Friday, June 23, 2017

Black and Dead, White and Alive

Haunted by the things you see
Things not to be unseen
Brutal and ugly mean and deadly
No matter where you’ve been.

Driving his car
Not going too far
Pulled over for a missing light
Bullets in his body that very night.

39 seconds was all it took
An innocent man’s life
Played by what book
Child’s screams into the night.

White cops
Out on patrol
Black driver friend child
The sad tale unfolds.

White cops
Out on patrol
White driver friend and child
A different tale would be told.

The words the words the words
The blast the blast the blasts
Blood is all around
The child screams
The mother wails
These lives won’t last.
 
Living while black
Playing while black
Driving while black
Farming while black
Pulled over while black
Someone is scared of the black the black man.

They all mean the same
That one thing is for sure
Black lives don’t matter
You can see it in the book.

Their mamas weep
Their friends rage
Black lives don’t matter
Who will start turning the page.

Whiteness reigns
In all of its shapes and spaces
How can I be hopeful
When I look into their faces.

Jury has spoken
Police versus the man
When the man is black
Just part of the plan.

Where is hope
Is it lying in the grass
When will it arrive
Will it ever come to pass.

Our babies what will they see
Years down the road
People treated right
Truth grace love carryin’ a righteous load.

 

Thursday, June 15, 2017

Where Do You Sit or Stand Between the Cross and the Lynching Tree

This was a slightly different post I added over at www.letjusticeroll.blogspot.com back a few months ago.  It describes a conversation I had with one of my grandsons and then a situation that happened to me back in my adolescence.

I had a conversation with one of my grandsons after breakfast today.  That is not unusual except for two things.  One, he lives across the street, so we rarely have breakfast together. Second, we talked about a book I was reading by James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree. I was not much older than him when the story I tell below happened. It was one of those times in which the cross and the lynching tree collided, not literally but symbolically and historically. The fact that my friends had to sit apart was an artifact of those horrific times. I was more naïve then. He is more informed now. He cares deeply about these sorts of things.

For several years, I have been noting on Sunday mornings exactly where members of my family sit in church. I sketch out the pews on a piece of paper and note who sits where. Sometimes we sit on two rows.  Sometimes we take up almost the entire length of one row.  One of my grandsons asked why I did that.  My response to him was that I just wanted to remember.  These days we sit with different family members as our church residence has changed. I remember those days and times by simply looking at the dates and who sat where. An odd ritual for sure.

Sometimes the grandsons sit between their mema and me.  Sometimes they sit to the left and to the right of us. One Sunday it will be one grandson to the left or the right and on another Sunday, it will be another grandson.  Always the same people, but we often sit in different locations. There seems to be no rhyme or reason, just the will of folks at the moment.

I remember from days gone by a rather curious and demeaning decision about where people were to sit.  It made an impression on me, or in some ways it may have scarred me or spurred me on.

The small town church I attended was having a "gospel meeting."  The meeting started on a Sunday and ended on a Wednesday night. In my zeal to invite people to attend the gospel meeting, I invited members of the black church of Christ in town  to attend. I was in my mid-teen years and worked at a grocery store, probably the point of contact with African American brothers and sisters.  So, on a given evening, five or six of our brothers and sisters showed up for church. It caused quite a stir. We greeted them, shook hands, and nervously invited them in to sit.  I was actually glad to see them. Others were noticeably distressed.

At first, my black brothers and sisters sat on the very back row in the small church building on the right side of the auditorium.  Then, with a burst of energy, some of the men of the church went into the back classroom and brought out two old pews from days gone by.  These pews were placed to the front and left of the pulpit from which the preacher would be preaching.  There the pews were placed and there our African American brothers and sisters were invited, or rather told, to sit.

It was an embarrassing occasion. It was the mid-60s. Brothers and sisters in Christ were troubled by the social rules of the day. Lost are lost. Black is black. White is white. Invite, maybe. Sit together, no.

This act of segregation and separation actually caused more of a distinction than would have happened if they had been allowed to sit on the back row.

I felt guilty about that then and I bear some of the scars now.  Through my naive and well intentioned actions, some of my people embarrassed some of my people.  Some of my people were embarrassed by my people. What was perhaps usual and customary for them at the time was new and novel for me. That scene is still emblazoned in my memory.

I was not a political man, or even a political kid.  I just was on fire for God. Just trying to do right in the world.

Those were the times.

I was just a kid.

On those days when I note who sits where in church, I remember.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Evil Exists Across Our Land

In the early morning hours I spent some time in Stride Toward Freedom, Martin Luther King Jr.'s story of the Montgomery bus boycott. I was moved by one of his sentences:  "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."  These words prompted the following words.

In the early morning hours
Not long till the break of day
There are those who are working
Just to torment and have their way.

Politics of the powerful
It sure looks like that to me
I hope I am wrong
It is before us now we see.

In the early morning hours
While people’s hearts are at rest
Some are already plotting harm
Wounding the souls of the best.

Yes, evil exists across our land
It hides in every shadow
It looks and lurches at any moment
Until it finds its prey, no matter.

Destruction is on their lips
Chaos is in their renown
The intent is very clear
To turn things upside down.

In the hearts and in the decisions
Of the one and the many
Spirits of people are at risk
Of malevolence there is plenty.

Our institutions have deserted us
Toward whiteness and maleness
They cast aside all others
Lord, bring back your holiness.

The people in power are jealous
For their positions and fame
While the poor and the homeless
Live with emotional pain.

Racial epithets are hurled through the crowd
The words pierce the soul
Of those who are young
And those who are old.

Racism sexism classism
Just a few
Bigotry and xenophobia
Around things people spew.
 
Policies are made by the powerful
Behind doors that are closed
Things get re-arranged
But evil gets exposed.

We gather up people and send them away
Young and old, bad and the good
Just because their names
Are not understood.

That black woman is in harm’s way
That Muslim teen is at risk
She who is transgendered
They all are summarily dismissed.
 
Acceptance of evil when we see it
Makes out of all of us
Perpetrators and cooperators
Until our bodies are dust.

Causes are righteous
They bring out our best
We will not live at peace
Until the people sleep and rest.

 

Friday, June 2, 2017

Images Near and Far, Yesterday and Today

The brown neck strains under the weight
The body pulled by gravity downward
The rope looped tightly around the tree
When will this dark soul be set free.

The people they gather from near and far
Thousands upon thousands come for the sport
They gaze and look and talk and stare
Upon this dark soul’s body hanging up there.

Lynching as public theater so some say
It was a time of bitter ugliness and cruelty
Brown skin less valuable than white skin
And who made that decision and still live therein.

The left versus the right and the right versus the left
Where is there a middle in this political world
Burning effigies we see left and right
The ugliness against the man goes on into the night.

The comedian was very foolish and we all now know
Some were gleeful and some were silent
The ugly side of the world is again amongst us all
We have chosen our sides upon the bitterness we call.

Why one scene is ok at that particular time
But now the same thing with the pages flipped
Goes against the grain of all that we hold dear
It is time for an accounting of all of us far and near.

Racism is wrong is wrong is wrong is wrong
Hatred is ugly is ugly is ugly is ugly
But sides we choose and truth we play loose
Until someone we love has his head in a noose.