"All We Wanna Do Is Be Free": A Millenial's Take on The 20th Anniversary of The Million Man March

“Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains.” –Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“All we wanna do is take the chains off,

All we wanna do is break the chains off,

All we wanna do is be free

All we wanna do is be free”

–J. Cole

Today’s the big day. It’s the 20^th anniversary of the Million Man March (MMM). The original march took place October 16, 1995, lead by Minister Louis Farrakhan. As I thought of the significance of this day, so many thoughts ran through my mind: “What an awesome opportunity. Will we have an ask? What is it? Maybe fatigue has set in, and we are tired of asking, America, to treat us as human beings. How many more men would be at the march if so many of us were not incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses? What does this day mean for legislation being passed at the state level to further disenfranchise votes of people from low-income communities of color? Wait—events like this are one of the things I miss about living in Washington, DC.”

Truth is, I have been blessed to see and be a part of so many events (in my lifetime), which signify monumental gains for African Americans. I was in DC in 2008, when President Obama was elected as the first black president in the history of the United States. I was in DC for his second inauguration in January 2012 and for the 50^th anniversary of the march on Washington in August 2013. In lieu of these powerful identity-shaping moments, I’d like to share three things I gleaned from thinking about the significance of the Million Man March: 

In every movement there is a generational difference (of opinion) about what is needed in a social change movement. In 1992, my hometown of East Palo Alto, California was deemed the “murder capital.” And yet, just yesterday, I was sitting in an office building speaking with a black woman elder and an African American man in his mid-thirties about the significance of the MMM. In the background hung a graffiti-ed art sign that read, “This ain’t the 90’s.” This sign was created by youth in the community to change the narrative of our community – and I respect them for it.  Amidst criticism that we millennials are “not politically active enough” beyond getting Obama in office, or that we have to do more than assemble on the front lines in Ferguson, I remembered seeing on my Facebook timeline a woman (Rahiel Tesfamariam) whose shirt said, “This Ain’t Yo' Mama’s Civil Rights Movement.” The sentiment from her shirt, as well as the sign from the youth in my community is, our elders have done things one way in the past, and while we are fighting for the same issues, we may use different tactics.  In other words, we appreciate the work of our elders, but we are not our elders.  To that end, there is nothing wrong with a difference of opinion in the movement. One view isn’t “right” and the other “wrong”— It’s just different.  If we have to agree on everything before we are able to work together, I don’t know how much work will get done.

Also, within a movement non-inclusive spaces may exist (within reason).  Yesterday, I asked the black woman who is definitely a respected elder in our village: “What are your thoughts on the Million Man March or Million Man/Woman March?” She quickly corrected me. She began to tell me how I was “watering down its original purpose in the name of being politically correct.” And she had a point. My knee-jerk reaction was to defend my position. And wax poetic about the importance of being inclusive at all times, in all spaces. But I paused.  Concurrently, there were support groups in separate rooms for teenage boys and girls in our office complex.  Was I going to bust through the door, interrupt the young men’s support group and insist that I (a woman) be included in the discussion? Of course, not. It would not have been appropriate. While there are so many intersections of oppression at play in our society, there is not a one-size-fits-all or quick-fix approach to the oppression we face on a daily basis.  Via the correction of an elder, I learned that there is not always a need to reclaim or make certain spaces inclusive or more politically correct. It depends on the context.  Some spaces are sacred spaces and it is okay for those spaces (within reason) to cater to the experience or needs of a specific group as to not water down the reality of their experience/ story.

Pick your part (or cause) of the social change movement (and make an impact).  While I valued the discussion yesterday afternoon around the importance of the MMM and the movement, I came to realize that not only are differences of opinion in any movement generational, total agreement is not necessary for us to see what role we can play in the movement.  Furthermore, the spaces we create in the movement on our journey to freedom won’t be static spaces; they will be fluid and certainly contextual. Young people, ask questions. Elders, mentor a young person to pick up the work where you left off. To the old and the young, don't assume that the other doesn't care about the struggle. And ask about the work they have done and are doing, before you assume they aren't doing any. Black people, we are a myriad of personal narratives, collective experiences, and differing ideas about what it will take to truly free us all.  Yes, it’s complex, but I am certain that eventhough this pursuit of freedom is a constant struggle, and may take a while to materialize, WE WILL BE FREE BLACK PEOPLE. I BELIEVE it and I am willing to work for it! Are you?

PS. Some of y'all black men posting statuses about being glad to have attended the march 20 years ago (and glad to be going again) -- but y'all don't look a day past 30!!!! But that's none of my business. ‪#‎blackdontcrack ‪#‎ShoutOutToMyBlackBrothasStrongBrothas ‪#‎MillionManMarch ‪#‎ISeeYou

Worshipping While Black: Should Clergy Carry Guns?

