Category: racism

Essay on Protest

What exactly is protest? As a noun, it is defined as ‘an expression or declaration of objection, disapproval, or dissent, often in opposition to something a person is powerless to prevent or avoid’. When used as a verb it can be ‘an earnest declaration or to make a remonstrance to or object to’. Protest against unfair treatment has long been the history of people wanting to get fair treatment in the midst of those in authority. I can think of one very large protest against authority which is celebrated today, the wryly labeled ‘Boston Tea Party’. This party of a protest was perpetrated by a group of men poorly disguised as the hated minority of the time, probably to take the heat off themselves, in order to protest the ruling authorities levy of taxes on imports. Plenty of people living at this time, were very disparaging of the protesters actions. But, 300 years later, history writers have sanitized this large protest, which was rowdy and took hours to complete, into a party of men righteously standing up to the abusive authority, for the good of all.

Does that sound familiar? It might, almost 60 years ago, the hated minority of the time were speaking up, taking a stand, halting work, public transportation, school, and homes in their bid to get a fair chance at living their best lives without being indiscriminately murdered. The ruling authority was both vociferously and quietly opposed at every turn. Spending public resources to impede, belittle, and harm those protesting the status quo. Polls taken during this time showed the majority of Americans felt the protests were unhelpful, disruptive, and unnecessary. People died, businesses and communities were decimated, and only after the famous face was murdered did anyone in authority push efforts to rectify the disparity prevalent in America. You know how we view this protest today? The ruling authority has co-opted this protest into a ‘we all worked together for what was right, those leading these protests were beloved and peaceable, and any protest not like this one, is terrible and detrimental to the greater good’.

Maybe none of those examples hits home for you. Let me talk about the resounding protest being waged against the ruling authority today. Now, many of the same minority populations of our past, continue to be harassed and denied and murdered indiscriminately. Like all civilizations, America has grown through the labor of all who come here. Both those brought here by force and those who come here by choice. This country has a long history of poor practices where those outside the established rule are concerned. Today, the marginalized populations are many and the ruling authority feels more threatened than ever before. Protests are never embraced by those it may negatively impact, no matter how just the goal. Today, people who may be negatively impacted spend an enormous amount of time loudly disclaiming wrongdoing and cleverly changing the narrative of protesters in order to silence and belittle them. We spend all our time defending ourselves, taking sides on issues that have nothing to do with the protest and telling those minority populations how they should tell their stories or that their stories or false. My story has nothing to do with the settlers who arrived on the Mayflower and I don’t look to tell that story, nor can I deny that story exists, in good conscience.

Protesting is akin to collective constructive criticism. They are meant to convey that something could be done better. Protests come when we cease to listen to the negatively impacted, when we dismiss their concerns because it doesn’t align with our experience, when we don’t give the courtesy we give ourselves. When in protest, you are saying I insist on being heard and seen. I have come to you dressed in my best for the appointment, with my meticulously researched and constructed ideas, so that we can brainstorm and implement solutions. You have said NO! Over and over again, you yell NO! I must be heard, I am fighting for my life, the lives of my loved ones, therefore I will make it extremely difficult to ignore me and thereby you can no longer ignore the problem. No one likes to admit to being wrong. It is hard to stand up to those who hold your livelihood in a stranglehold of oppression. Oppression is only the prolonged, unjust treatment or control of another. To be unjust is to not be right. This doesn’t have to be limited to one part of history. Oppression is systematic and pervasive and anytime you hold sway over someone, you have the ability to oppress them. The reach of the protester is vastly larger today than in the past. It is harder to hide and conversely easier to be mislead and ignorant of opposing views which may have merit, but are different from yours. Protests speak out because they want you to know that not everything is great for everyone, they are screaming out, “I have validity!” Difference of opinion does not equal hate. Changing the narrative of protest to hate is an easy way to oppress. A majority will only see the hate narrative, never know the protest narrative and then are unwittingly oppressive.

We need to spend more time finding and listening to the protestors narrative in order to make informed decisions on whether or not we agree, can change ourselves, or help change others. Those heard and seen by many are uniquely able to disseminate stories in a bid to bring productive change. Their actions and words are far-reaching and impactful. Let their impact be presented not changed.  Dismissing the voice crying out in defense of the marginalized will not bring you peace.

I wish you peace.

How Are You Feeling A Week Later?

Well, have my feelings of fear and disbelief diminished as I paused in the last week, as many people requested, to give President-elect Trump a chance to show his presidential race was filled with rhetoric he would never actually engage in. I am here to tell you, the pause was barely a heartbeat between his acceptance speech that espoused unity among the political parties in the United States of America and his reconciliatory new promise of being a President for ALL the people of this country; and the divisive, separatist ideas of most of his recommendations and hirings for his upcoming Presidency.

