i have been enjoying these conversations with Trevor Black from Swart Donkey. Back and forth five times on a topic with about 100 words a time. This is our third collaborative blog conversation, this time with a focus on Listening to the Listeners. i hope you will enjoy it.
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Trev: I loved the Free Speech board at my university residence. Most of the time it was empty, but occasionally it would burst into activity. Continue reading
This is a complex one. We don’t presently have a maid/domestic worker but have spoken about the possibility of employing someone in that role. And this is not a witch hunt to try and make anyone feel bad [unless you need to be feeling bad and then don’t feel bad but just change how you’re living!].
A number of months ago i was chatting to a domestic worker at a friend’s house and just hearing some of her story Continue reading
i have just started reading this book by Ron Sider who we got to hang out with a little bit during our time at the Simple Way in Philly a couple of years ago. Recently he visited South Africa and i got to hear him speak and thought it was high time i got hold of this book which has influenced so many people.
This part i want to share is just from the Foreword and yet it already floored me – definitely not going to be an easy book to read i imagine, but suspecting it will be a life-transforming one. Continue reading
We caught a glimpse of this in the #IAmStellenbosch campaign where a group of well-meaning students drew up some posters highlighting something about them that made them unique or different to the stereotype that their skin colour or background might typically suggest. It received a huge backlash from the media and people of all races across the country for a number of reasons. Possibly the biggest one was that once again we saw a race problem and we made it about us.
“But it wasn’t just white people doing it. It was people of all races.” That is true, although even a number of those people from other races were buying into the narrative by describing themselves as “non-white” as if “white” is the standard we compare everything to. That must have been heart-breaking for so many people to see.
This morning i was trying to think what post to write about trying to be an ally in the ongoing race conversation and journey and i had an idea of how it could have looked in Americaland around the time of setting slaves free:
“We realise we have been wrong. We should never have enslaved people. We have now freed them. We are getting it right now. How do we continue life now that the people who used to serve us are gone?”
Do you hear all the ‘we’ in there? The ‘I’ language? The ‘This-Is-Once-More-Still-About-Me’?
i am learning that this is one of the key pieces of moving forwards in South Africa. Realising that it CANNOT any longer be about me. About us. About white people. We dominated the narrative for so long. It is time the story was shifted to and told by someone else.
We need to learn to ACTIVELY LISTEN.
Two of the ideas from the list of Ten Communication Commandments from the previous post i find particularly helpful in this:
Thou shalt listen actively, ask questions, and refrain from giving advice.
If you hear an idea that is new or strange, try it on for size.
For too long, white people were setting the pace, leading the way, creating the history [the one i learnt at school was a very biased one-sided affair] and in many ways attempting to be the standard [beauty magazines, television series, movies, sports stars] that we expected others to try and attain or adulate. It is long overdue time for us to let someone else have that space and to sincerely pay attention to what they may have to say.
As a white person we tend to egg-shell walk around these things and say them nicely because we don’t want to offend and we want to keep it all civil and YOU KNOW WHAT? We did offend. Apartheid was offensive. Wanting a Get-Out-Of-Apartheid-Free card that let’s us move forwards as if nothing happened and that that nothing had no consequences is offensive and unkind and oblivious, so to put it in more direct, less comfortable language we need to learn to SHUT UP!
“Ah, Brett man, that is unnecessarily harsh. You need to chill and go easy on us.”
No, i think the time for that may have passed. If you have not yet realised that there is still a need for some serious bridge-building in this country, then you need to catch up. But if you have and are there, then this is an aspect that must take centre stage. We need to learn to listen.
Which all feels a little bit like a paradox. Because in the #IAmStellenbosch post i was suggesting that white people need to speak up. And that is true. Here is how i see it:
# Where there are people not getting it and living in continued ignorance or misinformation, it is the role of us as white people to speak into that. As ‘Suits’ put it so eloquently last night, white people need to help our own “get their shit together”. Many of us are tired of trying to do this and frustrated with attempts at helping white people understand ‘white privilege’ and unpacking the absence of any kind of ‘white guilt’ and some have given up and decided only to continue working with those who get it and want to make a difference. But it should not be up to the oppressed or marginalised to have to explain this to us any more. Except where there is authentic relationship and they are holding us accountable.
# Where the conversation of moving forwards and what South Africa looks like and how reparation and restitution and reconciliation need to take place, that is an area where we need to be quiet and listen and follow people of colour in this area. i’m not saying we must not be a part of those conversations, but i am suggesting that we should not be the ones leading them. And that we need to err on keeping quiet.
