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

Mothering in the Mire: For the Mother of Mike Brown and Black Mothers Everywhere

One month ago, today, Michael Brown Jr. was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri.  I sat down to write this post several times within the last month, but could not bring myself to do it. I was inundated with Facebook statuses, tweets, instagram pictures and the like, about this tragic shooting.  But what could I say?  What should I say?  I turned on the television and people aching for justice were met with tear gas, tanks and other methods of brute force, as if they were adversaries!  As each day passed, it became more difficult to process that it was 2014 and not 1964. 

I still have so many questions.  Two that remain are:

1. What about the mother of Mike Brown? AND

2. How much trauma can one group of people take?

(I do not know how to even begin to deal with the second question, so I will focus on the first.)

While I am not yet a mother, I have the capacity to become one.  As a black woman, whose body can produce black children, I could not help but wonder if someday, I might stand in the shoes of Ms. Lesley McSpadden, mother of Mike Brown.  I wondered on the one hand, about the courage it takes to raise a child in a land not created for them and on the other hand, I commended the courage of black mothers to keep doing so.  Black mothers keep mothering, even though "every 28 hours a black person is killed by a police officer".  Black mothers keep mothering, even though our children are being killed while in handcuffs (Oscar Grant), for wearing a hoodie (Trayvon Martin), for listening to music (Jordan Davis), for asking for help (Renisha McBride) or while walking down the street (Mike Brown). Black mothers keep mothering black children, even though we live in a society, which fears black skin.  I wrestled with this feeling of hopelessness and wondered if I could ever become a mother, given this reality.  

It was during this time that I came across an old (April 2014) Essence magazine article by Melissa Harris-Perry entitled “Mother’s Day.”  She recounts the death of Jordan Davis, an unarmed African-American male shot and killed in the backseat of an SUV in Florida for playing rap music.  In this article, she mentions having met the mother of both Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin, in a close time frame.  She writes,

“It is impossible to be a Black Woman in America without wondering, at times, if our country hates the ones we love.  It would be easy to allow the grief of our recent losses or the history of Black life in America to make us shun the task of mothering.  We have inherited the historic audacity of Black mothers in this country.  We have dared to create families, to embrace our beloveds, to bear our children and to pour our whole selves into them even when we know that a hateful world awaits.  To love our children without reservation is an act of courage—one that was passed down to us, and one that we must continue.”

*Photo taken at Howard University: "Hands Up, Don't Shoot"

While I agree with Harris-Perry that we must remember the historical narrative of the black mother’s audacity, and the current narrative of the black mother’s continued courage, (especially in light of these not-so-new racialized realities), I would like to add to her argument. For me, there is also a theological narrative, which gives us hope.  It is this: We (black women) are a part of God's story, because we are a part of human history.  If God put us in the story, God surely put our children in the story.  Therefore, we must also come to see black mothering/child-rearing as the continued work of God.  If this is so, in like manner, we ought see our children as indeed, bearing the image of God (Gen. 1:27).  This means that the lives of not only black parents, but also black offspring are and will always be valuable—even when the world at large decides otherwise.   

 #MikeBrown #DontShoot #Godtalk #BlackMothers #blacklivesmatter  #GodMadeTheSkinImIn

Is Feminism Flawless? —A Commentary on the Complexities of Womanhood

Feminist: One advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men.  It seems that the conversation around what it means to be a feminist has always either elicited concord or conflict.  For example, in December, shortly after Beyoncé’s release of her fourth music album, I came across a blog article titled: “The Problem with Beyhive Bottom Bitch Feminism.”  There followed a thread of over 400 comments from women of various ages, wrestling with the very definition of feminism.

 

But feminism isn’t flawless.  When constant questions are raised as to whether artists like Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé are feminists, I am reminded of this.  In fact, while some like to romanticize the details of the feminist movement and assert that women across color and circumstance were on one united front advocating for the equality of all women, the contrary is true.  Black women were not included in the definition of woman.  Works like Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I A Woman?” manifest the black woman’s unapologetic struggle for her society to view her as fully woman.  In fact, many scholars deemed the plight of the black woman in a majority white world, a “double bind.”  Essentially, as stated by Anna Julia Cooper, black women were “confronted by both a woman question and a race problem.”  Therefore, given that the aims of the feminist movement excluded black women, I wonder if any black woman— Ms. Minaj, Mrs. Knowles-Carter or otherwise, can truly call herself a feminist.

 

In addition, women deserve the freedom to create our own definitions of womanhood.  Some may desire to express that meaning by using the words: feminist, black feminist, womanist or none of the above.  And that’s just fine!  Our true power lies in our ability to define womanhood on our own terms.  Moreover, the benefit is that each of these terms may challenge us to think of womanhood in ways that we hadn’t before. 

