Do all black lives matter all the time? Or only from a distance? Do they matter enough that you would count yourself lucky to have my son as your neighbor? Enough that you would reach out and wrap your feathers around him when necessary?
This! You are always peeling back another layer. Thank you for that! Press on!
It's so hard but helpful to acknowledge to ourselves the small ways we HAVE allowed racism to creep in. I think most of us would say "I'm not racist!" and yet until we can really dig deep and root out the junk, we can't grow. Thank you for being here with me and for your honesty here.
" Do they matter enough that you would count yourself lucky to have my son as your neighbor? " Yes. Your son Robert has always had a soft spot in my heart. It's HIS story that the Holy Spirit used two years ago to work in my heart to bring "our boy" into my heart and home (soon to be another kid!). Without Robert, and his story that you share, my life would not be the same. Thank you for continuing to share the message of Black Lives Matter.
It’s definitely been thrown open. But heads up to others, life is surely more messy (in every sense of the word!) but also more rich, when you do that.
Shannan I am trying to understand and pray about “Black Live Matters.” The thing I have the most difficult time with is all the things that make it offensive like Gone with the wind, riots and removal of history. We need to talk sometime. I hesitated to post this but wouldn’t it be racist of the kids to notice color in Michigan. I thought we were not to see color. If whites were walking around counting different colors it would be a HUGH racist issue. That’s the stuff I don’t understand.
Hello! I'm glad you sent this over, and apologize that it took me so long to respond. Truthfully, I've thought about your email many, many times. I appreciate that you're trying to understand. It's all so complicated and I continue to learn as I go, to better understand history (because I wasn't taught much of the grim side of slavery/Jim Crow/segregation, etc...) and what I was taught was often flawed. I'm also learning to understand where God is leading me in all of this. What sits well in my spirit, even (especially?) when it is disruptive to the culture around me.
I'm not familiar with your Gone With the Wind reference (other than to know that the book and movie glorify the Civil War in a way that is both unhelpful and hurtful to PoC) but I've come to see that monuments honoring Civil War "heroes" is also an example of glorifying the wrong side of history. Someone on social media put it like this, which was helpful to me, "Most Christians agree that Satan plays a significant role in our understanding of Christian faith, but churches would never build a monument to Satan." So to say that removing Civil War monuments is "erasing history" is not accurate. We will never be able to erase our history. We feel the impacts of it all the time. But we can choose to not glorify the parts of it that reveal our darkest days.
As for our beloved boys in Michigan, I more and more aware that they (along with Ruby!) notice the presence of other PoC because they feel safer when they are not alone. It's unfortunate that so many of us were taught that color-blindness is the goal. I see now that this is a position that really only white people can hold. PoC are always aware of their color, and should be! We celebrate different races and ethnicities and colors. We want our kids to be proud of how God made them. I long for the day that they will not feel inherently unsafe when they recognize they are in all- or majority-white spaces. THAT should not be so. (On that note, as the mom of all non-white kids, I am constantly "walking around counting different colors." This doesn't mean I am behaving in a way that is racist. Rather, it means I now recognize just how white the world is, and how that breeds inequity and racism. I'm always asking myself the question, WHY is this space primarily white? What has caused that? I'm doing this because of what my kids have taught me and because we can't fix what we can't acknowledge.) Someone else said it well: If we can't see race, we can't see racism. So in many ways, "color-blindness" actually allows our racism (which I believe is in the hearts of all white people, to varying degrees, and takes real intention and work to be eradicated) to go unchecked.
Whew! That was a lot of words. I truly appreciate the conversation and would welcome further conversations!
Do all black lives matter all the time? Or only from a distance? