Taboo Topics: Race – Mixed Race Connections – Meet James Davis and Sherrell Nesmith

American-African meets African-American.

 

We met at university; both of us were on student leadership for our respective halls. Sherrell’s from Durham, NC. James is from Cape Town, South Africa (Well, mostly). Naturally, there are a lot of cultural differences we’ve discovered along the way. For starters, we have different likes and dislikes, some of them diametrically opposite each other, ranging from the superficial, like our tastes in music and to how we like to spend our free time, to the more complex, like our outlook on life and how we grew up.

 

We’ve had our conflicts over these last two years of dating, but what couple doesn’t. The source of these conflicts, however, hasn’t been race, but things in our lives that we’ve needed to work on, things we needed to mature in. Our church has played a large role in that: supporting and mentoring us separately and together, providing us with examples of successful multi-racial couples, and giving us a place to worship with people of other ethnic groups.

 

That’s not to say we don’t have outside problems relating to each other’s backgrounds. Only recently, have we begun to meet each other’s extended families. They’re all from the American South, so there’s good deal of  apprehension based on history. Between each other, however, we’ve chosen to look beyond our races. That doesn’t mean we ignore where each other comes from – to do so would be an offense on our identities. Instead, we see our differences and choose to work from there. We choose to see what makes each other unique and celebrate it. Sometimes, it’s pretty goofy.  At other times, it’s a wonderful time of growth and learning.

 

Most importantly, though, is our commitment to God. It truly is the love of God that allows us to love each other as boy- and girlfriend and, hopefully, as husband and wife. This should be the linchpin of any relationship, whether you’re multi-ethnic, all-white, all-asian, or all-black. To accept each other’s cultural differences, skin tone, and perspectives, put God first, each other second, and yourself last.

 

[For other stories of Mixed Race and Culture Connections, click here] 

CCDA day 3 – the A.M. of justice and big bags of smell poo

so this morning Halle Berry [well not quite, Michelle someone, but she looked a bunch like Halle… no, I’m not saying that the speaker looked like Halle which if you say it out loud is a  lot more humourful but moving on] gave a standing ovation worthy [not from me cos great amazing speech and all but i tend to keep my standing for Jesus unless something really does something different to me] talk on the topic of incarceration and it really was incredibly good and gave a lot of insight and [shocking] information on the topic but for most of the talk i was sitting there thinking internally ‘okay i get it – we have a big bad bag of smelly poo here – i really get it – but please don’t leave me with a big bad smelly bag of poo – tell me something i can do about it’ – and towards the end she did a little bit but then there was a panel afterwards [with her on it] that dug a little bit deeper and got a little bit more practical and story-full on the what we can do aspect [although she called for a movement, so pretty much something huge is needed cos the issue is so flippen smelly-bag-of-poo big and bad!] but ja quite a heavy topic. i didn’t take a lot of notes cos it was needing to be munched as a whole rather than appreciated as sound bytes, but did get a few thoughts:

# Charity is not enough. We have to work for justice!

# We have to take on the system.

# There needs to be [and I’ve thought this for years] a shift from a punitive approach when it comes to incarceration to a more compassionate and restorative approach! 

The system is the way it is… but it’s not the way it has to be… Such a powerful statement which a group or tribe or nation need to take on for it to gain much momentum [o a congregation, denomination, fraternal or city-wide collection of church congregations i guess]

# I liked this one – we have to care for the victim… AND the perpetrator AND the community… 

Michelle told a story of speaking in a church and saying “We’re all sinners” and everyone cheered… and then a little later she said “We’re all criminals” and there was silence… [but think about it – speeding, pirating, tax stuff etc etc – a large majority of us have committed criminal acts] so there seems to be this huge aspect of shame linked to being a criminal or even having that in the past…

What hit me was what someone commented to her: “How come we are so eager to admit we violate God’s laws, but shamed when it comes to mans.” Oof, right between the eyes!

Yeah. A lot of work to be done here. And going to take a concerted effort from a unified group of people and groups. So good to hear from some people on the panel who are working with prisoners, and former prisoners in various ways. Some inspiring people.

[For most powerful samplings of this evening click here]

What makes Jesus sadder too?

last time on ‘What makes Jesus sadder?’:

‘but it’s me. i mean that’s the answer right? the only person i can really change is myself, brett fish anderson [where fish seems to be proved more and more to be something i’m desperately aiming at as opposed to anything i hit regularly enough] and so that is really where i have to look.

and i do and i have and i am and a lot of it just leaves me with questions that i am struggling to answer.’