Thou shalt listen actively, ask questions, and refrain from giving advice.
If you hear an idea that is new or strange, try it on for size.
How does the idea of listening sit with you? Is this something you feel you do well or could do better at? What other ideas do you think could help make us a good ally in these conversations about race?
So this past week a picture appeared on my Twitterer of a white girl with a statement written on a board that made me cringe:
Suddenly more and more of these pictures were popping up all over Social Media and turns out there was an #IAmStellenbosch group inviting students at the University to write statements about themselves which challenge the stereotype of a typical Stellenbosch student and highlight the differences and individualities of each student.
Their vision statement reads: To create an awareness of the thousands of individual identities that are housed in this university and bring them together into a single identity that is Stellenbosch University.
To those who have been keeping some kind of eye on recent Stellenbosch events, this seems to be a response to the Open Stellenbosch movement, much of which was capture in the video ‘Luister’ that was put together by Contraband Cape Town in collaboration with Open Stellenbosch which you can see over here linked to an article by Layla Leiman in which she writes, ‘The documentary shares the testimony of the lived experiences of black students at Stellenbosch University and the culture of racism, discrimination, exclusion and violence that continues at Stellenbosch University 21 years after democracy.’
What is quite interesting to me, reading the vision and mission statement of #IAmStellenbosch [which you can find in their Facebook group] is that line one of their mission is: To create a platform of communication in which students listen to each other this not being through dialogue but discourse.
Whereas their poster campaign seems to be a knee-jerk reaction doing quite the opposite.
And it becomes quickly clear from reading some of the response comments to #IAmStellenbosch that there is some deep listening that needs to happen:
THIS IS NOT JUST A SOUTH AFRICAN PROBLEM
During our time in Americaland, i became very aware that the story of people of colour over there mirrors that of those living in South Africa in so many ways. Even though the chief narrative is quite different for a number of reasons, many of the same themes and similar experiences and mindsets seem to pervade and so i believe there is a lot to be learned from studying both.
Earlier this year #BlackOutDay started trending on the Twitterer as a means for black people to celebrate black beauty and fight against the kind of negative images black people were used to seeing in the media:
You Tube personality Franchesca Ramsey told ABC News:
“Unfortunately, in most popular media talking about black people and our bodies, it’s mostly of us breaking the law, being killed or mistreated,” Ramsey added. “So it’s nice to combat these negative images and stereotypes with positive representations of ourselves.”
i found this blog post written by Akilah Hughes titled It’s Not About You which highlights some of the same issues that the detractors of #IAmStellenbosch are seeing and feeling:
During the wildly successful Blackout Day of March 6, black people posted and reblogged selfies on social media to promote community and the acceptance of features less visible in popular media. It was an uplifting day meant to remind black people, “you’re beautiful, too.” Some white people took offense. It wasn’t long after #BlackOutDay started trending worldwide on Twitter that the ‘whiteoutday’ hashtag became a thing.
Blackout Day did not claim that non-black people are immune to body image issues, or that others don’t face societal pressures. But, without fail, any time a historically oppressed group asserts their equality by boldly denying any inferiority to someone outside their group, some member of the un-oppressed majority takes it personally. Well, when oppressed groups take the initiative to lift themselves up, it is not an invitation to victimize yourself. Would you go to a toddler’s birthday party and kick over their cake to announce that you, too, have birthdays? The answer should be “no.”
Akilah ends off her post with this statement:
It. Wasn’t. About. Me.
Since that conversation, I’ve learned to listen before I follow my knee-jerk reaction and take offense at movements about which I’m not educated. It isn’t always easy to stop the instinct to be defensive, but it is necessary if things are ever going to get better. After really hearing the other side, ask yourself if anyone loses rights or status when that group gains theirs. John F. Kennedy said, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” It’s important to remember that sweeping progress benefits us all, so let others do what they must to finally achieve equality.
HOW DO THOSE IN THE KNOW DEAL WITH THOSE WHO AREN’T?
Which brings me to a question i posed as a status on Facebook yesterday and want to dig a little more deeply into:
Brett Fish Anderson: So ‘#IAmStellenbosch‘ – ridiculous right? As is #YesAllPeople response to#YesAllWomen and #BlackLivesMatter. i was thinking about it today and it comes i think out of a place of ignorance. So my thought is that it belongs perhaps to the privileged (and not the marginalized) to sit and explain to those in ignorance. So they can know. If then, they choose ignorance after being informed, well then they’re on their own. Those are thoughts that have been running around my head.
