Holy Disruption and Easter

What shall we do with ourselves? Back in the ‘60s, most of us white folks did not have a high regard for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We especially did not like him when he troubled us around Civil Rights, plus the poor, and then the Viet Nam war.  Today, we have a national holiday named after him, though most folks I know simply take it as a day off and not a day of service or a day to march or protest or whatever.

He was a “holy disrupter” whether at the National March on Washington in 1963 or in his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” or in Memphis. His church, the National Baptist Convention, has pushed him out.  White folk and black folk bought into the move slowly mentality.

Change is painful. Black folk I know want it now. White folk I’ve known for years say that it just takes time. Don’t ruffle our feathers. Bull Conner attacked our sensibilities during that time in Birmingham with those dogs and water hoses.

Black folk are supposed to stay in their places. It’s always been that way since slave days.  It was that way during Reconstruction. That way during Jim Crow south and north. Sadly, in many places that way now.

Jesus was that way.  He upset the political powers of the day. We watched “The Passion of Christ” last night. It lined it out pretty well in all of its political maneuverings and back channel operations and even in the broad daylight.

Pontius Pilate understood what was up.  Our Supreme Court has known what’s up.  The leaders of that day demanded crucifixion. While the SCOTUS in the ‘60s got it right, but it may be unraveling before us. Redlining must stop.  The birth to prison pipeline must stop. Prison sentences for people of color that are far greater than for white people committing the same crimes must stop. The inequalities of wages must be addressed.

The woman who hosted Jesus in Luke 7:39, who insisted upon anointing His feet with oil was transgressing the norms of the day. This woman and other women, and men, crossed political lines in joining the cause of Christ. In that day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.  In our day and age, we have elected an immoral man who runs the office of the presidency in a way that gives him and his family economic preference while farmers and others are paying the price for his ill-advised policies.

In the gospel, we read again and again of stories of people who were difference makers alongside Jesus in His ministry.

In our own lives, we have difference makers.  For Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and perhaps now for us as we’ve seen the movie, “The Best of Enemies,” Ann Atwater can be a difference maker. For me, Mr. Washington was a difference maker.  In my city today, Rayce Guess is a difference maker.

Perhaps I am way out of the loop, but I wonder if the clergy in my city are behaving like the clergy in Birmingham during MLK’s time? Or, perhaps they are making differences more than I realize.  I know that by and large, ministers in my denomination are more interested in Jesus from the pulpit than Jesus in the political sphere.

Jesus was motivated to challenge the status quo, not for the sake of upsetting the status quo, but for the sake of the Kingdom.  Apparently, so was Ann Atwater, and so are the folks with the Poor People’s Campaign. Jesus rattled the cages of those who marginalized people and privileged the wealthy against the poor.  The prophets did the same.  Check out what those guys said.  Their words were inflammatory.

Personally, I cannot buy in to the story of Jesus of Nazareth without buying in to the stories of His followers. Mary of Bethany was a holy disrupter as was her Lord.

I’d like to meet a current day “Mary of Bethany” of Luke 7. Who is she in Denison, Texas? Who is she in your community?  I know some of them. They are contributing as we speak to the Black farmer documentary and are encouraging their friends to contribute. The contribute time and money to that cause and to other causes as I follow them on Facebook.

I want to be a “Holy Disrupter,” and I’d like for you to join me in that effort, not for the sake of disrupting without a cause, but for the sake of disrupting for important causes.

Faith and Politics, Prayer and Action

It’s Saturday of Easter weekend. Surely a heaviness was upon the people in and around Jerusalem. They did not grasp the notion that Sunday was coming.  What they knew most likely was that their friend was dead and a cruel, agonizing death it was.  Perhaps they had watched all of the comings and goings that Thursday night and Friday. Did they feel the earth shake? What did they experience with the earthquake and darkness upon the land? No, Sunday was not yet come, Resurrection Sunday was not yet an event to be celebrated. They were still in their darkness.

As I read Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s material, “Practicing Fusion Politics,” this morning, it occurs to me that Grandma Ann’s story was taking place at a time of great darkness. In her own words she described how the white man was the ruler of everything, and how he could throw down his load and the black man was to pick it up and then he’d give it to the womenfolk because “de nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.”

Separate but equal was the system of Jim Crow that I was born and raised under. Separate, yes, and separated, yes, and unequal certainly. To my shame, I did not know much at all about Westside High School and the Thoroughbreds for years.  I did, however, on a Saturday night of the county fair watch a football game and marvel at the speed of the athletes, the great band, and the cheers from the stands.

