It Takes a Village

Photo of Tyler Lee Rebel Guard 1965 from my High School Yearbook


Last night John Stewart set aside his comedy to speak seriously about the deaths of nine innocents in Charleston, and about race and our failure to come to grips with the elephant in the room His video can be seen here:

https://www.facebook.com/116687955016786/videos/vb.116687955016786/1027868420565397/?type=2&theater

His words moved me to respond on my church list after viewing this. I realized I should share it to a wider blog audience. Here's what I wrote:

Let me share a piece of my own history. I grew up in Tyler, Texas. There was a confederate arms plant there during the civil war. I attended Robert E. Lee High School. We were the Tyler Lee Rebels and at our football games, one of the largest confederate flags in the nation was marched out onto the field held aloft during football games and Dixie was played by the band as we all sang along at the beginning and through the games, especially after touch downs. We also had the rebel guard, dressed in confederate uniforms who fired a cannon after every touchdown.

In American History, we spent over a semester just on the Civil War. There was a distinctly southern bias to what was taught. I used to point with pride to the ancestors who had fought for the south. Our myths were about great courage, and the great tragedy when a way of life had been destroyed by the yankee invaders. I knew people older than myself who spoke with pure hate about Sherman and his scorched earth policy. Our schools back then were segregated and our lives were segregated and I knew several in my home town who were racists and some who went on to become klan members. I graduated from high school in a hospital bed, a result of a motorcycle accident, where I remained for 3 months with my leg strung up in traction while the missing bone grew back in. At my graduation, the principal and superintendent were there as was the local press to photograph this proud young person at graduation, with a confederate flag draped across my pillow. The only black person I knew growing up was the help. Underpaid of course and she came in to clean every Saturday. She would be considered "one of the good ones." Then there was Grasshopper, who I only knew one day. He planted our lawn. I was five years old and he wove the most amazing stories for this young child, and to this day I remember him if not the stories with incredible fondness. I'm sure he's long since passed on, but his presence lives in my heart.

Here's the thing. I was lucky. I went to college and met real black people and the stereotypes began to melt away. I chose a career in public service and especially when I got to Houston, many, sometimes most of my co-workers and managers were black. I'd had an entire childhood of cultural myths to unlearn but they had no qualms about telling me how it really was. Unlike Minnesota, folks there can be pretty direct. But heres my point. This guy committed these murders in South Carolina, but he did not act alone even if he was not affiliated with any group. The phrase "it takes a village" resonates with me on this. There was family, friends, the community who nurtured the mythology of a dying culture stolen from them. A belief of the immoral black villains raping their women and resting control of their perceived image of white superiority and control. It's Lyndsay Graham hastily portraying the killer as some kind of crazy person and not like the rest of them other white people. Nikki Haley says the flag remains because she hasn't had any complaints from corporations. Seriously? A comment probably true in her world as those are her bosses, but really? Never mind the really large population of Black South Carolinians who've been gerrymandered out of representation. It's two politicians defending that flag, the very symbol of white supremacy coached in the very same terms that existed when I was a young person attending Tyler Lee. Lots of winking and nodding, code to conceal a very real racism and a commitment to maintain white supremacy. We've had a civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties, yet despite all that, we really haven't moved forward far at all.

Today I read the guy who did this heinous deed said he almost didn't go through with it. Those folks had been so nice to him he said. Here he had confronted real compassion and real love. But the messages, the mythology of his own being trumped reality. So now there are nine dead. He will go to prison. He's going to find other white supremacists there and they will commiserate together. Meanwhile, the community continues to hide from the truth, and perpetuate the myth of racial superiority. Until we change the community, this will be but one in a string of the attacks on the innocents stretching well over 400 years/ It does take a village. But one filled with compassion, not racist bulls**t.

One last thought. The confederacy was about traitors, not heroes. Their symbol of the flag was a symbol of treason. Time to quit pretending otherwise. I've spent a lifetime undoing my own damage. But I'm just one. This time compassion did not succeed. But in the long term I think it will. Regardless, it's a far better mythology than the one being perpetuated.May the healing begin.

