Insisting on Harmony
Preached 7/12/2020 at SouthWest UU in N. Royalton OH
By Rev. Meg Mathieson
I was fortunate to meet some wonderful people in seminary, and none more brilliant and warm than my friend Dr. Teman Cooke. Teman is a professor of Physics and a published author of both fiction and non-fiction. A true Renaissance man, Teman also has done a TEDx talk, titled “The Scientific Method is Crap.” We graduated from seminary together and made a pact that if he ever got around to starting his own religion, I could be his first priest.
I called on Teman this past week to help me speak on racial issues. As a noticeably tall and imposing black man, Teman’s life is one of constant exposure to the sort of racism that many of us here rarely have to think about. Having recently lost a family member to COVID, Teman was not able to give me his time this week, but he gave me his words. I’ll now read aloud a piece that he wrote back in 2013, about his emotional state after the George Zimmerman acquittal.
This is a long reading, and will serve as both a reflection, and as the beginning of my sermon. So when I finish Temans’ words, I’ll go into my own thoughts. You’ll find the sermon brief today, after this powerful reflection.
These words may be jarring coming out of my mouth, they are the words of someone of another gender and race, someone whose life in their body is seen as a crime, while this body you see before you is seen as a, well, a good American? Someone innocent?
About the Trayvon martin case, Teman says:
It was the acquittal on manslaughter charges that got to me. Disappointed? Oh yes. Angry? Quite. But mostly, I was sad and hurt and afraid. Because, deep down, this verdict sends the same message I’ve heard all along. Black males have no value in this society. Everything I do, and by extension, everything I am, is worthless.
Now you may disagree. “No, that’s not right! I can’t believe anyone would send you that message!” If so, I truly envy you, because you are able to speak from a place of privilege that I have never in my life been able to attain. A level of privilege that supports and encourages that American dream we’ve heard so much about – the one that says that you have the freedom to do as you please (within reason), that hard work and dedication produces success, and that anyone and everyone has the potential to achieve anything, if you only set your mind to it.
Because in my life, the message I’ve gotten has been, “You’re not quite good enough to sit with us.”
I remember when my parents moved to the suburbs when I was ten, a month after school started. I remember sitting in the principal’s office, taking a test to find out if I would get into the gifted program or not. I remember him telling me that, although I was smart, I wasn’t quite up to snuff for their program. That I had missed the score cutoff by one. I’d gotten a 6 when I’d needed a 7, or maybe I needed an 8 and had gotten 7 – I don’t really remember now. I don’t even remember how the score was determined, or what it measured. What I remember is how I felt. Disappointed. Angry. Sad, hurt, and afraid. I remember the sick feeling in my stomach as I realized how they saw me – a black inner city kid invading the safety and sanctity of their suburban refuge. I wasn’t good enough to sit with them.
I remember walking home from work when I was fourteen, from a serving job I hated, and being followed by a police car for a block and a half. This wasn’t at 7PM in February; this was mid-afternoon in the height of summer. I remember the police officer pulling over, asking me what I was doing, where I lived, and asking me to get into the back of his car so he could drive me home. I remember that it didn’t really feel much like a request, and I remember wondering if I was going to be let out of the car once I was home. Or if I would get home.
I remember when I was accepted into an exchange program to go to France when I was 15. I was one of the youngest students ever accepted into the program. Unlike most of the other students, however, they had problems placing me with families.
Evidently the undesirability of dark skinned Americans was just as well known in France as it was here. I remember how I felt when I learned that they didn’t want me in their homes. I wasn’t good enough to sit with them, either.
I remember when I got my PSAT scores back during my senior year in high school. I’d taken them while in France, and had to travel alone by train to another city to take them. Even with all of that, I’d got the highest score at my high school. However, the second highest score, a white male, was awarded the National Merit Scholarship, and I received the National Achievement Scholarship, which is restricted to only African Americans. I was explicitly told that I was being given the National Achievement Scholarship so that they could give money to that white male, too. I don’t blame him, of course; he had no say in the decision. But the message to me was clear all the same. Even if I could compete, and win, on the same field, I wouldn’t be allowed to. I wasn’t good enough to sit there, either.
