When i was looking for an image to reflect the idea of becoming an Ally i found this poster and really liked it. Because the question that i am wrestling with at the moment is just that: How to Be a Better Ally, specifically when it comes to matters of Race.
And possibly one of the biggest pieces of this puzzle is that the answer should not have to come from people of colour. Continue reading
In a moment of brave-ity two night’s ago i decided to ask the South African internet a question. I was reading a book that pointed back to the idea of South Africa being renamed Azania and i didn’t think that was the worst idea. After all ‘South Africa’ is just a direction, right. What do you think? Who would be okay with a name change and why?
i also posted an article by Xolela Mangcu on News 24 titled ‘Spinach, Chips and Race’ talking about a negative experience he had had at a restaurant that he saw as directly linked to race and all the white people who jumped on and tried to defend as just being a restaurant/client incident. And many black friends jumping in to confirm that this has happened to them and people they know too many times for the coincidence monster to be invoked. And then more white people jumping on to say the story was not related.
Both of these got a lot of conversation going – some was heated and uncomfortable and absolutely beautiful and i include one of those exchanges below because of where it started and where it ended up. [flashbacks to the ‘What about Bob?’ series of conversations i ran a while back]. Some was just painful and demonstrated an all too typical white response to reflect and defend and misdirect and to refuse to LISTEN to what was really being said and to understand some of the HURT and COMPLEXITY that was attached.
Amidst a sea of frustration and stupidity, there are glimpses and islands of hope and i will continue to lash myself to those as i try to figure out how this ally thing works. Part of it seems to be to continue to invite white people to come to the table and to look inwards and try to recognise the change that still needs to happen without them getting too distracted with who owns the table and how they would prefer the lighting to be and why their particular cushion [you got a cushion?] is not quite as comfortable as they are used to.
Here are some comments and conversations that emerged from yesterday’s posts and shares, followed by some highlights pulled out of a really helpful Jonathan Jansen article [which you should go and read the rest of]:
Debbie: A dream I have is that we would eventually all be referred to as South Africans, because personally I think using terms of black, white, coloured just further entrenches the separation. There are some South Africans not willing to engage with other South Africans, but this does not include all. There are many making the effort and moving forward together.
Linde: I think it’s convenient for privileged white people particularly to use the desire for peace as a means of silencing those that speak about deep racial issues.There are many making an effort, but the social conversations we’re having prove that THEY are not enough. Issues such as Rhodes Must Fall,Open Stellenbosch should not need debating after 1976 and yet here we are.
Debbie: That was not a comment to silence anybody, just a dream for the future. Making broad statements using black and white terms makes me feel further separated from going forward. I then feel I am damned if I do and damned if I don’t. Help me understand then what Im saying that comes across as silencing voices. Genuine question, I really would like to know.
Linde: You do realise that this is not about making you feel comfortable Debbie? There is a majority out there that has been treated in a way no minority should be treated for many years and then we have privileged people such as yourself who are very concerned about their feelings and protecting those feelings. I appreciate that you spoke your mind but accept that others will do the same and they deserve to. Speaking of the reality of the current status of SA will not change things or create greater division as that’s the same as changing a country’s name without serious reform of the real issues that cause the racial divide.
Debbie: Not trying to feel comfortable nor am I so concerned about my feelings in what we are talking about. I used a lot of ‘I statements’ so as not to point fingers, that was the only reason. I really do want that social change and for the racial divide to go. I am all for people talking if they still need to talk, but surely there does need to come a time when moving forward together is important for all, even with conversations still happening along the way on topics that haven’t been properly addressed?
