The Gift and Power of Struggle

I will never forget the struggle of my sister, who fought against cancer with a nobility and grace that was inspiring and humbling, both at the same time.

She had been diagnosed years ago, was on the brink of death, but fought it then. After she passed the crisis stage, and was gaining her strength, I asked her if she ever thought she was going to die. All of the doctors, after all, had thought she would …but she looked at me, straight in the eyes, and said, “no, never.”

She went years in remission before the dreaded disease returned two Thanksgivings ago. She was not happy it had returned, but she was ready for the battle, and battle she did. Several times doctors thought she had played her last card, but she rallied each time. It was as though she was saying that she might be going …but she would go on her terms, not on the terms of the doctors.

She died last year, but I cannot say she lost the battle. She fought and won, I believe, because she stopped fighting when she was ready.

Elbert Hubbard wrote that “there is no failure except in no longer trying; there is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.” My sister was not a failure because she never stopped trying, she never felt defeated from within, and she had an inherent purpose to live for a long time. Her focus and willingness to struggle gave her not only more days but quality days. She refused to give in. It wasn’t denial; it was determination and faith and hope that kept her going. She knew very well how sick she was, and yet, she “looked to the hills from whence came her help” (Psalm 121) and held on with the expectation that she would be able to hold on.

She was willing to struggle.

Sometimes, when it comes to race in our country, I wonder why it is we are not willing to struggle and to come face to face with our very personal disease. I have read much of the vitriol that has been spewed since President Obama won last week’s presidential election, and have been saddened. It is all so clearly race-based, but nobody will say it. Nobody wants to admit and face and deal with our issue. As opposed to my sister, who, invaded by a deadly disease, engaged in the struggle to fight it, America runs from the disease called racism and denies it exists. And so we are being consumed, even today in the 21st century, by this ever-present reality. It is like an autoimmune disease of our society, affecting our central nervous system and thereby affecting the very things we need for a full and vital life.

Why in the world do we run from it? Well, a big reason is because we, America, are not a community. We call ourselves the “united” states but we are not. We are far from it. Post-election, several states are circulating petitions to secede from the United States. There is no community. We are a conglomerate of different races and ethnicities, but we are far from having the commitment necessary to be a community. We do not respect the differences of each other; in fact, we live in ignorance about who each other is, and so, far from commitment and community, we live in ignorance and therefore, in fear of each other. M. Scott Peck, author of several books including The Road Less Traveled and The Different Drum, says that commitment is the willing to co-exist, and says it’s crucial in order for there to be true community.

We don’t have that in our country, and so, in this 21st century, racism is as ugly and as potent as it has ever been. People are referring to President Obama as the “n” word; they are calling him “monkey” and worse, and they feel all right doing it. Racism has never lost its place as an accepted way of thinking in America and since we are so unwilling to struggle, it seems highly unlikely that it will ever go completely away.

In any struggle, we have to see ourselves as we are, not as we would like to believe we are. Real struggle begins then, because with the admission that we have some faults and some issues, we have to do some real work. We don’t want to do that …and so bad, toxic emotions and feelings fester within us as individuals and within this nation as an entity.

The gift and power of struggle is that if we are courageous enough to engage in it, we come out stronger. We are no longer afraid of what used to frighten us. We are able to stand in the face of adversity because in the process of struggle, we learn our own strength. America likes to talk about being strong, but she is not. She is a nation divided, and therefore, is weakened more than we would like to believe.

We don’t want to struggle because we don’t want to hurt, but hurt is a part of the process of life, says Joan Chittister in her book, Scarred by Struggle; Transformed by Hope. It is in having the courage to struggle that we learn to feed on hope, and in that feeding, we become stronger.

I wish America would be willing to struggle. I wish she would stop being afraid and stop living in denial. It is so past time for us to be talking about the virulence and presence of racism here. To struggle with it genuinely would be painful, yet after the pain, there would be a new America. We would be able to move on to other things, which we must needs do, but we limit ourselves just because we do not want to struggle. We do not want to change. And because we do not want to struggle and change, we won’t, not anytime soon.

A candid observation …

President Obama: Courageous Up to a Point

Whether or not one agrees with the work President Barack Obama has done overall, there is one stand-out quality that he seems to have: the courage it takes to be a leader.