I remember learning about American history.
It’s not just that we’re not good enough to sit with them now; we’ve never been good enough to sit with them.
Many Americans still don’t want us sitting with them.
I remember this past Friday afternoon, when I nearly had a panic attack triggered by the thought of going to Barnes and Noble. I’ll explain. Some of you may know that I’ve been writing a book on physics. If you ever decide to write a book, I’ll warn you – you’ll get a lot of suggestions and ideas, both solicited and unsolicited. One of the ideas I got sounded pretty good – “When you have a cover image you like, take it to Barnes and Noble – see if it fits in with the other books on the shelf.” Hey, that makes sense! In a way, that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life, so why wouldn’t I try to make sure that the cover of my book fits in as well? I am painfully aware that judgment of the cover determines whether the book even gets a chance to be read. Some of you may also know that I received the proof copies on Wednesday. Actual physical books, that I can hold and read. I thought they looked really good, but… will the cover fit in? If it shows up on the bookshelf, will people treat it like all of the other books that are there? Or will it stand out, be rejected, and dumped on? Well, there’s an obvious way to check this, right? Take my proof copies to Barnes and Nobles and compare! Duh.
Except… how am I, a tall black male, likely to be received when I walk into Barnes and Nobles and put my books up on the shelf?
More importantly, how am I, a tall black male, likely to be received when I attempt to walk out of of Barnes and Nobles with the two books I entered with?
It’s a script for which I am very familiar, and and I found myself spiraling through mental preparations for what I would say when – not if, but when – someone accused me of stealing. That, of course, was followed by a more rational reaction. “Based on every other time you’ve been there, no one is likely to even notice that you’re there at all.”
“But if they do…”
As I drove down State Route 30, I could feel myself getting worked up. And the closer I got to Fruitville Pike, the worse it got. At the light I decided. “The cover is fine. It’s not like I can change it now anyway,” I told myself, and turned right, towards Panera and Giant and Ruby Tuesday. As I headed north, I felt like complete crap. I had failed. I was a coward. And the worst thing about it? If I were a white male, I doubt any of that would have even occurred to me. I would have been at B&N at that very moment, bragging to anyone who had listened that I had written a book, and that it would appear on these very shelves just like this – and I would have completely claimed that space, and those books, and the entire experience of being an author. It would not have occurred to me that I should be afraid. That there was anything to be afraid of.
I turned the car around and went to B&N. I have no idea how I looked; I walked in with my books obvious enough that any security camera footage would clearly show that I had entered with them. I went straight to the science section and held my books up to compare. Then I walked out, hands out, again making it obvious that I only had the same two books that I had entered with.
My books – the ones with my name on the front and my picture on the back – the ones with the words PROOF written on the last page in big letters – the ones that I was deathly afraid would be taken from me as I was labeled a thief and a criminal.
Because that’s what comes with being black. It’s a package given to you at birth, like a pre-made lunch or a value pack. You get everything in it; you don’t get to pick and choose. You have to take all of it. It’s the story of who you are, and what you can do and what you can have. It’s the story of who you are allowed to be, and what you are allowed to do, and what you are allowed to own. It’s a story of which assumptions will be made – about your history, your abilities, your motives, your worth. It’s the story of who you’re allowed to sit with.
Who are you sitting with?
You’d think that all of this exclusivity and privilege and such would at least be good for white people, right? Ok, the package of blackness bites. No one in their right mind would choose it, if they’d been given a choice. But the package of being white – that’s got to be great! I mean, what’s the central message of that package? The American Dream: “The fruit of life is ripe, and all you have to do is reach out and pluck it! You can be anything you want, you can do anything you want – there’s nothing limiting you at all! You are Good and Noble and Right. We need you to sit with us.” Man, with these kinds of positive messages (and, dare I mention, the industry, government, and social convention that backs it), how can white people have any problems?