Linde: How do we move forward when you want to mask the truth selfishly at your own convenience? Moving forward can only happen when we talk and address issues frankly. Rhodes Must Fall & Open Stellenbosch are a consequence of the lack of honest dialogue as black people are muzzled by white people such as yourself and those you think you speak on behalf of who consider the absence of racial conversation as a step in the correct direction. Movements such as Rhodes Must Fall, Open Stellenbosch happened cos black people decided to talk regardless of how uncomfortable it makes you and the people you speak on behalf of. Rhodes Must Fall and Open Stellenbosch and many other movements and organisations are the beginning of change. They are the sign that South Africa is moving on and that we’re tackling these issues head on. Your definition of a South Africa that has moved on is a SA where you and the people you speak on behalf of are not challenged by the wrongs of the past and the WRONG that you are so ignorant of doing right now in this conversation. What you’re doing is the perfect example of white privilege at it’s best. You think you can define the terms of “SA moving on”. For you, continuing to discuss racial issues means we haven’t moved on, cos Debbie and the group she speaks on behalf of has said so. To you Black people who speak of race issues are not moving on. We will not keep quiet because the people you speak on behalf of are uncomfortable Debbie.
Debbie: ok this conversation obviously needs to happen in another place as it’s getting lost in translation here. I was trying to dialogue and not be attacking. am happy to talk inbox and that’s not because of being uncomfortable, but truly believing this will not be solved on a FB post with misunderstandings happening.
Linde: I don’t mean to sound dismissive Debbie but I’ve heard this rhetoric before. I can’t tell you how many times people have preferred to challenge ideas with me via inboxes – cos they’re being misunderstood. In SA white voices/opinions carry more authority and we hear them all the time on their terms. I think I’ve heard almost every argument possible about why talking about race is divisive. Surprise me and do something different – CHALLENGE YOUR OWN PERSONAL SENSE OF PRIVILEGE.
Debbie: Ok, a question, what would make you see that I have taken that step? What is the expectation of challenging privilege?
Linde: This Debbie is a 180 degree change of tone from your conversation. This is definitely something I don’t see often and I hope to see more of it from more people.
1. Don’t dictate to the oppressed how they should act. This is what you have been consistently doing in this conversation. The premise of your argument is based on telling the majority to move on as explicitly defined by you or the people you speak on behalf of..
2. Understand that discomfort is part of the process of acknowledging and letting go of prejudicial/racist behaviour. There’s nothing wrong with feeling uncomfortable.
3. That discomfort however pales in comparison to what black people have gone through and what they go through every day today – in the NEW SOUTH AFRICA. Your discomfort is nothing compared to their pain and suffering and it continues – contrary to popular belief it didn’t end in 1994. Their pain trumps your discomfort. As long as one isn’t inciting violence, as you’re also entitled to a safe environment (even online), listen, make a contribution without dictating terms.
BUT THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
It’s been a pleasure.
Debbie: People always tell me to stay out of online conversations because they don’t go anywhere. I beg to differ most of the time, otherwise I would have missed this opportunity in meeting you and furthering my learning. I didn’t see myself as dictating, so I am sorry for that. I have learnt a lot from working with black people and teaching in a black school for the last few years. I hear about the tough life these kids live and it breaks my heart. I seek to help where I can and always want to see myself a learner, so thank you Linde.
Phumzile: Well Debbie, the long and the short is that we have been socialised for centuaries to think in terms of colour, so that’s not going away in this centuary at least, the slow pace of transformation (if there’s any) is not helping. Let’s accept colour cause to a large degree it shows off God’s creativity, colour is no mistake. There are practical things that can speed up finding our country’s identity besides a name change, eg. White people giving back land without compensation, having this conversation in an indeginous language cause it’s mandatory (not a nice to have in order to make black pps feel like u r a nice white person), etc etc. Perhaps then, a name change when what we see in this country is worth summing up in a word or two.
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My friend Simon telling it like it is: You see, a lot of white people – myself included – unintentionally start falling into an unmerited positivity around race in our country, where we feel that apartheid is long behind us, and the hurt and leftover division is largely on the mend. And the only reason we think this is the majority of us still carry the privilege of not being majorly effected by it. We sort of forget it.
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My Facebook status after two very long, draining, mostly painful conversations with white people being defensive and black people being [in my opinion] way too gracious and patient: “South Africa, it is okay to feel uncomfortable in conversations. Without that we will never move forwards. But when that happens do you stay and push through and listen harder and look more into your own heart and really try to hear and see and be honest about what is happening or do you bail? Don’t give up. There is a lot of hard work ahead but it is more than worth it and we need to be more than grateful that people of colour continue to engage with us at all as we try to figure this out. It is not their responsibility to help us figure it out – that is a gift!”
