Saturday, November 29, 2014

Ferguson on our Doorsteps for the Holidays...

I have a Black son, that's the scary part about all of this.  Because in looking at Mike Brown or Trayvon Martin or Tamir Rice, all I can see is Zachary Palmer, my son.  And, I know I live in a world where other's don't care about my child.  But, I care about my child.  And so I worry...I worry about the world in which my child must live.  I worry about what he will endure.  How many times will he be called a Nigger? What happens if teachers or police see him as threat?  How will he rebound when he discovers that others will see his race as a problem?  How will I provide support, counsel, and understanding to him and the people he will come to love?  These are the questions that keep me up at night, and are making it hard for me to sleep.


I know I'm not the only one up at night (and early in the wee hours of the morning) thinking through the nagging question, "what if my child was Rekia Boyd or Dianna Showman?"  Millions of Black Parents are asking these kinds of questions, in the middle of trying to fix turkeys and make Christmas lists.  It's enough to make you forgo the Holidays, and turn into one of those people who stockpiles guns, water, and canned food.  

And, what's worse, is that any of us, any Black person in this country, could be killed by anyone at anytime for anyone reason by any other race, and there would never be any justice.  Now, some will say, "Oh, Sean, you are exaggerating."  But, in my mind, it certainly feels like I have no right to life...as I watch child after child, man after man, woman after woman be shot, while their killers participate in kangaroo trials with absurd verdicts.  And, it seems like no level of our response (or of our responsibility) provides for us a measure of humanity.  What I'm saying is that me nor my child can't pull our pants up high enough or speak in perfect American diction (enough) to shield us from both bullets and the lack of access to justice.  Black people KNOW this, and white people know this too...so why the charade about responsibility and let's just follow the law...obey the process.

History doesn't show African-Americans getting the change, justice, equity they need without a good extended fight.  And that fight isn't always pretty or legal or dignified in the eyes of others (or in step with America's jurisprudence).  And why should Black people fight without force, violence, or a dash of anger/rage?  No one else is.  When cops, supported by local and national government, and a legal system that is interested in property (and not people), throw tear gas into crowds of American citizens, shoot unarmed Black people (and say they would do it again), or fail to indict the real perpetrators of crime, why should we not use whatever necessary to address the problem?  Why should Black people walk down the street clad in our Sunday's Best with signs in our hands in a single file line singing, "we shall overcome?"  Why should we be "once upon a time when we were colored?" Why should we look like we are walking out of a 1960s church rally, when American institutions are almost prepared to use drones on African American citizens...in America?  Black people have never won anything when we've operated in support of those who govern, waiting on systems of politics to support us or work for us.

No matter who we've voted for en masse, no matter A "Black" President, no matter our commitment to participation in the Military, no matter our commitment to community and social organizations, we still get the crumbs from an abundant table (and told to wait our turn).  Nothing has seemed to work...and everybody knows this.

However, too many Americans would rather the peace of a pragmatic inequity and inequality, than the brilliant beauty of justice, restoration, and access.   And, I for one, am tired of being told that it is okay for Black people to be poor.  I am tired of being told that we should blame ourselves for the prison industrial complex. I am tired of being told that this President who was voted on by FAR TOO many trusting African Americans, is indeed, NOT the president of Black America.  I am tired of educational inequity, employment disparity, cultural misappropriation, and wealth and income gaps!  I am tired of all of this...and then you want us to sit idly by as folk shoot Black kids down on the pavement of Main Street America.

A major problem is that people like Darren Wilson, George Zimmerman, and Robert McCulloch don't value my children in the same way they see themselves or their families.  That's a real problem!  But its not just them, white people in general can't fathom loving Black people collectively, for real.  It is that problem that produces the kind of injustices and inequities that we see creating nightmare scenarios for far too many Black people.  My good friend who passed a few years ago, always said, "White people like and love us individually, but they despise us collectively."  I'd like to hope that his statement isn't true, as I know this movement is broad in complexion. But, if there was love, more of my white brothers and sisters would be outraged by what they see too.  I'm just not so sure they are.