Except as I did research on this I came to realize this really bizarre thing. The package of whiteness is actually incredibly damaging – up to and including this positive individualist message of ability.
What’s more, the fallout doesn’t just hurt individual whites, it’s shredding white community. For example, almost 80% – that’s 4 out of 5 – drug users are white, and substance use disorders (which includes both substance abuse and addiction) occur for whites at a rate almost twice that for blacks, even controlling for other factors. A Yale University study found that, among college aged women, white females were significantly more likely to become problem drinkers than black females. The most promiscuous and least serious individuals at college were – you guessed it – rich white students. Having a perception of no limitations does not necessarily lead to good outcomes.
In addition, I’ve heard a lot about the loss of history and culture – the loss of connection to homeland and to ancestry. Tim Wise, for example, talked about the choice his grandfather had to make upon arrival to this country – he could hold onto his past, OR he could adopt the privilege of the present. I’ll trust that you can correctly guess which choice he took. To paraphrase a Disney movie, “You’ll get what you wanted, but you’ll lose what you had.”
It’s worse than that, though. Not only are you discouraged here from remembering your own family history, you’re discouraged from remembering shared history. From the revisionist accounts of the Founders intentions to the whitewashing of the effects of slavery, we have literally been trained not to see the effects of the past on the circumstances of today. But when you lose the ability to see causal relationships over time you also lose perspective. And the only way to make sure that you can get what you want – Remember, just reach out and pluck it – is by doing everything right now, in this moment.
You can’t just fight injustice, you have to conquer it, and bury it, and all of that has to be done before dinner. You can’t just own a profitable company or have a healthy economy, you have to have exponential growth, and make better profits than ever before, and it has to happen this quarter. You can’t just teach this class or bake that cake or enjoy this meal. You have to educate a generation, create a masterpiece, have a transcendent experience. When we cut off the past, we lose the future – and today becomes meaningless.
Other consequences, however? Even if you manage to avoid the dangers of excess, and you consider the constant noise of living in the moment an acceptable compromise, you still aren’t actually guaranteed all of the success and happiness you’ve been promised. It’s quite likely that, even with all of the resources tucked nice and neat into the package of whiteness, that you will still fail in some way. Who’s fault is that? Who takes the blame?
Blame yourself? Unlikely, but I will note that the suicide rate among whites is double that of all other minority groups.
Self-medicate? I’ve already talked about out of control drug use.
Wish for a reset button? Consider the growing fascination with apocalypse scenarios – World War Z, the Mayan Prophesies, the Second Coming of Christ? Who are the folks who always seem to survive in these fantasies?
Blame others? I could talk about the discussions surrounding welfare, immigration, education, affirmative action policies, police profiling, and, of course, George Zimmerman’s “These a-holes, they always get away” comment. But none of that really affects you.
What affects you are the shootings – where someone, almost always a white male – walks into a random public location and begins firing indiscriminately. People have started asking the question – “What is it about white males that makes them more likely to flip out and kill other random white people?” How ironic would it be if the answer was rooted in the same evil that’s plagued blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asians? Racism.
In fact, the more I looked at what comes in the package of white privilege, the less appealing it appeared. It’s like one of those sickly sweet treats you can get in the checkout lane. Man, it tastes really good, but there’s a lurking suspicion that it’s really not that healthy for you. And for God’s sake, whatever you do don’t look at the label! You don’t really want to know what’s in it. Just enjoy it for what it is, and don’t think too much about the physical, spiritual, financial, emotional, and moral costs.
What’s funny is that once you open the packages and really look inside, it becomes fairly clear how much really poisonous stuff is in there. It’s painful. Aggravating. Disappointing. Terrifying. Unfortunately, unlike the crap in the checkout lane, you never had any say in whether or not to pick it up. It’s yours, by birth, just like that package of black has been and always will be mine.
