Inheriting the Trade

Fifty years ago today, on February 1, 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina, four A&T College freshmen students, Ezell Blair (Jibreel Khazan) Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil walked into the downtown Woolworth’s store and sat down at the whites–only lunch counter. They were denied service and refused to leave until the store closed.

Following their bold lead, twenty-five additional students from A&T and other Greensboro colleges joined them the next day. Before the end of February more than 250 demonstrations were held in cities across the United States. By the end of July that year, Woolworth’s was desegregated.

Through the Greensboro Sit-ins, these four young men demonstrated the power of non-violent resistance, increased the visibility and influence of the Civil Rights movement and helped change the course of history.

I’m troubled by the concept of Black History Month, which begins today and every February 1. I’m glad to see a focus on the significant contributions that people of African descent have always made in the United States of America; a focus that did not exist when I was a student and a focus that does not exist today in most school settings in months other than February. I’m troubled that in the minds of so many, Black history is seen as somehow separate from American history.

The story of the Greensboro sit-ins isn’t a story of black history in America. It is a story of brave Americans impacting American History.

I’ll be at historic Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi on Saturday, January 30 for this Coming to the Table event. If you have friends in the Jackson area, or if you know folks in the media, please pass along this information.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Sharon Leslie Morgan (312.927.7555 or morganoba at gmail.com)

Celebrate Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream By Coming To The Table In Mississippi

HARRISONBURG, VA (January 18, 2010) – A very special program with implications for changing the paradigm of race relations in America is coming to Mississippi. Creating New Legacies Inspired by the Dream will take place at the historic Tougaloo College near Jackson.

The community is invited to attend the event, which is free and open to the public. It is being held at Holmes Hall Auditorium, Tougaloo College, from 1:00 -4:00 PM on January 30, 2010. The program will encourage people of all races to face history, share stories, make connections, heal trauma and take action that leads to community and national restoration.

The event is sponsored by Coming to the Table (CTTT), a program dedicated to acknowledging, understanding and healing the persistent wounds of the U.S. institution of race-based slavery. Inspired by the call of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that “one day… the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood,” Coming to the Table was initiated in 2006 by descendants of people descended from slave holders.

In Mississippi, almost half a million people were held in bondage in 1860. In the aftermath of Emancipation and Reconstruction, there was widespread brutality, lynching and segregation. In recent years, there have been initiatives that hold the promise of creating a new legacy. Coming to the Table hopes to contribute to this important work.

The Coming to the Table model teaches people how to overcome the continuing trauma of slavery and achieve positive interracial relationships. The group is non-partisan; multi-faith; multi-cultural and multi-generational. It is a program of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, which is internationally known for its work in conflict transformation and restorative justice.

Visit www.comingtothetable.org for more information about the program and www.emu.edu/cjp to learn more about the peacebuilding programs of Eastern Mennonite University.

Media is invited to cover the event and/or to build stories beyond the event about the work of Coming to the Table and Eastern Mennonite University. There are many opportunities inherent in this program that relate to human interest, race relations and social justice.

I review books on my blog that are relevant to the issues at the core of my work: social justice, undoing racism, healing from trauma, and so on. I’ll get to today’s book review in a second. First, a little background is in order…

Prior to January 2006 I knew almost nothing about Mennonites. I thought they were kind of like Amish people, which, as it turns out, they kind of are. Both denominations are rooted in the Anabaptist movement of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. The followers of  Jacob Amman (the Amish) split from the Mennonites in 1693 over doctrinal disagreements. Though both groups eschew infant baptism, agree on basic Bible principles, and share a commitment to pacifism, the  Amish are more conservative than Mennonites in terms of dress, use of technology, interpretation of the Bible, and other issues. This, of course is WAY too simplistic an explanation, but hey, this is a book review on a blog, not a class on Anabaptist history and theology.

One fateful weekend in January 2006 I attended the first gathering of Coming to the Table at Eastern Mennonite University. I experienced an unexpected and significant life-shift. I began what have become treasured, ongoing relationships with Coming to the Table, the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at EMU, and several people of the Mennonite faith.

Consequently, my interest in Mennonite in a Little Black Dress was high. Rhoda Janzen was 43-years old when her husband of 15 years left her for a man named Bob whom he met on gay.com. One week later a drunk driver almost kills her. To recuperate from her injuries–both physical and otherwise–she returns to the home of her parents and the community of Mennonites she had left many years earlier. And she wrote this book.