From the beginning of his presidency, Mr. Obama has taken on one Goliath after another. Many thought (and still think) that his push for affordable health care for the vast majority of Americans via the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was a game-changer, an act of political suicide.

Then there were the bail-outs of the big banks and the auto industry. It is hard to understand why big business says the president has worked against them when these bail-outs really helped…big business, so much so that the president earned the ire of Liberals like Tavis Smiley and Cornel West, as well as others, who said he did not do and has not done enough for the poor.

There was the decision to go after and kill Osama Bin Laden in one of the riskiest moves one might imagine. There was no guarantee that that mission was going to be successful. Had it failed, his career as president would have been over, and even in light of its success, he has drawn criticism for “politicizing” it during this campaign. Still, the courage it took to make that decision and to stand by it is notable.

Now, he has come out in support of gay marriage. It is yet another decision that took courage not because there is anything wrong with gay marriage but because angry Conservatives, including Tea Party members, are going to use it to skewer him in this upcoming presidential campaign.

The president has worked to fulfill the promises he made during the 2008 campaign, in spite of bitter opposition from the Republicans and an outburst of opposition from the American public as the Affordable Health Care Act became law. He has tackled the economy and done, it seems, the best he could, given the opposition, and has held the line – his line- even as he has nervously watched the unemployment rate hover between horrible and disastrous. Every day, it seems, there has been yet another decision of monumental proportion, and he has taken those decisions on and acted decisively.

The only area in which the president has not shown much courage is in the area of race, racial politics, and racism as an American reality. It seems like, feels like, the president is afraid to talk about it or even mention it, for fear of certain criticism that he is playing the race card. Anything he says and/or does as an African-American is carefully scrutinized, with people ready to accuse him of showing partiality to one race over another, and Mr. Obama, it seems, has caved into the pressure of not bringing that Trojan Horse into the middle of the nation’s woes.

Consider what felt like a fairly innocent and rancor-free statement that the president issued in the height of the attention that was paid to the killing of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. All the president said was that if he had a son, he’d look like Trayvon. Duh. That’s an innocuous statement, and yet people waiting to see even the slightest hint of

favoritism toward African-Americans jumped all over him.

It is a shame that the courageous president cannot be courageous when it comes to race; the political capital he would spend were he to delve into and address matters of race would far exceed that he spent even on getting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed. And …it’s a shame, because African-Americans are still the lowest on the American totem pole in areas including education, health care, poverty and unemployment. Surely, there is much to do and much to say.

Ironically, white presidents could address issues of race without spending as much political capital as Mr. Obama would. President Eisenhower showed courage when he ordered that segregation in public places had to end, and President Harry Truman likewise showed courage when he ordered that the United States military had to be integrated.

Mr. Obama could never get away with making a decision that would even appear to help black, brown or poor people too much. He would be seen as biased.

So it’s sad that this president, who has shown such chutzpah in all these other areas, has been loth to step into the swirling waters of institutional and structural racism.

It’s too bad, because he has shown that he is tougher than nails…and it is significant that not even this man of courage, who knows racism first hand, cannot brave this Goliath.

A candid observation …

Anybody Want Healing?

Sometimes, I need help to understand why some things are as they are…like this: why do some white people think it’s racist to acknowledge that racism exists and to talk about it?

I have been chewing on that ever since I had an online chat with a white friend who was furious with me for saying that, at the beginning of the GOP race for the presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich was “playing to his base.”

That base was in the South, and consisted primarily, as far as I could tell, of white people. Many of them resonated with Gingrich’s assertions that black people and their situation in America were surely to be considered; in a speech in New Hampshire he made in January he said “… the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/05/newt-gingrich-paychecks-food-stamps_n_1188193.html)

That comment, along with others, such as “President Obama is the food stamp president” are no less disparaging and inaccurate about the lives of African-Americans than was President Reagan’s creation of the “welfare queen” which fed into the belief by many whites that black people are eating up the economy; their access to entitlements are a big part of the blame for the shoddy economic condition of this country, many will say, and any attempt dissuade people of those beliefs usually meet with rabid and bitter opposition.

