the funeral, and though my 17 year old body wanted to have a smart, put-you-in-your-place kind of reply, no words came.

As a Lyft driver these days, I mostly drive people right from our neighborhood on Detroit’s Eastside to and from work, as it’s more affordable to pay for Lyft than it is to have car insurance. Every once in awhile, I get pulled along Woodward past Maple. A few weeks back, I pulled up and stopped at a coffee shop, sat down next to two women with pink-skin like mine. A young brown-skinned family were just getting up to leave on the other side. They had a baby boy, probably 9-10 months who had just woken up from a nap. The two women close to me starting fawning over the child.

“Oh, he’s so adorable. Look at those eyes, look at his little curls. Are you two so happy?” (not really listening for a response)

But when the young family rolled their stroller away, one of the women said to her friend:

“Oh, so precious. Black boys are so cute when they’re babies…….”

My thirty-something Spidey-Senses started tingling, again I wanted to “thwap” something smart and fast at her words, something to make her think, to foil her plans at keeping fear alive and well. Because since that day in the cemetery, I’ve heard that kind of talk almost every day: the coded language behind systemic racism. Neighbors in the suburbs talking about moving further north if “the CREEP got too strong.” Neighbors aghast at my parent’s decisions to take us to Xochimilcho’s or other family owned restaurants downtown after a Tiger’s game. Neighbors that promised we were sure to get shot if we “lingered” too long south of 8 mile. Our recent life in LA these past 15 years had it’s own flavor of this, what with talking about how “nice” Echo Park has become, how our friends living without homes could have any shelter they wanted as long as it wasn’t in MY backyard, how Latino people are really sneaky…..

So I knew the unspoken statement that floated in the air between these two women, the one neither of them needed to say, but they understood the message perfectly: Black baby boys turn into monsters.

I wanted to BUST her! I wanted to muster up my best Denzel Washington and see if she could Remember the Titans! I wanted to ask her exactly at what point does that baby turn into something scary, is it 18, or the gray area of 17, or maybe 14, or maybe 12 if he’s wearing a hood?

But her friend sighed, nodded, and then looked on the verge of tears as she said “so, I think I’m leaving Kevin once and for all. Got the papers ready….”

I put my Micro-Aggression Police badge away. They’re probably not gonna stand for my well-crafted lesson on the roots of the school-to-prison pipeline in the midst of a looming divorce. Sigh. I finished my Almond Milk Cortado, (yes, I’m a sucker for hipster coffee), turned my Lyft Driver mode back on to begin driving South.

Heading along Woodward, no calls coming in, I got to thinking: they really don’t know. I’m angry about the hypocrisy of expecting that young black baby to turn into a monster while one woman was in the midst of describing the cheating and lying monster of a man she had married. My pink skin was turning red. And though we all know there are dangers in Detroit, just like any city, I am so upset about the complaints I still hear about Coleman Young destroying Detroit with “his” drug dealers, these statements coming from people who’s own children were selling all kinds of drugs in their suburban basements back then. Seriously, I knew what parties to go to if I had wanted to get high, on any given weekend.

But the anger quickly gave way to a profound sadness. They really don’t know. The Detroit I knew had so many incredible people, so warm and funny and generous. So eager to get to know you and share some life with you. These two women really don’t seem to know that Detroit.

And, as it would go, still no Lyft passengers called as I kept rolling along Woodward, past Ferndale, past the place where you have to get off the SMART Bus and walk across the 8 lanes to get on the DT bus stop…gave me time to think back on my sophomore year at the University of Michigan. I signed up for a class with Buzz Alexander as part of the Prison Creative Arts Project. At 19, Something in me wanted to learn more, something in me wanted to hear stories that were silenced, and if I’m honest, something in me wanted to be known as being “bold enough” to go into a prison, to be able to become a MythBuster to all my suburban neighbors.

In this prison program, a partner and I would facilitate improvisational theater workshops at Western Wayne correctional facility near Plymouth. We were not allowed to bring any supplies, no pencils or paper, so we worked with the men to create improvisational plays that would be performed for other guys inside and outside guests. These stories always veered towards personal scenes of regret, redemption, reconciliation, and this came naturally from the guys themselves. My parents were supportive, but other friends at our home church looked at me and scratched their heads when I told them “what I’d been up to at UoM” and asked, “why are you going into a prison every week, Matthew?” I would tell them that Matthew 25 from our Bible talks clearly about visiting people behind bars and then someone said, “but that’s just a metaphor.” For what?

My first day, after we cleared the metal detectors and pat-downs, I learned that we would be working in the maximum security unit with men convicted of murder. Now, that rattled me. I thought I’d be working with drug offenders, but murderers? I walked into day one as a prison theater facilitator on high alert.

And then there was Levi: right after the guards introduced me and my partner to the group of 13 men, Levi, 300 pound African-American guy gets up, walks over to, I go to shake his hand but he picks me up and squeezes me. Oh my god oh my god he’s a giant boa constrictor….

Oh wait, he’s hugging me. He’s hugging me and holding me up high. He put me down and said, thank you, thank you for coming. I’ve been looking forward to this all month.

And that started one of the most important mentorships of my life. While I realized that my brain imagined a room full of Jeffery Dahmer’s and Charles Mansons, Levi and his brothers were deeply kind, deeply wise, and deeply complicated. Levi: Vietnam Vet, honorably discharged with shrapnel damage, addicted to morphine, sold drugs, racked up priors, had a season of being on house arrest. One night his sister called, needing Levi to watch her daughter while she went to the ER to deliver her second baby. Levi thought his parole officer would understand. Except that someone tried to break in through the child’s bedroom in the middle of the night. Levi charged the window, and that men fell 3 stories and died. Levi received a life sentence. Levi was not a monster. He was a little like Detroit itself: loving, protective, scarred, and fiercely misunderstood.

Levi also told me that he was praying for me daily. So I asked Levi: what do you think I should do after I graduate? Levi said: hands down, be a teacher, because if I had had a teacher who listened and respected me like we do in this workshop, I may have imagined more potential for myself.

Armed with Levi’s blessing, I moved to New Orleans after graduating to become a teacher. I was placed in the upper 9th ward, before Katrina, and I was going to look out for all the young Levi’s and make sure they never went down a path that led them to life in prison. I was gonna be Michelle Pfeiffer from Dangerous Minds, I was gonna be Hillary Swank from Freedom Writers, I was gonna be a white Sidney Poitier from To Sir With Love!

My phone lit up, dinged with a Lyft Request in Madison Heights. I caught my breath, but before I had to turn around, they cancelled. Let’s head back to New Orleans!

With my Save-The-World badge at the ready, I mistakenly forgot that Middle School is a whole different place than prison. The men in our workshop looked forward to our sessions to relieve the daily grind of prison. For an eleven year old, middle school IS the daily grind. Also, I assumed that all the kids would be so troubled, but they weren’t. They were looking for a teacher who would, well teach them, give them structure, and not just focus on the kids who “might end up like Levi.”

So here’s day one: the kids have come in and found a seat. I’m taking roll off a Scantron form, names printed along the edge, space for only 9 letters in each box. It’s going fine until:

“Smith. Deshondal Smith?”

A small girl in the front row whips her head around so quickly that one of her braids flies off her head to snap: “It’s DeshondaLISA. Do not forget it.” As if that weren’t enough, the flying braid was causing complete havoc in the back corner of the room. Her weave is attacking me!

And that was only second period of day one. From my perspective, it only got worse.

“you are so racist, you only wanted to come to New Orleans make life hell for black kids.”

“mr. smitch, stop telling us stories from prisons in Detroit. we don’t even know where Mitchigan is!”

“ooooh, I’m so, you, you the white devil.”

Busted. By Thanksgiving, I wanted to quit, to fly home and never come back. I was guilty of White Saviorism, part of a bigger problem that I like to call Whiteousness, the idea that white people have all the answers, all the good ideas, all the value. White people like me are the standard to measure to.

But sometimes, falling apart is the best thing, especially in front of a community that is paying attention. The upper ninth ward of New Orleans, both the African-American and Vietnamese families, started reaching out to me. Inviting me to dinner. Wanting to see how their children were doing, but also wanting to see how I was doing.

Mr. Schmitt: Cedric said you were a vegetarian, so we made you a special pot of gumbo. (Now, to a black family in New Orleans then, that meant you didn’t eat red meat. My special pot had plenty of chicken and shrimp. Yeah, New Orleans broke my vegetarianism right quick. How could I turn down this special pot, made just for me?)

So to come crashing down on those pink-skinned women in the coffeeshop behind me with my ideas of what they need to do to fix their deeply coded racisms, well that would be it’s own form of self-righteousness, yes? And that’s not how I learned to confront my own bigotry and bias these past 20 years and counting.

Passing by the fiery Michigan leaves look so much like the colors of that gumbo, the still green leaves remind me of the Pho (God bless the patient Vietnamese families who tried not to laugh every time I said “FO”). Before I could be the best Matthew I could be in that community, I needed to eat their soup. I needed to come to the soup kitchens of their community, and I’m looking forward to the soups of Detroit as we turn towards colder weather. The parents, in turn, expected me not to quit, to invest my best in their sixth graders. I don’t have all the answers, but whoever said I needed to? We have more to offer when we come together and combine our ideas at these kinds of tables, often. I’m so grateful for Levi’s prayers, for my many failures, and how God used many families that fed me what I most needed. Grace and love. Grace and love with, you know, a healthy dash of hot sauce.

Ding. A Lyft Request. This time in Southfield from Kendrick. This time, it’s holding, not cancelled.

I do a U-Turn on Woodward and start driving north. We keep driving. We keep listening, and we keep sitting at new tables together to share stories. I pray we have the courage to keep trying each other’s soup.

Keep up with the stories at @matthewjschmitt

The Secret Society of Twister Storytellers: BUSTED!

If you're in Detroit this Friday, October 21, come on out to The Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers.  I've been invited as a featured storyteller!  Tickets here: http://www.twistedtellers.org/event/busted/

For those outside the Detroit area, the event will be live streamed at 8pm EST here: http://livestream.com/accounts/15632525/events/6377928

You can always follow us on Twitter at @MatthewJSchmitt and @TheTableSetters

Confessing my Whiteousness, Again

I feel like I'm getting a little self-righteous in my arguments on social media lately...so it's always good to serve yourself a slice of humble pie.

"The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost." 1 Timothy 1:15, NRSV

If I'm understanding my walk behind Jesus correctly, I believe God values diversity and difference, and created a world where we all depend on each other.  And if so, I certainly have sinned and fallen 

short of living into the design that God deems best.

I confess my Whiteousness.

I confess that I have pushed my way to the front of the line because my day and my plans tower in comparison to yours.

I confess that I like "not taking no for an answer" and enjoy the challenge of convincing you to give me my way because I believe I am a good person.

I confess that I have leaned on my own Plan A and have not even considered yours, much less paid attention to God's Spirit.

I confess that upon first being heartbroken by the conditions you find yourselves in, I believed I had the power and the intelligence to solve your problems without any input from you.

I confess that sometimes I don't want to think about being white, that I'd rather chill on Netflix with super heroes who usually look just like me.

I confess that when my neighbor said we should move if you move into the neighborhood because of the "element" you'd bring, I pondered if she might be correct.

I confess that I have loved the art of your cultures often more than I have loved you or your bodies.

I confess that I celebrated the election of Barack Obama as an arrival instead of a good step in the right direction, and that celebration made me lazy.

I confess that I have wondered what you're up to, and I confess not wanting to share.

I confess that I have wanted to help you become like me, instead of making more space for you to be you.

I confess that I have tried to be like you, so that you'll like me and forget that I am white.

I confess that I have an addiction to power and that there is no full cure from my Whiteousness, only lifelong recovery.

I confess that I have silently judged your sagging pants, your militant attire, and your unfriendliness as aggressively combative instead of a necessary mode of survival.

I confess buying clothes that I like because they fit well, overlooking where or by whom they might be made.

I confess that I have called you Japanese or Asian before even asking you.

And I confess that on bad days as a teacher, I wished more of you were Vietnamese instead of black.

I confess trying to be like Jesus to you instead of learning how to follow Jesus with you.

I confess feeling like you have been racist towards me when I full well knew that the other job I applied for is just as viable as the one you didn't give me.

I confess that I have hated my own body, the body God has given me, because it must experience uncomfortable feelings when I am around you.

And yet, God is good and true and creative and righteous.

You fed me with stories from the other side of 8 mile, stories of faith amidst despair.

You fed me crawfish and étouffée and teased me when I kept mispronouncing Pho.

You expected me to read your poetry and critique its form but never its subject matter.  

You expected me to trust you.

You fed me fried grasshoppers that she brought back from Mexico, and smiled.

You took me to your church and told me I don't have to close my eyes when I pray.

You told me to let it go, that a party is better at the end than at the beginning.

You prayed for me.

You let me pet your dog Trixie.

You let me in on a secret or two.

You taught me how to make flan and tamales before your car accident.

You helped me load my car and sent me off with Sweet Potato Pie.

Your voices sang to me on the top of Runyon Canyon after I cried out, "God why have you left me on my own?"

You proclaimed joy for your brown skin, your black hair, your way of talking and singing and moving through this world and invited me to love my white skin, my blonde hair, my movements.

You held me when I cried.  You held me when I sobbed.  You waited until I laughed.

You asked me to not forget.

You invited me into your home, to sit at your table.

You walked by my side towards the New Jerusalem, and we could almost hear the singing.

May it be so.


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We. Need. Scaffolding.

In our Detroit explorations, we've come across the Dequindre Cut, a bike and walkway running from the Eastern Market to the Riverfront.  Along the way, there are some amazing moments of art and expression.

All week, I've been moved by the one to the left: We Need Scaffolding.  It's probably no accident that in my conversations with local Christian folks and the sermons I've heard the last two weekends have had to do with the important necessity to ask for help.  To ask for help often.  It may not always feel very "American" to admit we need something and need to rely upon another to get it, but it certainly is resoundingly human.

A few years ago, our Los Angeles home congregation, Hollywood Presbyterian Church, needed to renovate its steeple as it was a safety hazard.  From the outward appearance, nothing looked wrong.  But Rafael, the guy who holds all the keys, showed it to me from the inside.  Plaster and bricks had been crumbling, and without immediate repair it could wreak all kinds of havoc in a moderate to severe earthquake.  Thus started a capital campaign, as the city wouldn't allow the church to take down the steeple without being fined for altering a pending landmark on the register of historical sites, but the federal government would fine us heavily through OSHA if it wasn't repaired.  A huge scaffold went up, skeleton-ed around the entire southwest corner of our sanctuary.

Scaffolds sometimes go up to help with cleaning a facade.  In this case, they went up to hold the building up as it was transformed from within.

We all need friends and communities to scaffold us, as we are all works in progress.  We might become really good at "outward facing" strength, but inside, we all have a bit of a crumble.  Can I get a witness?

A symptom of Whiteousness that I see is the inability to own our internal crumble.  We are either too proud, too scared, or too oblivious to recognized that we, too, need help.  Even if we're not currently on welfare (as my family is: on Medicare and maybe food stamps during this time of income instability).  Even if we're not currently without a job or underemployed (as we are: I'm driving for Lyft while we are waiting on some other potential prospects we've submitted resumes to).  Even if we think we've got all our shit together, we still are not above being the interdependent creatures God designed us to be.  But: White people, even the woke and good ones, forget this far too often.

It was a dear African-American and Vietnamese community in New Orleans that helped me recognize this 18 years ago.  I need to ask for help, I need to ask for help.  I need to remember that isn't a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength in humility.  I have not learned this from modern politics, or even always from the pulpit.  It's from the folks that I have had to ask for help from.  And it's saved my life.  Laying down the pride actually strengthened me.  Laying down the White Savior complex brought me to a more real understanding of my actual purpose and power to play a role in moving the arc of history towards greater justice.  Laying down the "esteemed life" (at least the one always referenced in movies and television shows), I have learned that there is more in embracing reality as an ebb and flow of lament and joy.

I am publically, alongside an additional effort with some very trusted individuals, asking for help.

Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.  - James 3:17-18, MSG

Yesterday, I posted a scathing blog.  90% of it was directly out of the Bible, also written by James.  It was about the power, both the curse-worthy and bless-worthy power, of the human tongue.  It was, directly, a response to the minimizing I keep hearing about nasty, nasty, bottom of the gutter repulsive things a particular person running for a particular office keeps saying.  Sayings about people and sayings about deeds and actions one is able to get away with when one is at a particular level in society.  Immediately after pushing PUBLISH, another verse came into my heart and thinking:

You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. - Matthew 7:5 NASB

Here is the log in my own eye.  Here's where I'm asking for a comprehensive scaffolding:

The woman who agreed to marry me 11 and a half years ago, and still mostly thinks that is a worthwhile decision, is in deep pain.  We have just moved our lives across the country: our two girls and two pet mice and roughly 60% of the belongings we held in LA.  It's all rolled along the complicated blessing of our nation's interstate system to relocate in downtown Detroit.  Here we are.

During the 6,000 miles we put on our Honda CR-V, we had many great moments and locked in memories that will permanently be a part of our family story.

But some of those memories are terrible, and I wish I could flip it and reverse it  (Missy Elliott is pretty popular on 101.5 The Bounce, Detroit's new Throw-Back R&B).

Like the screaming fight in Pasadena.
Like the almost getting on a plane in Phoenix, alone.
Like the freak-out moment, in the car with the girls, somewhere in Navajo country between Denver and Austin.
Like the huge war we waged upon the first month in Michigan, one where I had to move out of my parents' home to gather myself.

I am not proud of any of this, but it is true.  One might say: well, you are under great stress and duress with such a huge move.  Yes.  One might say, a road trip, being stuck in the car together for that long is bound to bring up some unique and potent conflicts.  Yes, again.

But here's the rub: I am guilty of verbally attacking my wife.  Now, she is a human being, and she has hurt me in deep ways.  And she is owning that to the best of her abilities and I can see that.  I'm also afraid we'll never quite get to the zenith of understanding and grace I imagine we can achieve.  And that fear gets out of control sometimes and boils over.

However, I am also placing all kinds of pressures and expectations and unclear demands.  And when she doesn't read my mind fully, I have succumbed to screaming at her.  So much so, that she has told me there are times she is afraid to tell me anything.  She is even sometimes anxious when I am coming home, that I might be disappointed with some state of home life and start freaking out about it.  I've never physically hit her, but words, as I reminded you all yesterday, can destroy the entire world, our entire sense of peace at home.

Yes, they really can.

This is horrible.  This is not okay.  Me: the guy who was always seen as a feminist, even as early as middle school.  Me: the guy who claims that Tori Amos' music led him back to exploring the Bible by bravely calling out rape culture and white male hypocrisy in the church.  Me: the guy who fights for space for the unheard voices of our society to be given their days in the sun.  Me: the guy who is so passionate about God's words about the beauty of diversity and community cannot always handle when the strong and sensitive woman who walks this world with him has a different perspective or opinion.  Me.  I just might be the log that needs to be removed.