Reflections on Terror in Charleston

Ironically, day before yesterday my wife and I were having a conversation. I was thinking about the huge increase in militias, hate groups plus the increased rhetoric around hate, racism and the absurd denial by politicians who don't even recognize the racism that surrounds us every day. With a sigh, I told her that we were not dealing with it now, and things could get a lot worse if we don't.

The very next day, I hear of the terror attack in Charleston. I'd love to say I was surprised. But I wasn't. Saddened, yes. Angry? That also. But how could I be surprised in a climate of hate that surrounds us each day? A world where police continue to gun down unarmed citizens and target black and brown people as if they were somehow inherently evil by virtue of the color of their skin. A world where educational priorities go to affluent white neighborhoods at the expense of those without resources. A world where prisons operate for profit and there is an incentive to arrest and incarcerate. A world where preschool and early elementary kids are expelled from school because of the incompetence of their teachers.

Two news broadcasts stand out in my mind. One I didn't see but heard about. Fox News who as a matter of policy denies that racism even exists, decrying the very idea this was a racist attack or a hate crime. In their fantastical world that is not possible. I listened to a broadcast on so called liberal MSNBC where it was noted this was the worst mass killing in South Carolina's history. Um I suppose if you ignore the lynchings, the state sanctioned killing of 33 black folks involved in a slave revolt, mostly from this very church. Everyone acts as if this were a singular event. I suppose that's essential if you're trying to preserve the myth of white supremacy. But reality, yeah I know, uncommon these days, demands that one acknowledge the open racism, the blatant attempts by politicians to exploit that divide for their own benefit, the ongoing attacks on black and brown people around the country by a whole bevy of so called "lone wolves." Privilege demands I think, that we ignore the real role we as white people are playing in this ongoing slaughter.

Here's truth however. The population of white vs non white Americans is changing and whites are moving towards what will be a clear minority. If we persist in this evil that grants us privilege over others, and allows us to label each perpetrator of these heinous crimes as a lone wolf, a disturbed individual, but not part of a larger event, the anger of a people thus denied justice or fairness can only grow. If we scream bloody murder about a small group of New Black Panthers carrying arms while militias and white gun freaks tote their weapons openly and with abandon, that anger will grow. White people, the choice is ours to make. Confront our own racism, our own privilege and work towards healing of our humanity of which we all are a part, or sit about complacent in our advantages and face a bloody resurrection sometime in the future that will truly hurt us all. Those of us who are white must raise our heads out of the sand and confront our own evil. We must work together to end these killings by a succession of terrorists that seem to have no end. I chose the photo of the Edmond Pettus Bridge. Because the struggles of the early slaves and freedmen in America, of the Civil War, of Jim Crow laws the divide, and of Mass Incarceration that serves the wealthy seeking low wage workers are all part of one struggle.

I look at the history of this church. Good people, prayerful people, people committed to justice and fairness. The wrong people lost their lives. My prayers join that of many others for them, for their families, and for their community. My prayer also is that this will serve as an awakening within white people everywhere. We must actively join our black and brown brothers and sisters and and strike a death blow to that evil we call racism. If we can construct racism, we can take it apart. But it's going to take all of us. Listen to the black people you know. Here there stories and embrace them We've listened to our own lies for generations. Now it is time to hear their truth and to be moved by it. This killing was NOT an isolated event. It's part of an ongoing national history, a part of an ongoing national shame, and it's got to end, sooner rather than later. We need to confront media when it gets it wrong. We need to openly advocate regardless if it costs us friends. The killing and injustice must end.

May it be so.

Trans Separations

Here's a poem I wrote some years back. It tracks my feelings at the time of the separations experienced as a trans woman. It's spoken word, inspired by the killing of two beautiful transgender souls in D.C. while sitting in their car.

TRANSSEPARATION

I am woman. My heart my being my spirit and soul seeing
Screaming from every pore for all to hear… I am woman!
Touch my soul and know the vision which after body revision
Remains the same. Taste my lips a woman’s lips softened by
Tears and years of caring and daring to be the same as that person
Who stares out through these weary eyes… So many sighs.