OK, so I get that …but why, if one talks about the reality of racism in this country is one branded a “racist?” Why is the worst thing to talk about in America race, when our sick racism is at the base of so many of our problems?

In a book entitled To Ask for an Equal Chance, author Cheryl Lynn Greenberg talks about the state of African-Americans during and leading up to the Great Depression. She cites United States Supreme Court decisions few of us know anything about, like Grovey v. Townsend (1935), which said that electoral parties are private groups and can exclude African-Americans from membership and participation, and Norris v. Alabama, (1935) which allowed for the routin exclusion of African-Americans from jury duty. She talks about the “Atlanta Six” who were arrested in 1930 under a slave statutes against inciting insurrection for organizing protest. In The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan, an amazing book which describes the dust bowl of the 1930s, there is a description of signs put out advertising scant employment opportunities, but signs which clearly said “colored need not apply.”

The foundation of America was sewn with racist and with sexist threads…so why can’t we talk about it without being called “racist?

I cringed when, after Trayvon Martin’s case garnered national and international attention, and President Barack Obama made the statement that if he had a son, he’d look like Trayvon, the accusations of him playing the race card flew as though the card game had been set upon by a great, unexpected wind. Those protesting said he was not only playing the race card, but that he was sowing division amongst or between the races, because this is an election year.

The truth of the matter is that racism has been brewing just under the surface of our American political scene since the president was elected. Congressman Joe Wilson’s rude “you lie!” outburst at the president’s first State of the Union speech was beyond comprehension; the tactics of the Tea Party, including some who reportedly spit on revered African-American leaders, was steeped in race.

The truth of the matter is, not talking about race has only made the situation worse. Everybody wants to pretend that “it” isn’t racism that is driving some of what we are seeing and hearing today, but it is…We can’t keep agreeing to be silent. We need to face it and shake out the blanket of American democracy. The wrinkles caused by racism need to go…but if we keep the blanket all balled up, the wrinkles will only become deeper.

A candid observation …

Silent at Our Own Risk

It amazes and bothers me that we in this country are so reluctant to talk about race and racism.

I spoke this week at an event which I thought would be predominantly white; the sermon was about how we who love God ought to choose God and serve God over racism, sexism, militarism, materialism, homophobia …I didn’t say it, but those things in the list could be, and should be, classified as “sin” since sin is anything that separates us from God.

The audience turned out to be predominantly African-American, and I am more than sure that, while the message resonated with the African-Americans, many of the white people in attendance were probably offended.

Wow.

I know by now that we all see things through different lenses, lenses tinted by our life experiences, but in this, the 21st century, where racism is as ugly and as blatant as it has always been, shouldn’t we be able to try to see through a more common lens so that we can graduate from the halls of racism to a graduate school of peace, understanding, and reconciliation?

In the sermon, I mentioned the feeling of sadness I have as concerns the Trayvon Martin case; I mentioned that I am saddened at the news that at least 40 public schools in urban Philadelphia are scheduled to be closed; I mentioned that it is difficult to listen to people talk about being pro-life when their definition seems only to extend to unborn fetuses and not to children already born, living in horrible situations with horrible education and little to no health care.

I mentioned that the treatment of President Barack Obama has been sickeningly racist, evidence of our still-sick society as concerns race.

I mentioned the horrible chasm that is only widening between the haves and the “have-nots,” relaying disturbing insights about our economic recession that I learned on PBS’s Frontline program, the first part of which aired last week and the second part which will air May 1, Money, Power and Wall Street . In that program. I shuddered as I listened to the narrator share that in the mortgage crisis, some people with sub-prime mortgages paid as much as 42 percent interest.

I was floored…and I said as much. That has to bother somebody, right? It has to at least bother those who say they love and serve God…or so I posited.

My point was that people who say they believe in God in general, and in Jesus specifically, have a moral code that we should follow; we are mandated to take care of “the least of these,” and because doing that involves challenging political systems, we should choose to serve God and what God would mandate, so that we have the strength to challenge social and political systems which will not change without such a challenge. We get tired of pushing against the powers and principalities which push us right back.

We are not, however, allowed to be tired to the point of inaction. That’s what I shared.

