Author: gracesmuggler

Today, I’d like to share an image from the Instagram account @malefragility. It’s entitled, “Contradictions for White People in Racial Justice Work.” On Instagram, the caption to the image says, “If you’re leaning too far in one direction, try the other one.”

I will type out the text below:

— white people are a particular liability in racial justice movements
— white people have specific and critical roles in racial justice movements

— it can feel humiliating to have not participated meaningfully in racial justice work before now and suddenly want to join
— in order to grow stronger and win, the movement requires new people to join

— when you’re working on ending an oppression that you benefit from, people will rightly mistrust you and be hard on you
— when you’re working on ending racism, it’s good to be nice to yourself and patient with yourself

— white activists need to listen to, defer to, and take leadership from POC
— because “POC” is not a monolithic identity that all believes one thing, white activists need to cultivate their own analysis and judgment over time

— one specific role for white people is being tough about holding one another accountable
— another key role for white people is extending compassion, care, and patience to other white people

— racial justice work involves people giving up or giving away their power
— another part of racial justice work is white people strategically using their power rather than hiding it, denying it, or pretending it doesn’t exist

I saw this image today from @HolisticAllyGrace, and I thought I would share it. Posting the image text below:

Anti-Racism: Fixed to Growth Mindset

Fixed-Comfort:
“I don’t know where to start or what to say.”

Growth-Courage:
“First I will listen/read/watch. I will speak against injustice.”

Fixed-Comfort:
“I don’t want to get it wrong or get called out.”

Growth-Courage:
“I will make mistakes, no doubt about it. I will be grateful for the lesson.”

Fixed-Comfort:
“It won’t make a difference what I do. Nothing is going to change.”

Growth-Courage:
“Things happen when I take risks and become part of something bigger.”

Fixed-Comfort:
“I don’t get involved in politics. I don’t have time.”

Growth-Courage:
“This is a human rights issue. This matters. I will make time.”

 

 

Image description: An image from Amber Hughson’s piece below. In the middle it says “But Actually Imagine Transformative Alternatives to Policing.” This title is surrounded by her flyers. You can read image descriptions for those flyers here.

Hello, everyone.

I want to share this post today from Amber Hughson, a friend of mine. She is the creator of the Alternatives to Policing flyers that have gone quite viral over the last few weeks. I have shared these flyers on this blog. I have also seen them shared by friends all across the country.

But Amber has deep concerns about how these flyers are being used and talked about in some circles, and she wants us to do what the title below says… actually imagine transformative alternatives to policing.

She asks us to do this and also share her piece below if we’ve shared these flyers. I’m also pulling these two quotes. The first speaks to the context of the creation of these flyers. The second is a call for us to act upon these flyers in particular ways.

“I was (and am) exhausted by the comments of ‘well-meaning’ liberals that visions of a world without policing and incarceration are ‘utopian’ and ‘unrealistic’ and ‘idealistic.’ These words were weaponized against Black, immigrant, trans, and poor organizers and survivors who detailed their experiences of having been targeted by policing and offered concrete policy changes that would affirm and protect their lives. In particular, Mayor Christopher Taylor (as well as City Council and recently fired City Administrator Howard Lazarus) have waged an insidious campaign to gaslight Black community members and organizers. In response to extensive incidents of harm from policing in Ann Arbor, Taylor responds in total defense of police actions — he cannot imagine a world in which he does not feel threatened by his own constituents to the point of requiring armed guards. He openly names white supremacy and racism as historic national problems, but tells community members and organizers that these same issues are not present in Ann Arbor and certainly not in the AAPD. Taylor absolves his officers and himself of wrongdoing while standing in a ‘safe’ (for who?) pleasantly white-dominant City which has gentrified historic Black neighborhoods. He, alongside most of Ann Arbor, willfully denies a connection between the hoarding of wealth in Ann Arbor and the extensive violence of policing and incarceration in neighboring Ypsilanti. We watched as community members stood by the mayor time and time again. Organizers were emotionally exhausted. Black organizers told me they were too traumatized to return to the work.”

and

“Do what no one can do alone. Sit down with these flyers and have conversations, rather than simply sharing them. Question the words that I chose like ’employee’ or ‘urgent responder’ or ‘crisis intervention team.’ Question the race neutral language and images. Push the boundaries of who could and should fill these roles and who could and should have the power to shape them. Push the boundaries of how rigid these roles would be regulated and imagine them being flexible to shifting conditions. Imagine the kinds of transformative changes that would be required in your specific context for Indigenous, Black, trans, immigrant, poor, and disabled people most impacted by policing to actually make the decisions of how land, wealth, food, shelter, and healthcare are distributed in a world without police.”