But while I have your attention, and since we are in the season that commemorates Jesus' birth, let me head over to a book that might illumine what I'm thinking in terms of a radical departure from what we have here.  I'm pushing right past Jesus' birth to go straight to Jesus on a cross.  It's at John 19: 26-27 that I bring your attention.  Jesus is about to die...and he looks out at his mom, and over at a disciple.  He proclaims something both strange and wonderful: "Ya'll be family!"  It's in this moment that we see the first Foster Care experience.  It is Jesus, near death, that radically changes his own family to help us understand how we should live in the world.  Two unlikely people, both witnessing and grieving Jesus' death are proclaimed by God to be family.  I don't know why Jesus did it, but I just believe that if we who love Christ, could just look across the street, down the block, over in the other county...and proclaim (and live into) that we are all family (even as we follow Christ), we might be witnesses to fewer Black children's deaths.  I'm not trying to go all Hallmark channel on you...what I'm trying to say is that my brothers and sisters...the radical thing is to imagine yourself as me, or as your own child, or my son as your own son.  And, then, imagine the world that you would want that child to inhabit.

If it is this...well, I guess, you probably stopped reading a while ago.  If its something dramatically different...then you might need to have sympathy for people who destroy property in an effort to radically change a world that sees them (and me) as the enemy of the state...even though we'd all like to go out and buy Christmas presents, rather than wrestling internally and with our families about how the ills of Ferguson could show up on our doorsteps.


Tuesday, November 18, 2014

On Church Sabbatical Until Further Notice: A Musing About Sunday Morning Obligation

My really "churchy" classmates from seminary tease me all the time about my current state of affairs with the church.  Snootily they say with a condescending and smug tone, "Sean, where are you worshipping?"  The tone implies that I'm somehow in a backslidden state suffering with an addiction in the worst corner of the world.  It also implies that I somehow, don't understand my role/calling as a minister of the Gospel.

Both of these assessments would be dead wrong!  And, I imagine I'm not the only church-boy-gone-rogue, who has had a set of friends who make you feel guilty for things that they don't understand.  It's a good thing that I have lots of friends...and some who really get me.

Where do I start...I don't know.  I could start with what it's like to be in church leadership before and after seminary, before and after moving to no less than three new cities.  I could start with my time as a minister serving on a pastoral search committee, and directing choirs and youth art programs...as programs came to a screeching halt because of ministerial transition.  Or, I could tell you about serving in a church that changed pastor's and direction while I was on an internship and decided that they couldn't keep me on staff.  Or, I could tell you about the church that gave a pastor one week to vacate the premises because of a good "church fight," as I prepared the choir for Sunday worship.  Or, I could share with you how I once served a church that used the impoverished to exploit grant opportunities.  Or, I could tell you about the church where I sat like an ornament in a pew, hoping to do something other than sing back-up.  I'm not saying that these church environments shouldn't exist.  Sure, they each had something special about them (none of which I've named).  But, as an unpaid bi-vocational minister, hoping to see and hear God when I attended church, I just became...well...tired.

I was tired of the unchecked dysfunctional behavior of senior leadership.  I was tired of ego.  I was tired of leading things that didn't also rejuvenate my spirit.  I was tired of mean-spirited directors.  I was tired of foregoing weekend plans to be at one more service with "pastor."  I was tired of trying to lead a congregation into worship, who really just wanted "worship-tainment." I was tired of really bad sermons that lacked either intellectual integrity, cultural significance, or a serious sense of Godliness.  I was tired of driving to and fro to preach for what amounted to "gas money", after (leaving my professional work) studying on end to prepare sermons.  I was tired of working in ministries that required my tithe, but I never saw the tithe work in its building of youth, college students, or young adults.  I was tired of participating in ministries where people weren't committed to community beyond the numbers of people they could get into their pews.  I was tired of going to church and getting "nothin" out of it.  I am tired just thinking about it!

And, it happened slowly over time that I noticed that things were not right.  I'd spend time in the company of my peers, over dinner or lunch, and realize that God was meandering in our conversation, in a way that wasn't apparent in the "hi's and bye's" of my polite corporate worship life.  I'd watch a sermon from a church far away, and realize that I had just learned something from that message that I hadn't heard in months from the church where I was worshiping.  I'd be at another church visiting and feel the presence of God washing over me as the choir/praise team sang with such conviction.  I would read something, or something would happen in the world, and I would realize that I and the church I was attending were having two different conversations.  They were talking about corporate worship, favor, tithes, and offering, and I was talking about social/political change, community healing/restoration, personal worship, and trying to see God in all things.  I wasn't the only one struggling with this.  One afternoon while at a service, my wife looked at me, and said, "is this working for you...cause it's not working for me."