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Lastly, this article written by Jonathan Jansen in the Rand Daily Mail which i have just pulled the key points out of, but click on the link and go and read it in full.
How to be White and Happy in South Africa
IT HAS long fascinated me, the fact that some white young people fit so easily into the new South Africa but most struggle to live and learn and love alongside black youth.
First, get a grip on yourself. You are not better than the other person because of your skin.
Acknowledge that you are a child of privilege. If you start off with the idea that everything you have is a consequence of the hard work of your parents, you are probably from another planet. Yes they probably worked hard, but centuries of separation and privilege — white affirmative action, in essence — gave your family an emphatic advantage at the expense of black people; that is why you do not live in a shack or never attended a crappy school. Acknowledging this simple fact sets you free, big time. Denying it will make it difficult to ease into this new country since you would never understand how we came to be so unequal.
Learn to listen before you speak. As with any child of privilege, including the black middle classes, you have been subtly trained to think you know more and better than those of lower class or darker race. This I can assure you is bull. But learning to listen is hard, since you grew up hearing your parents bark orders and give instructions to lesser people (in their minds).
Do not listen to your parents when it comes to friendships… Be better than us your parents; learn and love and live without borders for if your generation cannot make this society normal, we‘re screwed.
Always be on the lookout to learn from your friendships.
And learn to appreciate the traditions and expectations of your different friends and their families.
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Anything jump out for you while reading this? Is there something you’ve noticed in your own life that needs to be worked on? If you’re a white person, what questions do you have with regards to figuring out white fragility or privilege or how to be a better ally to your friends of colour?
[For more helpful posts on South African related things, click here]
i won’t lie – i’m pretty excited…
Sometime soon in the quite foreseeable future, this beard and i [and 3 other blokes actually who i didn’t have mutual pics with yet] are embarking on a new Comedy journey.
It is a show called ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’ and if you didn’t get an invite to our secret preview Is-This-Really-As-Funny-As-We-Hope-And-Think-It-Is happening later sometime at some venue, then all i can say to you is: LOOK, A DISTRACTION!
In the manner of British Quiz shows such as QI, Would I Lie To you? and Mock the Week, where the show tends to be more about friendly banter than actual quiz knowledge, we are looking to pioneer something brand new which i really think is going to be really a decent amount load of fun.
All’s Well That Ends Well is a history-themed show with rounds involving Guess who Said This, Did that really happen? And What Happened Next? as we plum the depths of history in search of fun facts, scintillating stories and unexpected moments of sheer i-can’t-believe-that-to-be-trueness.
If this goes well toni… sometime, then we are hoping to hold some actual shows where people like you pay money for tickets to be thoroughly amused. There may even be some genuine heartfelt LOLs. In fact, we’re counting on it.
MJ, Andrew, JP, Graeme and Fish… let’s hope All’s Well Begins Well so that it can, well, continue…
Watch this space for more.
We can all remember that iconic moment from the Bruce Willis/Haley Joel Osment thriller ‘The Sixth Sense’ and if you have not seen it yet, then be warned of the biggest spoiler of all.
The face of Cole Sear peeking out from behind the safety of his blanket as he whispers the iconic, “I see dead people!”
i feel like that on a far-too-regular basis on The Facebook as i read statuses of people negative about South Africa as they share news story after news story of death, violence and destruction.
This week i was thrown a little by one of those negative statements coming from someone i expected to have more hope.
But this negativity has been playing around in my head and it continues to make me sad and angry and confused and sometimes all at once. Are the stories being shared of negativity false? Probably not. The truth is that there is a LOT of death, violence and destruction in South Africa at the moment. So then how do i have any right to feel differently and expect others to do the same?
IT’S ABOUT WHO YOU KNOW
i was speaking on a camp in Wortelgat [past Hermanus] this weekend and got some bad news about a friend back in Cape Town, who has cancer. The way i received the news led me to believe there was a possibility i would not see my friend again. And i got this about five minutes before i was due to start my first talk. i was gutted.
