“I am wounded. I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates
Once again, thank you for your gracious conversation as we discuss this book. It’s a heavy one, isn’t it? There is so much potential for the conversation to go off the rails, but I’m deeply grateful to everyone here for your grace toward one another. Again, please let me say this week that if you’ve been feeling as if you’d like to engage the conversation, but you’re afraid of how we might respond or how you may be perceived, I want you to know you are safe here. Together, the crew of readers and commenters have worked hard — over many years — to make this a safe space for conversation even, and especially, when we don’t agree with one another. Of course, you’re welcome to be a silent observer, too. Whatever works best for you. And, if you’ve felt shut out or shut down, please let me know by sending an email to [email protected].
Woundedness and Wokeness
Each week, I struggle with which part of the reading to focus on. There is so much in each chapter and on each page. I’m sure I’ll return to this book over and over again. I am hopeful that, as I mature on this journey, the book will read differently to me each time I pick it up and skim its pages.
That quote up there, from Ta-Nehisi, is one I underlined on my first reading of the book (it’s on page 125). This time around, I wasn’t sure why I underlined it. I mean, it’s a powerful quote, but I wonder what I thought the first time I read it and then underlined it? Today, as I prepared to share in this space, I read that line, underlined in red in my book, and I felt as if these are the words on which this entire letter rest.
I’m on a journey, too, you know. I don’t have all of the answers, nor do I know all of the questions. I know that I have felt the weight of woundedness. I started to say, “this woundedness” but I’m not so sure mine is, or has been, the same as his. I do think it’s important to feel that weight. To sit with it. Whether you are white or black or brown (or a person who believes she is white), I believe the experience of that weight is one of the very first steps on the journey toward what is now being called “wokeness.” I like that word, and all that it evokes.
Forgiveness and Rage: Setting them Free
The words that cling to my shoulders from this part of the book are forgiveness and rage. Sometimes, I think we are afraid of both. Depending on our leg of the journey, we are prone to shut them both down. It’s tempting to block the pathways to both forgiveness and rage. But what if we set them free?
I remember, after yet another young black man had been killed, seeing a picture of a young black student, screaming. Some of the adults in his life had recognized the need to set rage free and had created a space for release of the frustration and anger and confusion and pain. There was yelling, and there were tears. I can’t know whether that experience was healing for that young man or not, especially in light of all the cameras clicking away. But, there was space given for what needed to be set free. What would it look like to make space for rage; space that has no punitive elements to it?
After the shooting at Mother Emmanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C., the survivors of the massacre stood before the shooter and told him they forgave him. Reaction to the forgiveness was mixed, with some saying, “Why can’t everyone be like that?” and others suggesting the forgiveness was cheap and fake, especially because it was offered so soon after the tragedy. And then, people reacted to the reaction. Why must we insist on forgiveness taking a particular shape or form for it to be acceptable? Why not let the forgiveness be free to be what it is? What it was? Why not let it unfold in time and in space and show us, for itself, exactly what it is and what it can do?
I don’t have answers, and I’m not even sure about the questions. But today, I’ll ask you this: Are you woke? What does that even mean, to you? How do you feel about forgiveness and about rage? What wounds do you carry with you?
Next week, we’ll talk about Part III. Don’t forget about our Facebook conversation, scheduled for March 28. Check out the event for time and details, and to let us know that you’ll be there. I’m excited to be partnering with the Red Couch Book Club for this event. And, later today, catch up with me on Periscope for a brief chat about this part of the book. I’ve finally figured out the features of Periscope, so I’ll do my best to respond to your questions and comments while the Periscope chat is live. On March 31, join me here for a quick summary of our Facebook conversation and a survey of your experience of this round of Forward. And once again, let me say thank you for your grace and for your commitment to this conversation.
View the Periscope chat, here:
AM I WOKE? Yes. Evidence lies in the sadness and heaviness stemming from reading this book and being intentional in discussion. That heaviness is key. There is a weight. Without the weight, I don’t think a person can claim to be woke. You know, there is a waking up that comes from someone shaking you and you roll back over and go back to sleep. You cannot claim to be woke, if you’ve rolled over and gone back to sleep. But if you’ve put your feet on the floor and are intent to stand and go after what’s called for, even if you prefer not to, you are woke, for sure.