That, however, doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. The great thing about pre-made lunches and value packs is that once they’re handed over to you they’re yours. It’s possible to look them over, open them up, and start pulling the crap out.
One of the things I didn’t explain earlier was why I turned around and went back to Barnes and Nobles. Oh sure, I don’t like thinking of myself as a coward, but I’m a pragmatist, too.
I’d rather be a coward and free than a brave black man in prison because of a misunderstanding. The reason I turned around, the reason I wrote the book in the first place, the reason I’ve fought so hard to get the things that I have is because…
I have much to offer. I am valuable. Where I sit is none of your concern, and in fact has nothing to do with you at all. Just because my package came with that crap doesn’t mean I have to take it into me and claim it.
Nothing will bring Trayvon Martin back to life. And George Zimmerman will walk free. Justice? My package came with the clear understanding that life isn’t fair. One of the small benefits inside it, I think. But perhaps in the acquittal was a gift too: an invitation to peek inside and look at the crap I’ve swallowed as part of being black in America. A chance to accept that everything is not wine and roses, and that a lot of what has been forced upon me is destructive. A chance to vomit out some of the more self-destructive portions of that. God knows I’ve needed it – and I know that this process of purging will likely last the rest of my life. Rejecting the negative that is still being shoved down my throat. And maybe, just maybe, it offers a chance to challenge others to do the same – to look inside of themselves, and at the harmful crap they’ve inadvertently swallowed (and are continuing to swallow) as part of their cultural indoctrination.
What’s in your package?
(Meg)
And to answer my dear friend Teman, I’d say, I was handed a delicious package of sweets, just like he guessed.
I encourage you to pause for a moment and reflect on the “package” that was bestowed upon you when you were born.
The things that are expected of you because of the body you happen to inhabit. Physical strength, emotional strength, intelligence, lack of intelligence?
I come from a long line of adorable, diminutive women who have historically been frustrated when folks don’t take their intelligence seriously.
We necessarily use shorthand to assume things about people. Our brains can’t help but do it. We are efficient pattern-recognizing machines, and that ability to make quick assumptions actually serves us well in assumptions about the world around us. An apple that looks bruised probably won’t taste good. A growling dog is a threat. I see this and it equals that.
The assumptions we are taught early and often by cartoons and schools, and when they apply to humans, they can be untrue and unhelpful, such as fat equals lazy and glasses equals smart. The more subtle ones that you may have picked up from your family or acquaintances like effeminite men are gay or black people are good at sports.
Of course we know that there are seriously harmful assumptions as well.
At the Black Lives Matter march in Parma last month, I found myself astounded at the number of young white men that I would have otherwise judged on their looks as probable racists, I noticed my own biases, the assumptions I make about others.
So many young white men showed up in Parma, where I, very judgmentally and wrongly, expect to see racists, but showed up with their red-white-and-blue tee shirts and tattoos and beer bellies, to support Black Lives Matter.
I need to update my assumptions. Or at least, I need to remember to continue questioning them.
Because our brains will always jump to conclusions. The trick to harmony is to notice these conclusions and scrutinize them.
Going back to our theme of Harmony, I want to point out that Harmony is the blending of melodies. The blending of different sounds. If everyone is singing the same, it’s not a harmony. You need diversity of sound to create a harmony.
Martin Luther King Jr has said that “Life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.”
Opposites in harmony. Harmony cannot be harmony without tension, without differences, diversity.
The Sufis teach that Harmony is spread throughout the world by finding and creating harmony in your own life. It is said that the wise master hears the harmony even in strife and in war.
Here’s the call to action part of the sermon. Here is what we can do. We can recognize the issues that are getting in the way. We can think about a story or a thought you heard today that stuck with you. We can cultivate radical harmony in our own lives. Just as Teman declared “I am valuable” against everything the world has told him, we can all do the same.
Those who push others down suffer from a feeling of inferiority. Let us declare ourselves valuable and stake our seats at the table. You can sit with us! Please do! More voices just makes the harmony more beautiful!