As I research to find reputable news sources, listen and watch the numerous instances of hate shown marginalized people by white men and women, and walk through the world with my marginalization apparent for all to see, I am feeling less optimistic, less everything really. Every story of hate has been perpetuated by people who have vocally used an impending Trump presidency as a reason for their actions. Some more public officials have been held accountable, but what of all the people who are only in a position to loudly terrorize others with no thought of repercussions? Many want us all to forget that the history of this country, forgetting the history of the world for a moment, tells us this new America is frighteningly similar to the old America. Many people in this country despised the idea that the old America ever left, and now find themselves vindicated and elevated and celebrated. They are passionate and dangerous and nothing you say will change that. Does every person of privilege want some return to old America that includes savagery to those marginalized people who have always been here, who were brought here illegally, who travelled here under duress for life improvement? No, I certainly don’t ascribe to that belief, but those who don’t have misread the cues of the people before them and now we are stuck in an American Horror Story of our own making. The only way to change the story is to do the difficult work of looking at ourselves, our surroundings and our government and then work for change. Now that your President-elect is filling the spaces around him with divisive people, what will you do?

May you be emboldened to not show hate, but show systematic work to dismantle those who would tell us we don’t belong, don’t deserve and don’t matter. Remember that every day and person you show love and acceptance to in your small town or big city makes a lasting impact. And if all you can do is that, know you are thanked. Do more if you can, do your part and hold up the love Jesus showed to ALL people, even those who despised him through no fault of his own, and you too can change the world. It takes workers and caregivers to evoke change and both are equally important to the betterment of this place at this time in history. Because I want to be on the side of betterment, how about you?

United States Presidential Election 2016 Feelings

Since this is my space and I need to get out what I feel, today you get to read all about what I am processing in my soul after the United States of America elected Donald J. Trump as the next President of our country.

I am the daughter of a woman and man who spent most of their grammar school time in segregated schools in a segregated community. I grew up listening at the feet of the granddaughter of slaves, and the daughter of The Great Depression and The Jim Crow South, in a town where 20 years before I was born, it was still segregated into Whites Only and Negroes. I grew up listening to the memories of people who lived through some very divisive times, times marked by indiscriminate persecution, belittling, injustice, murder, oppression, and suppression. A time where all the people in charge of making and enforcing the laws of the land truly believed that if you didn’t look like them, you were mentally inferior and lacked the ability to think for yourself or take care of yourself without the saving intervention of the ruling class. As such, you had no rights, the rights you thought you had were systematically dismantled in new laws written for the express purpose of reminding you that you belonged to them and needed them and their kindnesses to survive this life. I lived through my own instances of intrinsic and subtle racism, stories to add to the great diaspora of mistreatment and injustice rampant in this country. As this person, I share my feelings, those which I clearly understand that I am still processing.

I sat up all night watching Election 2016 coverage. From the beginning you could see that things didn’t seem to be going the way the many historical pundits had predicted. Soon, everyone was sputtering to come up with words to explain what they were witnessing. Many, like me, stared at the unbelievable, but not surprising, results with an impending sense of doom. As my kids fell asleep and my husband abandoned me and I tried to drown out the results with the words of a novel, I could feel the collective gasp of people around the world who really could not fathom that the United States would vote an unknown political entity, who had crafted a race built on baiting the worse in many of us, to the highest office in our land. Yet, as the dread seeped in my bones and the tears tried to seep out, I was still thinking, I can’t believe they didn’t take him seriously, the threat seriously, the history seriously. I can’t believe I am possibly about to be forced into an United States reminiscent of my ancestors memories. After nodding off for about an hour I had to get my kids up and started on their days. I also had to tell them that Mr. Trump had won the election. I could barely manage to not cry as they teared up in despair of what Mr. Trump being President would mean for them and their friends. I explained that while we didn’t know what would happen in the future, we certainly knew Who held the future. We are Christ Followers, commonly called Christians, and we believe that God’s Will in the world will prevail, even when we don’t understand, even when we don’t agree, even when attacked. For my kids this helped, but I could tell it wasn’t over for them. They like others around the world, needed time to process. Before I had even got them up, I was being bombarded with the ongoing coverage. My television was still on, I was obsessively scrolling through Facebook and Twitter feeds trying to absorb all the responses and feelings from everywhere and meld them in my mind. Trying to make sense of them, of my own thoughts, of how I could be honest and supportive under the laws of the land which God had placed me. I didn’t delve too deep, my kids still needed my attention to move on with their day and I knew I was just waiting for space and peace to delve a bit deeper.