I try not to judge someone else’s forgiveness, so, for example, for people to say it’s too soon or too easy or too anything…I try to steer clear of those judgements because people’s definitions of forgiveness are not always the same. And who am I to judge?
I think when God calls us to forgive, He is asking only for our WILLINGNESS to do so. He will take care of the rest. He will take care of what it’s going to look like down the road. Question is, can I leave the outcomes in His hands or am I afraid He will ask too much of me? That’s usually the crux of the forgiveness battle for most people, I think. It’s okay, though. God is up to hearing our hesitations.
CARRYING WOUNDS: I am carrying some wounds due to an injustice done to me. This is not a race matter, but we are talking in generalities here about rage and forgiveness. I am trying to trust the hurt person to God’s care and healing. I am willing to forgive. I am waiting on God to work things out. I keep coming back to that prayer over and over because…..sometimes RAGE does creep in. It does. It comes back to my thought and I need to continually deal with it, not by pretending it doesn’t exist, but be first admitting to myself that I do indeed have rage that will burn me up from the inside out if I don’t express it, but also express again my desire to forgive and my willingness to do so. I see no benefit in thinking that as a nice Christian girl I’m not allowed to admit to anger. There are things to be angry about in this world. Things to be enraged about. If we are not, somebody should check our pulse. 🙂
Amen sister!
Deidra, I’ve not been a part of this particular discussion, and actually haven’t even ready any of these posts, because I knew I would not have time to read the book. I just happened to read this post, however. So I don’t feel I really should be a part of this particular thread. I’m not privy to the book or to the dialogue. But I would just interject this one Bible verse for you and your book club. It’s from Luke 17:3, where Jesus is talking to His disciples, and He says: “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.” You’ll note that the forgiveness is conditional upon the repentance of the offender, along with a rebuke. Does God actually even forgive us without our repentance? Even when we are saved, we come, repenting. Just something for your consideration.
Blessings to you,
Lynn
Lynn brings up a good point, but I think forgiveness is possible without repentance or even acknowledgement on the part of the other person. Reconciliation, however, is not.
Very well stated Marilyn!
I understand your point, Marilyn, and it’s a good one. Still . . . Jesus’ words are very specific. Does God grant carte-blanche forgiveness to unrepentant sinners? It’s a deep subject worthy of further consideration, and I’m struggling here. 🙂 And yes, one can still forgive if the offending party does not repent. I’m suggesting that Jesus doesn’t command it. Still, certainly we must not hold a root of bitterness. I realize, as I’d said, I’m treading in deep territory here, and I’m surely no theologian (as you can tell! :-)) just trying to think it through and again, to understand Jesus’ very specific words. Bless you.
Amen.
Hi, Lynn!
First of all, I hope you know you are always welcome here, no matter what you have or haven’t read, sister!
Here’s what I find fascinating about that Luke 17:3, when taken in context: Jesus was teaching the disciples (so, church people), what it would cost them to be his followers. This whole talk started back in chapter 14 while they were all at a Pharisee’s house for dinner. Jesus began telling stories, beginning with the parable of the great banquet, where “a certain man” invited a whole bunch of people to a party, but they all declined, so the certain man told his servants to invite “the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.” Eventually, the house was filled with the most unlikely group of people. So then, Jesus tells the disciples, “Please be sure you count the cost, before you decide you want to hang out with me.” Because (he’s probably thinking to himself) it’s not what you think it is.
Then, he tells them stories about the Kingdom of God. It’s like a lost sheep, lost coin, lost son — all of which cause the one who values them most of all to stop everything until they are returned. Then, shrewd manager, and Lazarus and the Rich Man.