But immediately i walked outside and texted two family members and maybe five or six friends to ask them to pray. And i knew they would. [And there were easily ten or twenty more people i could have texted without even thinking about it]. i knew they had my back. And my friend’s. [Sunday night tbV and i got to hang out with him and his wife and it seems like the situation has stabilised for now.
i saw a post this week about my friend Ashley who has been teaching chess to some young children from disadvantaged backgrounds. They were proudly showing off their medals from a chess competition they had competed in on the weekend.
i think of Nicole/Francesco, Tyron/Cara-Leigh, Mike/Sarah, Troskie/Naomi and others who have adopted little babies and children from a different race or culture group than their own and my friends Alexa/Charles who are waiting in line to do the same.
i think of tbV and the work she is doing towards getting Common Change to be an active thing in South Africa – a way for groups of friends to combine their resources and share with those who they know who have a need, and of Barry Lewis who is pioneering the building of houses in underprivileged areas using a unique design involving sand bags as walls.
Our friends Pete and Sarah and others who are working with young guys trying to get out of gangsterism and off drugs in Mannenberg and also the Jou Ma se Kombuis coffee shop/restaurant they have set up there; of the Common Good non-profit that is part of Common Ground church and how their aim is to get every single member of the church involved in some form of social justice and action; of 13 families who moved into Salt River as a part of the Eden Project and the idea of crossing boundaries to seek community and reconciliation and more.
i think of Tim Tucker and the Message folks who are working in prisons to train leaders and then helping them find employment once they are outside prison. Of Jade and Siphe who are using the opportunity of Managing the Soft Serve Machine as an event business which is a huge part of them turning their lives about as they encourage and affect others around them.
i think of my mate Bruce Collins and the way he uses technology in the classroom to build into the next generation of young people and how his love for people moves beyond that into equipping and empowering other teachers across the land and maybe even the world. Of uThando leNkosi, the place of safety for kids that tbV sits on the board of trustees of who looks after children who have been taken out of rough situation and been given a chance of a more normal, more family-centered life.
i think of the men and women who run LEAD SA and how they look for stories of good and highlight different young people once a month who are making a difference in their communities. Of the folks who run U-Turn homeless ministry who give people a chance to buy vouchers so that you can give someone on the street an opportunity for a meal or some clothing or a place to sleep without having to worry about what they might do with money you hand out to them. i think of the Big Issue vendors who brave wind and rain and blank faces that pretend they don’t exist as they go about selling magazines at traffic lights to earn a salary to bring some change to their life and future.
And i could go on… individuals and organisations and friends who are making the hugest of differences or the smallest ways simply by the work they choose to be involved with, the decisions they make with their money or where they choose to live or how they spend their time. People who get crazily creative in terms of seeing opportunities for change. People who read the negative headlines but refuse to let them remain the headlines of the future. People investing in South Africa and South Africans.
People who refuse to see dead people.
And so my question to you today is which person are you? Maybe the reason i am surprised when i read about people losing all hope and moaning about South Africa and getting scared and more, is because i have chosen to align myself to people who are making such differences and so the predominant stories in and around my life tend instead to be ones of hope and life and the future. So the negative stories are still there and the pain and violence and desperation are all still real. But those stories are drowned out by the story of the wall of uThando leNkosi being painted or the next group of prisoners starting the training with the Message in prison or seeing a group of young people be challenged and changed by hearing stories of a God who loves them at the camp i was on this weekend or news that our friend has just invited someone to live with them for a couple of weeks while she finds her feet and gets work.
Negativity tends to breed negativity and so if you are feeling overwhelmed by the negative narrative in this country then i encourage you to maybe find some different friends, find some different places to get your stories, find an organisation you can volunteer with. Sign up with The Warehouse to receive their newsletter and start attending some of their conversations about practical change. Like Johan de Meyer so you can hear what his Un-Fence group is up to next. Follow @Lead_SA on the Twitterer to read about this month’s hero they are celebrating.