Tears of joy, and tears from indescribable heart break
Family torn asunder and former friends wonder and the loss
And hurt tearing away at ego but also taking pieces of my self along the way.
Is self truth always this brutal? And is it so dangerous
That we are killed and beaten and thrashed and trashed just for being who we are? Just the other day, two women like me shot over and over in their car.

Is the death of trans- cendental souls one more symbol of the fear of a privileged gender
afraid to surrender even a tiny vestige of it’s power and hold
Over the hearts and minds and possessions of fifty one percent of all of us?

In a world of patriarchy and privilege, I am woman. My state says it is so, my body says it is so.
My breasts, my skin, my vagina all proclaim I am woman.
When my beloved in sensual understanding and lips and hands ever more demanding,
She brings me confirmation, an oh so erotic demonstration of love with a woman.

My essence, my energy, my dreams, loving without bounds baring my soul …
A woman’s soul, complex and multilayered with dreams yet to be dared,
and hopes and loves and fears and scarred with loss untold
And yet still soft and yielding when heart touches heart
And becomes a piece of a larger universal woman centered moon empowered
Stream of conciousness that some call Goddess and others call Womyn’s space
And still others do not name but are empowered just the same.
Yes I am woman and I cry like a woman and my soul feels the sheer exuberance of being just exactly who I am.

But.. oh the sadness and heartbreak and heartache that comes with that word.
But… a conjunctive with repercussions in my soul and psyche that will remain always
A reminder of the price of self truth and the consequence of being.
I turn to my closest friends, those who love me the most where trust has been so freely shared.
My friends assure me.. You are so loved, so special, an energy of woman embodied.
Then the condition, the but in my life, the anguish of the soul, the difference that separates
Creates that chasm beyond which I cannot go.

Because of that abberation of birth, piece of unwanted undesired flesh
I will always be separated. My friends say meaning well I am sure
You are such a special person! I would love you no matter what or who you are!
No matter what or who you are. No matter what or who you are.
The words ring in my ear, a truth accepted but less desired than all other truths combined.

They clamor to explain. You are a woman, only different! I will never know first blood, or any menses for that matter
Never could I as a child bond with my girlfriends in the way they have done.
Until I could repair the wrong that dangled below I was the recipient of privilege… Different you know?
There was no first corsage or the date who never showed
There was no father-daughter dance or first romance… not that way anyhow.

Does it mean I am not a woman? Of course not! Just… DIFFERENT.
In a world where I was born “different” I remain now as then… different.
Oh I love my new life and the joy and love that comes from being this woman
At times makes my senses reel and my heart skip in enthusiastic glee for the woman who is me.
I find the love and strength and renewing spirit of womyn’s space Empowering, exhilarating, comforting, and transforming all at one time.

From one woman to another, we share our lives and our stories and our souls
And we do rituals and honor croning and maidenhood and motherhood as women have done
Throughout the expanse of life’s journey. Our tears and our laughter are offered before the Great Mother
Who smiles at our offerings with a gleam of delight.

But in those moments, those horrible wrenching moments when Difference rears it’s head, when the “But” comes to rule,
The arrow of despair pierces my heart and one more tear is offered from coffers that have no bottom.

My friends are excited! It's time for Michfest, a festival of women celebrating women
And being women and the ultimate in what women’s space is about.
A lover of women’s space and women’s music wishing to revel with my partner in this sacred space
I become different. I am not welcome to this space. And still another tear is shed as offering to Earth Mother.
I would not understand, I could not understand.. At Michigan I am not woman, but OTHER.

So it is in my walk of life. I am woman to most, other to some, non human to still others
Loved, hated, smiled at and reviled. Praised and hated, a source of confusion for many.
I do not understand it, some say. I do not want to understand it say others.

But life goes on and love goes on and hate and fear go on also.
To all who hope that my kind will disappear and those who revel in my difference
What we have not in common rather than what we do, I smile sweetly, and offer this simple reality:
I can only be me and you can only be you and we can be we or never
But my truth will remain, agree or complain, and from my truth you cannot sever
For in truth to self I have found truth in others and the same for love it is clear
To leave behind that which is me would leave me with nothing but fear.