After dropping them off, I found my first gem of discordant tunes in the post of a friend. This friend is a non-POC woman. This friend had been harassed in her car after dropping her older children off at school. The youngest was strapped in their car seat in the back. Her car sported a bumper sticker that evidenced support of Hillary Clinton.  A non-POC man drove close to her bumper, crowding he driving space and intimidating her. He then pulled alongside her and started verbally abusing her with words that called out her gender with common curse words typically used to belittle women and ended with this nugget, “F*cking liberal loser!” My friend was terribly shaken, felt afraid and then took her bumper stickers off her car to avoid a similar situation. And while I felt her fear and was saddened by her experience, on the other side of those feelings I felt vindication and a bit of that Aha, now you see what I am talking about! I felt like saying, yes, now see how you might like living like that constantly not just now because Mr. Trump has been elected President. Because I can’t stop, shaken on the side of the road and pull my skin color off, the thing I am most vilified for. I can’t take my skin, crumple it into a ball and get rid of it to stop the hate from reaching me. Then of course came the post from a classmate who sung the educate yourself and don’t be silly because they can’t do that to you tune of the Trump candidacy. This post was an impassioned plea to not spread panic by telling children they will have to ‘go back where they came from’ because Donald Trump was elected. This is absurd, the post assured, because if you are born here and/or came to the USA legally and/or a naturalized citizens then this IS where you are from (emphasis mine) and there is no WHERE to go back to. This person also included their feeling on how happy they were with the election result because her son would have a fair playing field in the work force and her daughter, in the armed forces, would be safe with a Boss that would have her back. They included how you must educate yourself in order to know you belong here and can not be kicked out. Then they closed with numerous references to God in America and how we traditionally pay lip service to God in this country (saying things like Merry Christmas, In God We Trust, God Bless America and God Bless You) all while they would be standing for the national anthem with their hand over their hearts. Goodness, I didn’t even no where to start with all the assumptions in this statement. While they may believe no one here ‘correctly’ need worry about being kicked out, people are already running through the streets shouting “go back to Mexico, Africa, China, insert foreign nation here!” with enough hate to drive fear into the hearts of small children and old people alike. The problem with leaving this idea as a statement that stands in defense of legal immigration is that the people excited about the idea of deporting illegal immigrants don’t stop to check your legal status or birth certificate when spewing their feelings. Besides, we have been shown that in the United States you can actually prove you were born here and still not be believed, and if you need to prove your legal status to random beings you meet, does this not smack of carrying freedom papers, traveling papers, being pinned with yellow stars of David and forced into internment camps? I mean where does it stop? Do you see? I Love God, I Love my country, but I am not blinded to the faults inherent in humanity, of which I am a part. And I don’t have the privilege of hiding my difference in order to survive, I have to survive anyway. You can’t tell me that now that the election is over we can all go back to some Utopian time pre-election cycle 2016. Let me tell you, for marginalized groups of humans in the United States and around the World, there is no real pre-election 2016 utopia in which to return. Why do you think so many worked so hard to discuss policy that could put all marginalized groups back to oppressed groups and then beg us all to listen and make informed and educated decisions? It isn’t over now, it isn’t in the past and you aren’t at least a good person because(fill in your reason for feeling good)! We all want what is best for ourselves, we get lost when we lose sight that what is best for ourselves isn’t our calling. It is what is best for the collective in which we all live.

I am a follower of Christ and firmly believe in God’s true sovereignty over all. While I will and do pray for the President, other elected officials, volunteers, my country, and the world, it does not negate the feeling of desperation and fear uppermost in my mind and heart. Loving and trusting God didn’t erase the pain of my child’s death. Loving and trusting God does not erase the pain of my child’s absence on the physical plane and by the same note, loving and trusting God does not erase my fear today or keep me safe from those who wish to harm me. Loving and trusting God does not ensure a pain and trouble free life, it does ensure I will be strengthened to endure the race before me because I put God first, seek Him first. It ensures that no matter how my earthly body leaves this plane, my true home will be revealed in God’s glory. This faith helps me and does not erase the practicality of being alive in this time as a member of a marginalized people. You may not have my faith, but I pray you understand that my pain, fear, and distrust are real and should not be erased, suppressed, or disregarded because it isn’t your truth today. I don’t want a bleak Dystopia to be ushered in, I pray that history doesn’t repeat itself, I pray we aren’t disillusioned, decimated, or caught off guard. I pray that as we move forward we find a way to look at the problems in our systems and vanquish them while shining a light on anything we can get right. I pray that while today I feel the need to call on the faith of my ancestors that allowed them to make the seemingly ridiculous decision to get up and face hate every day by going to work, to church, walking down the street, by speaking out, by getting an education, by continuing to live every day with dignity even when afforded none by others. Then by having and raising their children to do the same.