This is the picture of the exact mug i have.

so i was sitting on my step the other nite sipping coffee out of my Marvin the Martian mug and thinking about life [which i definitely don’t do enough – i really do enjoy the times when i can slow it all down and just ponder great things… so maybe the start is to be more intentional about creating those times when i just move away from the busyness and distraction it’s so easy to fall into slash facebook] and i had a couple of thought [thinking will do that to you]…

the one which has been plaguing me for a while kind of fits into that category of ‘I’ll do that when…’ which so many of us have been taken down by i think – the idea that at the next stage of life or season of living or pay increase or whatever, that somehow miraculously the thing you aren’t doing now is going to happen. and for the most part it’s a lie.

and i imagine that often it is linked to following Jesus. I’ll get really committed when I’m done with exams… when my kids are at school… when my kids are out the house… when this project is done… when i have my own car… when i’ve finished paying off my studies… and so on…

‘WHEN’ WON’T HAPPEN UNLESS YOU MAKE IT TO BE SO

it’s a lie. if you’re not doing it now then it is unlikely to miraculously happen. something significant has to change for your current behaviour not to be your future behaviour.

i suspect that often it’s AS EASY [and AS DIFFICULT] as just getting off your ass and doing it.

for me, sitting on the step, it was the awful truth of me just not knowing any of my neighbours. like not really. and not cos i don’t want to [well maybe the ones next door who are so inappropriately loud and who scream at their kids most of the time, i don’t really have great desires in myself to know them] but just cos it hasn’t happened and it might be for a hundred different reasons but it still bums me out.

The need is to just do it already.

tbV and i live in  four apartment complex [two upstairs, two downstairs] and a lot of it maybe has something to do with timing as we don’t often see the people. it may be because we are white and everyone else is black/African American and so there is not a natural cultural connection. it may be a stage of life thing as there are young children in i think each of the other apartments. and it may be because, apart from the one guy, our neighbors haven’t seemed particularly friendly but then maybe they are thinking or feeling the same thing about us.

but the one that bums me out the most is ‘African American guy’. you see what happened there? that is the part where his name was meant to go, but i don’t know it. and the main problem is that he knows my name. he learnt it the first time he met me and has greeted me with, ‘Hi Brett, how are you doing?’ ever since [and ‘Hey man’ feels more and more pathetic every time i mumble it back to him in the friendliest way possible]. The first time it was, ‘Oh no, I don’t know his name’ which quickly became, ‘Oh man, he knows my name and has called me Brett three times now’ to where we now stand at, ‘He has called me Brett 90 times and so it feels worse and worse to get my brain around the idea that i have to go to him and confess my panic [and just ridiculously bad manners] in that area.

do you know what the worst thing is? he looks really cool. he’s an older black man and i really want to get to know him and hear some of his story and hopefully we can be friends.

what sucks is that i feel like i have a strong heart for community and Val and i talk openly about how great it was in Potter street [at the Simple Way] where we knew everyone and life happened on the streets and we’d be in each others houses and so this all feels like an epic fail to me.

I THINK YOU’RE BEING TOO HARD ON YOURSELF!

and i don’t think i’m being too hard on myself. possibly not enough. there are definitely some reasons why it has been harder to stamp on my pride and just go and confess and put it right [the biggest being time – we don’t see him often and it’s usually between his car and the door and there are other family members around and stuff] but this last week i think i have come to the conclusion that this is something that i want and i will probably look for a chance while Val is away at the Wild Goose festival [she leaves tonite] to try and get that opportunity and put it right. so it feels definitely on the cards. and it actually not the biggest deal for me to have to go and make that confession and try and put it right. just a bummer that it has taken so long.

when i was sitting on the step though, the biggest question i faced in myself was the question of what is different between what i believe, or what i say i believe or preach/write that i believe and that which i am living out. and what am i going to do about it? and when?

the biggest problem, perhaps, is that the answers are not so simple. they are complicated. it is not as easy as it is with ‘African American man’ where i know what i have to do and just need to do it – there are a bunch of areas of ‘well i don’t know how to get from where i am to where i want to be?’ There might be a bunch of fears of ‘what if i try and it doesn’t work or happen the way i expect?’ and there are also some disappointments of things i have already tried or hoped for that didn’t turn out the way i was hoping for. where i did do the thing i needed to do but the person on the other end didn’t respond or not as i hoped. and so what now?