Though I am not saying statements like our billionaire-du-jour (IRS classification pending), that does not mean that I'm not complicit in the misogynistic culture that belittles women and expects something from any other person without a sincere plan to meet them with an equal effort.  Rape Culture is an evil bedfellow with White Elitism, or Whiteousness, and when myself, a quasi-straight white male, decides to wield anger to gain power over a situation when I feel weak or scared, I am a participant in both rape culture and Whiteousness.

I am guilty.  You might not have been able to see that from my steeple, but inside, I have some real decay that needs tending.  I am working with a counselor to find better ways of expressing the way my wife has scared me, has disappointed me, and has left me feeling insecure in our marriage.  I must find those ways soon, or this all might topple down in our next earthquake, with great danger for our daughters.

I need any of you who feel me to hold me up in prayer, in solidarity, and in person when available.  I need the best of the Church, right now.  I need to ask for forgiveness constantly, as my fears are springing up way more often than I'd care to admit, and I need accountability.   Because this whole Table Setters venture doesn't amount to a hill of beans if I can't trust the beauty of the diversity I am preaching.  My new brother-in-activism, Abraham Lateiner, recently wrote this: "Donald Trump is a good illustration of why men should be willing to risk everything in the struggle to end toxic masculinity." 

This is my agreement with that statement, and this is my risk.  If I'm not willing to own my own toxic masculinity and really work on making changes with the help of caring and loving and committed friends, then how could I advocate you do the same?

So I'll end with this: I am filled with a tentative hope.  I have been in similar messes before: in Ann Arbor, in New Orleans, at Lake Winnipesaukee, in West Hollywood, in Reseda.   I have come to terms with my own awfulness, which is, to say, I have named and worked on the damaging outward behaviors of allowing fear to hold sway in my heart.  I did this with admission and asking for help.  I reach out now.  I ask for scaffolding as I work to reshape the stability of my faith to better handle my joys and fears.

And I also challenge all you men out there to own your own "locker room banter."  If you are suspecting you might be abusive to someone in your own life, admit it.  Stop.  Ask for help.  Don't pride yourself on thinking, "well, at least I'm not as bad as him," if you're not willing to first ask the women in your life for their opinion of how you treat them.  Because it does matter.  It should.  We should all be accountable to one another, especially those we have chosen to share life with.  And we should all ask for help with dismantling our internal infrastructures that tend to prefer domination over collaboration.  I need help dismantling my toxic, man-splaining, Whiteousness.  You might need help as well.

So I ask for your prayers.  And I will pray for you,  too.  To all of you who know who you are: thank you for supporting us thus far.  We press forward with greater and greater recognition of our shared humanity at more and more beautiful and interesting tables, on and on.  Now Erykah Badu is playing....

May fear never be on the menu, and when it finds its way in, may we hold hands, link arms, listen and lift each other up, until the temperature is just right to cook the fear right out of the meal and make room to really enjoy the different flavors we all bring.

I am afraid.  I am also encouraged.  Men of all skin tones: let's actually answer this very particular call to be men.  The kind of men we know we ought to be.  The kind of men we know we could be.  If only we could just admit that sometimes we need help from one another to hold each other accountable, that we don't have to get it all right all the time, but that when we falter, we need strong support to pull us back up.  And sometimes, we need to admit that women are stronger for having had to endure all the insults and abuse we've hurled on them all these years.

May the strength and scaffolding of the incredible women in our lives be an inspiration for us to become stronger men, from the inside out.

Humbly,
@matthewjschmitt
 +Matthew John Schmitt
www.TheTableSetters.com

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Tongue

Dear Christian friends who minimize "offensive things" people say, especially people who are running for high office, please be careful. Remember what James says about the tongue:

A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it!

It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.

This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can’t tame a tongue—it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!

For the record: the person I have in mind right now.....I've never heard ANY blessings out of that mouth.


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gentrification with a capital G

Jesus put together a whip out of strips of leather and chased them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right. He told the dove merchants, “Get your things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a shopping mall! - John 2:15-16, The Message

We have lived in Pingree Park on Detroit's eastside for exactly one week.  Our street is in a neighborhood, so we've heard from neighbors, was once predominantly Italian-American, but for the last 50-60 years has been primarily African-American.  There are a few other families and couples with skin the same color as ours, but it is definitely a neighborhood of mostly brown-skinned people.  

In these seven days, we have experienced significant hospitality from individuals of all the skin tones here.  Some of them are Christian, some of them are not Christian, all of them have a significant stake in the ongoing story of Detroit.  Before I unpacked my tools, a neighbor across the street lent me his hammer and some screwdrivers; a mother of four learned I tried to eat mostly gluten-free and baked us a peach cobbler coffee-cake; we were allowed to be judges in a pogo-stick competition, twice; the mailman has cracked some jokes to test us, I think (especially when he watched us witness a neighborhood fight breakout while our moving pod was being unpacked); the movers who helped us couldn't deliver my piano, so they personally made sure it was cared for and brought it back a few days later.  Did I mention that two of them grew up in this neighborhood?  Several neighbors have invited us onto their porch where we've talked history and racism and hope and Jesus.  Sometimes we've talked about the smoker out of which they sell ribs on the sidewalk on certain days.  Older residents have told us they will watch out for our girls and might even yell at them if they start to cross the street without us (we do get cars going 90 down our street from time to time as a cut through between Mack and Gratiot).  Moms have offered to watch our youngest while Darcie (the woman who agreed to marry me and still finds that to be a good idea) and I go off on job prospects.  7 days.   As I'm writing this, I feel like I'm forgetting something.....

Oh, right, I haven't said that the house we are living in for the better part of this year has been arranged by members of a church that is focused on intentional community empowerment. They have a deep commitment to multi-cultural and multi-classed shared living in a very local sense.  That's the best way I can describe it.  They have a vision, and have graciously allowed us to step into their vision for now.

Another way to say this: we are standing on sacred ground.  There is love and lament here.  I just heard distant gunshots right as I typed that.  I just learned of neighbors taking care of mothers and fathers in their childhood homes because years of inadequate health care has caused all kinds of complications.  Neighbors are interested in knowing one another and reaching out.  This street has a holy history.  I am humbled to be welcomed, at least in this first week.  