Or leave. Because really, if you are choosing to add to the negativity in South Africa then you really should go somewhere else. We don’t need more people adding to the hymn of the depressed or the tune of the tragic-minded. There is certainly enough of that. We need people who realise they need to start learning Xhosa, or who decide they need to pay their domestic a living wage instead of just getting away with what your neighbour is paying theirs; people who will have a first-name and story knowledge of their immediate neighbours and who will jump in and offer to babysit their friend’s children so they can have a much-needed date night off; we need people who will give their time for chess lesson and others who will simply click and share the positive story ahead of the negative one.
We need people to choose to be a part of the change. And to invite others they know to do the same alongside them.
Which one are you? What is one story you can share in the comments of someone or some group doing something that would easily be added to this list here? Please share it with us.
i am loving this book tbV pickedup for me at The Warehouse by John Perkins. So much of it resonates with where my heart is for South Africa and, although he is using Americaland examples, so many of the truths still completely apply.
WILL I HOLD THEIR DREAM
The well-known Martin Luther King Jnr “I have a dream” speech was the dream of the black person in Americaland. But to be honest, it could only be fully realised once the white people got on board [which required much personal soul searching and recognising of white supremacy in themselves and actively taking on systems] to help get the country to the place it needed to be [although i imagine it, like ours, is still not quite there]. Similarly, in South Africa, for any reconciliation and restitution to take place, it is going to take both white and black people [simply speaking, plus of course all the other people groups respresented here] working together to ensure that the dreams of the currently-have-nots are made possible and in reach.
i want to share two passages from this book so far that greatly moved me in this regard and the first one contains snippets of Dr King’s dream alongside their present reality [despite these words being written some 30 years ago, sadly in the light of #Ferguson and #BlackLivesMatter and more, there is still much work to be done]:
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‘The crowd erupted into a cheering, applauding, chanting, banner-waving mass of humanity. Dr King had to wait a long minute before he could be heard above the crowd.
Then his voice rang out with the now-famous words of this speech, “I have a dream,” in which he proclaimed in part: ‘Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we now stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
…But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
…There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can not be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like the waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
…I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American Dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.
…This will be the day when all God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning. “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
…When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
In these words, Martin Luther King captured many of my own hopes and dreams. His dream was my dream too. Yet at that very time God was at work in my heart, shaping a dream bigger than the American dream, a dream rooted in the very gospel of Jesus Christ.
As our little congregation in Mendenhall took shape my faith was approaching a crucial test. Mechanisation was displacing Mississippi sharecroppers, driving them even deeper into poverty. Racial tensions were rising. The problems plaguing our little community were so great, and we were so few. What could we do?
Did the gospel have the power to tear down evil traditions and institutions? Was there a faith stronger than culture? A faith that could burn through racial, cultural, economic and social barriers?
I remember as if it were yesterday how I started searching the Scriptures for principles, for a strategy I could follow. God’s answer came one day as I read the story of the woman at the well in John 4.
First, I noticed how Jesus approached the woman. He came to her on her territory. He chose to go through Samaria. Jews travelling from Judea to Galilee usually crossed over the Jordan river and went around Samaria because of their prejudice. A Jew meeting a Samaritan on the road would cross to the other side to keep even the shadow of the Samaritan from touching him. Jesus deliberately went through Samaria for one reason – He wanted to personally touch the lives of the people there.’
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The other two points that John mentions above, that i won’t go into detail in are:
[2] Jesus’ love, His bodily presence in a community, could reconcile people.
[3] He let her felt need determine the starting point of the conversation.
i want to jump a whole lot of chapters forward in the book to share the next passage which resonates so strongly on my heart – the idea of incarnation, or as it is described in the book, Relocation. Living among the people you are going to be ministering to. tbV and i saw in Philly how valuable that can be in terms of relationship-building and even having any kind of understanding as to what they face on a day to day basis. It is encouraging to see many more followers of Jesus starting to take this more seriously and see that choosing where we live can play a huge part in the reconciliation and healing our country so desperately needs:
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‘As God’s agents on earth, we are responsible to live out this special concern for the poor. You cannot be and you ought not to be in the president’s administration unless you are committed to the president’s philosophy. In the same way you cannot effectively carry out god’s program unless you have the mind of Christ. To have the mind of Christ is to be especially concerned with the poor. It is to have a special compassion for the disenfranchised, for the aching in our society. And it is to act on that concern.