one small example of that is that there is a young girl in the house where ‘African American man’ lives and i don’t know if it’s his daughter or grandkid or anything but on the occasions i have walked past and she has been at the door and i’ve tried to be friendly to her [connecting with people in Philly was done largely by befriending and looking after their children] i’ve got the strong feeling that her mom is not super amped. she feels a lot suspicious of this dreadlocked white guy from upstairs. so that makes it a little harder cos i definitely want to respect the mom and so generally just try to be friendly to them when they’re out together and hopefully in time something will shift. or maybe i just need to bake something and take it around. that might be a plan.

the conclusion of all this for me is that the thinking part is so important. the noticing of ‘hey the reality i’m living doesn’t match up exactly with what i’m speaking or even what i’m hoping for’ and it’s insane to me to think that i will have amazing community in the next place i live if i haven’t even properly tried to reach out to those around me here [or remember one name! sigh].

but then it HAS to move to the action point. and soon. we don’t know how long we’re going to be here and if  want it to be easier to find it in the next place then the best way is stepping out here and even if things don’t go according to plan, at least i will know i’ve tried.

so i imagine Jesus gets sad when we just get caught up in living lives that are self-absorbed and focused and miss out on the opportunities He may have been prodding us towards

i imagine Jesus gets bummed when we say and think one thing and live a completely or even somewhat different thing [He may have calmly mentioned that to the Pharisees that one time]

i imagine Jesus is a little disappointed if i get stuck in the thinking phase and never step out of the boat He has called me to step out of and take a bit of a risk

this is not condemnation [which leaves you in a loud and stinky mess on the floor, paralysed and unable to change] – this is conviction [which inspires you and directs you to change]

oh and something about God putting His Holy Spirit in me so i should be alright in the empowered-to-do-this-whole-thing department.

you might not be cool enough to have a Marvin the Martian coffee mug, but i would still recommend grabbing some form of beverage and a step and taking some moments on how your life is looking right now… let’s do this thing. for real.

This might be comedy if it wasn’t so tragedy.

a racism by any other name…

two days ago my bossman Darin told me about this story where a dad had picked up his young kid in the laundromat and stuffed him in a washing machine and closed the door [presumably as a joke or to teach him a lesson] but once the door locked the washing machine jumped into life and they couldn’t stop it or get him out until someone who worked at the place ran up and unplugged it and eventually managed to save the child. The child was apparently mostly fine [except maybe for the trauma suffered by your dad almost killing you in a washing machine]…

then yesterday i was at the gym, running on the treadmill in front of a wall of tvs and the incident came on two different channels which were showing news. sure enough the dad stuffed the kid into the machine and it suddenly starts and both parents frenetically try to stop the machine and the guy comes and stops it. it happened just as i had been told, except one thing really took me by surprise.

i decided to test out my theory on two people as we walked to the office yesterday and so i mentioned that i had seen the story on the tv and asked what colour the parents were. without hesitation they both answered “white” which is exactly what i had imagined. only thing is i had been wrong. what surprised me about the video was that it looked like a so-called african-american family [athough definitely a family of colour] and what surprised me was that in my head only a white family would be stupid enough to do something like that.

does that make me racist? it definitely would if it had gone the other way… but that made me think along with a lot of this Brett Murray ‘The Spear’ painting stuff that has been going on in South Africa and this amazing article which called a lot of it for what it was.

Four lines from that article carry the heart of where this whole racism-calling thing has gotten a little bit out of control:

I’m not shouting at you because you’re black, I’m shouting because you’re a maniac on the roads who is a danger to society.

I’m not complaining to your manager because you’re black. I’m complaining because you’re an incompetent moron who is incapable of doing her job properly.

I’m not firing you because you’re black. I’m firing you because you’re a thief.

I’m not confronting you because your black, I’m shouting at you because you’re a messy pig who expects other people to clean up your mess.

Each of those incidents [maniac on road, incompetent at job, thief, litterer] if they had occurred with someone of the same race calling out someone of the same race it would have been an incident of whatever is in brackets [parenthesis to the americanese] but because it was a white person calling a black person that [and i’m guessing vice versa] it suddenly becomes a race thing.

there is a lot more to say on this issue but hopefully this incident has at least got people thinking about it. are stereotypes racism or do they exist, much like cliches, because they are true a lot of the time? and while it is unfair to generalise with a stereotype or cliche and judge everyone as that thing, it is maybe not necessarily racist to be aware of or mention them.

i don’t think it was a big deal that i assumed the washing machine dad was white. i think it just was what it was. we could progress a lot further in this world, life, country if we started looking a lot more at what is as opposed to what could be suggested/read into/taken as…

your thoughts?

[late add: found out today that it was a babysitter and her boyfriend and not the kids parents who put the baby into the machine – story is here]