So, I imagine the disciples, sitting around the table, listening to Jesus, thinking highly of themselves and saying in their heads, “Well, we’re not like them. We’d never get lost or live like that prodigal guy or go to hell like that rich man.” And Jesus says to them, “There are a lot of things that cause people to stumble.” I’m guessing Jesus knew a thing or two about the disciples and so, he honed in on their growing community and said, “In fact, if you should catch your brother or sister in a sin, be sure to point it out to them,” which, I imagine, made the disciples feel a bit full of themselves. For a second. It gave them a bit of authority and a reason to keep track of what the members of their community were up to. But, then Jesus continued and said, “And, if they apologize, don’t hold it over their heads. Let it go. Forgive them.” And just like that, balloon burst.
I don’t know, but that’s what I see in that verse. And, when I partner it with II Corinthians 5:16-21 (and especially verse 19) I think I arrive at a place that says God has forgiven us, through Jesus Christ. I think the onus is on us to accept the gift of forgiveness that was given to us at such a great price. And so, for me, it goes back to the whole thing about what it costs to follow Jesus (Luke 14), even forgiving people who don’t or won’t or can’t apologize (or won’t accept the invitation that’s extended). I think the forgiveness that God offers is a standing invitation which we get to accept or deny. And, as Christ’s disciples, we are charged with extending the same kind of invitation to those we encounter on the regular (which is only one reason it’s so important to count the cost of saying yes to him).
Anyway, once Jesus tells them all about how they should forgive a sinner who asks for forgiveness instead of holding it against them, the disciples say, “Lord! Increase our faith!” Because…that’s a tall order, especially after all of that banquet/kingdom of God talk! But, Jesus tells them they only need faith the size of a mustard seed. But, they can’t just sit around looking at the seed. They have to plant it. In other words, use it. And then, Jesus goes out and heals ten lepers. Which is just, baffling. Because, who talks to lepers?
Alright. Those are my thoughts about that. I got carried away.
I really appreciate that you shared your thoughts. You got me thinking. As always. Of course, I’m not trying to convince you to see it the way I’ve laid it out, here. I’m always grateful for the ways you help me stretch and reach and dig for Truth. Thanks so much for joining in!
“I don’t have answers, and I’m not even sure about the questions.”
I feel the same, Deidra. Thanks for your grace in this conversation with those of us who are trying to be “woke”—which to me means, seeing. This quote from page 116 sort of explains it for me:
“But even more, the changes have taught me how to best exploit that singular gift of study, to question what I see, then to question what I see after that, because the questions matter as much, perhaps more than, the answers.”
Other passages that moved me from this section of the book:
* The need to forgive the officer would not have moved me, because even then, in some inchoate form, I knew that Prince was not killed by a single officer so much as he was murdered by his country and all the fears that have marked it from birth. p 78
* It was a mix of shame for having gone back to the law of the streets mixed with rage—“I could have you arrested!” Which is to say: “I could take your body!” p 94
* “It only takes one person to make a change,” you are often told. This is also a myth. Perhaps one person can make a change, but not the kind of change that would raise your body to equality with your countrymen.
The fact of history is that black people have not—probably no people ever have—liberated themselves strictly through their own efforts. p 96
* To yell “black-on-black crime” is to shoot a man and then shame him for bleeding. p 111
I think being woke or staying woke as people have talked about is an interesting term. I think there are varying degrees of it and while I have been woke in some areas I’m sure there are others I’m happily napping through without even being aware of. I guess that grounds me in a certain amount of grace for others as I’d hope for some to give me room for repentance. Sometimes that turning means wide angles and awkward positions and 8 point turns when there’s so much pressure to instantly do better and be better at course correcting something many of us just woke up to, it can be difficult.
That said, I do struggle with forgiveness and rage. Maybe when it seems people are saying they’re woke but there is no evidence that they’re making a U-turn at all. They’re still cruising the same lane going 70 with the windows rolled down and the good songs on. I struggle with this. I’m a highly sensitive person and I feel like rage is another way we lament. When it’s all too broken and horrible, we cry or wail with the anger and despair and pain and it’s really a rallying cry for justice. I don’t think we do this well in America. Sit with collective pain. Cry out for collective justice. Because we all have such different views about what justice looks like. Does it look like instant forgiveness? Is it a process? Was it too quick, too prolonged, too tidy? The pain that comes from being the injured one having to forgive offenses others have yet to repent for can feel like another injury and I’m not sure how to navigate that.
