The Name I Call Myself: On Race (Pt. 1)

How I Celebrated Black History Month
I first realized that I was treacherously unsatisfied with Black History Month about 4 years ago. I have worked in education for the past 12 years, in special education for the last 8. In this time, I have been one of only a handful of black students and coworkers, which has meant, no matter how "diverse" my workplaces have been, that I have continued to exist as a minority among minorities.

When black history month is celebrated in a school, it usually looks something like this:

• Plaster grainy, black&white photographs of famous African-Americans on the walls. Always draw from a pool of the same 20 people. Descriptions of what these people are known for may or may not be included. 
• Talk about segregation in the 1960's and the civil rights movement A LOT. Make it clear to the students that segregation WAS. Use more black&white photos (this time from the 1960's). Talk a lot about buses and water fountains (use my presence in the room as an example that segregation is totally over, if convenient). Talk about how hard it was to be a black person. Invite white students to shake their heads sorrowfully at the reality of former injustices. Do not leave room for me to comment on the lesson. 
• Talk extensively about Martin Luther King, Jr. and how, because of him, black and white people, nay all peoples in America, can be friends. Talk about how great it is that no one is racist now. Emphasize that the president is black.

In my classroom, I have a cultural awareness poster that I change every month to go along with our monthly assemblies. For February in years past, I have done what is expected: I printed out various photos of famous African-Americans and put them up on the poster, along with a poem by Langston Hughes and a map of Africa filled with titles of various careers and occupations that have been held by blacks. I spice things up by intentionally using photos of famous black Americans both in color and black&white, both dead and alive, both male and female. I always feel that I have gone the extra mile, hopefully providing visual proof that not all good black people are dead.

This year, I started asking questions. What is the point of Black History Month? Why do I cringe at the thought of it? What, if anything, can be accomplished in the 28 days we have been given to combat hundreds of years worth of disrespect and dehumanization? Then, it struck me. I find it atrocious that we have to put up, during Black History Month, pictures of African-Americans that are "worthy." It feels like the whole month is spent saying that black people are not all good-for-nothing. It feels like a display of exceptions. And, the worst part of all, it means a month of sitting through classes, staff meetings, and assemblies where people who are not black describe to other people who are not black, in my presence, with an air of unquestionable authority, what blackness is. This gave me an idea.

I returned to my poster. On a 3x5 card in bright red marker I wrote: "BLACK PEOPLE ARE. . ." Then, on more 3x5 cards, in the same red ink I wrote adjectives that corresponded with the photographs I'd chosen. Under a picture of Jesse Owens leaping over a hurdle I wrote "FAST." Under a picture of Harriet Tubman I wrote "BRAVE." Under a picture of Maya Angelou I wrote "CREATIVE." Under a picture of George Washington Carver I wrote "INTELLIGENT." I felt shocked at myself for my boldness: how dare I affirm explicitly and without permission what I know to be true? How dare I not qualify my assertion with the word "some." This is not how Black History Month is supposed to be celebrated.

I think black history month ought to be about creating new language, forming new assumptions, and letting 1,000 positive adjectives fall from our mouths, all about what it means to be black. I just want someone to run around Los Angeles, covering billboards with the phrase "Black people are. . . " and then writing in one hundred thousand good words. Why? Because the other 337 days of the year society is saying "Black people are. . ." and ending that statement in 1,000,000,000 ugly ways. The best thing we can do during Black History Month is to say that it is good to be black, and then to hush and let the words sink in, uncontested.

So I spent this Black History Month entrenched in blackness. I intentionally spent the time celebrating the work of black musicians, artists, authors, and filmmakers. I read books by black authors talking about blackness, I listened to spoken word artists talking about how to love themselves when everyone around them is calling them unlovable. I engaged in discussions with my white friends about their experiences and how they were different from my own; I had long talks with my mother about her experience of blackness in Jamaica and then during the civil rights movement in America as an immigrant. I visited a black, Episcopalian church, I listened to a lot of Nina Simone. I thought about lies I have been told my whole life. I looked for, and found, living black role models, because it is important that we know that not all good black people are dead. And I worked on explicit self-definition, remembering that most of the problems we have with race in America come from us naming each other to make ourselves look better-than, which is an act of destruction.