My soul lives, and will beyond death and it is a beautiful soul prepared to love, prepared to live, prepared to dance .
If you dance with me, then we dance together, but if you cannot, I shall dance alone.

Jessica Wicks
Copyright August 26, 2002

Understanding Events in Baltimore

Today the news is dominated by what's going on in Baltimore. In response to still one more senseless death at the hands of police, despite the wishes of the family and local leaders, violence broke out. Police cars burned, several officers injured, businesses sacked and burned. Even as I write, it continues.

It occurs to me that it's so very easy for those of us who did not grow up in poverty, those of us not under constant scrutiny in the face of ongoing systemic racism, those of us who are not stopped regularly and often for "walking while black" or "loitering" when waiting at a bus stop, so easy for us to point and make snap judgements. I think doing that would be exactly the wrong response.

So last night, I was listening to a woman speak on a local channel about poverty. She related to her own experience. How she saw no hope herself because there was nothing in her experience to justify it. A community surrounded by poverty, people being incarcerated. She reflected how her mom never went to the PTA meetings. Not because she didn't love her children, but because she felt she couldn't tell them anything about education because she never had any herself. What changed for her was someone who intervened at the age of 26, and she completed her high school degree, then got college degree and her masters. In short, she had been offered opportunity. Not just basic assistance, but something greater that considered her larger situation. Most of our poverty programs don't do that of course.

Baltimore police have a long and tragic record in this neighborhood. Freddie Grey is not the only case of police overreach there by any stretch, and in local reporting, no one has to date among police offenders ever been held accountable. No, this sort of violence does not help, but hurts the cause, permitting the cops to carry out even more violence. But most of these offenders are in that crazy time between ages 15 and 18. I found myself reflecting back to my own teen years. Impulse control was not a strong suit, and looking back, it is by grace alone I did not get into some serious trouble back then. Toss in a sense that there is no hope and the system is stacked against you, and in the case of this neighborhood it really is. Factor in the commonly held judgment of people living in this area that they are somehow unworthy and guilty for their own poverty. Despite ample evidence of people who with opportunity have broken loose from those shackles imposed by their circumstance and the uncaring of a world outside of the hood.

Dr. King said that "a riot is the language of the unheard." I would add to that, unfelt. Where is the empathy that leads us to extend opportunity, to inform through love and compassion, and I might add, to openly listen to their own wisdom that comes from their experience for all of us have something to bring to the table. WE forget this is NOT a new story. Dr. King had to confront the tendency towards violence, especially among the young in his day. How tragic is it that the same young people disenfranchised back then, the same neighborhoods, are still feeling hopeless. We know it is not race and yet racism remains a constant contributor. We know there is nothing inherently wrong with people who are poor, no matter what the latest Republican talking points may be. We know that in study after study, crime occurs in various communities, but enforcement is overwhelmingly against communities of color. We know that studies show that children in pre-school and elementary school are disproportionately expelled in those same neighborhoods. I read an interesting report that came out here in Mpls recently where the majority of people arrested in drug buys in our poorest neighborhood (Northside) are from the wealthier suburbs. We know arrests for low level crimes like loitering etc happen in poor neighborhoods. We know that poverty in those neighborhoods are double the rest of the population.

So... Rioting is wrong. Police cannot stand by when it happens. But neither is this something new. We know why it happens and we understand that our willingness to continue ignoring the racism and poverty that surrounds us and is in fact growing at alarming rates will only ensure the violence continues. My dream and my prayer is a simple one. It's a dream of compassion, and a prayer for shared lives. Healing a society demands participation of all of us. We've got to learn to look into the eyes of our poor and see our own poverty within. Our systems often constrain entire groups, and we have to change those systems to work for all of us. It's not time for pointing fingers, but time for embracing each other. Imagine if we devoted anything near the energy that went to put people on the moon, or to fight in foreign wars like Iraq and instead worked to heal our neighborhoods and lift up our own people. I know this. As long as the hate and division is allowed to prevail, many good people will fall victim in the violence that ensues. It's time to remove our ostrich like heads from the sand and begin to heal ourselves, sooner rather than later.