I believe in what I preach; I believe that Christians miss the boat when we are silent about systems, belief systems as well as social and political systems, which permit people to be oppressed and treated unjustly. While, according to Reinhold Niebuhr, who wrote Moral Man and Immoral Society, it is understandable that our society (and in fact, any society) is more immoral than the individuals within it, the way I have learned and internalized Christianity is that we are to work on our personal salvation so that ultimately, we can influence yet another person to take the person and presence of Jesus seriously and get him/her to work against oppression, from whatever source it may come.

I am not sure many agree with me. I sat down yesterday I was not sure where the message had fallen. The African-Americans in attendance, and many of the whites, seemed to understand what I was getting at, some whites, I noticed, avoided my gaze.

Recognizing injustice is hard; fighting it is even harder. It is work that makes us come face to face with our feelings and beliefs, and sometimes, that just doesn’t feel good.

One of my colleagues will share with me the “white” reaction to what I shared yesterday.

My prayer is that one day, there won’t be such a division between races in hearing words about realities that still sit with us, like racism. It has had a dominant place in our society for far too long.

A candid observation …

American Justice System Not Just for African-Americans

It’s hard for me to believe in the justice system in America.

The jury system has its good points, but juries have been wrong so often. I cannot shake the hunch that Troy Davis, executed last year, was innocent, but because a jury found him guilty, his fate was sealed. Before he ever got to the jury, though, he was a target in this American justice system which too often hones in on African-American males as “the” people who are always guilty, always to be wary of.

All one has to say is an African-American did something, and the “justice” system buys into the accusation. In the case of Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman’s claim that he acted in self-defense, despite the apparent evidence that he approached (stalked!) Trayvon, has resonated with people who are all too willing to too easily throw the book at African-Americans, throw them into jail, and throw the key to the jail away.

So many African-Americans, falsely accused or rightly arrested, are at the mercy of public defenders who too often seem not to care about the fate of their clients.Of course, many young offender, or those accused of offenses, do not help themselves by appearing in court dressed in sagging pants, bling, and other pieces of apparel that feed into stereotypes of who African-Americans are and what African-Americans do.

Everybody knows that it’s easy to get off, or at least get attention deflected from oneself, by pointing a finger at an African-American. Charles Stuart, the man who killed his pregnant wife and then blamed an anonymous black man, knew that, as did Susan Smith, the mother who drowned her two children but lied to the public, saying black men had done something to her children.

The fact of the matter is that, in America, we are still shackled by our past, our rabid, racist past, which will not go away. This country has been successful in setting up the prototype of the “bad black man,” and that image is a part of everybody’s psyche, black and white.

So, when a black and white person are in a skirmish, as in the case of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, in spite of what appears to be pretty clear-cut evidence that Zimmerman approached Martin, there is this huge pool of doubt that this young, 17-year-old African-American youth could have possibly been pure as the driven snow. George Zimmerman’s claim that he acted in self-defense feeds into the fears of too many, that another “bad black person” acted up again. The media has quietly changed the picture of Zimmerman and Martin, Zimmerman’s from a person in an orange jump suit, looking kind of mean, and Martin looking quite innocent, in a tee-shirt, to Zimmerman, smiling, in a suit and Martin in a wool skull-cap, no smile evident.

It is the feeding of racism and racial stereotypes. Zimmerman has been given a bad rap, supporters say.

Never mind that if Zimmerman had been black, and Martin, an unarmed white teen, that the story would be different. Zimmerman would have been arrested on the spot, charged at least with second degree murder, maybe even first degree murder. There would have been no credence given to a claim of self-defense, cuts on head notwithstanding. And there would have either been high bail – maybe $500,000, or no bail, not this paltry $150,000 amount set by the judge today.

At the end of the day, the American justice system has its strengths, but when it comes to treating African-Americans justly, it falls very short, and always has, with few, yet important exceptions. Just today, Judge Greg Weeks of Fayetteville commuted the sentence of Marcus Robinson to life imprisonment, saying that racial bias played a part in the severity of his sentence. Robinson was accused and convicted of killing a white man.

Those types of “admission” of racism within our justice system, however, are few and far in-between. African-Americans still cannot find peace or assurance that within our justice system, they will in fact find justice.

A candid observation …