Between Justice & Transformation: Trayvon in Ministry and Education

Until now, I have refrained from really writing about Trayvon and his killer...and the trial/jury verdict.  My reaction was so very visceral, even as I had concluded a few weeks prior that the "not guilty" verdict would indeed happen.  While I have always tried to show others, friends and peers how any one thing is connected to history, politics and race when it comes to these kind of historical movements, I wasn't in a place to do this immediately.  Unfortunately, the "not guilty" verdict triggered for me a deep well spring of memories where I have had to witness and "just take" injustice because there was nothing I could do about it.

It took me back to a high school that refused to teach African-American history, but gladly tracked black students into remedial classes.  It took me back to a college that refused to address its racial injustices and micro/macro-agressions of its student population, but would gladly hand out scholarships to black students in this toxic environment.  It took me back to being called the help by a benefactor who had given me a scholarship.  It took me back to profiling episodes by police, sales associates, and random people who thought I was up to something derelict.  It took me back to every moment that I have ever felt inadequate in my inability to handle the malicious and pernicious intent of all things racialized.  

However, these experiences are also the exact things that lead me to be both a minister and an educator whose calling seem to be perichoretically bound together.  They lead me to the ministry because injustice in the world has driven me to a robust and deep faith in a God who seeks to transform the world in spite of what I can see.  And, at the same time, I am an educator because I have needed to toil in research, writing, and reading so that I might understand the world and shape those who seek to listen and be trained to challenge and transform our society.  In all things, I love a good conversation:  I love my conversation with God because my faith is renewed and I love conversation with people because I get to work as an agent of change, on God's behalf.

It is in this moment, that students, colleagues, and family have asked me my thoughts about The Tragedy of Trayvon...and this is my honest answer from the social location that I inhabit...

Too often, we are lulled to sleep by the sheer magnitude of both tragedy and privilege.  The tragedies of black on black crime in places like Chicago make us think that nothing can be done, except to stay out of dangerous neighborhoods, and praise God for those who make it out of those environments alive.  While we have watched little children shot almost weekly, witnessed pastors live on top of abandoned buildings to bring attention to the depth of Chicago violence, participated in protests, and seen hip-hop artists like Lupe Fiasco cry at the deprivation and death of so many, we have mostly been glad that this has not been us specifically.  And so, we shake our heads and go back to watching Love and Hip-Hop Atlanta because we are held captive to both apathy and our individual pursuits.  

Secondly, quite a few of us operate in spaces where we, like our white brothers and sisters, have some privilege that we like to think insulates us from the rest of the world.  We have supped on the wine of tokenism that has us singing the Two Chainz anthem, "I'm Different."  We believe we are different because we went to college, grew up in Jack and Jill, pledged a fraternity, became a lawyer, play tennis, wear Ralph Lauren (purple label) and J.Crew, travel to other countries, drive a BMW, listen to opera, eat in all of the right places, keep a manicured presence, and work in the right profession.  Over the years, many of us have heard from both Black and whites alike that we are a different kind of Black people.

And a different kind of black people often have the hardest time making sense of the world in which we live because we think our resumes are on us when we walk down the streets.  The reality is that most people can't tell that we are first generation Nigerian American or from a well to do Atlanta family when we walk into Coach or Harris Teeter.  And, all of our educational strivings and economic accoutrements can't save us from racism and/or a bullet.  

It is in this Trayvon historical moment that we realize that we haven't come as far as we hoped, and we are not so different than the sister who drives a used car, lives in public housing, has a few tattoos, and who dropped out of high school.  It is in this moment, we have had to ask ridiculous questions like, "how fast should I walk?," "should I take a car full of cakes, pies and family pictures to introduce myself to neighbors?," "do I go buy a gun and get a license so I too can stand my ground?" I have no answer to these questions, but I would like to point the way as an educator and minister.

As an educator, I am seeking to remind my students that they must always know that their education comes with a deep responsibility to shape the world for the child who will not have the privilege of country day school, and who might barely be able to go to Head Start (particularly if the GOP has its way in the state of NC).  I am committed to helping them see that a system of race, class and gender impacts everything that they will meet in the world currently and in the world to come.  This can be a particularly difficult task for students are constantly told that the world is perfectly fine "IF" you want it.  I (and many other educators) know that such a narrative about fictitious opportunity is a lie that never places all people on equal "playing fields."  I am seeking to train them to be advocates and critical race scholars even as they work on Wall Street, in Law Firms and at the Hospital.  I am seeking to interrupt their world so they might not be willing participants in the oppression of other people who will look like them, even as they have been told something "different."  I am seeking to remind people that all leadership isn't participatory or positional...and there is a great well-spring (and need) of Black leadership that comes from being in the camp called rebellious and fringe.

As a minister (because God has to have the last word), I am seeking to remind them that we must be a people who are bound to justice and righteousness.  I am seeking to remind those around me that tragedy doesn't have the last word on our lives, because we are those who live with the promises of God...and the hope of a brighter future...and the testimony of a treacherous past for which God has made "many a way."  I am seeking to remind people that the range of emotions that include anger and sadness are found throughout God's word, because God can indeed handle our pain and anger...and thus we must not be so quick to render those emotions invalid on the way to advocacy and change.  I am seeking to remind God's people that any preacher telling you that God is not concerned with both your personal and communal condition...and that Justice isn't a word that shouldn't be spoken from the pulpit, is a charlatan and carpet bagger who should be sent packing.