Tragedy: Suicides of Young Trans People

I read a post by Monica Roberts of a third young trans person of color, Blake Brockington, who had taken his life this year. I shared here post and in the conversation, I shared these words that came pouring out from within. After I was done, it seemed I needed to blog about it as well.

Trans acceptance is not a national trait it seems. So here's the thing. Many if not most of us know we are not comfortable as the gender we were told at a very early age. I knew at age 3 (though we had no name for it) but in most families there is no way to deal with something like that. So we learn to stuff it and ignore it, and in some cases over excel in the gender we've been told we were as we try to run from something we've been told repeatedly is terribly wrong.

What then does that mean? An early life lived dishonestly, a huge amount of confusion and often intense separation and loneliness because people instinctively know when you are not being "real."

So comes the day you come to face yourself and decide to be true to that self. People you were close to feel betrayed by what they perceive as your dishonesty. Some, myself included lose families, friends etc. I was lucky. I got to keep the job I had, though I caught no small amount of crap in the workplace. You learn early on that there are some people who fear you so much they will attack and even kill you. Institutions including certain churches, and cities, states etc create roadblocks to stand in your way. There is no lengths deep enough or depraved enough that some will not go to express their discomfort with your very existence. The streets are filled with trans kids kicked out of their homes, sometimes forced into sex work or begging just to survive. But even if you are lucky enough to get to keep a roof over your head, I cannot understate the level of pain that lies ahead.

Some seem to do okay for awhile, but may then suddenly encounter a barrage of hate they simply are not equipped to deal with. I know and have written about people who reached that place where death seemed the only true way out.

You know, I'm reminded of something that happened with me when Robin and I were getting married. Houston Hate Radio devoted two full hours to "discussing" the two of us, providing an open forum for those with hearts filled with hate to call in and trash us and our lives together. You know, I was older and better equipped to face this kind of hate. Plus wise enough to know better than to listen to the barrage of negativity over the air. There's a pain that never really goes away that people can muster so much hate for being who I am. On our wedding day we had protesters as well. How is a kid in high school or even college supposed to negotiate such an emotional mine field? Besides age, I had a community to fall back on. People who would listen and understand. That simply is not the case everywhere. Now there's social media to serve as another means to bully.

I weep for these young trans souls. I weep for the lives they will not be able to live. I also weep because I know I came perilously close at one point of being one of those statistics, and why I did not pull the trigger is still one of the great mysteries. We can't change the world, but I do think that each of us, myself leading the charge, can make ourselves an instrument of love, of compassion. If enough of us do so, just maybe we really can change the world.The constant loss of lives, whether by suicide or murder, simply must end.

Stop Killing My People!

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I'm transgender. It's a piece and parcel of who I am, along with gay, a writer, blonde hair, dog lover, all those traits that form who I am as a person. Frankly, there are not a lot of transgender people in our population. Most estimates for those who are transsexual number between .3% and .8% of the entire population. Yeah, not even a full percent. Toss in the broader terminology gender variant, that is, those who are not entirely comfortable with being either extreme in a fictional binary of male and female, and our numbers go up from 3% to 5% of the population. Hardly a threat no matter how you define it.

Yet today I read where the pope says people like me are comparable to nuclear weapons aimed that his (in his mind) natural order. Modern day Herods he calls us. Politicians wring their hands in consideration of some sort of transgender menace. Okay, I'm chuckling. I used to have a t-shirt with that on it, but anyone who knows me could hardly call me menacing. I'm more the "didn't even see you were here" sort of person.

Yet these shrill voices of hate are doing a huge harm. Here's why:

1-19-2015 "First name unknown" Edwards Indianapolis, Ky Died of gunshot wounds.
1-17-2015 Lamia Beard Norfolk, Va Died of gunshot wound
1-26-2015 Ty Underwood Tyler, Texas Shot three times in her car
1-31-2015 Yasmin Vash Payne Van Nuys, Ca Repeatedly stabbed, then burned
2-1-2015 Taja Gabriella d Jesus San Francisco, Ca Multiple stab wounds
2-10-2015 Penny Proud New Orleans, La Multiple gunshot wounds
2-14-2015 Bri Golec Akron, Ohio Stabbed by her own father
2-15-2015 Kristina Gomez Reihold Miami, Fla stabbed to death

These are the cases we know about, some only thanks to reporting from local trans communities. Eight souls snuffed out, most people of color. People who only wanted a good life, living with what nature has dealt them, and me. Eight souls and the second month of the year is not even over with yet. But get this. These are only the people we know about in the U.S. Worldwide the same is happening. Please stop the killing!