Preached 7/12/2020 at SouthWest UU in N. Royalton OH
By Rev. Meg Mathieson
I was fortunate to meet some wonderful people in seminary, and none more brilliant and warm than my friend Dr. Teman Cooke. Teman is a professor of Physics and a published author of both fiction and non-fiction. A true Renaissance man, Teman also has done a TEDx talk, titled “The Scientific Method is Crap.” We graduated from seminary together and made a pact that if he ever got around to starting his own religion, I could be his first priest.
I called on Teman this past week to help me speak on racial issues. As a noticeably tall and imposing black man, Teman’s life is one of constant exposure to the sort of racism that many of us here rarely have to think about. Having recently lost a family member to COVID, Teman was not able to give me his time this week, but he gave me his words. I’ll now read aloud a piece that he wrote back in 2013, about his emotional state after the George Zimmerman acquittal.
This is a long reading, and will serve as both a reflection, and as the beginning of my sermon. So when I finish Temans’ words, I’ll go into my own thoughts. You’ll find the sermon brief today, after this powerful reflection.
These words may be jarring coming out of my mouth, they are the words of someone of another gender and race, someone whose life in their body is seen as a crime, while this body you see before you is seen as a, well, a good American? Someone innocent?
About the Trayvon martin case, Teman says:
It was the acquittal on manslaughter charges that got to me. Disappointed? Oh yes. Angry? Quite. But mostly, I was sad and hurt and afraid. Because, deep down, this verdict sends the same message I’ve heard all along. Black males have no value in this society. Everything I do, and by extension, everything I am, is worthless.
Now you may disagree. “No, that’s not right! I can’t believe anyone would send you that message!” If so, I truly envy you, because you are able to speak from a place of privilege that I have never in my life been able to attain. A level of privilege that supports and encourages that American dream we’ve heard so much about – the one that says that you have the freedom to do as you please (within reason), that hard work and dedication produces success, and that anyone and everyone has the potential to achieve anything, if you only set your mind to it.
Because in my life, the message I’ve gotten has been, “You’re not quite good enough to sit with us.”
I remember when my parents moved to the suburbs when I was ten, a month after school started. I remember sitting in the principal’s office, taking a test to find out if I would get into the gifted program or not. I remember him telling me that, although I was smart, I wasn’t quite up to snuff for their program. That I had missed the score cutoff by one. I’d gotten a 6 when I’d needed a 7, or maybe I needed an 8 and had gotten 7 – I don’t really remember now. I don’t even remember how the score was determined, or what it measured. What I remember is how I felt. Disappointed. Angry. Sad, hurt, and afraid. I remember the sick feeling in my stomach as I realized how they saw me – a black inner city kid invading the safety and sanctity of their suburban refuge. I wasn’t good enough to sit with them.
I remember walking home from work when I was fourteen, from a serving job I hated, and being followed by a police car for a block and a half. This wasn’t at 7PM in February; this was mid-afternoon in the height of summer. I remember the police officer pulling over, asking me what I was doing, where I lived, and asking me to get into the back of his car so he could drive me home. I remember that it didn’t really feel much like a request, and I remember wondering if I was going to be let out of the car once I was home. Or if I would get home.
I remember when I was accepted into an exchange program to go to France when I was 15. I was one of the youngest students ever accepted into the program. Unlike most of the other students, however, they had problems placing me with families.
Evidently the undesirability of dark skinned Americans was just as well known in France as it was here. I remember how I felt when I learned that they didn’t want me in their homes. I wasn’t good enough to sit with them, either.
I remember when I got my PSAT scores back during my senior year in high school. I’d taken them while in France, and had to travel alone by train to another city to take them. Even with all of that, I’d got the highest score at my high school. However, the second highest score, a white male, was awarded the National Merit Scholarship, and I received the National Achievement Scholarship, which is restricted to only African Americans. I was explicitly told that I was being given the National Achievement Scholarship so that they could give money to that white male, too. I don’t blame him, of course; he had no say in the decision. But the message to me was clear all the same. Even if I could compete, and win, on the same field, I wouldn’t be allowed to. I wasn’t good enough to sit there, either.