I am also reminded of my first place of employment and the ways in which whites were treated versus blacks.  My boss, a white guy, owned a convenience store on the outskirts of Trinity. I walked down the tracks a couple of miles to get to work for a grand total of 90 cents an hour. I was only ten, so how could I make a fuss. My boss fussed over white people buying from him, inside the store and at the gas pump. He did not do the same for black people, which even then I thought was wrong. Black work crews would drop by the store in the early morning hours, buy gas, ice, crackers, soft drinks, vienna sausage, bologna, and whatever else to make it through the long work day. The costs were all put on their tab through out the week. On Fridays or Saturdays, they’d pay up. That little convenience store also gave S & H Green Stamps as incentives.  Remember those days?

On one settle up day with one particular black gentleman, standing there in his sweat-stained work clothes, the boss man was cashing his check and subtracting the total from his pay.  Since everyone else was offered S & H Green Stamps, I did the same to him, “Do you want your greens stamps?” I asked.  He looked at me but did not answer.  Boss man looked at me and signaled for me to shut up.  The black worker in the sweat stained work clothes paid his bill, he was thanked by boss man, and he walked out.  I do not recall any more conversation between me and boss man about that, but I got the message.  I got the message clearly, very, very clearly.

And by the way, I recall as well when a white woman had her tank filled with gasoline, Boss Man gave her the green stamps with a bit of a dramatic flourish. I got it.

Boss man and his wife were church going folks.  I was a church going kid.  The others who worked there were church going folks. 

Church going and politics of the day did not connect, not in the power structure of that small town, nor in the politics of how people were treated coming to and fro.

I’ve studied the Reconstruction, and even wrote some things about it.  I read one particular book all the way through that chronicled how the folks of Colfax, Louisiana, the state of Louisiana, and the Supreme Court let down people of color and advantaged the white folks across America.

Even in this day following the break up of Jim Crow with the passing of the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th amendments to the US Constitution did not change matters in people’s hearts.  It took years and years and other actions, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and still we wrestle with ourselves. 

For folks I know personally, the administrative settlements with the USDA and DOJ, Pigford I, and Pigford II did not level the playing field in the political world of farming.

Yes, systemic racism is a deal. White supremacy demands it. Check out this video:  www.youtube.com/watach?v=SgH2aehFA&feature=youtu.be for more information.

The text in Luke 18:1-5 speaks to me. Jesus uses the story of a widow and a judge. She wanted something from him, and eventually she got what she wanted, “justice against my adversary,” despite his lack of faith in God.

So, I am left wondering, why does the faith community, including the church that is near and dear to my heart, not address racial and political issues? Why did Ann Atwater believe that faith demands action, yet we do not?

 I think we’ve settled.  We have simply settled in our world of whiteness, that it is pretty good, and that this is as good as it gets, and we have no big problems.

There are pockets of wealth in my community.  There are pockets of poverty in my community.  Some at my church are attending meetings that will address homelessness.  My church has a ministry in partnership with other churches in the area that addresses the unemployment issue of homeless and unemployed families.

People of faith are elected to political positions. I will vote for one guy in the next election.  I mentioned him last blogpost. I will continue to be in touch with him and politic for him because I think he has his finger on the pulse of the community, one in particular, in which people of color are losing their houses and lots at a surprisingly fast pace, and bigger houses are springing up in that black neighborhood.

I really, really like the “parable of the persistent widow.” She knew how to advocate for herself as she went again and again and again until she got what she wanted. Jesus, then, uses that story to say, “That’s how you ought to pray and not give up.” 

May our advocacy in our communities be the same.

Encountering the Wisdom of Others

This meandering post is Session 2 in "Reconstructing the Gospel with the Best of Enemies" materials by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrave.  Here is the link to those materials. This is my personal journey of engaging the materials from both his book and the movie as we walk our way to Easter Sunday. I hope you'll find his material in the link of Session 1, download them, go see the movie, and find out what is to experienced in your own personal narrative.

God has a way coaching me up, of moving me into spaces where my discomfort is intense and the learning curve is steep. God oftentimes uses others as instruments of peace, and sometimes leaving me initially troubled. 

Jonathan’s relationship with Ann is fascinating and multi-layered. She lived in the same HUD housing project as she’d always lived and when Jonathan observed her, wanted to learn from her, amongst other things she said yes, and that he would have to become her son. Though she has passed now, and though the Durham integration struggle of 1971 is history, she lives on in his memory and in the stories she told that are chronicled on video for all the world to see. Her philosophy of listening to the other person, getting to know then, and helping them to get what they want, and then half way there, telling them what she wants, so that they both get what they want.