As friendlyly as is possible, what is your response to that? i know many of my informed friends are just exhausted from explaining and that for too long it was expected that the marginalised should explain so that is my light bulb moment for today. What think you? #IAmFacebook
To which some of my friends responded:
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Nick Frost: The marginalized can’t explain because the privileged don’t listen. That’s what the whole thing is about, the inability to shut up for once and listen. Stellies students think they can slap a hashtag on a half assed “upliftment initiative” and sing their problems away.
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Bruce Collins: Yeah. I looked at that #iamstellenbosch stuff and all I could think was “what is the point?”
It seems like a way to minimise what people are really experiencing by saying that others do not have similar experiences. It is also, in my opinion, an attempt to justify all that’s wrong at Stellenbosch. You see, just because some people are ok with the status quo that doesn’t mean that the status quo is right.
Furthermore, #iamstellenbosch is all about speaking and very little about listening.
What bothers me most are all the “I’m not a racist” statements. Instead of saying that, live it by listening.
Nick Frost: White guys listening to rap music does not equal the end of racism. Sorry #iamstellenbosch
Bruce Collins: Word! That was so ridiculous. “I am Afrikaans and my favourite artist is Drake”
Noddy badge? Hell no!
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Alexa Russell Matthews: Opportunities to be allies is what went through my head…. [This is a reference to a piece i am working on putting together with some friends of mine over here]
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Beben Cadman: It does not end anything but it highlights stereotypes. Doing something is better than nothing.
Kerri-Leigh Wayne: Exactly, it reinforces stereotypes
Beben Cadman: I don’t think it does. I think the more we say who we think we are the more it creates dialogue, the more we can be challenged, the more we grow. It’s the pretentiousness for a long time that culminated in these realities in this crucial year of 20 years of democracy. Yes we should be listening but talking tells us where we really at. I welcome any dialogue as long as we as people are challenged, reconciled and unified. Even us who might think we standing on the right side of human rights.
Tanisha NishNash Schultz: I feel “I am Stellenbosch” is trying to reinforce unity amongst students.
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Wayne Eaves: Good ask – we are at the beginning of a rise of a new wave of black consciousness in SA (or one just more public, I admit my ignorance), a conversation to which we are not invited at this juncture. Speaking into something uninvited is in many ways the quintessential essence of postmodern privelege. We need to learn to listen, to dig into our own history, deconstruct and restructure various paradigms – which facebook does not give me space to deal with – love the question!
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Megan Furniss: I have a new take. A brand new one. I will no longer be embarrassed by these ignoramuses. I will not care about them.
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Kerri-Leigh Wayne: It definitely isn’t the marginalised who should be explaining. I try to be listening more, like Wayne suggests, that’s been something I really have to work towards. But I still talk to white people around me, even if they remain ignorant and my views are unpopular, because I was, and still am, ignorant too. Being called out is what helps me to see that. I am not embarrassed by these people – they don’t represent me and many people have been socialised quite heavily into believing what they do, so it does not even reflect on the type of person he or she is. I also try not to ever take a conversation (or its derailment) personally. Having said that, I cringe intensely when I see an album like the #IamStellenbosch one but I am glad to see that some of the heaviest criticism of the privileged views espoused by the photos are being tackled by white people in the comments section.
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Brett Fish Anderson: i will blog further on this cos i think it is a helpful conversation to do a little deeper in. i think one of the big problems is that those of us who are somewhat informed – who have walked a bit of a journey in this – take for granted the informedness we have and then assume others have it and are making those same choices. i think we need to give more grace to uninformed and ignorant so that they have the opportunity to become informed and norant? Okay that’s probably not a word but it should be.
i doubt a student in Stellenbosch was being malicious, they honestly did what they thought was a good thing and so there has to be some moment of that opportunity happening to change that. i look back on my journey and at 41 I have been digging into this stuff more deeply for the last five years and so i could quite easily have been that student. I didn’t do so good. So it feels necessary for me to be prepared to take time to coach other people through.
Megan Furniss: You know what I think Brett? You are clever and kind and norant, and brave and full of energy. Spend it on those who need it most, and who can use you best. Others can get in line. There is work to be done and we need to act fast. Just went to witness Lingua Franca and I was totally humbled by them. It’s not about ‘us’ (read white people) anymore.