And as ministers we didn't want to see what we were seeing...that we weren't a good fit for the place where we were.  We hadn't outgrown it per se, it just wasn't a good fit.  So we decided to take a sabbatical, and visit other churches, and travel, and go on retreats with friends, and worship in other spaces, and question, and read, and think, and laugh...and have a baby too.  We decided to do something that is typical of our generation, but atypical of church folk in general.  We decided to take a break so that we could really move beyond the perfunctory motion of local church life, with its never ending obligation.  

It's not that we don't want to be in our church, its that we want more from our church...well, any church where we are obligated both by calling and by commitment to serve the local body.  We want to leave service, meetings, and bible studies filled with inspiration for the world we face, rather than poking hole's in faulty theology because of our theological education.   We want to adore and be adored by people as Christ would have us, rather than go months on end before meaningful experiences with sisters and brothers in the body of Christ.  We want to be honest, vulnerable, and safe, instead of enduring church fight after church fight...cuss out after cuss out.  We want to be in a space that values culture, history, knowledge, and legacy, while also seeking to appreciate the beauty of diversity and nuance.  We need a church that helps us make sense of a world filled with examples of Ferguson, Rekia Boyd, and Trayvon...I need that kind of church to help keep my righteous mind in tact.  Anything less isn't worth the time and energy I'm going to devote: unfortunately, I've learned that the hard way.

I imagine that many in my generation and below struggle with a sustained commitment to the local church body...trying to move beyond church hurt, toxic sermons, uninspired worship experiences, and cultish group ritual.  I offer this simple advice before taking your own church sabbatical.  Listen to God's voice above the voice of those around you.  Give yourself grace to grow.  And, remember that in Moses' living, in Paul's living, and in Jesus' living that they sometimes had to leave the general body to be able to minister effectively.   This is important because some church folk will make you feel like if you don't come to the church Tea or Fish Fry that you aren't really saved.  That's not true...and those people have forgotten one very important thing.  A relationship with God isn't indicative of the parts that they see.  It isn't indicative of their gauge of how good of a Christian they think that you are...or that I am.

Your relationship...my relationship with God is about what I do in the world, and how I point towards Him in my daily interactions.  My relationship with God is about standing with those in grief, praying over any entrusted to my support, loving the loveable and the not-so-loveable, inspiring others when they spend time with me, giving to others when they need me, and serving the world in a way that indicates Jesus' work in my own life.  

So yes, I'm on church sabbatical because I want to be more than an inauthentic pew sitter.  Yes, I'm on church sabbatical because I want as much from the church as it wants from me.  Yes, I'm on church sabbatical, and while on sabbatical, I'll still proclaim God...I'll still preach and sing...I'll still worship and serve.  Yes, I'm on church sabbatical so that I can heal, grow, and meander in the areas that I'm told are grey.  And one day hopefully soon, I'll be back in a consistent sunday morning worship experience...but until then I'll be in "revival."  In fact, I'm headed to revival tonight!

Friday, June 13, 2014

Koch Money, School Daze and Orange Glow: Why "The Give Back The Money" Campaign is an Insufficient Response to the Plight of HBCUs


Its funny how one moment can remind you of something you’ve seen or heard before.  That’s how I’m feeling about the Koch brothers giving such a grand amount of money to support UNCF colleges.  In this moment I’m remembering the iconic School Daze’s depiction of an HBCU caught up in the divestment protests that were a part of the Black College environment of the late 70s-early 80’s.  I’m thinking about the fictitious Mission College discourse between President McPherson (played by Joe Seneca) and Cedar Cloud (played by Art Evans) in which the seminal question was asked: “why don’t black people give to black schools?” 

And in this moment, I’m irritated that HBCUs don’t have the luxury to turn down a 25 million dollar donation in an economy that has left many “would-be” students unable to attend college.  But that’s not all, many overworked professor, administrator, and/or college executive is asking the question in this “furlough” season, “where do we go from here?”  So when an unexpected 25 million dollars shows up on your doorstep, it can be hard to turn down “a gift horse.”