There is a great need for healing in this world, because the wound of racism has done much damage to not only grieving mothers, but to all of us who need to be reminded of our agency that has the ability to transform the world for Trayvons, Shikeems, Seans, Jhaniquas, Kwames, Brandons, Alannas, and anyone else who knows the consequences of racism.  Trayvon's death has reminded us that the continuum of activism for justice must continue in an age marked by materialism and individualism..."for we are not yet free." We must advocates and activists as teachers, preachers, sorority sisters, fraternity brothers, lawyers, doctors, administrators, librarians, archivists, tourists, mothers, fathers, business owners...et al.  We must be a people who "never forget" the struggle of our past, even as we prepare to "never again" face what we have faced.

We must be a people who remember Trayvon Martin and many others who have died between the deadly mix of Gun Violence and Racial Antagonism.  We must be a critical people who seek to be about justice for more than ourselves. We must share...

Complexifyin' Complexion: A Reflection on "Dark Girls" from the Social Location of a Light Skinned Brotha'

When I first heard that "Dark Girls' was coming out last year, I was excited to see how they would piece together a tale/narrative for all of us to ingest.  Having read "Our Kind of People" and "Skin Deep," seeing the seminal work "Black Is, Black Ain't," and thinking through the visual of "School Daze," I was excited to see a thoughtful perspective on colorism.

Unfortunately, the challenge for me is that I really don't like talking about this issue with non-black people, because it is a sensitive topic...even for me.  Once while we were in seminary, a professor had us read on the complexities of colorism in the black community and discuss it with our classmates.  For one of the first times in the history of my life, I was unwilling to participate because the damage of colorism is real, and I felt, and still very much feel that the matter is much more complex than people can admit or understand.  And, in a classroom of predominantly white seminarians, who still just wanted a colorblind reconcilliatory society without addressing the ills, I was not willing to have this very tough conversation.

But, today I reflect because the binary of dark-skinned rejection and light-skinned privilege isn't always (are even in my mind predominantly) the case.  Other variables, like class, education, and gender complicate this continued house/field negro duality.  And, unfortunately, while Dark Girls explored the kind of shame and pain my brothers and sisters of a darker skinned face regularly...as it should, what it expressed in silence, was that light skinned brothers and sisters are somehow walking around carefree, living lives of relative celebrity and opulence - as though they were in a pantene commercial.

However, childhood reminders make me aware that this is truly not the case.  I can remember the many stories of my aunts and uncles who came of age in the civil rights/black power era being called by other black people: "yellow shit," "stringy haired sell-out," "mixed-breed," and "white trash."  They were often told (as I have been), "you aren't black" and "you think you better than everybody," while whites often asked them, "what are you."  My mother would often reply, that she was a human!  But it infuriated her.  And much of their lives they had to spend time negotiating what it meant to be light-skinned in a black context that thought they were the enemy.

Even in my life, I have had young brothers seek to fight me so that they could see if my skin would darken by their punch.  Or, when I was with my dark-skinned family taking pictures, one family member said, while holding the camera, "put the spot in the middle."  These kinds of experiences continue to sit with me, and remind me that even though I have advanced degrees around African American studies, work in a Black Cultural Center, and spend my days and nights thinking about Black space, I will never be Black enough for some.

Many a light-skinned person understands this...and at some point seeks to carve out a life that is authentic regardless of the rejection that honestly holds all shades of Black people hostage to poor self image and low self-esteem.  As a man, my self-esteem has been battered by the rejection of love interests who have said to me: "I don't date light-skinned men!" And, I have had to ask myself each time: "what does this mean?"  Am I not worthy?  Am I the sell-out?  Is she trying to stay true to her visual/physical desires?

Some of my male friends surmise that light skinned brothers don't get any love because they are soft. And, here is another complexity of race and gender...and the damage done on Black people around this issue.  If light skinned brothers are effeminate and dark skinned brothers are masculine, aren't we reifying stereotypes that enforce our own degradation? Aren't we saying what was said at the turn of the (19th and 20th) century: light skinned equals uncle tom/zip coon and dark skinned equals buck.  And, these conversations are prevalent with men as much as they are with women.  My own experiences have taught me that brothers ease their concerns about colorism through the use of sarcasm and jokes.   Its always funny to note that in my experiences its never light-skinned brothers willing to start down this path that can sometimes turn into an all out verbal assault.

I can't put my finger on it, but I think that what Fannie Lou Hamer said about the US is true for how we handle colorism: "Nobody's Free Until We All Are Free!"  Until we are all able to admit that trauma has been done and is perpetuated daily on all shades of us, we will only be able to pick at the blistering sore, rather than provide a substantive balm.  As I told one friend who was intent on commenting on my complexion, but who had chosen to marry a person lighter than me: "you do know that your boys will probably end up my complexion...why are you so intent on hatin' on me?"

That's the real question.  How do we love our people no matter what shade they are?  How do we address our own desires...and at the same time heal from our reprobate states?  How do we address our pain in 2013?  The first is to admit the following:

I know Dark Girls hurt, but I also know that Dark Boys, Brown Girls, Brown Boys, Light Girls, and Light Boys hurt too.