Pain is such an autonomous thing here. We insulate it and when people gather to express this rage/pain/lament it’s often viewed negatively. It’s too raw and unfiltered. It’s not gracious enough. Rage is rushed because we have no real place for it in our society. Worse, rage in a POC is often criminalized or viewed as irrational, unhelpful, or aggressive.
I carry the wounds of feeling invisible. Of the model minority that couldn’t be further from my truths. I carry the wounds of stereotypes and silencing and always being viewed as foreign to a place I have always lived. I didn’t have the language in my youth to see it for what it was, racism. I thought racism was black and white and was mostly taken care of during the Civil Rights Movement. I didn’t have the language or the community to help me realize that I wasn’t alone in how other I felt growing up not white, around those who were. I wasn’t woke enough to realize that for how much I knew about the tragedies of slavery and Jim Crow and segregation, I didn’t see the injustices that prevailed all around me.
“…rage is another way we lament…”
“I carry the wounds of feeling invisible”
I enjoyed reading this!
Oh your words Alia. they say so much.
Wounded. We are all in some way or another, BUT why do we keep wounding? Oh for the love of Jesus and His Grace, that is the only way I can process any of this. THANK you for you sharing your heart.
It’s a pleasure to read your words twice in one week. I feel like I’ve discovered a wellspring of knowledge and hope.
Ha! Well I don’t know about that but it’s nice to see you again here. The comments section here and over at She Loves gives me hope.
” I feel like rage is another way we lament. When it’s all too broken and horrible, we cry or wail with the anger and despair and pain and it’s really a rallying cry for justice. I don’t think we do this well in America. Sit with collective pain. Cry out for collective justice.” I think you are right. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I’ve just begun reading a book by Michael Card called A Sacred Sorrow. He talks about how he feels American Christianity has forgotten how to lament and we need to relearn it. To me it almost seems that until we can collectively lament all the injustice and hurt and pain, it will probably be hard to go very far towards reconciliation. In other words we need to recognize that the pain and injustice does exist and be willing to listen to the hurts and sorrows, and then mourn them together. At least that’s some of the thoughts I’ve been pondering.
This is my first time to join in the discussion. I have been quietly reading the book and following along, feeling like I don’t have anything good enough to say. But I guess I am feeling a bit braver today….and rather overflowing with response, whether it is good or not, you will judge for yourselves.
I come to this discussion as a white woman whose “wokeness” happened many years ago because of my connection to the experience of being the child of someone who considered my HIS Property and felt he had the right to beat me and sexually have me at will. As a young woman, it was in connecting with Latino victims of torture, rape and repression, and reading the many books of the travesty of slavery that I found my tribe. I worked in Central America and then in L.A. in a Sanctuary house and we bled out our stories and knew our oneness had nothing to do with skin color. I learned so much about having faith in God anyway through my time with that refugee community.
My personal path to forgiveness has been with someone who has never asked for it, and has not involved reconciliation, but it HAS set me free from much of the weight of my experiences, and the obsession of my mind about him, free from so many questions about what was wrong with me? I had many years of raging FIRST and in fact, I have no idea how forgiveness of the man could have happened aside from my Knowing the Love of God for me. However it didn’t happen in any quick way and it was very hurtful when christians pushed me to “just forgive him and move on”. There is no JUST about forgiving that kind of hurt and ownership of one’s body. But I do feel so sad for Ta Nehisi Coates that he does “not have God” I was both moved and felt guilty for my slowness in forgiving when I heard the families in Charlotte offer forgiveness to the shooter; I questioned if they were in shock and would later realize it wasn’t that easy, but I certainly have no judgment on them as I hope there is not judgment on me.
I think that rage is totally understandable feeling of pounding the bars of a cage that say you are less than a whole person of worth and value. I have no patience with folks who think African American people should just move on, or who deny the existence of the racism even now. I do hurt inside because I have not found how to walk across the bridge…..our segregated churches…and in reading this book, it seems that the lack of trust of white people is much greater than I knew. I so feel the WEIGHT of my ancestors sin against slaves, of Jim Crow and the prisons now crowded with people of color. I don’t know how to create it. And that hurts. To me, Church never feels whole and wonderful unless it is filled with all God’s beautiful people, and that is a rare moment.
