Revelation 4 BFC 2019
Revelation 13
October 13, 2019
The
African American author and activist, James Baldwin said in “A Talk to
Teachers” way back in 1963, “Let’s begin by saying that we are living through a
very dangerous time. Everyone in this
room is in one way or another aware of that.”[1] In the early 60s, Baldwin recognized that our
country’s grotesque and disfigured beast of racism would do all that it could
in its determined barbarity and cruelty to
avoid being transformed. That beast was
either going to fuel and stoke our country’s history of imperial violence or
a revolution of values might replace the Domination System for
something more whole and good and right.
In answering what he might do to teach an African
American child, Baldwin said, “I would try to make [them] know that just as American
history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful and more terrible than
anything anyone has ever said about it, so is the world larger, more daring,
more beautiful and more terrible, but principally larger – and that it belongs
to them.”[2] The good earth not only belongs to you. It is you.
We share in it. And it shares in
us.
Those monsters may come as a warning. But
now the devil has been called out into the street and revealed for just how
hateful and cruel it is. We must vow
that we will work hard to stop it. On
this Indigenous Peoples’ Sunday, we can no longer say we didn’t know of our
country’s legacy of colonization, violence, and racism. We can’t say we don’t know, pretend that the
time and pain and hurt of this monster or dragon is over, and something lodged
in the past. The time is now. And the time to engage the principalities and
the powers was yesterday.
How do we do that? How do we engage the principalities and the
powers?
You may have heard the story of Chanel
Miller, the young Chinese-American woman who became defined by the words
“unconscious,” “stupid,” “dumpster,” “half-naked,” “nameless,” and
“nobody,” because she was raped by a white
Stanford swimmer behind a dumpster.
Chanel Miller moved out of the shadows when her victim impact statement
was picked up by national media and shared with the world. In four days, 11 million people read her
victim impact statement—a statement that had her step out into the world
declaring her worth over and against domination and violence. In speaking, she recognized that the
Domination System and story, the violence done to her, did not have to be her
story. She could continue to craft
herself and be confident in who she was.
But Chanel recognized that her soul
was able to step forward because of the community that held her, saw her,
checked on her, grieved with her, provided a presence for her, held her rapist
accountable, believed her, and became a movement surrounding her. To me, that sounds like the role of the church
with the work of historical trauma.
She remembered when she told the story of the
violence done to her to her mom. Chanel
watched her mom’s face just break open. When
you see yourself through the eyes of your loved ones, you recognize that the
historical violence, institutional violence, the personal violence done to you
isn’t something you deserved.
And that what happened is really painful and that’s ok. Chanel’s mom just held her so she
could break open. And as Chanel said,
“[S]ometimes, even if you don’t have words, you need that holding. You need
someone to be showing you that they see you and that they’re here for you.”[3]
It was the two Swedish graduate students
who checked on her, chased her perpetrator and pinned him to the ground,
saying, “Do you think this is ok? What
the f--- were you doing? Say sorry to
her.” And then the two Swedish graduate
students held him there so that there might be first-compassion, second-a
demand for repentance, and finally-accountability. In all of it, they stayed with Chanel and
offered their presence to her.
Chanel was later told by the police that when one of
the Swedish students gave his testimony to the police, he openly wept for
her. And in his grieving, deputies
attending to Chanel openly wept, their hearts softened by his compassion. The Swedish graduate students took time out
of their lives, interrupted their lives, to repeatedly testify to the violence
at trial, to reveal the monstrous behavior. When Chanel later thanked them, they would not
let the focus be on them. They both
thanked her for what she had done for the world by stepping forward in
courage. As Chanel boldly stated, these
two Swedish graduate students created a standard by which we can hold other men
to.
Then it was the jury members, who one
by one, repeated “yes” to all of the counts against her rapist, each one,
individually, saying these “yeses” to validate her story, to tell her she was
something more than nothing. Chanel had
known he should be held accountable. But
the beast roared and the historical violence pounded and made her unsure until
the jury would not unbelieve what had happened. When each juror was finished saying “yes”
again and again, she was reminded that she was of worth.
And finally, it was the whole movement
of women, the #MeToo movement and a professor who led a movement to recall the
judge for imposing such a ridiculously lenient sentence. The judge believed the pain of the white
young man committing the rape did not define him and worried that
his accountability might mitigate his future. The movement helped Chanel Miller know she
would not be defined by his violence or the judge’s
sentence. The movement helped Chanel
Miller to know she would not be limited to the absolute worst thing that had
happened to her in her life--that the parameters set by the violence and the
surrounding Domination System would not define her, her trauma would not hold
her. This whole community movement, like
what church is supposed to be, reminded her that Chanel Miller had a larger and
more transcendent story than her trauma.
John of Patmos said to Christians in
the First Century that there was something more transcendent than the violent monsters,
a story more boundless than the beast.
At the same time, John invited early Christians, tried to help them see,
that this story was already here, nearer, being revealed as a community that
holds one another in love, sees one another, checks in, grieves the historical
and present violence done, provides a presence,
believes those who recount the violence, and holds those responsible for
the violence accountable. When I see
people in the Native community step forward, as they do today and every day, I
know the sacred, deeper story is being told again—people like Phillene, Kassie
and Walter, Nell, Angie and Marci, Josiah, Alicia, Cora, Jean, Dyani, Barbara, Kinsley,
and Leonard—the story is being told again and the day of the monster is coming
to a close.
This is the stuff of their souls. It
is not defined by moments of mercy or opportunity; it is not good things
happening to them. Rather, it is the good thing that is in them,
regardless of what happens. They carry this down through generations, same as
the epigenetic trauma of a violent Domination System. We say on this Indigenous
Peoples’ Sunday that the holding, seeing, grieving, providing a space and
presence, and believing them is what Creator now calls forward in a movement.
It is what made the ancestors hold on so that all of us could be part of that
old, old story—more transcendent, boundless, bigger than the story of any
monster or beast.[4]
Like the early 60s, we live in a very dangerous
time. But the movement is beginning and
already here. It is near. Do you feel it? That movement is beginning and already here. Amen.
[1]
James Baldwin, “A Talk to Teachers: The
Negro Child-His Self-Image,” October 16, 1963; originally published in The
Saturday Review, December 21, 1963, reprinted in The Price of the
Ticket, Collected Non-Fiction 1948-1985, Saint Martins 1985. https://richgibson.com/talktoteachers.htm
[2]
Ibid.
[3]“Interview
with Chanel Miller: The Stanford Sexual Assault Case Made Her “Emily Doe.” In
New Memoir, Chanel Miller Tells Her Story,.” Democracy Now! October 11, 2019. https://www.democracynow.org/2019/10/11/chanel_miller_know_my_name_interview
[4]
“Interview with Amani Perry: More
Beautiful,” OnBeing, September 26, 2019.
https://onbeing.org/programs/imani-perry-more-beautiful/.
No comments:
Post a Comment