My Back History Month Bibliography (to date):

• Z.Z. Packer Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
• Tracy K. Smith Ordinary Light
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Americanah
• Toni Morrison Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination 
• Toni Morrison God Help the Child
• Helen Oyeyemi Boy, Snow, Bird
• Zora Neale Hurston Mules and Men
• Tamara Winfrey Harris The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America 
• Issa Rae The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
• Fran Ross Oreo
• Essence Magazine
• New African Woman Magazine 

The Principle of Self-Determination 
The point: freedom is me naming myself, narrating my own experience, and describing the scope of my own strengths and limitations. It does not matter how kind one's words or intentions are, they are judgments, limits, restrictions, invasions, and impositions. It simply isn't anyone else's job to tell me who or what I am. No one should attempt to tell me that I am worthy or that I am unworthy. Being black is what I say it is. And I say that it is good.


I'm just warming up, really.

Open Thou Our Lips: On Detachment

Detachment:

"Being free from wanting certain things to happen, and remaining so trusting of God that what is happening will be the thing you want and you will be at peace with all."
 --Kathleen Norris and Dorotheus of Gaza

I want to contemplate the virtue of detachment. A few weeks ago, a friend read me the chapter on detachment from Kathleen Norris' book Amazing Grace. This topic strikes me as appropriate not only for Lent, but also for the season of life I'm entering. My current roommate, who is one of the best and most beloved roommates I have ever had, got married about a month ago. Because all the other women I know are married or live with their parents, I could not find a roommate to share my lovely, comfortable, quiet hermitage. So, even though I had just reached the stage of early adult life where I owned furniture, had utility bills in my name, and could throw dinner parties with real dishes and silverware, I had to pack up and leave.

I'm not just sad because my dear roommate is moving over lands and seas, but also because I am giving up the place that has been my only home for the last two years. During the seven years I spent in college, I longed for a space of my own. I kept boxes of pretty dishes and table linens given to me by family friends, waiting for the time I would be able to use them. I glory in domesticity. I love having my own kitchen. I love deciding what color of paint goes on the wall, and not having to resign myself to an ugly wall-hanging because everyone else thinks it looks lovely in the living room.

It's hard to give up something that you are actually grateful for. I've prayed about this move many, many times, mostly using words like "Jesus, please, please, please, can I stay?" But even while I prayed for this, I knew that I really needed to pray that my heart would be aligned to the will of God. It's scary to feel desire clutching your heart in its fingers, controlling the rhythm of its pulse. I made a thorough search for anyone female, Jesus-following, and non-crazy. I did not find a roommate. I did not, do not, feel "free from wanting certain things to happen."
 
Instead of finding one roommate, I found five. On Saturday, I moved into an intentional community house. Most of the women who have lived there left behind piles of belongings: stacks of books, mattresses, luggage, mismatched dishes, and shabby furniture, so there is no room for my treasured belongings. I'm ashamed to admit how much this upsets me, but that is the case. The women are all wonderful people, lovers of God, and so good to me. The house has a lovely quirky charm, with odd cupboards and cabinets, a white picket fence, and a well-kept lawn. My little attic bedroom is painted in a lovely shade of grey, with walls that slant upward at about five feet, and a window that overlooks the front yard. Nonetheless, I am having a hard time with this transition, because I am confused about what my life is supposed to look like, who I am supposed to be, and what I am supposed to strive for. A spirit of detachment is wanting. I am trying hard to step away from my constant desire to read the tidy narrative of my life, as though I can stand in the place of God, observing the unfolding of the universe in time, and holding my existence in my own hands. I wish I could see inside the mind of God, because it feels like I'm regressing, going back to my life as a college student, shoved into a small space with a lot of women, unsure of where I am going or why.

 Kathleen Norris writes about a monastic understanding of detachment. As Christians, the point is not to be free of all desire, but rather our aim is to "not [allow] either worldly values or self-centeredness to distract us from what is most essential in our relationship with God, and with each other." Community is more precious than cups, and faithfulness more treasured than furniture. I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief. 