Please have a read:

But Actually Imagine Transformative Alternatives to Policing

Image description: A sliced loaf of banana bread. Public domain image.

I have the pleasure of filling in frequently as a guest preacher for churches. I’ve been doing this locally for years; now, during a virtual time of pandemic, I am able to do this nationally as well. And when you travel around (okay, right now, from home) you can repeat yourself. This is something I often say at the end of the sermon or the end of the service:

“We are people who gather around sacred texts. The sermon is not ultimately what I said today. It’s certainly not something I typed out in a word document and then spoke aloud. The sermon is a moment we shared together as people who gather around sacred texts. And so… the people who popped in your mind today, the ideas that came to you, and the inkling toward prayer for specific individuals and situations… that’s the sermon too. And when we act on those things, we’re all preaching the sermon.”

It’s encouraging to pay attention to those nudges, so to speak, and act on them.

Outside of a church context, on Saturday, I had just posted a couple of sentences on Facebook, sharing that I was missing the normalcy of being with people and being out and about. A friend of mine did not see that post, but immediately got an idea to come to my house and drop off some banana bread. It was delicious. This also allowed me to visit with her at a distance for a bit. She said the idea just came to her and felt like she should come right over. I am grateful.

Last night, I received a text out of the blue from an acquaintance I haven’t spoken to for a long time. In fact, we had only spoken a couple of times ever. We used to sing in a choir together. She left the choir a while back, but she ended up being present for one of my virtual sermons last week. I didn’t know she was a part of a Presbyterian Church. But it was the sermon this week from their pastor that encouraged her to send me a text. My colleague had shared, “Write a letter of encouragement to someone.” I’m not sure why my former choir acquaintance thought of me, except perhaps for my virtual sermon one week before. But she did write me a quick text to see if this was my contact information. It was, and when I texted back, she called me, and we had such a wonderful conversation. We connected meaningfully about things happening in our lives and in the world. And now she’s going to keep calling. I have a new friend.

These days, I keep a list of the kinds of nudges that come to me too. Contact this person… send this podcast you heard… say a kind word… ask a question to this person… ponder this idea…

Connection and change move through relationships. So who knows what’s possible — what care, what newness, what transformation? These can happen when we listen deeply to these nudging instincts. We can do much for our mental health and that of others when we live this way. It adds connection. It adds hope.

—Renee Roederer

Image Description: A series of black dominos with quite dots; the ones in the back have fallen, and the ones in the front are about to fall. Public domain image.

Everything catalyzes everything.

Everything affects everything.

This, of course, is so obvious that it’s hardly worth being the topic of a blog post. But perhaps it’s obvious to the point that we could think about it more often. Maybe with some intention, we might feel greater hope too. Because….

What we do matters.

Now surely, some actions have bigger impacts than others. And when we move in directions we regret, we can always change course. After all, everything catalyzes everything, and our course correction shifts the whole. Even the recognition that we need a course correction had a catalyst. Something woke us up to that. And now the shift will have impacts too, creating space for new possibilities.

So back to this:

What we do matters.

What we do – how we spend our time, how we speak, how we relate, how we create, how we care – it all matters.

Because it always initiates a sequence of effects, often well beyond what we might have imagined. It’s not about us. But our actions matter. We impact things, just as they impact us.

–Renee Roederer

Here are a few articles and testimonies that have challenged me and been valuable conversation partners in my own reflections this week:

Statement from the Rev. Dr. Brian Blount on the Death of George Floyd

Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police by Mariame Kaba

An Open Love Letter to My White Friends by Dwight L. Wilson

This Tweet by Dwayne Reed

Thought I’d pass these along.