 

In one of her essays, bell hooks discusses the representation of the black female body in popular culture.  For hooks, she is empowered when notions of womanhood “subvert sexist and racist representations” that have pervaded our society.  While this is an honorable and necessary task, does it force women into a sort of existential straight-jacket?  If a woman constantly engages in overturning images, which undermine her gender or sexuality, is there any middle ground?  For example, a woman may say that she refuses to marry because she does not want to support the sexist institution of patriarchy.  Or is there a way for her to operate within the system (institution of marriage) and be an equal to her husband?  Or if a black woman refuses to wear a mini-skirt and halter top for the sake of not upholding the “black woman as Jezebel” stereotype, where is her freedom to dress as she pleases?  For me, the freedom lies in the ability to create and recreate a personal definition of womanhood as often as needed.  While subversion of “racist and sexist” images is important, my definition of womanhood cannot stop there.  If it does, I am merely tip-toeing around the meaning of womanhood (which includes sexuality) as opposed to embracing it! 

  

Also, it seems that being a woman is difficult.  While there are days that it comes with ease, there are also days that being a woman comes with struggle.  Maya Angelou confirms this for me.  She writes, 

Being a woman is hard work. Not without joy and even ecstasy, but still relentless, unending work. To become and remain a woman commands the existence and employment of genius. The woman who survives intact and happy must be at once tender and tough. She must have convinced herself, or be in the unending process of convincing herself, that she, her values, and her choices are important. In a time and world where males hold sway and control, the pressure upon women to yield their rights-of-way is tremendous. And it is under those very circumstances that the woman's toughness must be in evidence.

In our struggle to be women, we must remember that we are human.  We do not possess all of the answers of what it means to be a woman.  If we had all of the answers, what need would we have of the Divine Mother’s spirit to guide us on our journey?  It may be that the definition of womanhood is fluid and not static, growing as we grow.  Perhaps womanhood exists beyond any of the labels that we have imagined.  It may be that it is as breathtaking, as vast and as mysterious as the horizon.

 

 

Letting Go of Shame: A Psychoanalytic Reading of The Prodigal Son

Series: Diary of A Divinity Student (Entry #4)

This past semester, I participated in a Student-Faculty Colloquium at Howard University School of Divinity.  I was a student-respondent among three faculty-respondents.  This exercise allowed me to further explore an area of great interest: the intersection of psychology and religion.

(A Response to Dr. Jay-Paul Hinds’ “Shame and it’s Sons: Black Men, Fatherhood and Filicide”)

    What is filicide?  Upon preparing my response, I asked myself this question.  As a result, I could not help but notice that Christ, himself, was a victim of filicide.  According to the Christian story, we are saved by a Father, who begat a son, and killed that son (by way of the cross).  While we emphasize Christ’s degradation and use it as a source of empowerment that invites us to a personal faith-journey of metamorphosis, there is something quite unsettling about this model.  While Dr. Jay-Paul Hinds, in his paper, “Shame and Its Sons: Black Men, Fatherhood and Filicide”, asserts the contrary, it is my opinion, that shame is not a secure base from which to nurture our sons and daughters in the black community.  We are surrounded by a culture of shame.  Furthermore, shame is a complex emotion and it is unrealistic that wholeness can come from such a broken place.  In this response, I have identified the following three areas of shame: theological, societal and familial. 

First, our sons and daughters are oftentimes exposed to a theological shame, as a result of church upbringing.  We are taught that we are to be ashamed of our “sinful” human nature, and that is in fact, proof that we are in need of a savior.  I am reminded of the short story, by Langston Hughes, entitled, “Salvation,” which depicts a thirteen-year-old boy, who was shamed into salvation, if you will.  In fact, our shame is two fold.  Not only are we made to feel a sense of self-disgust as a result of our “sinful” human condition, we are also reminded of the shamefulness of the cross.  Christ sacrificed his shame for our own. Songs such as “I Know It Was The Blood,” further prove this point:

They nailed him to a tree; they nailed him to a tree for me. 

They pierced him in his side; they pierced him in his side, for me. 

One day when I was lost, he died upon the cross and I know it was the blood for me.

Essentially, we are taught that we must admit our shameful shortcomings, accept the gift of salvation, or Christ’s shameful crucifixion was in vain. 

Second, our sons and daughters, growing up in the United States, encounter a societal shame.  It is the shame of bearing black skin.  We live in a land, which enslaved, lynched, and segregated our ancestors, and in many ways still seeks to oppress us today.  Let us take the recent, story of Trayvon Martin, for example.  Many of us know the story.  He was a black, young male, walking through a white neighborhood, on his way to purchase iced tea and skittles, never to return.  And sadly, in our society, such degradation of black males is not uncommon.  Or, for our daughters, beyond the skin, there is a shame attached to black hair.  I am reminded of Tiana Parker, the teary-eyed six-year-old girl in Tulsa, Oklahoma sent home from school because the school “banned natural hairstyles such as afros and dreadlocks.”  Due to these underpinnings of theological and societal shame, I argue that this emotion is not a foundation of familial empowerment for our sons and daughters in the African-American community.  