I remember learning about American history.
It’s not just that we’re not good enough to sit with them now; we’ve never been good enough to sit with them.
Many Americans still don’t want us sitting with them.
I remember this past Friday afternoon, when I nearly had a panic attack triggered by the thought of going to Barnes and Noble. I’ll explain. Some of you may know that I’ve been writing a book on physics. If you ever decide to write a book, I’ll warn you – you’ll get a lot of suggestions and ideas, both solicited and unsolicited. One of the ideas I got sounded pretty good – “When you have a cover image you like, take it to Barnes and Noble – see if it fits in with the other books on the shelf.” Hey, that makes sense! In a way, that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life, so why wouldn’t I try to make sure that the cover of my book fits in as well? I am painfully aware that judgment of the cover determines whether the book even gets a chance to be read. Some of you may also know that I received the proof copies on Wednesday. Actual physical books, that I can hold and read. I thought they looked really good, but… will the cover fit in? If it shows up on the bookshelf, will people treat it like all of the other books that are there? Or will it stand out, be rejected, and dumped on? Well, there’s an obvious way to check this, right? Take my proof copies to Barnes and Nobles and compare! Duh.
Except… how am I, a tall black male, likely to be received when I walk into Barnes and Nobles and put my books up on the shelf?
More importantly, how am I, a tall black male, likely to be received when I attempt to walk out of of Barnes and Nobles with the two books I entered with?
It’s a script for which I am very familiar, and and I found myself spiraling through mental preparations for what I would say when – not if, but when – someone accused me of stealing. That, of course, was followed by a more rational reaction. “Based on every other time you’ve been there, no one is likely to even notice that you’re there at all.”
“But if they do…”
As I drove down State Route 30, I could feel myself getting worked up. And the closer I got to Fruitville Pike, the worse it got. At the light I decided. “The cover is fine. It’s not like I can change it now anyway,” I told myself, and turned right, towards Panera and Giant and Ruby Tuesday. As I headed north, I felt like complete crap. I had failed. I was a coward. And the worst thing about it? If I were a white male, I doubt any of that would have even occurred to me. I would have been at B&N at that very moment, bragging to anyone who had listened that I had written a book, and that it would appear on these very shelves just like this – and I would have completely claimed that space, and those books, and the entire experience of being an author. It would not have occurred to me that I should be afraid. That there was anything to be afraid of.
I turned the car around and went to B&N. I have no idea how I looked; I walked in with my books obvious enough that any security camera footage would clearly show that I had entered with them. I went straight to the science section and held my books up to compare. Then I walked out, hands out, again making it obvious that I only had the same two books that I had entered with.
My books – the ones with my name on the front and my picture on the back – the ones with the words PROOF written on the last page in big letters – the ones that I was deathly afraid would be taken from me as I was labeled a thief and a criminal.
Because that’s what comes with being black. It’s a package given to you at birth, like a pre-made lunch or a value pack. You get everything in it; you don’t get to pick and choose. You have to take all of it. It’s the story of who you are, and what you can do and what you can have. It’s the story of who you are allowed to be, and what you are allowed to do, and what you are allowed to own. It’s a story of which assumptions will be made – about your history, your abilities, your motives, your worth. It’s the story of who you’re allowed to sit with.
Who are you sitting with?
You’d think that all of this exclusivity and privilege and such would at least be good for white people, right? Ok, the package of blackness bites. No one in their right mind would choose it, if they’d been given a choice. But the package of being white – that’s got to be great! I mean, what’s the central message of that package? The American Dream: “The fruit of life is ripe, and all you have to do is reach out and pluck it! You can be anything you want, you can do anything you want – there’s nothing limiting you at all! You are Good and Noble and Right. We need you to sit with us.” Man, with these kinds of positive messages (and, dare I mention, the industry, government, and social convention that backs it), how can white people have any problems?