Whether we take the gospel to the poor, then, is not an incidental side issue: it is a revealing test of the church’s faithfulness to Christ’s mission.
How then shall we proclaim Good News to the poor? Once again Jesus is our model. “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory , glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” [John 1.14] Jesus relocated. He didn’t commute to earth one day a week and shoot back up to heaven. He left His throne and became one of us so that we might see the life of God revealed in Him.
Paul says that we are to have this same attitude Jesus expressed when He humbled Himself: “Have his attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” [Phil 2.5-8]
Jesus was equal with God, yet He gave that up and took on the form of a servant. He took on the likeness of man. He came and lived among us. He was called Immanuel – “God with us.” The incarnation is the ultimate relocation.
Not only is the incarnation relocation: relocation is also incarnation. That is, not only did God relocate among us by taking the form of a man, but when a fellowship of believers relocates into a community, Christ incarnate invades that community. Christ, as His Body, as His church, comes to dwell there.
Relocating among the poor flies in the face of the materialism of Middle America. To consider relocating, then, forces us to confront our own values. Have we accepted the world’s values of upward mobility? Or have we accepted God’s values as demonstrated in the life of Jesus? That’s the issue.
As I speak around the country, some people find my words on relocation hard to accept. They ask, “Do all have to relocate?”
I answer, “Only those who are called have to relocate.” Then I add, “But if you’re asking the question too angrily, then you may be called. If you are uneasy about it, God may be calling you.”
If you resist the suggestion to relocate, you need to ask, “Why don’t I want to go and live among the poor and wretched of the earth?” Ask yourself the question several times. Your answer will be the reason you ought to go.
If you have children, you may answer, “The kids in that neighbourhood don’t get a good education.” Then that’s why you need to go. you’ve just discovered a need! In moving to the neighbourhood, their need would become your need. The families in that community need others to feel that need with them, to make it their very own, to do something to improve the quality of education.
You might start a tutoring program, a preschool, a summer enrichment program, or even an elementary school. Whatever method you choose will grow out of relocating.
Now I’m not asking you to sacrifice your children. God gave us our children. They need a good education. If they can’t get one in the public schools, find another option. On the other hand, don’t overlook the educational advantages of sending your child to the neighbourhood school. Their increased understanding of the needs of the culture of the neighbourhood and the friendships they form may more than offset anything they give up academically.
Maybe you don’t want to move into the neighbourhood because of crime. Then that’s why you need to go. You’ve just found another need! Go identify with the people, help them understand the reasons behind the crime. Then work with them to solve the problem. Once you’ve relocated, once you’ve become one of them, you’re in a position to do that. People in an ethnic neighbourhood may hate the police. Refuse to share their hate, however justified: instead, commit yourself to now and the future.
Organise a neighbourhood watch group. Sponsor crime prevention workshops. Build positive, cooperative relationships with the local police. Invite the chief of police or the policeman on your beat to talk with church or community groups. Through letters to the police department, affirm those who do a good job: hold accountable those who do a bad job. Involve the policemen on your beat in community affairs.
In the past, our St. Charles neighbourhood in Jackson has had one of the highest, if not the highest, crime rates in Jackson. During the past year our community’s presence and our crime prevention efforts have cut the crime rate in half in our neighbourhood.
But you ask, “Can’t a suburban Christian minister to those who are aching without becoming one of them?”
And I answer, “Why on earth do you suppose these people have a welfare mentality?” It’s because outside “experts” have come up with programs that have retarded and dehumanised them. Yes, our best attempts to reach people from the outside will patronise them. Our best attempts will psychologically and socially damage them. We must live among them. We must become one with them. Their needs must become our needs.’
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And more. This really is a great book to get hold of and read. i hope these two extracts have helped catch some sparks into flame.
Do you have a good answer for why you live where you live?
