Category: Class

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Race, Class and Violence: A Time to Break Silence #3

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a leader in the non-violent civil rights movement. The racial fractures in our society were deep and obvious to anyone of color and to whites who could step away from the cultural norms and see the injustice and violence at the hands of white individuals, society and institutions. It was a big enough topic for one fight.

But intertwined with the racial injustice was the deep poverty that disproportionately affected people of color. Money and opportunities didn’t flow through the generations as they had in my white neighborhoods.

As King and other leaders of the civil rights movement began to teach non-violence to people working for racial justice, they came face to face with the multiple layers of violence inherent in the escalating Vietnam War.

In addition to noting that his own government, not the “oppressed in the ghettos,” was “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” King said, “We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.”*

While no one I knew went to fight in Vietnam, many without access to college deferments were sent off to war. As happened in World War II, black young men were sent around the globe to fight for liberties that they hadn’t found at home. As a result of the Vietnam War, money that had begun to flow into poverty programs was abruptly diverted to cover the costs of battle.

King saw the interconnectedness between racism, poverty and war, and “was compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.” He broke a silence that the people in political power did not want him to shatter.  He complicated the civil rights fight. He spoke the truth.

I wish I’d listened in 1967. But I hear these words loud and clear today. Race, class and national violence are big topics that still cut through our world.

It is time to wake up.

The hour is near midnight.

Alert, I listen for guidance about my next step. What are you hearing?

*Third in a series honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Beyond Vietnam–A Time to Break Silence, Delivered April 4, 1967, Riverside Church, New York City. The next in the series is titled, “Sometimes Confession is the Best Response.”

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A Time to Break Silence: Series on A Time to Break Silence #1

Fifty years ago this month Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of his dream, including that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” We are closer now, though we are still a long way from fully embodying this dream.

In the month of the anniversary of King’s birthday and this often quoted speech my thoughts, however, go to a different oration. One that I rarely hear quoted. While the words of King’s dream stirred my imagination, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence* shook me awake and brought me to my feet, breathless.

I was in junior high school when King delivered this speech at Riverside Church in New York City in 1967. King was talking about the war that spanned my growing up years, one that is history now. But his words reverberate with a truth that is as relevant and crucial today as it was forty-six years ago. King saw and proclaimed the complex web that connected economics, race and war.

In gratitude to King for his courage to speak, an act that flowed out of love for his country and all of his fellow citizens, I will focus the next few blogs on A Time to Break Silence.

What else can I do?  It is, indeed, a time to break silence.

*Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Beyond Vietnam–A Time to Break Silence, Delivered April 4, 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

First in a six part series. The next in the series is titled “I Must Speak.”

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“I Can’t Believe It Happened Here”

I’ve said that before. When violence erupted, I automatically tried to come up with all of the reasons it should or would never happen in my neighborhood. I was desperate to feel safe and secure again.

I now know the scalding assumption held in that sentiment.

Tragedy should only happen in “bad” neighborhoods. In poor neighborhoods. Or black or brown neighborhoods. Or inner cities.  Or in third world countries.

Not small towns, white neighborhoods, upper middle class parts of town in the USA.

Really?

Brutal tragedies shouldn’t happen anywhere.

Our words matter. Speaking disbelief that innocent people were gunned down in a “good” neighborhood is its own form of violence. The gaps between us grow wider. We are divided into “us” and “them” not just in the middle of horror, but in the center of how we (often unconsciously) are in relationship with neighbors near and far.

The despair of today is growing as our inequitable economy crumbles and the new has not yet emerged. These transition times are scary as the ground we’ve built our lives on is shaken to the core.

If we want to stand steady together, now is the time to dive deeply into the Big Topics and notice the ways that skin color, money, privilege, power and gender continue to skew our thoughts.

For most of us, separation and injustice is not our intent.

Collapsing into shame or denial isn’t needed or productive. But waking up and diving deeply inside ourselves is the work of those of us alive on the planet today. Leaving no stone unturned, it is time for us to look wide, dig deep and take an old toothbrush to those nooks and crannies that are more easily ignored but when cleaned out, make a house sparkle.

From that starting point, we can work together to bridge the gaps between us and begin to make all neighborhoods around the globe safer.

It is not easy. I can be fun. We owe it to the children, both today’s young and those who will follow us in the years to come.

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Midnight is No Time to Secede

Twenty-five thousand Texans have signed a petition to peacefully secede from the United States of America. I understand. I’ve spent much of my life trying inwardly to secede from places and groups (including Texas) that I didn’t agree with.

In the middle of writing Big Topics at Midnight I realized how much energy I’d spent trying to distance myself from parts of me or my world that embarrassed me—my wealth, white skin, cultural Christianity, patriarchy and even Texas. I wrote about this struggle in Big Topics at Midnight:

“When I finally noticed that we had more money than many, I was embarrassed by my family’s upper-middle class and, later, upper class status. For a time, I wanted to give my family money away, not wanting to be wealthy in a world where so many had so little. Simultaneously, I wanted to keep all of the options that money gave me.

Likewise, I had recently realized how white my world had always been. As I heard story after story of experiences and perspectives of people with darker shades of skin, I wanted to rip off my white skin and the white-colored glasses that had kept me unaware of signs of racism during childhood and into my adult years.

The glow from the streetlight gave the room an eerie light as I considered other parts of myself that had faced the knife. It wasn’t easy for me to admit being a Christian, either. Jesus didn’t embarrass me, but far too many Christians did. Too often the radical heart of the faith was usurped by traditional US cultural values.

As a strong girl turned woman, I thought I’d avoided sexism. In the dark of night I realized that I’d been largely unaware of the ways I’d absorbed patriarchal beliefs throughout my life. I’d grown to respect my use of reason and logic—the skills honored in my family—and ignored my subtler intuition, gut and heart. I’d slipped unaware into the patriarchal way of valuing only one part of me. In addition, I was disgusted that it took over thirty years for me to discover how slowly liberation had come to my home state—married Texan women didn’t even have full legal rights until the late 1960s.

I felt full of holes, like a hunk of Swiss cheese. So much of who I was brought me shame. Projecting that onto Texas and onto the United States of America at the height of her world power, I tried to increase the distance between myself and the culturally affirmed values I no longer accepted.”1

A few Texans want to secede from the union just as I wanted to secede from Texas. When I finally woke up, I realized that this separation was in direct conflict with my heart, faith and values of living in harmony within our global neighborhood. The only way I could live a just life in our diverse world was to first accept the diversity that is me. Not blindly. Not trying to pretend that nothing is amiss in our world. But consciously, with open eyes.

We don’t have the luxury to cut and bail whenever we don’t agree. Our hurting world is teetering too close to midnight for that. We will all thrive together or crash together on this one planet we share. I am a Texan. Texans are Americans. Our world depends on us learning how to get freed from the “distress [and separation] of our oppression and to listen to each other in a present and conscious manner.”2

The time to run away with our toys and hide out with others like us has come to an end. And really, the world is a fascinating playground if we can do the work to “build effective relationships and sustain true alliances.”3

 

  1. Big Topics at Midnight, pages 238-239
  2. Be Present Empowerment Model, realms 1 and 2
  3. Be Present Empowerment Model, realm 3