Except as I did research on this I came to realize this really bizarre thing. The package of whiteness is actually incredibly damaging – up to and including this positive individualist message of ability.
What’s more, the fallout doesn’t just hurt individual whites, it’s shredding white community. For example, almost 80% – that’s 4 out of 5 – drug users are white, and substance use disorders (which includes both substance abuse and addiction) occur for whites at a rate almost twice that for blacks, even controlling for other factors. A Yale University study found that, among college aged women, white females were significantly more likely to become problem drinkers than black females. The most promiscuous and least serious individuals at college were – you guessed it – rich white students. Having a perception of no limitations does not necessarily lead to good outcomes.
In addition, I’ve heard a lot about the loss of history and culture – the loss of connection to homeland and to ancestry. Tim Wise, for example, talked about the choice his grandfather had to make upon arrival to this country – he could hold onto his past, OR he could adopt the privilege of the present. I’ll trust that you can correctly guess which choice he took. To paraphrase a Disney movie, “You’ll get what you wanted, but you’ll lose what you had.”
It’s worse than that, though. Not only are you discouraged here from remembering your own family history, you’re discouraged from remembering shared history. From the revisionist accounts of the Founders intentions to the whitewashing of the effects of slavery, we have literally been trained not to see the effects of the past on the circumstances of today. But when you lose the ability to see causal relationships over time you also lose perspective. And the only way to make sure that you can get what you want – Remember, just reach out and pluck it – is by doing everything right now, in this moment.
You can’t just fight injustice, you have to conquer it, and bury it, and all of that has to be done before dinner. You can’t just own a profitable company or have a healthy economy, you have to have exponential growth, and make better profits than ever before, and it has to happen this quarter. You can’t just teach this class or bake that cake or enjoy this meal. You have to educate a generation, create a masterpiece, have a transcendent experience. When we cut off the past, we lose the future – and today becomes meaningless.
Other consequences, however? Even if you manage to avoid the dangers of excess, and you consider the constant noise of living in the moment an acceptable compromise, you still aren’t actually guaranteed all of the success and happiness you’ve been promised. It’s quite likely that, even with all of the resources tucked nice and neat into the package of whiteness, that you will still fail in some way. Who’s fault is that? Who takes the blame?
Blame yourself? Unlikely, but I will note that the suicide rate among whites is double that of all other minority groups.
Self-medicate? I’ve already talked about out of control drug use.
Wish for a reset button? Consider the growing fascination with apocalypse scenarios – World War Z, the Mayan Prophesies, the Second Coming of Christ? Who are the folks who always seem to survive in these fantasies?
Blame others? I could talk about the discussions surrounding welfare, immigration, education, affirmative action policies, police profiling, and, of course, George Zimmerman’s “These a-holes, they always get away” comment. But none of that really affects you.
What affects you are the shootings – where someone, almost always a white male – walks into a random public location and begins firing indiscriminately. People have started asking the question – “What is it about white males that makes them more likely to flip out and kill other random white people?” How ironic would it be if the answer was rooted in the same evil that’s plagued blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asians? Racism.
In fact, the more I looked at what comes in the package of white privilege, the less appealing it appeared. It’s like one of those sickly sweet treats you can get in the checkout lane. Man, it tastes really good, but there’s a lurking suspicion that it’s really not that healthy for you. And for God’s sake, whatever you do don’t look at the label! You don’t really want to know what’s in it. Just enjoy it for what it is, and don’t think too much about the physical, spiritual, financial, emotional, and moral costs.
What’s funny is that once you open the packages and really look inside, it becomes fairly clear how much really poisonous stuff is in there. It’s painful. Aggravating. Disappointing. Terrifying. Unfortunately, unlike the crap in the checkout lane, you never had any say in whether or not to pick it up. It’s yours, by birth, just like that package of black has been and always will be mine.