It was just another praying through of the Lord’s prayer…
You know the deal, ‘Our Father, who are in heaven, blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah, you know, find the rhythm
blah blah blah lips moving to recreate words long worn into you in some ancient school assembly probably
blah blah blah’ WAIT, WHAT?
There is was, middle of the prayer, Matthew 6, verse 11:
11 Give us today our daily bread.
That’s surely a typo, right? Everyone knows it goes, ‘Give me today MY daily bread.’
But it wasn’t…
IT. WAS. ME!
i would so much like to claim the credit for this one, but after 41 years of reciting the Lord’s Prayer, as it has come to be known, the very one that Jesus taught His disciples to share with them some incredible ingredients that make up a good prayer, it took someone else to point it out to me.
The phrase is a call for “OUR daily bread.”
How had i never seen that before?
The words of Martin Luther King Jnr. resonate in my ears, “No one is free until we are all free.”
YOUR NEED BEFORE MY WANT
In the Old Testament of the Bible, the second book of The Torah, in Exodus 16 there is a beautiful story of God supplying the Israelites with a sort of bread from heaven as they wandered through the desert. They were given strict instructions to collect just what they needed, and no more. Paul echoes a reminder to this in his second letter to the Corinthians in chapter 8:
13 Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. 14 At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, 15 as it is written: “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.”
While, in this passage, the writer is speaking specifically about believers sharing with believers, the reference to the community of Israel throws open a bigger picture. That when God provides, there should be enough for everyone. As long as people continue to adhere to the principle of gathering what you need. Not too much or too little.
Or to put it a different way, the call for us to be crying out for the provision of ‘Our Daily Bread’.
In Africa, we have the idea of Ubuntu – i am a person through people, or i am what i am because of who we are.
Ubuntu is the potential for being human, to value the good of the community above self interest.
We love to help other people. i believe that has been wired into our humanity. We see someone in need and something in us instantly wants to reach out and make a difference. However, as we grow up on a planet with a very loud and clear ‘Me first’ personology that is taught and modelled to us almost everywhere we look, i wonder where that particular strand of D.N.A. was reprogrammed?
Could it be that our desire to help others and see justice and equality for all has been curtailed, and even overwhelmed sometimes, by our longing for person comfort and luxury?
i will help you, as long as it does not affect my own personal comfort and well-being.
Mine is more important than yours.
Give me this day MY daily bread. And then if there is leftovers, may you have yours as well.
Although that’s not how the prayer goes, is it?
What needs to change in me, for me, from me, the moment the light comes on and i realise that the words are, and have always been,
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
[For some practical conversations about how change can happen in South Africa, click here]
This is a hard but necessary passage to share from Steve Biko’s ‘I Write What I Like’ which you should totally get hold of and read in its entirety.
Hard, because it is true. Not true that the black man is inferior, but that the idea of the black man being inferior has been so deeply entrenched in so many of us, that it is an extremely hard and horrible thing to admit to when we see it in ourselves. When i see it in myself…
But somewhere along the line of growing up in an apartheid society, i can see that this idea rubbed off on me. It is a poison i hate to have to admit to, and am not entirely sure of the antidote, except to keep reminding myself daily that it was a construct that the system i grew up in, strongly wanted and enforced me to believe.
This is from chapter 14, titled, ‘Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity’.
‘It is perhaps fitting to star by examining why it is necessary for us to think collectively about a problem we never created. In doing so, I do now wish to concern myself unnecessarily with the white people if South Africa, but to get to the right answers, we must ask the right questions; we have to find out whether our position is a deliberate creation of God or an artificial fabrication of the truth by power-hungry people whose motive is authority, security, wealth and comfort. In other words, the “Black Consciousness” approach would be irrelevant in a colourless and non-exploitative egalitarian society. It is relevant here because we believe that an anomalous situation is a deliberate creation of man.