Let me paint the picture for you.  The reality is that HBCUs aren’t schools that are simply teeming with overeducated, incompetent, money-grubbing loons.  In the main, most of them haven’t had two nickels to rub together almost since inception.  Most people, most presidents even, don’t have the lucrative packages that their counterparts at PWIs receive, even though they are carrying out tasks that require them to do triple duty.  Most HBCUs are filled with people doing two and three jobs for the price of one, and executive leadership is left trying to figure out how to stretch the dollar as far as it can go.  And, in my time, I have seen faculty, staff, and executive leadership pay for books, food, clothes, lodging, and tuition for students if they could pull the money from their own personal accounts.  In my firsthand experiences as an eager administrator, I taught two classes, mentored several students, worked with all of the NPHC organizations, ran Student Activities and Residence Life, served on the judicial committee, and planned Orientation.  In other spaces, one of these duties would have been the mission of just an office of two or three…as it is here at Duke.    And while it was an exhilarating experience, it was also overwhelming to make magic happen on a little salary at a little college filled with people who cared but who were definitely doing too much.

I say all of this to explain the conditions that precipitate the kind of gratitude one might feel in this moment as others "type around" facebook and twitter, providing trendy protest rhetoric that ends with: “give back the money before you become a puppet.”  I think that’s a beautiful response for the idealist who sits in Ivy settings or even well regarded prestigious settings like I do…where we have the privilege of saying no to money.  But, many HBCUs do not have that privilege.  I wish they did, but I realize that such a perspective isn’t helpful in this moment when students and staff need the resources to keep moving forward.

I think it is challenging for us to expect institutions to be more righteous than we are personally, or collectively.  While Kim on “A Different World” was able to turn down the fictitious Orange Glow’s apartheid-laden money, most of us have not.  In fact, many of us talking about giving up money ought to take a long hard look in the mirror.  We ought to think about how we jumped for joy upon entrance into schools who disenfranchised black communities, or accepted fellowships that were built out of exploitation, or graciously thanked benefactors whose scholarships had been born out of guilt.  Maybe we ought to ask even harder questions since we are being so righteous.  Should we be going to schools, like Tuskegee, designed by Booker T. Washington, who took money from folk that never wanted him (or any other black person) to have the right to vote? Should we attend schools like Spelman, which is rumored to be a school that benefited from mixed-race illegitimate children of the turn-of-the-century elite?  Should we be proud of Clark Atlanta University, which has been held together by Coca-Cola money?  I wish the questions were easier.  I wish the sordid histories and narratives were easy, but they simply aren’t!  The perniciousness of systemic institutional racism has had Black institutions crawling on their bellies eating the scraps of others…and somehow making it all work!

Therefore, while I wished that UNCF or HBCUs could be pickier about whom they accepted money from, I realize that this moment is tricky and there are consequences for turning down much needed resources.  But I don’t just wish that for HBCUs, I wish I could have turned down the scholarship from Macalester, when I was told over a dinner with the benefactor that he couldn’t believe he was supporting “the help.”  I wish I could have turned down the loan money from Sallie Mae that continues to be a shackle, when I made the decision to attend an HBCU for graduate school (in a non-STEM field).  I wish that the world was less complicated, but like Dr. Walter Kimbrough said almost year ago in an open letter to Dr. Dre when he (Dr. Dre) gave a $70 million to a PWI…“I wish you had given that money to HBCUs.”

In this moment, we must put our money where our mouths are…or shut up with the strategic complaining.  The lack of support from Black people, who too often forget that HBCUs have played a vital role in helping Black folk have access, is more challenging to me than Koch brothers money.  Their 24 Million dollar gift pales in comparison to our wholesale abandonment.

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Look Into The Culture: HBCUs and Cultural Competency in a Race to the Top

Clark College's motto was "Culture for Service" before it was consolidated with Atlanta University. And, in this moment I can't help but pay attention to Clark's motto, as it seeks to set the tone for this essay.  I can't say I know how it emerged, or why "Culture for Service" was chosen, but I can say that as an educator trained in Christian Theology and African American Studies, I think a lot about the nature of "culture."  I'm not talking about a bourgeois sensibility that is based on Eurocentric values: rather, I'm talking about the ethos and tradition of a place and people that should be considered at all times.  