Thoughts about Loving Community

Okay, first to folks who read my blogs. Don't run away with this one! I am NOT going to evangelize or proselytize. Friday night I attended a program with Bishop Carlton Pearson, himself a figure who has been through a number of spiritual transformations in this life. I'll speak a bit about that, and my own experience as well. But the heart of my message here is about forming Loving Community. Through my experience of the evening, it touched the heart of something that's been stirring within me for a very long time.

So first, a bit about me, then I'll give some background on Rev. Pearson. I was raised a Methodist, but lived in a family where on my Mom's side there were evangelists and pastors galore in the Evangelical Pentecostal tradition of the Assemblies of God. My goodness at at the age of two my Uncle A.G. Calloway was carrying me in his arms preaching fire and salvation. The music was powerful and emotional as we surrendered our bodies to the beat of the music. Very similar to that found in the African American Pentecostal tradition. I had met Oral Roberts at the age of 5 and some years later Jimmy Swaggert before he became nationally known. I've drifted around a bit since those days. In the seventies a stint with UU. After getting sober, I became Catholic, finding the practice of confession useful for me. I also loved the Eucharist. One of those rituals that carries regardless of one's personal theology, at least for me.

Of course there was conflict with being gay and transgender so I wound up with MCC in Houston. It's a ministry that is inclusive, especially for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. It was my first insight into what community could be. We were a multi-racial congregation with people from all walks of life. We had different choirs finding something for many traditions while becoming one community together. I still treasure my time there. Later after coming to Minneapolis I wound up at First Universalist, a Unitarian Universalist congregation that is currently my spiritual home.

Note I have not spoken about my personal theology. Each one of us has our own system of beliefs, and one of the things I've often complained about is the tendency of groups to create dogmas to exclude others. Here I found common cause with Bishop Carlton Pearson.

His journey was equally filled with twists and turns. A part of the Evangelical circles of folks like Oral Roberts and the Bakers, he had a mega church in Tulsa. He's an amazing singer and preacher in his own right. Then in his own growing awareness, he came to realize that instead of coming together, we were finding ways to divide ourselves. It was rooted in fear of an angry God and at times an egotistical exercise in being saved while those other souls were certainly going to hell. In his talk, he spoke of religion which separates and divides us vs spirituality where we find our common humanity. He paid a huge price for coming out with his new found Universalist belief, free of hell and rooted in our common humanity. In place he found peace and contentment.

So here we were listening to his story and sharing song. It felt really good to me. I found immediate kinship to the music so close to that of my own childhood experience, and considerable delight that I knew the songs. We talked about spiritual search in thinking and spiritual search in feeling, an how they both had a place. Here we were in this sanctuary, singing praise and waving our arms and moving to the sound and thinking deeply, and people from different traditions laughing at ourselves, even as in this moment, we were one. He spoke of the experience back at the Tulsa UU group. A regular UU service (think NPR), a service with elements of the music and tradition more common in the tradition from which he came, and a third service for those humanists that would rather not hear any God talk at all. More important, how they went to different services, and how all of these disparate souls, gay and straight, all races, all traditions, coming together in common community. Looking around, I saw a microcosm of this in the sanctuary Friday night.

We've spent all our efforts for so many years to create separations that divide us from each other. But oh how beautiful it was to see us all under the same roof, united in our common humanity. I did not necessarily agree with all that Bishop Pearson said. I know very few people who have ever believed exactly as I do. But I felt our common humanity, a vision of what is possible in this world. Our difference, our diversity to me was a beautiful thing. For me, with my varied upbringing, I also found some of my own roots, and that was an added plus. I really do believe Beloved Community can be formed. It's a goal worth pursuing. For me, the evening was a special one. Special enough to share here.