When we first felt the tug to move Eastward to Detroit, we were very inspired by a street in between New Center and the Boston-Edison neighborhoods, about 10 minutes from here, where some friends we consider family relocated 4 years ago.  They moved from Los Angeles, and have been sending dispatch all these years about the hope and gritty healing of Detroit.   In our imaginations we thought we would live on that street with them.  That street also feels holy, so much that I had a dream where I was expected to remove my shoes when I walked down their sidewalks.  

But God had a different starting point in mind.  Not to say we didn't try.

Enter "Dusty."  I'll call him that because that was the first word he said to me as he reached his pink-skinned hand out to shake mine.  He was referring to the plaster caked into his skin as he is a "very busy guy."  Dusty's wife had been a reference from our friends on the street of our original plan when we realized that we were not yet in a position to buy.

Dusty was eager to show off his work in the apartment down the street from our Los Angelean friends, along with another property around the corner.  Dusty was putting in all kinds of new-fangled upgrades.  Dusty was a long-winded salesperson, mostly emphasizing the pride of his work.  Dusty is from Nashville.  He still actually lives in Nashville, but he kept slipping in that he was telling Detroit that his "address" was one of his Detroit properties because it made it appear that he was an actual resident of Michigan and that helped him qualify for certain tax-breaks and benefits.  Dusty kept emphasizing how "nice" this apartment was for family "like us."  Dusty was not friendly to the brown-skinned neighbors who lived directly next door.  Dusty actually called my friend Billy a "buffoon," once.  

Dusty owns 40 properties.  Dusty is hoodwinking the city for his own benefit.  Dusty is rude to people who don't look like him.  Dusty is flipping properties and has plans to sell them for roughly 3 times what he paid.  

I actually walked away from him mid-sentence (partially because he was never going to stop talking, partially because he was causing my blood to boil. I've only written a fraction of all the many statements he was firing at us.)

I thought of the verse I opened with.  I wanted to turn over his tables.  I wanted to drive him out of the city, a place I very much feel God at work, feel God's Spirit present.  He was taking advantage of the bankruptcy of a city and seeking to amass a fortune to take back to his ranch in Nashville.  Where he has 20 horses, by the way.

We couldn't rent from this guy.  

I'm still not sure I know what we're doing, but it was clear that I did not want a dime of our money to go into Dusty's fortune.  I want it to be circulated within the city of Detroit, by the people of Detroit.  I know that Dusty will produce property tax revenue and that will, in turn, help the city.  But the core question comes down to this: who will it help?  Who is seen as the valuable population of Detroit?  Is it just for people like me and my family?  In Dusty's math, yes.  But shouldn't Detroit's upgrade, if that's what is truly happening, be first for the thousands of families who have weathered, some by choice and some without a choice, the decades of Detroit's downgrade?  The electricians and skilled manufacturers who have struggled to find work within the city limits for awhile.  I stood with protestors a few weeks ago, of European, African, and South-American descent, who were asking that the city developers have some balance in regards to hiring local workers instead of just bringing in outside (mostly suburban) labor.  More on that effort here at http://www.EquitableDetroit.org  

Dusty doesn't care what the long-term residents of Detroit think about him because his sole mission is to make money off the wave of white people moving in.  As one of those white persons moving in, well actually as four of them, this is complicated for us.  So complicated, that I should wrestle daily with that tension and welcome that wrestling.  I will.  But Dusty will not, at least not in his current state of mind, and that to me is one of the most dangerous sides of Whiteousness.  Gentrification that focuses on profit for one people group over another.  

My favorite album of all time, Under the Pink, was almost titled "god with a capital G."  I can't find it, but I remember Tori Amos explaining on MTV News, Spin, or Rolling Stone that in her life, she had experienced all of these abusively greedy white pastors who hadn't come to terms with their own god-complexes.  I may have added the "white" piece, as Tori was clearly going after the dominating tendencies of patriarchal power, but then again, I know many of the same people she writes about.  Not to say there aren't black pastors who have preyed upon their congregations, as power can do all kinds of things to every single person.  But in my life, I have seen white power get away with all kinds of things...

It was uncanny to me, then, that the song "God" from Under the Pink should be played on the radio later that day, 22 years after it was released.  I couldn't help but imagine Dusty as the "god" character in this song, making it rain, making decisions about who gets blessings and who gets punishment.  And the "her" in the song is the city of Detroit, or more pointedly, the people of Detroit.  See how it hits you.

god sometimes you just don’t come through

god sometimes you just don’t come through

do you need a woman to look after you

god sometimes you just don’t come through

you make pretty daisies, pretty daisies love

I’ve gotta find find find what you’re doing about things, here

a few witches burning gets a little toasty, here

I gotta find find find why you always go when the wind blows

god sometimes you just don’t come through

god sometimes you just don’t come through, babe

do you need a woman to look after you

god sometimes you just don’t come through

well, tell me you’re crazy maybe then I’ll understand

(come down and tell me what you mean, now)

you got your 9 iron in the back seat just in case

heard you’ve gone south well, babe, you love your new 4 wheel

(hey, now, what do you know, what do you know)

I gotta find why you always go when the wind blows

“Give not thy strength unto women nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings”

will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky fall?

will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky?

Under my pink skin I'm also pink, just like every single one of my neighbors.  Under our pink, we all have bones and a heart.  And we are all precious to our Creator, to our Savior, and to the Spirit that binds each and everyone one us in a sacred community.  Taking advantage of others is something that turns my pink into red, and I need the hospitality of this neighborhood to help me chill it out.

peace by peace by peace,

@matthewjschmitt
 +Matthew John Schmitt
www.TheTableSetters.com

The Table Setters Official Launch

This was a big week. We are moving into Pingree Park on Detroit's East side tomorrow morning. We are grieving with our friends and DOOR Family in LaGrange, Atlanta. And, Marvin Wadlow Jr. and launched The Table Setters, officially. (so, in lieu of an actual post, I'm going to share our missional language along with the launch video.)

Please share and spread the word, and hopefully we can come work with your school, church, or business soon!

Diversity training must move beyond Black History Month towards a culturally integrated life. We set table workshops in churches, schools and businesses, and then we develop ongoing programs of relational accountability for the long haul.