Kathi……. I applaud you for your strength, courage and willingness to be transparent. For you to allow the love of Christ to wash over you to empower you to forgive the perpetrator of the worst imaginable horror you could have experienced is proof positive of the manner in which God works miracles and holds us accountable for taking authority over our lives so that others cannot continue to make us feel less than we are. You say you have not found the way to walk across the bridge, but you have. Your understanding of the human experience and being open to share in the feelings of others demonstrates that you have taken the first step to walk across the bridge. The reason the Church does not feel whole is because Christians do not want to enter into the conversation that while we have all been washed in the blood of Christ, it does not give anyone the right to say they do not see color, but only see Jesus when they look at others. When the Church validates that we exist in the beauty of the colors we embody, we can begin real conversations that start from the existence of the history that we have experienced. It allows us to discuss the reality of who we are, what we have endured and how do we continue on in the journey; not how do we get over the atrocities, but how to move together through our truths. Kathi, you are beginning to take the walk across the bridge!
Lisa….thank you for your response! I think what your are saying to me is that I can use my understanding of human brokenness and suffering to connect with others and be understanding?
I love what you said: “When the Church validates that we exist in the beauty of the colors we
embody, we can begin real conversations that start from the existence of
the history that we have experienced. ” Spent time today talking after church with folks about how we make the space in our mostly white church that will feel safe and welcoming for anyone of any of the beautiful colors. I am encouraged at the desire that people do have to be that Whole people of God…I am grateful for THIS space at jumping tandem to have those discussions, and am very open to any thoughts and suggestions.
When you tell us Deidra to sit on things and wait, that’s where I am right now. With Between the World and Me and the book I just finished, Forgive Us, I just can’t even join in the conversation. I have been slayed.
As I have said before I am ashamed, embarrassed, outraged and so apologetic.
RAGE is completely understandable, and what you said on Periscope (which I missed after checking so many times) about “God is going to get us to where He wants us to be”, that is where I think Forgiveness will come. But as a white woman in my 60’s, I am amazed that any African American can get there-especially without Christ. But I am SO GRATEFUL that you do.
So for now, I am sitting, seeking Jesus and just so grateful for this conversation.
One of my favorite aspects of this book was the journey aspect. Coates, I feel, made clear he was on a journey and pointed out many areas where he had grown and changed his thinking on something after being confronted with other information(I’m thinking about the woman who used her assistant as a chair and how his view of her decision to do this changed in the story.) I feel like I am on a journey now, and like Alia mentioned, I probably don’t even know what I don’t know. I am being woke, but how will I ever know if I fully am? I guess that gives me the incentive to never stop trying to grow.
Forgiveness is tricky for me. I know the freedom it offers to forgive someone before they’ve even said they’re sorry. It’s a gift we give ourselves to obey God that way and move on. But it’s hard with repeat offenders. It’s difficult to make forgiveness a repetitive process when the situation never changes.
Right now I’m carrying the wound of feeling like my opinion is not welcomed by some of my friends. As I devour Rankine’s book, Citizen, further analyze BTWAM, read essays like the one Alia wrote for SheLoves, I am anxious to talk and share this information, see the light in people’s eyes when they get it, when the space for evaluating everything opens up in them and real conversation can take place. That does not always happen. People are so scared, especially people who have never questioned why things are the way they are, when they’ve never thought about their own tendencies to stereotype. Now that I am deeper in the woke process than I’ve ever been, I find I have little patience for the people in my life who don’t even want to step foot on the road. That’s where I need to forgive and offer grace, but it’s when the rage and the feelings of helplessness can take me over. And I’m prone to think it’s my inability to communicate the message, but lately I am starting to believe it may also be the refusal of others to be challenged when they don’t want to be. I think the fact that this group exists, even those of us who have been scared to sound like idiots but try anyway and those who are observing even though they don’t feel ready to jump in, is something sacred I cannot put into words. Deidra mentioned this being a safe place, and I can’t think of a better way to describe it.