 

Image Description: The logo of the Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County. There is a light blue background. The letters ‘i’, ‘r’, and ‘t; are in white, and inside the letters, there are a number of religious symbols in blue.

Together with Dwight Wilson, I serve as the Co-Director of the Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County. This week, we released a statement on behalf of IRT with a call to anti-racism. Today, I will share that here.

IRT’s Call to Anti-Racism

Image Description: Silhouettes of people are all walking in the same direction to the left. They are each holding a piece of red arrow that’s pointing to the left.

Every morning, I receive daily email meditations from Richard Rohr. I love them, and I recommend them to people all the time.

Richard Rohr sent a piece about collaborative leadership, juxtaposing it with the kind of leadership that dominates and determines decisions alone. He lifted up what is possible when leaders and entire communities begin to create cultures of collaboration. I like his list, so I’m going to share it today:

“Here are some insights into what every good, servant-hearted, nondual leader knows and practices, whether in community, in the workplace, or in the classroom. Creative leaders:

• are seers of alternatives.
• move forward by influencing events and inspiring people more than by ordering or demanding.
• know that every one-sided solution is doomed to failure. It is never a lasting solution but only a postponement of the problem.
• learn to study, discern, and search together with others for solutions.
• know that total dilemmas are very few. We create many dilemmas because we are internally stuck, attached, fearful, over-identified with our position, needy of winning the case, or unable to entertain even the partial truth that the other opinion might be offering.
• know that wisdom is ‘the art of the possible.’ The key question is no longer ‘How can I problem solve now and get this off my plate?” It is “How can this situation achieve good for the largest number and for future generations?’
• continue finding and sharing new data and possibilities until they can work toward consensus from all sides.
• want to increase both freedom and ownership among the group—not subservience, which will ultimately sabotage the work anyway.
• emphasize the why of a decision and show how it is consistent with the group’s values.”

We can cultivate this kind of leadership. The challenge, of course, is learning how to organize communities in these ways when there are so many cultural pulls to keep organizing ourselves in top-down models. But new ways are always possible. They lead to an empowered community.

And sometimes, a community has to become empowered enough to say, “We want that.” When this happens, the community itself is the leader.

–Renee Roederer

Image Description: Three pink flowers on a vine, each in the shape of a heart. A blue sky is in the background.

What would feel like to take heart just a little bit more today?

To remind yourself that people are indeed working for good in the world, even in the midst of pain?

To remind yourself that you’ve been surprised at other times, so why not be surprised by goodness again?

To remind yourself that taking heart, while vulnerable, is really giving heart by allowing yourself to have hope and trust, and that this can actually lean into the creation of goodness in the world? Especially it takes to imagination? Especially when it takes to action?

We know that hope needs imagination and action.

Your neighbor is worth that risk.

You’re worth that risk.

–Renee Roederer

Image Description: A brown bin says “Compost” in white letters. A large amount of pulled weeds are inside. One long plant is hanging out of the bin.

I pulled a whole heckuva lot of weeds over the weekend. If I may be honest, I found this to be fun. Perhaps there was something cathartic and soothing about it.

The most satisfying weed to pull was a particularly long and windy kind. It has a system of stems and leaves connected to a shared vine. It’s the kind pictured above, spilling out of the compost bin. This plant — I don’t know its name — wove its way effectively and adeptly around my day lily plants. And most of it was hidden and out of view.

I’d find one piece and begin to pull on it. Then I’d discover much more, a system all connected.

I reflected on the beliefs we carry…

… about ourselves,
… about our relationships,
… about our neighbors,
… about the ways we structure our society,

and this plant seemed to convey a lot.

Sometimes, within ourselves, there are whole, connected systems of beliefs, fears, and emotional triggers that need to be explored and healed. Sometimes, within our communities, there are large, connected systems of harm intended to bolster some and disadvantage others.

We have to start somewhere — pulling, uncovering connections, examining, and uprooting.

–Renee Roederer