 

 *Trayvon Martin and Father, Tracy Martin

However, I applaud Dr. Hinds’ use of a biblical paradigm to shed light on family dynamics and issues of mental health.  This is often a taboo topic in the black community.  Moreover, I hold that in the story of the prodigal son, the father is a starting point for analysis of the family structure, not the answer to it. 

Third, Hinds asserts that for both father and son, mutual shame or vulnerability can serve as a platform for empowerment.  Namely, Hinds assumes that the father is in a healthy enough place to relate to his son, to begin with.  Given the social issues surrounding the father-son dynamic, in our context today, of which Hinds states its effects adequately and with much analysis, the end goal of reconciliation by way of mutual vulnerability seems to understate the complexity of the issue.  Next, Hinds assumes that the father is aware of his own shame and willing to admit how it has impacted the father-son relationship.  The father must do his own internal work before attempting to address the son’s.  As the father, he may not be ready to undergo such a difficult process of self-introspection.  Especially, if his own shame as a son (the father) has not been addressed in his own life.  If the father and son come to a healthy place were reconciliation is possible, it will not come from a place of familial shame.  The father is not all encompassing, possessing all of the answers that the son needs for his own development.  For me, this solution echoes the paternalistic-patriarchal model of our theology.  Perhaps some of the questions we ask God, we hold the answers to.   Perhaps the son has more to say than the parable exemplifies. 

           *The Return of The Prodigal Son by Romare Bearden 

 

From what place should fathers relate to their sons and daughters?  In the story, maybe the father did the right thing in not addressing his son’s inner shame.  Maybe the father was aware of what he COULD provide: monetary as opposed to emotional support.  Perhaps the task for the lost son or daughter is to realize what the father can provide—if anything.  Perhaps it is why the prodigal child took the voyage to begin with.  Throughout our lives as sons or daughters, we will leave home many times.  We will leave in search of a community drastically different from the one in which we were raised.  Or, if the home is a toxic place, one’s journey may not permit them to return home often.  Theological, societal and familial shame are not springboards for hope.   In this case, maybe a healthy home is more psychological than physical. Perhaps this was the case for the prodigal son. Perhaps this (realization) is the place from which growth can occur. 

DARE to BE NATURAL!

“Hairstyles such as dreadlocks, afros, mohawks and other faddish styles are unacceptable.”  These were the words in the student handbook at Deborah Brown Community School located in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  On September 11, 2013, seven-year-old Tiana Parker, a student of this school, was sent home because her hair was deemed “unacceptable.”  Her story illustrates that in America, there remains a prevailing perception that black hair is not beautiful in its natural state. 

 Tiana Parker, Age 7

Moreover, this issue affects not only black women and girls, but black boys and men, also.  In fact, Hampton University, since 2001, has banned dreadlocks and cornrows for students (male and female) enrolled in their MBA program.  Sid Credle, the Dean of the Business School, asserts that the ban exists so that students can secure employment in the corporate arena.  But what makes black hair unacceptable or unprofessional?  I have been asking this question for years, and I have never received a satisfactory answer.     

Although naysayers criticize our hairstyles, it seems that we are regarded as unpresentable, unprofessional, and therefore, unacceptable, by virtue of our hair texture.  But by what standards is the beauty of black hair being measured?  In most cases, it is the white standard of beauty.  Although the DNA of our hair is structurally different, somehow we are pressured to imitate white standards of beauty, wear our hair as straight as possible, to mirror the hair texture of the dominant culture.  And if we do not comply, as with the case of Tiana Parker, there are repercussions.  Even, India.Arie’s “I Am Not My Hair” seems to be in defense of her natural, kinky hair texture. 

I want to share this poem I wrote, inspired by my own hair issues and those of some of my former students.  I hope that it will inspire you, or a woman you know.  I hope that it will move you to love your Creator, love Yourself and to love your Hair—texture and all.

 Me, DARING to be NATURAL!

hair peace

for Nancy, Janae and kinky-haired girls everywhere

as you
toil through
tears, comb
courageously
through tangled
standards
of beauty,
may you
realize your
hair's texture
needs no
apology.

as you
brush bravely,
through knotted
insecurity,
battle the
definition
of beautiful,
may you
realize your
hair's heavenly
and
needs no
Miracle*.

*Line of hair products for black women called "Dr. Miracle."

2/2011 

           Dr. Miracle Advertisement