I'm still planning to store my dishes and furniture, but I want to do so with my heart believing in God's constant loving-kindness, with hands that are open to give and receive, and a mouth that is ready to sing worship and shout praise. It's nearly Good Friday after all: "Not my will, but yours, be done."

Hitherto thy love has blessed me,

 thou hast brought me to this place, 

and I know thy hand will lead me, 

safely home by thy good grace.

Amen.

"O Lord, open thou our lips, and our mouths shall show forth thy praise."

A Certain Strangling

      I have lost my voice. Spiritually, I mean. I intended to spend 2013 writing and contemplating voice, in order to regain the part of my own voice that has weakened and been lost.  This did not happen, however, and I can’t say why, though I can talk a little about what has happened to it. When I was younger, in my first few years of college, those truly, purely idealistic years, I took a risk. At the time, I believed that God wanted me to take my voice to the ends of the earth, and to recount his story of love to those who had never heard it. But when I tried to do this, when I embarked on a big, scary overseas adventure, I found that the journey was too hard, the task too large, and I failed. I discovered that I lacked the courage to live boldly every day.

            Since that time, that tragic moment of epic failure, over seven years ago, I have been walking under a sky of shame, and the weather does not change. This is important in our conversation about voice, because it was shame that silenced me. It hushed the part of my voice that spoke boldly, that took risks and chose adventure. I am trying now, after all this time, to release some of that feeling of shame. It is hard, sometimes, for me to be gracious with myself. But God is gracious, more gracious than I understand.

            I was recently describing my feelings of condemnation toward myself, and the judgment I feel emanating from God, when someone wise spoke to me and said, “No, God is kinder than this.” And, “You need to show yourself more grace.” She doesn’t know, of course, that I desperately want to feel permitted to show myself more grace. I want to be kinder to myself, but I feel that I don’t deserve it. Such kindness is unwarranted, unearned. But that is the point of grace, isn’t it? It is never about what is deserved; grace gives, lavishly, what is most needed.

            I need to feel this grace extended to me, from me, because God’s grace in this same matter is already given. Sometimes, I can see the light of grace falling from his open hands: little golden daffodils of grace wholly gratuitous. I’m going to climb inside one of those glowing yellow cups and sit a while.

            Essentially, to regain my voice, I need to remove my hands from around my own neck, until my face is no longer blue and my eyes sink back into their sockets.  

“And the ransomed of the LORD shall

            return

     and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

     they shall obtain gladness and joy,

     and sorrow and sighing shall flee

             away.”

Five Hundred a Year

I need to write. How many times have I said this, over and over, to you, dear Reader, and to myself? But I will say it again: I need to write. Today, I need to write because I feel compelled to do so. Because I am able and because I am free to do so. Last night, I read Virginia Woolf’s correct and beautifully crafted essay “A Room of One’s Own”. I read it because it caught my eye at the library on Friday, while I was laying in supplies for a Reading Party. The only Virginia Woolf I’d read before was the brief “A Mark on the Wall” in a Brit Lit Survey class in college. I like her, thus far, though I’ve not yet given her fiction a chance. We shall see. . .

I want to tell you that “A Room of One’s Own” fits perfectly, perfectly, into our discussion of voice this year. Woolf boils the whole subject of women’s writing into 2 points: to write, one must have five hundred a year and a room of one’s own. Reading Woolf renewed my growing conviction of the great difference opportunity can make in the lives of separate persons.

 These words—king, beggar, wife, husband, rich, impoverished, educated, illiterate—merely describe opportunities given or denied, they do not speak of innate qualities or potentialities. I want to highlight this idea of opportunity because I feel that it is an essential component in finding one’s voice. To have a voice, sorry, I should say, to use one’s voice, one must have the opportunity to do so. 