A poet once said, “Things aren’t all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered.” On June 17, 2015, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, South Carolina, nine people were killed during bible study. At my desk at work when I heard the news, I sank into my chair. The act of forming words became as strenuous as Sisyphus pushing a bolder to the top of a hill only to fall back down again. I was conflicted on several levels: historically, the massacre took place in a black church, which splintered from a mainline white denomination that displayed racial prejudice against people of African descent. Racially, Emanuel AME church became a target because of the skin color of the people who worshipped there. Vocationally, I had graduated from seminary a year prior to this massacre. Was this the context in which I was prepared to minister?

This tragic event led me to raise the ethical question, “Should members of the clergy be allowed to carry guns to protect their members?” In a society where unarmed black men and women have become targets of neighborhood vigilantes and police officers— (usually resulting in murder before trigger persons ask any questions), it seems fair and wise to have some level of security at houses of worship.  When I lived in Washington, DC I attended a service at Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ commemorating the 50th anniversary of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama where a bomb was intentionally planted as a way to scare African Americans even from their place of worship. This is not the first time in our history that sanctuaries have become mere targets for terrorism. What should be our response?

Photo credit: www.Google.com

Many liberals will say that they do not like violent terms such as “war” or “fight” to describe the freedom movement in the United States, let alone the mention of weapons such as guns—and definitely not in the church, mosque, temple or gudwara. I submit that this stance is on the side of privilege and does not grasp the reality of the struggle for survival in the lived African-American experience.  It easily becomes a debate over semantics versus survival— if the conversation must be watered down to comfortable,  non-aggressive or non-confrontational terms. The words of Frederick Douglas come to mind: “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

It is the debate of violence or non-violence. Many of us have engaged in discourse on this topic or saw the media portrayals of Martin Luther King Jr. as doing God’s work and Malcolm X labeled the devilish activist outcast. Whether or not clergy should be able to carry guns to protect their members is a question worth considering. While I am struggling to find an answer, one picture gave me solace. It is a picture of a little girl and the usher on the steps of Emanuel AME Church, the Sunday after the June 17^th massacre. I do not know that I would have been able to walk in the building, given what had transpired the week before. Nevertheless, on the little girl’s face was a look of innocence and on the elder’s was a look of hope. Maybe the child and the elder, without knowing it have told us what we need: enough innocence to believe that the world can be a beautiful place but in the moments it is not—to stay at our post looking out for the members of our community in good hope, but on guard.

Photo credit: Joe Raedle  

May God be with and comfort the members of this church and their families as they mourn the loss of the following:

Cynthia Hurd, 54; Susie Jackson, 87; Ethel Lance, 70; Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, 49; Hon. Rev. Clementa Pinckney, 41; Tywanza Sanders, 26; Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., 74; Rev. Sharonda Singleton, 45; Myra Thompson, 59.

An Open Letter to Kim Mai-Cutler

 

About two weeks ago, I came across your article entitled: East of Palo Alto’s Eden: Race and the Formation of Silicon Valley (http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/10/east-of-palo-altos-eden/).  You boldly explain the demographic history of my hometown of East Palo Alto, California, from the 1950’s until the present.  You rightfully raise questions about the level of local diversity in the tech sector, and simultaneously acknowledge the charitable contributions that some of these companies have made to my community.  You convey, “Still, there’s this disconnect between the Valley’s charitable efforts and acknowledging how the structure (emphasis mine) of the region’s housing, job and educational markets create these disparities in the first place.”  Mrs. Mai-Cutler, Thank you, for asking the structural questions, in such a public forum. 

As a high school student, I rode the SamTrans bus every morning.  I left the often sidewalk-less streets of East Palo Alto to get to my high school, Menlo-Atherton.  When I looked out of the window, I didn’t see one street in Atherton without sidewalks.  Where I lived and where I went to school seemed like two vastly different worlds.  Yet they were so close in proximity.  Looking back, I never understood how such abject poverty could exist beside such prosperity. 

You continue, “Now that East Palo Alto has brought its crime from the high-water mark of the early 1990’s, the irony is that the community is now prone to gentrification.”  Over the years, I have heard people say, “Gentrification is inevitable.” I believe that the contrary is true.  This is because gentrification is not a force of nature; it is a human act, brought about by human agency.  While this letter does not offer an exhaustive list on how to “fix” gentrification, I hope that it will become a conversation starter, the same way that your article has.  At the same time, I am aware that gentrification is a trend that existed well before I was born, and will likely continue long after I am gone.  Yet and still, I want to present some facts to consider during the overall discourse on gentrification—for as long as these conversations occur. 

