Today I was involved in multiple conversations about how my school, PSR will respond to the Oscar Grand shooting. I hope they will -- as religious leaders, we must engage in events that happen in our communities (especially after the wonderful precedent they set by publishing a statement officially against Prop 8!).
Here's the state of my thoughts today.
Stuff like this continues to happen. No matter what happened in the actual event - whether it was racially motivated or not - it falls into a long-standing trend of white officers shooting unarmed Black men. It matters that the officer was white and the murdered man was black, unarmed, and vulnerable. While I don't condone violence, and find it sad that protests that turn violent unfairly impact poor communities, I get why people are angry and upset in Oakland.
Stuff like this will continue to happen as long as we live in a society where racism is ignored by those of us in power & privilege. I was at a reception the other day, and I did something that was thoughtless and a little bit rude to a Black man. Reflecting on it later, I realize that if he doesn't know me (or even if he does), he probably wonders what kind of racist stereotypes I have of him. Just like Officer Mehserle, I was the racist of that moment, no matter what my intentions were. This is the same as the way I am a potential rapist in the eyes of women who don't know me, especially when I walk to school on deserted streets or at dusk. Because some men rape, and because some white people are violently racist, I am potentially a violent, racist rapist. If the justice & fairness issue alone doesn't motivate me, this should. It feels a little like luck of the draw. The impact of Officer Mehserle's actions make him the bearer not only of the responsibility of what he did, but the bearer of responsibility for all those officers who shot unarmed Black men and were acquitted or slapped on the wrist. Who knows but that something I do unintentionally has a racist or sexist impact? Until we change the system, this kind of stuff will happen. As white people, we are at risk until we educate ourselves, talk with each other, and change the way our world runs.
I see a lot of parallels in what I used to teach about sexism: if I don't stand up as a man among men who make sexist jokes, I contribute to a culture that implies permission to sexually assault a woman. if I don't stand up as a white guy among white folks who enact, benefit from, and ignore racism, I contribute to a culture that implies permission to assault, murder, exploit, etc people of color.
Let's see, what's the theological angle on this? I certainly believe God's desire is for justice. According to the tradition, God became human -- and what did Jesus do? Did he go out hang out with all the governors and religious leaders? Did he ask servants to feed him grapes while he wrote the sermon on the mount? Did he go find sinners, handcuff them, and shoot them? Actually, I think he served others. He spoke about kindness and brought people back from alienation. Anyone else want to weigh in on this?
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3 comments:
Yes, Wade. I want to weigh in on this.
I messaged Dr. Chamblee a couple weeks ago to ask her about what the GTU was doing in response to Mr. Grant's death and she knew of nothing at the time. She referenced two things that might be the cause: 1) it was intersession and lots of folks were "away" & 2) people might have no context for caring, meaning what do a bunch of seminarians have to do with some "black kid killed in Oakland?"
This was again and again the charge to many of us in Senior Seminar last spring, mainly that we didn't seem to care about a black murder in Oakland as much as we cared about other injustices. There's plenty of evidence to support this charge.
When i went to the protests of Oscar Grant's murder a couple of weeks ago I rarely saw a white face. But when you go to peace marches for war, or pro-choice rallies, white face is practically all you see. (Please know that I'm not trying to pit issues against each other; all this justice/resistance work is important.) While I was at the Fruitvale BART, walking around trying to witness to the atrocity, I realized why white folks are reluctant to show up at such events. The sheer energy of the place struck fear and shame in my heart. I wear the same color as Mehserle. I benefit from the same system that killed Oscar Grant. I am PART of the problem. In arenas where the injustice of white supremacy is put on blast, there's nowhere for me to hide and pretend I'm "above it all." I have to see and hear and feel the pain of communities that are different than me. This is hard to do when you've been raised to think that you are innocent or on the "right side" of the issue. Bullshit. If more white people showed up to witness, we'd get more in touch with how our ways of life hurt others. It's easier to avoid than to admit. But we continue denial at a high cost to the world at large. Fredrick Douglass said that the the Civil War was a "battle to free black men’s bodies and white men’s souls." Our white souls are still sick with sin (if I might be so christian centered here) and black bodies, as we've seen with the shot-in-the-back-while-on-the-ground killing of Grant, continue to be brutalized b/c of that sin-sickness we carry. Mehserle's action just highlight an entire epidemic of white supremacy alive in this nation. Repentance is necessary and we can't heal from a sickness that we refuse to acknowledge, that we refuse to "turn" (shuv in hebrew) and look at square in the face. So I feel uncomfortable when I'm witnessing the pain/rage/frustration of people oppressed by white supremacy and institutional racism. People of color feel uncomfortable ALL THE TIME just trying to live in the midst of white supremacy and institutional racism. Further, this showing up to witness isn't just about the curing of the "white soul." Our white anti-racist work is huge and important, but ultimately we share space on the Earth and we don't live in isolation. We all bleed red. G-d is the author of ALL of our lives. No we don't share the same experience of communities of color, but we do have an influence on the conditions that impact everyone. What I'm trying to say: we should give a shit about suffering anywhere/everywhere right now. And we should show up in the care we feel, whether or not we're going to feel uncomfortable. What happened to Oscar Grant was a senseless tragedy. What happened to Oscar Grant's family, especially his baby girl, could have been avoided and may G-d forgive all the ways our collective and individual habits set the stage for such an ugly, soul-less crime.