The Table Setters is a faith-based organization that produces improved relationships across humanly created racial, socio-economic, political, and religious lines. We combine launch events in churches, schools, and civic institutions with customized plans for ongoing cultural accountability. Diversity training days are never enough. Ongoing relationships that nurture connections and share brokenness, hopes and dreams, can be mutually healing and productive. We believe that racial alliances, forged through respect, trust, and accountability are close to the heart of Christ, as referenced in Romans 14 and Matthew 18, especially in the context of a meal! We will listen to the needs of your particular community and develop a format for both the initial launch workshop as well as a schedule of repeated table settings to nurture diverse relationships for the long haul.

Founded through the deep friendship of Marvin Wadlow Jr., an African-American Baby Boomer, and Matthew John Schmitt, a European-American Generation X-er, the Table Setters exist to remember that we are all invited to God's Table through Christ, with none of us over or under-welcomed. Both founders lament that though Jesus shares stories and parables through setting a variety of tables across cultures and classes, most of our country, including Christians, have a hard time stepping outside their zip codes. The Table Setters believe that reality is greater understood when we fully appreciate differences across the divisions of humankind, and we aim to start a movement of courageous and ongoing Table Setting: individuals, businesses, and congregations who are willing to continually meet with "the others.” We are called to mutually learn, question, and share experiences in vulnerable storytelling that ultimately moves us towards making better decisions together.

Visit our Facebook Website today to arrange life changing workshops centered in vulnerable conversations regarding racial, social, economic, political, and religious devisions. Workshops can be customized to be rooted in Scripture and Sacred Texts, and we create accountability plans with hosting entities towards ongoing relationship nurturing and conflict resolution.

Peace by peace,
@matthewjschmitt

 +Matthew John Schmitt

Pride

Recently, I've been getting some good, probing questions on Facebook through my personal pages, friends' feeds, and our organizational page at The Table Setters. One of the questions yesterday was : why are blacks encouraged to have pride but whites are seen as hateful if they are proud?

So first off, I think Wikipedia is helpful here. Language has always had different connotations in different contexts, and culture and society location are certainly contexts. (And remember, the Eskimo tribe has multiple words to describe the one word English has for "snow.")   Pride is an inwardly directed emotion that carries two antithetical meanings. With a negative connotation pride refers to a foolishly and irrationally corrupt sense of one's personal value, status or accomplishments, used synonymously with hubris. With a positive connotation, pride refers to a humble and content sense of attachment toward one's own or another's choices and actions, or toward a whole group of people, and is a product of praise, independent self-reflection, and a fulfilled feeling of belonging.

Growing up White (with pinkish-orange skin) is a different context than growing up Black (with brown skin).  I believe that too many white people try to claim this is not so, some desperately want to believe we live in a color-blind world, some desperately believe we live in a world where #AllLivesMatter is the reality, but it's just not.  From God's point of view, yes.  Jesus died for all of God's children.  But we constantly fail to live into the original design, and in a fallen world, all lives do not matter equally.  We know this.  It's whether or not we admit it, that's the question.  

Jane Elliott has done masterful work in exploring this.  When white people are asked if they'd like to be treated the way black people are treated in our society, even with all the unfair complaints white people level at poor black folks about welfare and entitlement, nobody claims they'd rather be treated like a black person in the USA.  Why?  Because we all know that our cultural norms revolve around Whiteness.  I hear it every day, in some form, from other well-meaning white people.  "Oh, they are just a regular, normal family."  "Oh, this is a nice neighborhood for people like you."  Ask yourself, who do you imagine is normal, regular, nice?

So, when talking about pride, and the apparent "double standard," why blacks are encouraged and whites are discouraged, I think we are talking about two different emotions.  It's like this:

Imagine there are two brothers in a family.  One is an amazing athlete and the other is not.  The athlete wins all kinds of trophies, people come over to be around him because they think he's so awesome.  Girls have crushes on him, boys have crushes on him.  He is written up in the local newspaper often.  One night, his brother, who is not talented athletically, is heard crying in his room.  Their father goes in and asks him why he's crying.  This son says, "because I'm nothing, because I'll never be as good as him."  The father embraces him and says, "nonsense, you are good at a great many things.  You should be proud of the talents you have, be grateful for the gifts God has given you.  Do not see them as less than your brother's talents, just because he gets so much attention for them now."

Nobody tells the athletic brother he should be proud because he doesn't need that in the culture of his high school.  In fact, if he walked around saying, "I'm so awesome, I'm so proud of who I am!  I can do everything.  I never drop the ball.  I do all the right things.  I never make a mistake...." we would see him as arrogant, suffering from pride, or hubris.  Probably.  

On the other hand, if his brother took a deep breath and said, "you know what, my dad is right," then decided to put, let's say, his art skills to use, and created a really beautiful and complicated self-portrait, we might expect him to be proud of his work.  We might hope that he is proud of his work.  That's a different context.  Of course, if that brother started getting attention and accolades, he would also be at risk of falling into the same arrogance we could imagine for his brother.  Except that in this country, athleticism is still valued much higher than most forms of art (with the exception of movies)......

Black people, (specifically to answer this question) and all our citizens who are not able to "pass" as white are taught, both in overt and subtle ways, to be ashamed of themselves every single day.  There have maybe been some improvements, but when students are given punishments for wearing their hair in an Afro, you cannot deny this statement.  (Side note: there is great cost and time to alter very curly hair, and very harsh chemicals involved in doing so.  So, imagine you're a kid who can't afford to get that done as often as other kids, and now the school is fining you for it.)

Some of you tell me this is a media invented guilt trip.  I promise you, I am not writing this out of guilt, and I hardly watch CNN, FOX or MSNBC (we don't have cable).  I do feel guilty when I say something mean to someone in a way of trying to hurt them.  I am not feeling guilt as I write this. I'm feeling hope.  Hope that you, if you are white and this is something you've never considered, that you might start noticing this issue.  Watch TV commercials, and for me, that meant noticing TV commercials during football games from the couch of a black family in New Orleans that invited me over for the party.  It's suddenly really apparent when you're sitting in a room full of brown-skinned people that the commercials are talking to me, and only me, selling me a product for my hair, skin, for my ways of life.  Now, that has changed some since 2000, but turn on the local news in those homes, and sit down.  Who are the "villains", who are the "heroes?"  Who comes to your mind, and this could be a question for all people of all races.  White ideals aren't just something white people aspire to.  Whiteousness can infect all of us, equally.  The problem is, when I let Whiteousness dominate me, I can feel "normal" if I choose to.  When my brown-skinned friends let Whiteousness into their thinking, how do you imagine they might feel when they look at their skin that isn't as pinkish-orange as mine?