Now that we have that "cleared up," let me offer some insight.  One day, I and one of my mentees were having a conversation about what made HBCUs unique in the wake of so many vast arguments about the viability and validity of these schools.  Her thoughts were succinct and clear.  She said, "Palmer HBCUs are most valuable because of their social environment...when people think of HBCUs they always start by telling the story of the social experience."  Now, for my academics, my mentee wasn't saying that HBCUs don't carry their weight inside of the classroom.  What she was seeking to do was to describe the validity of a strong Student Affairs unit (as she has a M.Ed. in Student Affairs), in the wake of so many who think of that area of expertise as "Run, Jump, and Play."  Her understanding of HBCUs is actually quite perceptive as we think about how media seems to showcase HBCU's Athletic, Co-Curricular, and Greek Life traditions.  From School Daze to the Great Debaters, people seem to pick up on the alternate culture of HBCUs that is at the heart of the dynamism of our schools.

It would seem that HBCU leaders and advocates would pay attention to the culture of a space as much as we/they pay attention to any other thing.   But, the reason many HBCU leaders haven't done so is because we haven't valued the culture of the space, and we haven't hired that kind of leader to "fix" our HBCUs.  It seems as though we keep hiring the same person in different forms...academically sound, great on paper, and wrong for our schools.  Most of our HBCU leaders have not, will not, do not pay attention to the culture of the campus when they set out to change its culture from one thing to something else.  And, then, they do not hire people who can ask that kind question: what of culture.  As one of my professors at CAU said, "we have been taught to think that the white man's ice is colder."  She is right, unfortunately!  We are trying to contort our schools to a standard that continues to marginalize us.  "You can't out-wa-tootsie the originator of the wa-tootsie," even though many of us try.

It's funny how HBCU alumni can recognize the unique cultural milieu of a campus, and some of their/our administrative leaders have a hard time understanding it.  While there are a million examples, I cite a few from recent years.  I can remember quite vividly when a college president sought to cut down trees on one campus that had always been what one walked through in order to graduate.  A few years back at a women's college, a college president found a letter on her door step, written by student leadership, who wanted her to understand that her skirts and dresses were too short and were not in keeping with the tradition of their school.  At another school, alumni came home for a special weekend and found that the college's tradition of chapel service had been undone.  At another school, the president painted over original artwork that dated back to the Harlem Renaissance.  And just recently, I saw St. Paul's President Millard Stith, talk about another president who brought back football (to a school 500), without taking into consideration who the school served.  In this last case, it was a costly mis-step that led to the school's closing.  At the center of all of this is an understanding of culture.

Too often, leaders of schools focus on charting a disconnected tomorrow without thinking about the history of what a school is...and what the school has been.  Too many of our leaders, even as "degreed" as they are, don't possess an understanding and an appreciation of their environments.  They have no time for cultural competence...no time to acquaint themselves with beautiful legacies...only time to save and build and chart.  Too many leaders serve HBCUs with no intention of asking questions, and listening to the answers.  Too many leaders come with a mentality of "President or Vice President knows best."  Far too many regard the HBCU with the same unconscious disdain that they regard young black people: "if they could just pull up their pants..."  It is our own embrace and validation of all things not us that will actually kill HBCUs.  And this self hate is at the heart of why a Liberal Arts college or University (that has long sustained and provided cultural values and norms) would dismantle fine arts, education, and religion, even when the legacy has been to produce the finest musicians, teachers, and preachers.  

Why would you get rid of chapel, diminish orientation, sidestep student leadership...if the culture of the place is made rich by these experiences?  Why would you dismantle what makes you rich, unique, and a hallmark in higher education? It is because many leaders are "playing in the dark" "damned up with sorrow in the corners of their eyes," and not asking questions that put Blackness, Africaness in the centrality of the argument.  Instead, We are hoping that STEM can save us!  But, who wants to major in Biology without being able to master the jazz piano training begun at home St. Louis?  Who wants to major in Engineering at a school that doesn't have robust student leadership opportunities that push knowledge into praxis?  Who wants to go to a school where singing, poetry, art, languages, and oratory are obsolete? Who?