That played out with C. P.  Ellis and the rest is history for all the world to learn.

My own narrative has one starting point with the call from the attorney that Friday afternoon. His challenged of “Sir, I think I have failed to communicate to you the seriousness of our concerns” sent me down a road where I learned much about the Black farmer, and family, and their plight.  I learned much about their struggles and how strong there were against enormous and relentless forces that resisted change.

Along the way, however, I may have learned more about myself than I did about them. While I am pleased to have participated in their successes before the USDA and DOJ, realizing that my role was minimal, nonetheless, I learned much more than I contributed.

Whiteness is a valuable commodity. It is worth a lot in the social, economic, educational, employment, and other places and spaces of the marketplace. With my white skin, though I was dirt poor and wore used clothes handed to me and though I had to work to put myself through high school and college, my whiteness was an advantage. I am not sure how many people of color from my hometown of Trinity were about to step across the color line and the racial barriers set. I hope there are a lot.

Then, when I began to work in the Black farmer movement, one particular gentleman took me under his wing, something like he has done again and again through the years. I will withhold his name for now, given some things we are working on, but suffice it to say that while I was useful for him, I was a person to him. He challenged me directly and indirectly to move away from my prescribed ways of thinking, perceiving, and doing. He was challenging and at times it was intense, and then at some point, it became less intense and more laced with humor and two-way conversations. 

Little did my wife and I know, but we were becoming family. We were becoming a part of a larger cause outside of our prescribed white color and roles and all.

He influenced us in ways similar to the way Ann influenced C. P. and Jonathan. On one occasion my wife and I went to a community meeting organized around the school issue.  Blacks were not getting the same advantages of the whites in their area.  They were organizing to march and to address the school board. He was also mentoring a younger man to step up into the role of a leader of the movement. In the rural south, whiteness is still powerful.  It gets people elected by other white people who vote their convictions and those convictions do not always include people of color. 

On another occasion, I watched from the sidelines as the Halifax Black Caucus marched and protested at a Halifax County Commissioners meeting.  Some spoke and some did not. After that meeting, I met via cyberspace with one of the white women on the commission who had offended people of color with her racist language.  It was an interesting conversation that last three or four months off and on. She was invested in the righteousness of her cause and intentions and was unwilling to apologize for her offensive language. Her daughter even challenged me by saying that her mother was a good woman, and was a product of her times.

I was learning about Black people and causes.  I was learning about white people and retrenchment. I was learning about myself.

C. P. Ellis had concerns that Ann realized. His son was hospitalized with a severe physical and mental condition that precluded the family from taking care of him. His children were not getting the education that they needed. When the Black elementary school burned down, eventually Ann and C. P. were appointed co-chairs to develop a plan. His KKK friends saw him wavering and once the decision was made that he’d vote for integration, he lost his business in the white community and had rocks thrown and a fire started at his gas station.

I do not know someone impacted by our community as Jonathan suggested in his materials. However, I have gotten to know a gentleman who is running again for Denison city council. Rayce “Coach” Guess and I have conversed on at least two occasions and are now connected on Facebook. We talked last Sunday for about a half hour about racial issues and our community.

He told me that there is a predominantly Black area of Denison in which people of color are losing their lots because they have not kept up with the taxes.  Or, the elders have died, the younger are not paying the taxes, or have no idea that taxes are owed, and white people are coming in and building newer and bigger homes and the neighborhood is changing rapidly.  He wants to stop that from happening. From the get-go it sounds like Denison’s version of gentrification.  I’ve seen it in Memphis, Georgetown, Austin, and other places. It looks pretty on the outside but on the inside older citizens who were born and raised in those communities are being forced out.

I do not know what poor and marginalized people in my community want. I do not know them. Mr. Guess knows, so I will follow his lead until I get to know them personally.

I will, however, study that text found at Luke 4:24-26. Maybe Jesus can coach me up there as to the meaning and application of that text.

I do not know precisely why Ann and Jonathan linked up except to say that like me, Jonathan had much to learn and Ann was the designated teacher for him.  That sounds familiar.  For me, the gentleman who is unnamed above became my teacher and remains so to this day.

Engaging Ann Atwater, "The Best of Enemies," and Racial Habits: Lesson One

What follows is a Bible study series in four parts developed by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove who was mentored, for lack of a better word, by Ann Atwater, as seen in the movie, "The Best of Enemies," a true story based in Durham, NC with C. P. Ellis and Ann Atwater becoming good friends. You can find the materials at this link along with other significant materials. Please check them out.  As part of my walk to Easter Sunday, I will be sharing some thoughts and reflections here on the blog for friends to read and walk alongside me. 