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What about you? If people around you [or online] seem ignorant about something which you have learned/studied/lived through/experienced do you believe that it is worth taking time and energy to school them with the facts so that they can understand and have a chance to ‘get it’? Or should the focus and emphasis be on those who do and moving forwards with them? Play nice in the comments but i would LOVE to hear some conversation on this…
[For some Creative Ideas on How to Become a Better Ally, click here]
all human
we are all fools
all believe something which
if we were suddenly pressed
we would deny quickly
or slowly slink away
we are all heretics
holding onto one secret thought
which would make us outcasts
we all wish for one thing
with all our hearts
which, if it came true
would leave us wishing
for something better
we all forgive
as little as possible
and only if we think
we’ll get something
in return
we are all lust
and too little love
we are all greedy before
we are willing to share
we are all human
which means both
something beautiful
and something we’d rather
not think about
[by Michael Toy, ‘Blame It On The Huehuetenango’]
As a follower of Jesus, this really is my mantra. Love one another. This is how you will be known to be My [Jesus] disciples, if you have love one for another.
When i spend a decent amount of time online challenging people about their beliefs and actions, this often comes to mind. After all the church has a pretty bad history of typically being known more for what we are against than what we are for and so i don’t want to add to that. Especially when we are for such great stuff. Loving God, loving people, looking after the least of these, caring for widows and orphans, welcoming the marginalised, being pro all aspects of life, sharing what we have with the stranger, forgiving our enemies and showering them with love.
So when i find myself writing a post that is a little more tongue in cheek and contains the phrase ‘stupid people’ a whole lot, i think about it a lot. When i engage in yet another online dispute about racism or privilege or why it is never cool to make jokes using the word ‘rape’ or reducing it to something describing a much lesser thing that went wrong in your day, i check myself. Am i spending as much time and more championing things which bring people together, which build community, which encourage people to get involved with the poor and marginalised. Don’t get caught up in the mud flinging.
i saw this cartoon today and i really liked it:
i think it is the patience of Jesus here that i love the most. No matter how many times i don’t ‘get’ it, Jesus takes time with me helping me to see the error of my ways, bringing me lovingly back to ‘You will be known by the love you have…’
But then i am also reminded of the time Jesus goes completely off at the Pharisees in Matthew 23.
i love the trailer to His rant, found in verse 3:
So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
That seems to say it all, right. “Jesus, i think you covered it all right there. Let’s go get lunch.” But He doesn’t.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.
“Blind Fools”… “Blind Guides”… “Hypocrites”… “Whitewashed tombs”… “Snakes. Brood of vipers.”
If this was a modern day setting you can imagine Jesus dropping the mic and walking off stage. Oh, and just a reminder that these are the religious leaders of the day – so the pastors and reverends and very reverends and bishops etc.
And this is not an isolated event. When a woman is brought in front of Him to be stoned, Jesus tosses it back at them – “Go for it. Whichever of you has not sinned, you throw the first rock.” Everyone leaves.
When His disciples are fighting amongst themselves about who is greatest or who will rule alongside Him on His throne one day He calls them out in front of the group and embarrasses them.
At one point He gives a teaching so controversial or difficult to obey that everyone except for the close disciples leaves and stops following Him.
FIND THE BALANCE
Jesus saved His strongest words for those who followed Him, and while i am clearly not Jesus, i feel like i do that pretty well too. It is typically the christians getting pissed off with me on Facebook [which feels great when it’s issues of poverty and race and injustice, but less great when it’s about football salaries and movie pirating and content of tv shows although i tend to stay more out of most of those these days] and getting defensive and more.
And i’m okay with that. i hope people that don’t follow Jesus feel loved by me. i hope they feel safe. i hope i am someone they will call when their faeces has been furiously flung into a nearby fan. Oh, i also admire alliteration, apparently. i hope they expect that i will answer and come rushing.
i don’t see myself as ‘The Internet Police’ just as Jesus probably didn’t see Himself as ‘The Temple Police’… but when He saw people abusing their authority He went off… when He saw people practising extortion in a place meant for prayer He went a little ballistic… when He saw someone responding to a serious challenge and call to self-reflection on Facebook with a cheap and trite metaphorical saying that even the guy who came up with it probably didn’t understand then He went off… oh wait, that one was not Him, that was me. But i like to think He would have smiled and possibly even liked my comeback that involved the phrase “Christmas cracker inserts”.
Or not. He may not have. That might have been one time when i got it wrong. i will keep reflecting on where, what and how i engage. But i won’t keep quiet when it feels like words are needed. And in the background, all the time, i will be repeating my mantra over and over to myself.
Irresistibly Fish 