“To be a Negro in this
country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” –James Baldwin
“For these are all our children, we will all profit by or
pay for what they become.” –James Baldwin
“God
gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water but fire next time” –Negro
Spiritual
***
Freddie Gray of Baltimore died on April 12, 2015. 154 years
earlier, on that same day, there was an attack on Fort Sumter that started the
Civil War. The two events, separated by over a century, share the same issue:
Blacks in America. It seems we just cannot settle on what this means.
As a people, our history in the Americas has been a
combination of realities. In one column you have our freedom (through the
Emancipation Proclamation and subsequent Abolitionist and Civil Rights
movements) and dominance (mainly through entertainment and sport). In the
other, much longer and deeper category, you have subjugation (through slavery,
Jim Crow and institutionalized racism), criminalization and wanton murder
(public lynchings, Black on Black crime and police brutality). And if you are a
young, Black adolescent male in America, you are more likely to die from
homicide than any other race or ethnicity.
All of this is true and it is 2015. It seems the color line
is still the problem. But what of those who stand on the opposite end of the color
line?
For White Americans, there seems to be a mixture of emotions
when events like Freddie Gray happen. Some are frustrated and angry; others are
confused. Many want to understand, but how can they? Unless they have walked in
our skin, it is nearly impossible for them to conceive of navigating a world in
an almost constant state of rage, fear and anxiety. And while they may not
understand, what is critical to express is that the pain reverberating
throughout our history is the seed from which some of our own destructive
tendencies grow. Vandalism is vandalism. Thuggery is thuggery. There is no
excuse for the actions of a few in my city this evening. But pain is pain.
Despair is despair. “Hope deferred, maketh the heart sick.” The words of
Frederick Douglass are essential for even beginning to understand the emotional
and psychological underpinnings of tonight:
“Where justice is denied,
where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is
made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and
degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” –Frederick Douglass
Despite the chaos that has ensued this evening, I think this
moment, almost three years to the night of the killing of Trayvon Martin, is full
of potential. Here, in Charm City, with the nation watching, is our time change
the story.
The change starts at home, moves to the classroom and spreads
through society. Like a fire.
***
As I write this, it is near midnight on April 27, 2015. From
my window, I can see a Baltimore street barren of cars and a traffic light that
seems to linger on red. In the distance, I hear police sirens and fire truck
engines. In the rooms that surround my study, my wife and two children sleep
peacefully. It is not lost on me that my education, upbringing, faith and hard
work have allowed me to live a blessed life. This is not the case for most men
who look like me. But it’s not impossible for them to have the same
opportunities. For this to happen, we have to start where we live.
The first wave of change must start at home. When I speak of
home, I do not just mean geographic location. I mean the combination of six spaces: our physical
location/property, our mentality, our intimate relationships, our spirit, our soul and our spheres of
influence. The places where most of us can be found and known. It is in this
nexus where we must do our hardest work:
1. Our physical location must be kept up. We cannot
expect to wear red-bottoms or Jordans while our neighborhood looks decrepit.
When we value what we see every day, our own self-esteem is impacted
positively.
2. We must improve our mindset by what we
consistently expose it to. Show me what you watch and listen to and I will show
what you think about it. (Side note – we must be more vigilant about what we
allow children to watch and hear. They are not yet ready to hear some of these
explicit messages in song – and maybe not ever. When they are exposed too early
to these messages, their innocence is lost too soon. Lost innocence is the
first step towards an adolescence of violence).
3. The relationships that are the closest to us
should be places of healing and comfort, not of hurt and petty jealousies. We
should always be each other’s biggest fans and be unashamed about it. When I
value what you bring to the table and vice-versa, I do not have to resort to
gang warfare or place you on Blacklists or in Shade rooms. I understand that your success is my success
because we are in this together. We are not in competition, we are in collaboration.
4. Our Spirits must be fed the word and ways of
God. I wonder if all of the rage and teen angst that was splashed across our
televisions tonight was not a clear examples of lives left without the peace of
God! How can any significant change happen inside of us without a greater power
guiding us? That power is God and He stands ready to activate it on all who
call on Him. (In fact where would we be without our clergy, who were standing on the front lines tonight ready to meet physical force with that invisible force of the spirit).
5. We need to acknowledge that the trauma of
slavery, discrimination, child abuse, sexual abuse, fatherlessness and
motherlessness can all be present in our souls. We need to do whatever it takes
to get professional help for the healing of our souls. Lest we turn to other
things to medicate our pain like constant television buffoonery, drugs,
meaningless flings or worse.
6. Every Black person that comes in contact with
us, must feel our love. Everywhere our influence touches must have the finger-prints
of love and encouragement. You are never too busy to be interested in someone
else; never too important to take to care for and give to someone who cannot do
anything for you. “What you have done to the least of these, you have done to
me.”
When we take care of home, we can turn our attention to the
schools that educate our children. Teachers have such a critical role to play
in the education of minority children, but we must have the will to make the
professional sacrifice, showing teacher leadership in how we relate to, educate
and ultimately change the life trajectory of every student. Especially those
with black and brown faces.
It is possible for every student to learn at a high level.
It is possible to develop a culture of high academic excellence in high-minority
or high-poverty schools. It must first start with brutal honesty and earnest
self-reflection. You have to see education, as Glenn Singleton might put it, as
a daily anti-racist act in every facet. It means that the education of minorities
must be couched in a counter-narrative that esteems the best in them. It starts
with books with brown and black faces, but it continues with honest discussions
about matters that lie at the heart and soul of students, ultimately ending in
a culturally responsive environment that gives access and opportunity to rich
and rewarding learning experiences. If we don’t have the tools to get there, we
must take initiative as teacher leaders to make it happen. That might mean Barnes
and Nobles purchases or late nights at the library. At the end of the day, if
even one Black or brown child does not
learn well, his life may be in jeopardy. Having that mental disposition is what
allows us to really show that Black lives matter.
When our homes and schools are transformed to heal and
empower, then our students enter society ready to help and not harm. They enter
society with the necessary spiritual and emotional health paired with the
critical mind to solve age old problems. I believe the solution to a lot of the
world’s problems can be found in Black people, who after receiving a culturally
affirming education and healthy home-life, can bring unique perspective to that
of other people already engaged in the work. This produces amazing results.
Society benefits from a well-educated and psychologically whole minority
population. Society also pays when nether of those conditions is present, as is
evidenced in clear HD-quality this evening.
***
88 years ago today, Coretta Scott King was born. 112 years
ago today, W.E.B. DuBois finished “The Souls of Black Folk,” which was a book
that explored the Black experience in America in profoundly deep ways. With the
sacrifice of Ms. King and her husband still in our minds thanks to the movie ‘Selma,’
and the messages of DuBois’s work still resonating in the body politic, let us
be the fire this time. Let us spark a revolution, not through senseless acts of
random violence, but through the steady flames that produce healthy homes,
responsive education and societies that flourish. It is time to change our
story. Let us turn the page today.