I give these exercises of “Reconstructing the Gospel with the Best of Enemies” as a prayer to you, Oh Lord. My heart is moved just with the words, “I give these exercises to you,” and I do not know why the tears well in my eyes. I am a man born into Jim Crow south into a poor family, a family that was known for hard working, much like J. P. in the movie.  I seldom had Black friends like Ann though there was Charlie and there was Cora, who is now just an image, a myth, a part of my story, but not a real person. Charla and I live in Little Creek, a community in the middle of a low SES housing addition. I feel both at home and not at home.

I read Jonathan’s section from his book and underlined the text. White supremacy may or may not be blatant. We see it on the news and we hear its rhetoric from the mouths of politicians of the land, and we hear it from various and sundry radio and television hosts.  Many proclaim it is not so, and by doing so, they let us know that it is so.  I, too, am guilty of thinking and assuming and walking in white spaces, running around as if whiteness was the only show in town, and then getting challenged left and right. Along the way there were smacks upside the head. In high school being called a “nigger lover” because Mr. Washington and I were tight and he gave me a white lab coat. Standing on the outside looking in at a card game at LCC when only Black acquaintances were playing the game. A Black chorus member getting angry at Charla and me. A white friend wanted to date a Black friend and that caused an uproar on campus. Charles traveling with us to Memphis and getting doors slammed in our faces until he started staying in the car. “You’re not getting an apartment because of me.” He knew what we did not know and could not see. There are many, many of these stories.

The movie was intense, hard to watch, and inspiring all at the same time.  KKK members were frightening. Have I known some of them? Did I grow up with some of them? Not that I know in actuality, but have heard a few things or two.

The text of Mark 8:22-25 is a curious text to study. The people brought the blind guy to Him. He took him outside the village and healed him. At first, he could only see things like trees walking and then suddenly he could see clearly, and Jesus told him not to go back into the village.  Blind to sight. Blind to seeing clearly.

I have lived my life in a white world with white assumptions. I am a good man, so why would Black people look at me with suspicion? I am so white, and seen as so white, that I need Black people to open the door for me, to vouch for me, to vet me. It has been done before and it is going on now. “He’s one of us,” I heard the lawyer say. I have never lived in a racially diverse neighborhood until now, since El Paso, and even now, my white enclave is separated from the larger world.  There is a biracial couple around the corner and there is a Hispanic couple on the corner. Strange that that gives me comfort. I had only white teachers until Mr. Washington. I had no Black teachers in any of my formal education. My Black teachers have been colleagues and friends along the way.

A racialized habit has been that of thinking that my view of the world is the one and only view of the world whether about politics or sports or anything. My habits were dominated by whiteness. Charles, Charlie, friends, Black farmers, Gary Grant, Ridgely Muhammud, New Orleans, and now have taught me otherwise. Once I entered a world of Black farmers and began to hear their stories, I could not go back.  Though Black farmers are a very, very small percentage of America, the movement was huge for me. I saw racism in ways I’d never seen it before.  I saw white people behaving in ways I’d suspected but never seen before. I can never return. I have read report after report after report. I have listened in interview after interview after interview. The stories are the same. Only the names of the people change. The advantage goes to the white male. Women and minorities are left on the side of the playing field, metaphorically, as I have seen in the Black farming world of USDA v African Americans. Shame on us for maintaining a racist system that marginalizes people.

The social cost of my racialized behaviors has been my segregated, uninformed self. A poverty of spirit and experience accompanied me until my eyes were opened, not by Jesus and His spit, but by people of color taking the time to “coach me up.” And coach me up they did. My life has been richer ever since.

The willingness to change my racialized habits has been both rewarding and costly. The rewards far outweigh the costs. Living more fully, respectfully, and engaged has provided a deeper walk and appreciation for humanity. It has also cost me personally, not that people overtly treat me differently, though at times they do, but looking at me askance, or fussing with me about things, overtly or covertly, sending me coded messages overtly or covertly of “what would you want to do that,” or “you know we have changed a lot since then,” and “you know, not all people are racist (which means me).”

I have more to learn and experience, and by the grace of God, I will continue to do so until my last breath hearing upon this earth.