Everyone has a voice, but not everyone receives the tools to develop it, to give it form and meaning in language's soft vowels and scraping consonants. Those who are seldom heard--the poor, the marginalized, the illiterate, and the oppressed--have lacked opportunity, but are not voiceless. As Americans, we wonder why children in Asia tend to be better at math. Is it because American children are by nature stupid and slovenly? Are they less intelligent, or just more inclined to the arts? No. It is because children in Asia are given the opportunities necessary for excellence in numbers. We ask why, in America, white children in wealthy families are more likely to be successful than the ethnic inhabitants of inner cities. It's because of opportunity. Wealthy children tend to receive the opportunity of a better education, and are therefore more likely to find, and use, their own voices.

Woolf notes how difficult it is for a woman to write while acknowledging that her predecessors—her mothers and grandmothers—spent their lives crying out in child bed and otherwise living as mute ornaments to their husbands’ glory. Woman, Woolf notes, lacks the strong, certain tapestry of letters that man has claimed as part of his rightful dominion over the world. She cannot look back on thousands of years, reciting genealogies of female poets and playwrights. She instead looks back on a liturgy of housekeepers, servants, slaves, and sexual objects—possessions prized or disdained. Woman writing must, in hearing her own voice, recognize the silence of her sisters throughout time and space.

Because I have not been forced into one kind of life, and because I am not even among those who fought for the opportunity to speak, I get to be the Woman writing. I am able to use my voice, and I know what it sounds like. 

I am blessed. This is simply another way of saying that I have been given the opportunity to use my voice. 

Let's summarize. We have seen that to use one's voice one must first be cleansed of iniquity, otherwise all that one speaks is filth in the eyes of God. And to use one's voice, one must have a private space, and five hundred a year.

A Burning Coal

Happy New Year!

The theme for this year is voice, and I want to start thinking about this topic right now. Yesterday, while I was pondering the end of the year and the concept of using one's voice, I remembered that God made voices primarily for prayer and worship. When I think about this, and about how rarely my voice makes supplication or offers praise, I am humbled. I quoted from Isaiah chapter 6 last night, because I think it apt to begin a year-long attention to voice with a vision of holiness. The vision in chapter 6 begins with Isaiah transported into God's presence. The picture is majestic: the LORD sits on a throne surrounded by the voiced acclamations of terrifying angels while his robe fully inhabits the temple. Vision comes before voice for Isaiah, and his vision nearly renders him speechless. What Isaiah sees in God's throne room is not only God's glory, but also his own unworthiness. This is an appropriate place to begin, because what must come before voice is a recognition of my own inability to give voice to what is good. So, to begin the new year, we begin with a vision of cleansing.

    And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

 Madeleine L'Engle refers to this need of purification in her writings on art and faith. At the moment, I can't recall any specific quotations, but L'Engle writes with the understanding that voice is a gift given to unworthy recipients.We are called to serve this gift, not to boast of our own worthiness to receive it.

    Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

After visions of holiness---after receiving forgiveness--we speak. 


"O Lord, open thou our lips, and our mouths shall shew forth thy praise."

As with Ceaseless Voice They Cry

“O Lord, Open thou our lips, and our mouths shall shew forth thy praise.”

Well, friends. It's the end of another year. I'm feeling quite glad about the frequency with which I've written in this blog over the last 12 moments. Moments seems like a more apropos word than months suddenly. I'd like to keep up this blog and improve it if I can. I have another, secret blog, which I write in purely for the sake of my own feelings, and every year I select a theme to form my thoughts around. I'd like to do the same for this one. Since I have two blogs, I'll need two themes. I've decided to go with Vision for the other blog, and Voice for this one. I'm choosing voice as a theme for the year 2013 because I've been realizing, in the dregs of this year, how important it is to use one's voice and how damaging it can be, sometimes, to remain silent. I'm choosing vision for the secret blog because vision is the thing that precedes voice. One must have thoughts before one can have words. The type and content of my posts shouldn't change much, they'll just all be formed around the subject of voice. Voice can mean lots of different things, you'll see. . .

I've also realized that there is another connection between vision and voice. Prophets are strong in both of these areas. A prophet's task is to give voice to what is visible, and prophecy is one of the spiritual gifts that is supposed to be desired.

    And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
    Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
(Isaiah 6:5-7 ESV)