There is no doubt that the colour question in South African politics was deliberately introduced for economic reasons. The leaders of the white community had to create some kind of barrier between black and whites so that the whites could enjoy privileges at the expense of blacks and still feel free to give a moral justification for the obvious exploitation that pricked even the hardest of white consciences. However, tradition has it that whenever a group of people has tasted the lovely fruits of wealth, security and privilege it begins to find it more comfortable to believe in the obvious lie and to accept it as normal that it alone is entitled to privilege. In order to believe this seriously, it needs to convince itself of all the arguments that support the lie. It is not surprising, therefore, that in South Africa, after generations of exploitation, white people on the whole have come to believe in the inferiority of the black man, so much so that while the race problem started as an offshoot of the economic greed exhibited by white people, it has now become a serious problem on its own. White people now despise black people, not because they need to reinforce their attitude and so justify their position of privilege but simply because they actually believe that black is inferior and bad. This is the basis upon which whites are working in South Africa, and it is what makes South African society racist.
The racism we meet does not only exist on an individual basis; it is also institutionalised to make it look like the South African way of life. Although of late there has been a feeble attempt to gloss over the overt racist elements in the system, it is still true that the system derives its nourishment from the existence of anti-black attitudes in society. To make the lie live even longer, blacks have to be denied any chance of accidentally proving their equality with white men. For this reason there is job reservation, lack of training in skilled work, and a tight orbit around professional possibilities for blacks. Stupidly enough, the system turns back to say that blacks are inferior because they have no economists, no engineers, etc., although it is made impossible for blacks to acquire these skills.
To give authenticity to their lie and to show the righteousness of their claim, whites have further worked out detailed schemes to “solve” the racial situation in this country. Thus, a pseudo-parliament has been created for “Coloureds”, and several “Bantu states” are in the process of being set up. So independent and fortunate are they that they do not have to spend a cent on their defence because they have nothing to fear from white South Africa which will always come to their assistance in times of need. One does not, of course, fail to see the arrogance of whites and their contempt for blacks, even in their well-considered modern schemes for subjugation.
The overall success of the white power structure has been in managing to bind the whites together in defence of the status quo. By skilfully playing on that imaginary bogey – swart gevaar – they have managed to convince even diehard liberals that there is something to fear in the idea of the black man assuming his rightful place at the helm of the South African ship. Thus after years of silence we are able to hear the familiar voice of Alan Paton saying, as far away as London: “Perhaps apartheid is worth a try”. “At whose expense, Dr. Paton?”, asks an intelligent black journalist. Hence whites in general reinforce each other even though they allow some moderate disagreements on the details of the subjugation schemes. there is no doubt that they do not question the validity of white values. They see nothing anamalous in the fact that they alone are arguing about the future of 17 million blacks – in a land which is the natural backyard of the black people. Any proposals for change emanating from the black world are viewed with great indignation. Even the so-called Opposition, the United Party, has the nerve to tell the Coloured people that they are asking for too much. A journalist from a liberal newspaper like The Sunday Times of Johannesburg describes a black student – who is only telling the truth – as a militant, impatient young man.
It is not enough for whites to be on the offensive. So immersed are they in prejudice that they do not believe that blacks can formulate their thoughts without white guidance and trusteeship. Thus, even those whites who see much wrong with the system make it their business to control the response of the blacks to the provocation. No one is suggesting that it is not the business of liberal whites to oppose what is wrong. However, it appears to us as too much of a coincidence that liberals – few as they are – should not only be determining the modus operandi of those blacks who oppose the system, but also leading it, in spite of their involvement in the system. To us it seems that their role spells out the totality of the white power structure – the fact that though whites are our problem, it is still other whites who want to tell us how to deal with that problem. They do so by dragging all sorts of red herrings across our paths. they tell us that the situation is a class struggle rather than a racial one. Let them go to van Tonder in the Free State and tell him this. We believe we know what the problem is, and we will stick by our findings.
I want to go a little deeper in this discussion because it is time we killed thus false political coalition between blacks and whites as long as it is set up on a wrong analysis of our situation. I want to kill it for another reason – namely that it forms at present the greatest stumbling block to our unity. It dangles before freedom-hungry blacks promises of a great future for which no one in these groups seems to be working particularly hard.’
[For another passage looking at the Internal and External Forces, click here]
Irresistibly Fish 