HBCUs are so often having to answer questions of validity that they never seem to get a chance to put questions on the table for others.  It is too often from trying to "race to the top" on a scale that always seems to have HBCUs in last place, that HBCUs never get to ask seminal questions of our/their PWI counterparts like: "What kind of culture do you create for students of African descent to thrive?," "How are these students centralized in your mission and strategic plan?," and "Can you instill in students of African descent an ethic and ethos that they can succeed and lead ethically?

I've always found it amazing that we can attend a school that seeks to make the sons and daughters of the African diaspora the center of its educational mission, asking us to think about the kinds of questions that don't start with what whiteness wants or what others need.  At the same time, it is saddening to watch institutional leaders struggle to put those same relevant questions on the table...or to watch them miss the obvious. Maybe what HBCU leaders need to be are culturally competent and aware/proud of the contributions made by people who look like them...and the legacies they represent.  Maybe we all need to ask ourselves, how culturally competent are we? Maybe we need to sit in a class and be reminded that this "culture" is unique and nuanced, and doesn't need be measured by someone else's standard.  Maybe if we understood that this "culture" was designed to serve the world, not exploit it we'd be able to create what was needed in this time to keep HBCUs alive!


Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Working In Proximity To Priviledge: A Beautifully Difficult Calling...

It's been a long time since I've written an entry...but today I've been doing some soul searching.  Sometimes, you just can't get the rest you want, until you've released what's inside of you into the mysteries of the universe.  So here goes.

I'll never forget proclaiming when I was at Macalester, "I will never come back to an environment like this!!!" To put things in context, I had just been asked what I hated about being in that space.  At the time, I couldn't articulate what it felt like to be the one black student from South Carolina.  I guess I was feeling like I was the only kid that had to negotiate not only hegemonic racial boundaries, but also hegemonic class and familial boundaries.  As an underclass black kid, who had been brought to school by aunts and uncles, I often felt like I was pariah.  I'm sure every angsty college student coming to terms with who they are (and where they come from) has such epiphanies...but I think life sometimes reinforces that you are not supposed to be here (over and over) again.

One of the beautiful things about going to HBCUs immediately thereafter, was that I found myself thrust into a diverse world of brown and ebony faces whose stories sometimes mirrored that of my own "Up From Slavery" narrative.  Now, I must admit, my close friends have typically come from two-parent, middle class homes.  I don't know why, but that's who has seemed to befriend me easiest...and even in these predominantly black environments, I have found myself to be an outlier to those I know best.

Feelings of inadequacy can shroud accomplishment at graduations, when parents and siblings aren't present.  Deep feelings of grief can tear at the happiness induced by Greek crossings, SGA winnings, Concert Performances, Weddings, Awards, Speeches, and Ordinations...because somewhere in the back of ones mind is a feeling of loneliness, bitterness, and rejection.  Unfortunately, there is no amount of accomplishment that can heal the heart of a child left to fend for him or herself.  Because in the end, accomplishment cannot say, "I love you."  And whatever victory a child like me has had, these bittersweet victories have come with a heavy, heavy price.

As an educator now (called to a space that educates top tier students), it is sometimes difficult to work in a place of privilege, helping students who are destined to take the world stage, because a calling like this causes one to reflect on one's own inadequacies.  When you are living in close approximation to opulence and opportunity, you can see a world that you have never known.  In fact, I help create dreams and moments for others that I never had.  Of course, I want my students to succeed!  Of course, I want them to be great! At the same time, I found myself feeling like, I too, am "the help."

That would be okay, if every once and a while a little Sean Palmer, whose story isn't so neat and clean shows up at my door...so that I can prepare him too.  My challenge is that I don't really see many Sean Palmers gracing the halls of privilege...maybe its because they are elsewhere...maybe they haven't come by my office...maybe they don't exist.  But, every now and then, it would be good to know that I'm helping a student overcome (persevere) a similar experience to my own.  It would be great to be a blessing to the forgotten child in a place of privilege.

It's in this moment that I'm reminded that our callings sometimes don't work like we want them to work. Sometimes, God has built in irony.  In a conversation with my wife and one of my closest friends, I said to them...isn't it funny that both of you who grew up in stable families are called to foster care kids, and I am called to privileged kids.  Isn't it funny what God will do with us, even when we had other plans for our lives.  What I am learning in this moment is that a calling on my life - my life's work - is a beautifully difficult task.