These are the kinds of discussions we are having at the Table Setters.  We hope to visit you soon!

Peace by peace,
@matthewjschmitt
 +Matthew John Schmitt
Help support our non-profit The Table Setters in its start-up phases by clicking here!

Playing the Dangerous "White Card"

It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this I-know-better-than-you mentality again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your own part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.  Luke 6:41-42, The Message.

This is my first official blog post from and about Detroit.  Kind of.  It's not gonna be pretty.  My family is settling into a new life: first: out of California; second, in Michigan (and right now part of that is humidity and mosquitos); and third, in Detroit.  I want to start by declaring this: Detroit is rivaling New Orleans in warm hospitality, and with the bayou soul coursing through my blood, that's really saying something!  Now we haven't fully settled into Detroit, as we are doing our best to patiently listen to the advice of native Detroiters, patiently listen to what it will take and what it will mean for a family of European descent to move in the area bordered by 8 Mile Road, Outer Drive, Telegraph and I'm not yet sure what the Southern border is....

So what this means, now, is that we are staying in my childhood home at 13 mile and Southfield, and thankful for the blessing that is family in such a time as this.  I do recognize this as a privilege and I am grateful.  We are visiting church after church.  And the hospitality is flowing...a deep sense of table setting hospitality from all sectors of this city.  

Honing into the topic of this blog: this also means I'm spending time bouncing between suburb and city.  And yesterday, I was working out at a gym in the suburbs, several miles North.  What follows is so troubling, it's hard to write.


Two young men, both of European descent, were working out.  One was wearing shorts with writing that suggests he goes to a high performing Catholic high school nearby.  From some of their conversation, it was clear he's on their football and/or lacrosse team, while the other young man is probably on their hockey team.  I was doing my hybridized P90X Saturday routine, which placed me right near them on the free weights for my entire workout.  Rather than try to write this in full story form, as it followed like an in-between-reps kind of conversation, I'm just going to type out their quotes, as best as I can remember them. I did take some notes on my phone, and I was also walking nearer and further between my own reps, so I didn't catch everything.

"Dude, I got a ticket last night, leaving the game.  Rolled through a stop sign.  Well, it was actually rolling through a stop sign, and I was out past 10pm curfew, and...."

"What would your mom say if she knew you weren't sober?"

"Oh, she'd never let me drive again.  Keys taken, done deal."

"Dude, I like my back, but I want to get it jacked.  There's this girl I met last night...."

"I can always get out of a ticket, what have you said to get out of 'em?"  

"No, I didn't get out last night, but just got it for the stop sign.  Thank God."

"I'm always respectful to the cops.  I actually know some.  Yeah, you know, my old hockey coach is a detective now, so I always drop his name.  Always.  Sometimes it works.  Seems like it always softens the blow."

"Did you hear about (female name)?  I used to think she was one of the hags, but she's actually pretty cool.  Until she had to get her stomach pumped."

"For what?"

"Alcohol poisoning or some dumb shit like that.  Now she's all heavy about it, like won't go to parties and makes everyone feel really bad about it.  Sucks.  But she was totally there last night."

"Where do you go?"

"I used to go to (couldn't hear it), but it's such a long drive, it's almost not worth it."

"I can get 2 ounces in Redford, and I can turn around and sell that pretty quickly, so that's the best route."

"You know, I can't believe why some people are rude to cops."

"Can you get tried as an adult at 16, or is it just 17?"

"So when's your next game?"

"Oh dude, we have all these out of state games, in Ohio, in Chicago, it's gonna get crazy....."

It went on for over an hour.  Now, I'm actually not surprised, because I grew up hearing this kind of talk in the suburbs all the time.  What I am shocked at was how cavalier and loud they were being.  It was as though they knew, in their bones, that nothing at all would happen to them.  No consequences whatsoever, so they didn't even mind that I could hear almost every word they said.  That is definitely a problem of white privilege.  This is playing the White Card.

I am a person who intentionally steps into potential conflicts, if I feel called.  I struggled here, I wanted to call them out, but once I heard they were actually minors, I decided not to.  They don't know me, we've never met.  I did, however, report their discussion to the club manager.  She took it very seriously.  I will follow up with her.

Because here's the thing: I know this to be, tragically, commonplace.  I know this is, what many pink-skinned Americans like to refer to as "boys will be boys."  I'm fed up with it.  I'm tired of being told by society that police officers arrest people who are "more likely to commit crimes."  These two young men, 16 and 17 years old, were bragging about drunk driving, bragging about their connections in the police department to avoid convictions; might have been suggesting situations in which girls are pressured into drinking heavily for a greater likelihood that they might consent to sexual activity; and discussing their personal business practices of dealing drugs.  But just one glance at them, they were, in Hollywood casting terms, "nice high school boys" who are probably going to be celebrated as star athletes.  Because, I gotta hand it to the older guy: his back was pretty jacked.

They committed crimes last night.  They are devising ways to commit crimes in the future, and have a plan for how to get out of punishment if they are caught.  They are dangerous.  And they should be stopped.

Will they?  That's up to us.  Should we heavily profile the young brown-skinned men who are more likely to be convicted of crimes?  Or should we consider, what I think most of us know to be true whether we want to admit it or not, that "(white) boys will be boys" has glossed over years of sins and crimes, many very dangerous, and all of them unjust.  I myself am guilty of part of this, I blogged on it just last week.  I've pulled my White Card to get out of traffic tickets, too.

People commit crimes out of desperation.  Teenagers, and I don't care what race they are, are desperate for attention and status.  Why are these two young men so caught up in drugs and parties?  They want cool credit, street cred, they want to be dope.  They want sex.  Or something close to that.  They will do whatever it takes to get it, and even if they know the consequences, they're gonna do it anyway.

And then again, do the consequences even apply to them fully?  Or will they be able to play their White Card, which, I'm aware, is more powerful in places with higher socio-economic status.  Whites from lower income areas do not get off so easily, I know full well, I've listened to their stories on Skid Row and in Detroit area prisons.  But who may have to die at these young men's drunk hands?  What girl might wind up pregnant or poisoned with alcohol because she was trying to impress the likes of them?  I know some of those girls.  I attended a few funerals in my 16 year old days.