I was uncomfortable quite early in the story with Janzen’s descriptions of various bodily functions, her use of language that will be considered vulgar by many, and her use of sarcasm to ridicule some family and church members. I thought of my Mennonite friends and could feel them cringing… and I cringed. I also got really tired of hearing about her ex-husband and Bob from gay.com. But I got used to it. I found her story an engaging and mostly enjoyable one. Most of the anecdotal tales she tells serve her memoir well.

Though my feelings about Mennonite in a Little Black Dress are not all positive what puts Janzen’s book firmly in the “yes, I recommend this book” column are two things. First, she’s a talented story-teller; the book moves along well and never drags. Second, she weaves throughout the book the recognition that when times are truly difficult she knows where “home” is. No matter how difficult her relationships with the Mennonite faith and various of her family members, they are–at the core–her community. And this is, ultimately, a story of the importance of community.

And the importance of community is something I believe all my Mennonite friends will agree rests at the core of their faith. Community is, for everyone, certainly at the core of all true healing.

Like most of you, I’ve been bombarded with news about Senator Harry Reid’s comments regarding candidate Obama. My question is, “What’s the big deal?”

In their new book Game Change about the 2008 presidential campaign, authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann write that in a private conversation in 2008 Senator Reid said he,

was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.’ “

Reid apologized for his comments. Obama accepted the apology. So it’s no big deal. Some Republicans want Reid to resign. Most Democrats are rallying behind Reid. This is politics as usual; the typical Washington game of “gotcha.” Once again, no big deal.

I also see this, sadly, as America as usual, which is the really big deal. We see the news item. We form our opinion. We may post it on our Facebook page or we may (more likely) just go back to watching TV. What we don’t do is dig more deeply into the festering wound that  lurks buried beneath these kinds of comments.

If you are of European descent, as I am, I encourage you to ask yourself a few questions:

1) As much as I wouldn’t admit it out loud, do I tend to agree that Barack Obama was a more acceptable “black candidate” than, say, Jesse Jackson, Carol Moseley Braun, or Rev. Al Sharpton?

2) Am I more comfortable with Obama because he talks more like me than these other former candidates for President?

3) Did the fact that his mother is white and his father is from Kenya impact my thinking on some level?

This episode is a great opportunity to see how the privileges that white people possess and take for granted play out in the political arena and in every day life. When Senator Reid says “the country” was ready to embrace a black candidate like Obama what lurks beneath his comment is “white people in the United States.” Don’t you suppose that people of color have been hoping to see a President of color pretty much forever?

When I participated in the journey that resulted in my cousin Katrina Browne’s film Traces of the Trade, and in my writing Inheriting the Trade, my cousin Elly Hale pointed out something that went to the core of this issue. When discussing how people describe themselves ethnically in the United States (African American, Mexican, Asian, etc), we white folks don’t tend to have a naturally easy descriptor. We’re, well, “white”. Elly said, “We are the default color” in the USA.

In other words, white people have been socialized to consider ourselves “the norm.” Anyone else is “other.” And “the norm” people have the privilege of defining what we are “ready to embrace.” Unless we are forced to do otherwise–ala the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s–it is indeed rare in history that anything else will be embraced.

Folks, this is a perfect example of white privilege. If white people will take some time to think deeply about Senator Reid’s comments, we will see just how systemic and ubiquitous issues of bias and discrimination based on skin color or ethnicity truly are in the United States. This is a teaching moment far less murky for most of us than was the “beer summit” between our black president, a black Harvard professor, and a white Cambridge police officer.

As difficult as things are these days with the lousy economy, multiple wars, the threat of terrorism, and concerns about the environment, these are but symptoms. Harry Reid’s comment is also a symptom.

The disease is the lingering impact of injustice and inequity in the United States and around the world. The disease is systemic racism that bestows and sustains privileges upon some at the expense of others.

Until we commit to addressing the disease we’ll continue to just pick at the scabs on the surface, argue with each other, and change very little other than the channel on the TV.

That, my friends, is the big deal.

If your book club selects Inheriting the Trade to read this year, I’m happy to join you–whereever you live–via Skype. I’ve now joined several book clubs for some terrific conversations and have been happy to answer questions about the book, the Emmy-nominated film Traces of the Trade, and related subjects.

We also provide a series of discussion questions for reading clubs on the website.

Feel free to contact me through the website for more information or to schedule a meeting with your book club.