When I started reading the book, I had to put it away for awhile. It was heartbreaking. Like Deidra said it is a hard book to read, but necessary. I grew up pretty far removed from the way he did, as there were not many people of color who lived near me. The neighborhoods, the churches, the schools were “white.” I guess until fairly recently I hadn’t realized that I was privileged simply because I wasn’t black.
But two incidents in my past stand out that might have given me a clue if I had thought about it. When I was a teen, the church my family attended had a meeting to decide whether or not people of color should be able to attend. My friends and I were appalled and couldn’t believe how strong some of the men felt about it. It saddened us very much. The other was that there was one black girl who wanted to attend our public high school, but she met with resistance. I thought she should attend, because it was the closest high school to her home. In my family, my dad always told me that no people were better than others, we are all human beings, and that’s the way I felt, but around me the atmosphere was one of superiority not equality.
Fast forward several years and my husband and I were the only “whites” in the neighborhood where we bought a house in Plainfield, NJ. My black neighbors were my friends and we saw no problem with being different in color. Many of the children came to our back yard to play, because my husband had built a lot of stuff for our girls to play on.
I had to hurry and finish the book today, because it’s due at the library and someone else has requested it. I tried to listen to your periscope, but our internet was poor. I will keep trying. As far as being woke, I think seeds were planted when I was younger and are continuing to grow. It makes me angry when people don’t seem to care or refuse to acknowledge a problem. I am thankful for my friends of color, and I love them so much. They are helping to open my eyes more. I want to understand. I want to help. I know God is working and will continue as we try to move forward. Thanks, Deidra, for this space, and for sharing this important book.
About the Periscope: Clearly, I still haven’t figured out how to see your comments when you’re talking to me. I’m so sorry I missed that. It may have seemed like I was ignoring you, but I honestly didn’t even know if anyone was there. I’m gonna work on upping my Periscope game for future videos. Also, a couple of you have told me you couldn’t hear me? Darn it! When I listen to the playback, I can hear myself, so I wonder if it was a glitch on your end (sounds like I’m passing the buck, right?) Anyway…all that to say…I’m still learning. And, thanks for hanging in there with me!
Thank you for responding and we are all learning with Periscope. I have learned that the live feed can go in and out as it refreshes (making the feed freeze or become inaudible) so when I could not hear you, I closed the feed and reopened it and I heard you. I love that you posted the Periscope here in the thread!
This is good to know, Lisa. Thank you. And, as you say, we are all learning with Periscope. I am definitely a newbie.
Thank you for posting your Periscope here. It was great to hear your voice for the first time and to see you up close. Thank you for your wisdom and for being willing to entertain other viewpoints so we can become ministers of reconciliation. (That is something close to my heart. I’m not necessarily good at it.) I hope to get back later and read this thread and maybe say something, or maybe not.
Am I awake? Yes I am. But sometimes it’s too painful to be awake. And I go into a half-sleep. I wonder sometimes if ‘being woke’ is enough to help my brothers and sisters. Especially the ones who are dead, now. It hurts to say that, because I could easily have been Sandra Bland . I took up a cause to teach diversity for several years because I was “woke.” Did it help? With my rage, yes extremely. I felt like I was doing something about my rage. It was productive. Guided. Helpfu. Less numb.I think it may have helped with my forgiveness. And possibly with others. But I didn’t teach diversity ‘just’ ‘ for me. I taught it to bike bridges between races. I learned for depth and healing all around my wounds & the wounds of others. . There were also though days of numbness. I couldn’t shake Sandra Bland for weeks though.( As an African American woman who just relocated from TX, and moved north to OK. I still wonder , if I could be her one day) I believe in the height of th e racial tension in America, she was just in her “rage” and the absurdity of being pulled over for no reason, made her even more angry. What scares me is sometimes my people have no outlet, no discussion for the rage. And that scares me more than anything else. I believe we need to give voice to our rage and have forums in America where black, white and brown people ought not to be afraid of these discussions. To ask because they need to know, and because lives depend upon that understanding .
Being a somewhat tech challenged Baby Boomer, I have never tried to get started with Periscope, but I was glad you posted your video here with Jumping Tandem, Deidra. I found it very helpful and it was a continuation in some ways of our recent conversation about the political divide in our country today. Plus it is nice just seeing your face and hearing your voice in the middle of the week!