Or: could we take the speck out of our own eyes, the sneer out of our own look, in regards to who we consider as dangerous?  Could we allow our brown-skinned youth a similar form of grace and second chances?  Could we profile all teenagers, in general, as being more likely to do dumb-ass shit for attention, while still surrounding all of them with equal portions of love and redirection?  Could they all do time together, reasonably, and not see only some of them go on to become successful business owners while others are kissing their young adulthood, and often the majority of their lives, goodbye, for doing exactly the same thing as their richer, whiter, peers?

It's time to put it on the table: it's the White Card that's the most dangerous of all.  I'm doing my best to not use it, and I need accountability there too.  We all do.

Peace by peace,
@matthewjschmitt
 +Matthew John Schmitt
Help support our non-profit The Table Setters in its start-up phases by clicking here!

"Matters" in Protection and Service

If you will, allow me to interject this stream of consciousness into the polarized heat between #BlackLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter:

It matters who springs to mind when an officer thinks about the word "protect."  Let's call them person Z.  It matters what person Z looks like in that image, what side of town they come from.

It matters who appears in the thought process when an officer imagines who they are protecting person Z from.  Let's call them person X.  It matters what person X looks like in that mindset, where they come from.

It matters who you imagine Z and X to be.  

I know that crime exists in all people groups as a condition of the negative sides of humanity, as a product of desperation, greed, and the need for power and control.  I know that all fall short of God's best intention for the human community.  But I know some other things too.

I know dozens of young men and women who committed all kinds of crimes from 1991-1995 in the suburbs of Detroit.  I tasted, saw, smelled, heard those crimes.  Most involved drug usage, drug dealing, and underage drinking when parents were away on summer weekend trips to cottages.  Most occurred in backyards and basements.  Some even had encounters with police.  It matters that I only ever saw one arrest.  Were these Z people or X people?

It matters that Facebook shows me most of those young drug dealers doing just fine, some with businesses and families of their own right now.  I don't wish them ill will, not at all, but it matters to know that they took the money and ran into the sunset.  Z or X?

I know a person or two who sexualized me when I was younger than 10.  Molest might be too strong a word, maybe not, but I was never protected from them.  I didn't know how to ask for help.  This was an X to X or a Z to Z.  This wasn't the boogeyman in the scary blue car that Channel 7 news warned us against.  These were people I already knew.

I know several middle and upper class young women who've been either arrested by police or caught by friends and family as shoplifters, some with extensively successful histories.  I even know that I've received birthday presents that I later learned were shoplifted goods.  Not a single one of those young ladies ever saw a courtroom, much less jail time.  I know that matters.  X or Z?

It matters who springs to mind, X or Z, when officers think about who they are "serving."

I know that I've talked myself out of two traffic tickets without tears.  I know the officers allowed me to reason with them, to explain the situations fully: "it wasn't my phone, sir, it was my wallet."  & "this is a family member's car, and no, I had no idea the tags were expired."  Full confession: one of those explanations was not even fully true.  I know many suburban friends who have rehearsed routines for when they get pulled over that have actually worked.  Explosive diarrhea.  Faking Korean broken-English.  Even a dying mother ruse (which, was true, but still manipulative.)  When I drove away, I felt "served," and one time, a little guiltier than when I started.  This matters.

It matters that when we had to call the police in 2011 because of a loved one's mental illness, it matters that they showed up quickly and were so very skilled at de-escalation.  I thank God for those three officers, on a regular basis.  They dramatically changed our lives for the better, and started a new and hopeful path for all of our lives.  I felt very served in 48025.

I know an elderly church lady with pink skin who confessed to worrying that Marvin might steal her purse when we were, side by side, talking about changing the narratives of Xs and Zs as The Table Setters.  It matters that she had the bravery to realize that and even confess it out loud (and her skin turned a brighter shade of pink), but I also know that if she didn't, and still worried about Marvin's potential capacity to be a thief, I know that things would not have gone well for Marvin if she chose to call the police, especially if it was after our sessions when the sun was setting that spring evening.

I know that I was not even given a slap on the wrist at the courthouse for the speeding ticket I wasn't able to talk myself out of on Dwyer Road in New Orleans East.  I was driving almost 20 mph over the limit on my way to the teacher inservice before the first day of school at Fannie C. Williams Middle School.  20 over.  In the courtroom, I was asked, "why were you on Dwyer Boulevard?"  I told the truth, that I was a new teacher.  The official laughed and said, "go home, young man.  You're cleared, we need more people like you in our community."  Really?  All he knew of me was that I was a young white man from Michigan, and, from what he knew, was caught recklessly driving near a school, the school that I would come to truly love hundreds of young black and Vietnamese men and women (and never sped again).  It matters that his conclusion was that I was deemed a hero at the end of the proceedings.  Who indeed was he serving?  The X's or the Z's?

It matters that I've seen and heard of so much white on white crime in my days, some of it violent, and nothing has been recorded.  The "headbangers" of Beverly Park were a particularly fearsome group 30 years ago.  To my knowledge, just seen as teenagers being teenagers.  X or Z?

It matters that a large percentage, too large in my opinion, of the men and women I taught in New Orleans East grew up without fathers.  It matters that most of that was because they were incarcerated.  It matters that they were, most of them, incarcerated for the very same crimes I witnessed in suburban basements.  Z or X?

Crime rates do matter.  But it really matters how those rates are measured.  Are we talking about arrests?  Are we talking about convictions?  Do we factor in moments where I got away with breaking the law a time or two?  Or the shoplifters who were able to give great gifts at no cost to them?  Or the man who asked me to play with his penis?  Or the kid who couldn't find work in the economic depression of New Orleans East post or pre-Katrina?  X or Z?  Z on Z, X on X?  Who is protected?  Who is served?  Who you call to mind really matters when you contemplate these questions.

And: it matters who decides what communities are more dangerous than others.  Who gets to decide that, and what statistics do they base those decisions on?  It matters that so much, I would guess too much, negativity is thrown at officers, when most of the causation would be better attributed to higher offices, to the mindsets of people with more power or money than we will ever have.

Marvin and I have launched the Table Setters to tap into mindsets, archaic and problematic narratives, and ultimately, with prayer and time, to change hearts.  Click here to learn more and I urge you to set up a time for us to come visit your community, your church, your youth groups, your businesses.  It is time to re-imagine who X, Y, and Z are, and for that matter, who is A, B, G, Q, and K.  

God created diversity and God intends justice for all of his children.  It matters that we live into God's plan and God's design, and not hide behind our own fears while trusting incomplete stories.  

peace by peace by peace
@matthewjschmitt
 +Matthew John Schmitt