Firstly, throughout history, there has been a pattern of displacement of people of color from their land(s).  The Transatlantic Slave Trade, is a prime example.  Africa was robbed of her natural resources, at the hands of rapacious explorers.  Let us not forget, too, the zealous white missionaries, who boarded ships named, “Jesus,” determined to “save the heathen Negroes.”  But black people weren’t the only group uprooted from their home (land).  The Jewish Holocaust and the Native American Trail of Tears are other historic examples.  I believe such systematic displacement continues to impact the plight and the narrative of these people groups, today.  I wonder if gentrifiers have considered this history in their decision-making.  

  

Secondly, for groups of people, land carries a very symbolic meaning in both literature and culture, which points to identity.  In the biblical tradition, a familiar story regarding land is the Israelite exodus out of Egypt.  According to the story, after crossing the Red Sea, Joshua leads his people into the Promised Land.  Oftentimes in literature, the Promised Land is a metaphor for a better life—free from oppression, whose analysis may be applied to a literal social situation.  It is a story used, for example, in one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches shortly before his death.   He writes, “I may not get there with you… but we as a people will get to the Promised Land (emphasis mine)”!  By inference, for blacks back then, the Promised Land meant a world free from white terrorism (in the form of Jim Crow segregation).  

At its basic level, the question of one’s land of origin is tied to an existential question—“Who Am I”?  Therefore, land is a point of reference for a person’s history, literature, culture and identity.  All of these elements are apart of the fabric of East Palo Alto.  I wonder if the gentrifiers realize the humanity of the people whose land they wish to invade.  I wonder if they realize that land, especially for historically disadvantaged groups of people symbolizes: freedom, opportunity, equity, access, identity and community.  

Thirdly, it should be stated that there are those who don’t mind the process of gentrification and voluntarily sell their property.  Other times (when rents are raised) residents are forced to move out and relocate to cheaper areas.  My focus is on the latter.  Until recently, I had never examined the root word of gentrification—or gentry.

Gentrification is the buying and renovation of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighborhoods by upper or middle-income families or individuals, thus improving property values but often displacing low-income families and small businesses (www.dictinary.com). The Gentry are defined as:

(1) The class below the Nobility

[The social class pyramid in Great Britain during the Middle Ages looked something like this: Royalty, Clergy, Nobility, Merchants (includes the Gentry), Castle Workers, Entertainers, Military and Peasantry [www.Google.com]).

(2) An upper or ruling class; Aristocracy

(3) Those who are not members of the Nobility… especially those owning large tracts of land 

In other words, the gentry can become the gentrifiers.  At the end of the day, gentrification is about economic wealth and dare I say, power.  Having one usually brings the other, but power must have checks and balances.  Mrs. Mai-Cutler, Thank you for raising questions about who has the power in the process of gentrification and how they are using that power.  Furthermore, thank you for highlighting the class issues inherent in the process of gentrification instead of romanticizing them. Too often, the rhetoric surrounding this process, is couched in a term like “development”— when really, the end result is displacement. 

Growing up in a low-income town like East Palo Alto, California, I have witnessed a city that went from hosting “mom and pop shops” to the franchises like the Four Seasons Hotel.  I have watched relatives relocate because they can no longer afford to live in Silicon Valley.  Since I was a high school student, local grassroots organizations, along with a few others, have been fighting to keep affordable housing complexes that benefit the residents in the community, as opposed to expensive condominiums, which push the residents out.  Perhaps gentrification is the modern day, manifest destiny and we have failed to realize it.  

One might ask, “What should we do about gentrification?  Should we just accept it or fight against it?”  I would add several more questions to the conversation: “Should there be ethics involved? Where does gentrification end? If people keep moving and moving, because of what is best for the gentry, then does it solve anything?  Is there an alternative to gentrification?”  In your article, you underscore the long-term and multi-generational effects of gentrification, which can’t be ignored. 

It seems that the gentry and the developers are more concerned about meeting the demands of the market (profits) and less concerned about uprooting families (people).  I’m curious to know if those in the power seat in these conversations are consciously aware of the weight their decisions have in my community.  Developers are bulldozing families, as if they are buildings.  Perhaps the alternative is for the gentry to see those who they force into this process of gentrification as bearing the image of God.  To put it another way, we all bear the image of God, because we were all created by God. So why is it that one group bearing the same image gets to displace another group?  I don't pretend to have answers to such a complex problem.  But maybe, the first step is realizing that the problem of gentrification itself should be displaced, altogether.  

Mrs. Mai-Cutler, Thank you for taking the time to research the history of East Palo Alto, interview residents and gather the narrative of my community.  It is a story worth telling.  It forced me to articulate my own thoughts on the topic of gentrification and put into perspective many of the disturbing disparities I saw and lived with, growing up.  You have reminded me why the work of justice is the work to which I have dedicated my life.   

Thank you, for being so courageous. 

Sincerely,

Kyra Brown