I have really appreciated reading all of the blog posts for this section. So many of you are such gifted and eloquent writers, that in some ways, I feel intimated. But I did benefit so much from all of the things shared. I especially appreciated the vulnerability of Alia and Lisa. Your stories are painful to read but it is so great to know that God’s grace is there for each of us. Thank you.
I found Section Two to be so provocative, heart-breaking, and full of depth. I don’t even know where to being in reacting to it. I was especially struck by the following statements:
“But even more, the changes have taught me how to best exploit that singular gift of study, to question what I see, then to question what I see after that, because the questions matter as much, perhaps more than, the answers.” . . . “It occurred to me that I really was in someone else’s country and yet, in some necessary way, I was outside of their country. In America I was part of an equation – even if it wasn’t a part I relished.” . . . And after he described the short exchange between him and a stranger at an airport conveyor belt, he write this: “In America, the injury is not being born with darker skin, with fuller lips, with a broader nose, but in everything that happens after. . . It was the briefest intimacy, but it captured much of the beauty of my black world. . .To call that feeling racial is to hand over all those diamonds, fashioned by our ancestors, to the plunderer. We made that feeling, though it was forged in the shadow of the murdered, the raped, the disembodied, we made it all the same”, I was very moved by his stories, reflections on his past, and his hopes for the future of his son described here.
Finally, because I am an historian, I was very interested in his comments about the Civil War and his response to both the guides’ and the other visitors’ comments at the Gettysburg Battlefield and the Brian Farm. It reminded me of my family’s visit several years ago at Magnolia Plantation near Charleston, SC. My African American husband noted the guide’s emphasis on how the slave masters of that particular area “utilized” the particular skills that their slaves had brought from their African countries of origin to farm fields of Carolina rice (rather than making them work cotton or tobacco as in other areas). Somehow that accommodation to their skills seemed to him to speak favorably about the masters’ treatment of the slaves! Then when we stopped to look at the dismal cabins which had survived from the sharecropper era that were left to represent what slave cabins must have been like, the guide had no comments on how that showed the masters’ treatment of the slaves! His emphasis was on the agricultural history of the plantation, rather than on deploring the slave trade it represented.
One last observation . . . Some of Coates’ observations about watching one’s back and always being alert to one’s surroundings reminded me about the early years of knowing my husband. I had a hard time understanding why he wanted to sit with his back against a wall at a restaurant or any number of other things that demonstrated his wariness of others. He says that my influence on him has made him less suspicious and worried about being in a strange place, but Coates’ discomfort in these situations has given me more empathy toward my husband’s similar reactions. Though my husband’s experiences as an African American man in Nebraska have been vastly different from Coates’ experiences in Baltimore, Howard, and New York, I have greatly benefited from his perspectives.
This chapter has had me in tears. The story of Prince and being reminded of the stories of black bodies, along with the understanding of the implication the author uses when he writes those words.
“Whether you are white or black or brown (or a person who believes she is white), I believe the experience of that weight is one of the very first steps on the journey toward what is now being called “wokeness.” I like that word, and all that it evokes.” – I struggle with being “woke” maybe I haven’t pushed myself hard enough to understand, I want to. And I want to be what I think this is. I want to be what I am starting to understand it to mean. And I’m still struggling with what it means to believe yourself white. I think I am confusing race and ethnicity.
I struggle so much with forgiveness. I did not speak to my father for two years, after realizing I was an adult, because of something I didn’t feel he had expressed he was ‘sorry enough’ for. Until I realized that I can never be ‘sorry enough’ to God but Jesus died for me anyway. But I’m still relearning this. And re-preaching it to myself daily. Rage… I’m not sure on, I’ve always been more of a quiet person. But I suppose in quiet rage.. I don’t really react, more like absorb things and fall apart (or cut someone out of my life until they are ‘sorry enough’)
And, I wonder what this conversation would look like in other countries. I am married to a Peruvian, we lived in Peru for a few years. There he would do certain things for me because it was easier, here I do certain things for him because it is easier.