That, however, doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. The great thing about pre-made lunches and value packs is that once they’re handed over to you they’re yours. It’s possible to look them over, open them up, and start pulling the crap out.
One of the things I didn’t explain earlier was why I turned around and went back to Barnes and Nobles. Oh sure, I don’t like thinking of myself as a coward, but I’m a pragmatist, too.
I’d rather be a coward and free than a brave black man in prison because of a misunderstanding. The reason I turned around, the reason I wrote the book in the first place, the reason I’ve fought so hard to get the things that I have is because…
I have much to offer. I am valuable. Where I sit is none of your concern, and in fact has nothing to do with you at all. Just because my package came with that crap doesn’t mean I have to take it into me and claim it.
Nothing will bring Trayvon Martin back to life. And George Zimmerman will walk free. Justice? My package came with the clear understanding that life isn’t fair. One of the small benefits inside it, I think. But perhaps in the acquittal was a gift too: an invitation to peek inside and look at the crap I’ve swallowed as part of being black in America. A chance to accept that everything is not wine and roses, and that a lot of what has been forced upon me is destructive. A chance to vomit out some of the more self-destructive portions of that. God knows I’ve needed it – and I know that this process of purging will likely last the rest of my life. Rejecting the negative that is still being shoved down my throat. And maybe, just maybe, it offers a chance to challenge others to do the same – to look inside of themselves, and at the harmful crap they’ve inadvertently swallowed (and are continuing to swallow) as part of their cultural indoctrination.
What’s in your package?
(Meg)
And to answer my dear friend Teman, I’d say, I was handed a delicious package of sweets, just like he guessed.
I encourage you to pause for a moment and reflect on the “package” that was bestowed upon you when you were born.
The things that are expected of you because of the body you happen to inhabit. Physical strength, emotional strength, intelligence, lack of intelligence?
I come from a long line of adorable, diminutive women who have historically been frustrated when folks don’t take their intelligence seriously.
We necessarily use shorthand to assume things about people. Our brains can’t help but do it. We are efficient pattern-recognizing machines, and that ability to make quick assumptions actually serves us well in assumptions about the world around us. An apple that looks bruised probably won’t taste good. A growling dog is a threat. I see this and it equals that.
The assumptions we are taught early and often by cartoons and schools, and when they apply to humans, they can be untrue and unhelpful, such as fat equals lazy and glasses equals smart. The more subtle ones that you may have picked up from your family or acquaintances like effeminite men are gay or black people are good at sports.
Of course we know that there are seriously harmful assumptions as well.
At the Black Lives Matter march in Parma last month, I found myself astounded at the number of young white men that I would have otherwise judged on their looks as probable racists, I noticed my own biases, the assumptions I make about others.
So many young white men showed up in Parma, where I, very judgmentally and wrongly, expect to see racists, but showed up with their red-white-and-blue tee shirts and tattoos and beer bellies, to support Black Lives Matter.
I need to update my assumptions. Or at least, I need to remember to continue questioning them.
Because our brains will always jump to conclusions. The trick to harmony is to notice these conclusions and scrutinize them.
Going back to our theme of Harmony, I want to point out that Harmony is the blending of melodies. The blending of different sounds. If everyone is singing the same, it’s not a harmony. You need diversity of sound to create a harmony.
Martin Luther King Jr has said that “Life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.”
Opposites in harmony. Harmony cannot be harmony without tension, without differences, diversity.
The Sufis teach that Harmony is spread throughout the world by finding and creating harmony in your own life. It is said that the wise master hears the harmony even in strife and in war.
Here’s the call to action part of the sermon. Here is what we can do. We can recognize the issues that are getting in the way. We can think about a story or a thought you heard today that stuck with you. We can cultivate radical harmony in our own lives. Just as Teman declared “I am valuable” against everything the world has told him, we can all do the same.
Those who push others down suffer from a feeling of inferiority. Let us declare ourselves valuable and stake our seats at the table. You can sit with us! Please do! More voices just makes the harmony more beautiful!