Lord, I confess my blindness to you today. Open my eyes that I may see.  Thank you for those who led me to Jesus, those who led me to see my own inability to see. Thank you for your Spirit who guides. Thank you for friends who were patient and still remain patient with me and I break the bonds of slave holders’ religion. Amen

Then He Went to Church

On Monday he ignored a loan application from a Black farmer
Then on Sunday he went to church.

On Tuesday he changed the farmer's farm home plan to match what he wanted
Then on Sunday he went to church.

On Wednesday he called him a lazy ass nigger
Then on Sunday he went to church.

On Thursday he made the farmer wait and wait and wait while he sat at his desk
Then on Sunday he went to church.

On Friday he signed the foreclosure agreement
Then on Sunday he went to church.

The following Monday he failed to advise the Black farmer of disaster relief options
Then on Sunday he went to church.

The following Tuesday he told the farmer that his loan would be supervised
Then on Sunday he went to church.

The following Wednesday he told the farmer that his funds were in, too little too late
Then on Sunday he went to church.

The following Thursday he told the farmer that there was no money for him
Then on Sunday he went to church.

The following Friday he initiated yet another foreclosure agreement
Then on Sunday he went to church.

He attended the foreclosure sale on the courthouse steps
Then on Sunday he went to church, and he sang,
And he prayed,
And he may even have taught his Sunday school class.

Here I Sit

Here I sit, pondering it all, making sense of it all.  That has been one of my life-long attributes for good or for it, making sense of it all. Perhaps you can understand by the time this post is completed.

Our interviewing and filming trip to the DC area was quite good, not perfect, but generally quite good. We captured somewhere in the vicinity of 12 hours of conversation with three gentlemen who have made marks on the civil rights world. We are committed to protecting their anonymity until the documentary comes out. Then, folks will know them all. But for now, there is one photograph that I am putting out there.  It is simply a dining room table, the interviewee’s notes on his side of the table, and lovely artwork in the background.

Hidden in the depths of my files has been a schematic that I drew in late September, 1997 at a mediation hearing before the Department of Justice and the Department of Agriculture.  My presence there was not welcomed by the appointee from Justice, Michael Sitcov.  He and legal counsel wrangled over me for a few minutes until the mediators decided I could stay and speak. At some time during that day, I flipped the cover page of my written presentation over and drew the large conference table and who was sitting where both around the table and along the back wall. Legal counsel, farmers, and me on the left side of the table, mediators at the end of the table, representatives for DOJ and USDA on the right side of the table, and attorneys for the Office of General Counsel along the back wall. For some reason, I thought this was going to be a big deal, so I wanted to chronicle it via sketching that little schematic.

Here we are some twenty-two years later. The farmers have been interviewed for the documentary. Legal counsel has been interviewed. The appointee for the DOJ refused to be interviewed by us. One USDA civil rights employee has transitioned into the other life.  One USDA civil rights office employee interviewed with us. I remembered his being there.  He remembered some things about that mediation session, but not sure if he remembered me being there.  It was a big deal or all of them would not have been there.

From that day until now, several around that table remain committed to justice for Black farmers.  They have helped with names, dates, towns, and states in our pursuit of locating all of the farmers whose cases were settled via administrative processes. We have that list.  We have interviewed some and we will interview others.  Some have met their maker, but their stories are chronicled in local newspapers here and there.

I get it that I am not the dominant thread in this story.  I am only a small thread in the tapestry of what we trying to do.

However, it is with deep, deep emotions that I experience in looking at that drawing and re-reading that September day in 1997. To ponder who was there then and who is playing major roles in the development of the Black farmer documentary is intense.

On two other pages are notes from the first two rounds of the mediation. They do not paint a benevolent picture of the mediation process. The farmer and his wife are burdened by the process. The civil rights folks are seriously wanting this to be settled well on behalf of the farmers. The DOJ, however, has a client, and that client is the United States of America and the DOJ.  They are bearing down hard on the farmer and spouse, they are grinding them emotionally, and they are protecting the government well. At that moment the people do not matter.  The institution matters. Yes, I said it.  The institution matters.

A couple of quotes from Mrs. Farmer and their legal counsel sum up the day.  Their words are written there in my handwriting at the bottom of the page:  this is a “dark cloud,” and “let us go. Release us from this.” 

This went on that day. Land loss is ongoing for Black farmers. The battle is not over.  The battle will not be over until justice is served and until the USDA recognizes that it has perpetuated racism by its aggressive and passive efforts.  Those guilty of racism and discriminative actions toward Black farmers did not lose their jobs.  In some instances, they even got promoted. Even when discrimination was proved, employees kept their jobs.  This lack of accountability is just plain wrong.

There is much more to be told.