I pray PSR will make a public statement in opposition to what happened. (They never made a public statement about the invasion/occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and I'm still pissed at them for it.) I think public stances have an impact on public attitude. If our top levels of leadership take a striking position on something, whether it's in support or opposition, it's a starting/reference point for the people to resist or fall in line with what's been professed. Either way, whenever leaders make a proclamation, it's an organizing event. The PSR administration and faculty should, b/c of their commitment to justice, cry out about the murderous, racist action of Mehserle. But they should do it from their Christian platform, b/c ultimately the institution is about education progressive Christians. It's right to protest Grant's death. It's an entirely different thing to stand as clergy, to stand as representatives of the Church and say "this event broke G-d's heart." The administration and faculty have the capacity to show future ministers how religious anti-racist proclamation is carried out. I hope they do it well.
For more on my thoughts about Mr. Grant's death, please see my blog post entitled "Too Close?"
Love you Wade.
I've been thinking this for a few days, and have been going back and forth in my head wondering if I should post, wondering how it would be taken, etc. But then, I decided to post, because even if these thoughts are bullshit, at least they'll be challenged out in the open.
I sense a strong masochistic streak in the desire to churn up from within us (including me) the sin we carry as white folks being educated every day to be and continue to be and act in manners that embody white supremacy. And now I beg you to hear the word "masochism" as value neutral, as a phenomenon that happens, as part of the human experience, and not as pathological, and also not as me trying to undercut the arguments that both of you have made by labeling it with something that sounds like a disorder. It's not a disorder, it's a practice.
Relating as human beings, whether that's face to face, body to body, or one entity of an institution, culture, or society to another, carries with it always the risk of pain and suffering. In the SM community you'd be hard pressed to find a masochist that says they "enjoy" pain (which can be physical, emotional, and psychological). Still, there is a return to it, to the known pain, and quite frequently a desire to push the boundaries of pain in all directions. In the SM community there's a truism that says if you say you'd never do something, chances are in 6 months you will.
What can masochists teach us? That there is a value in pain, perhaps (and here I'm explicitly talking about the pain that surfaces when a white person confronts the ways in which their being and behaviors contribute to, perpetuate, and leave in place, the structures that promote racism, the very structures that killed Oscar Grant). As someone who has been attending to her own racism within the context of Oscar Grant's murder, and who is re-membering Chauncey Bailey's murder in the context of the event itself and the course that confronted the event, and as a person who also has identified (yes, I mean identity) as a masochist in the SM community, I can say that the feelings and experiences are similar. I am choosing to re-open the Chauncey Bailey experience, I am choosing to see Oscar Grant's murder as partly my doing, and it fucking hurts, and it pisses me off, and I resist like hell, but I am coming to know this process of knowing because of my practices of SM.
thanks, EEB, for seeing and feeling that link between masochism and confronting pain. i've been thinking about it for days, and it's making sense to me. the practice of returning to pain, i'm following that, and choosing to face what's scary and uncomfortable...
Also, kudos to you for linking sexuality so explicitly to politics and justice. kind of amazing. there's something really important about desire in what you're saying, too, and i haven't put my finger on it yet.
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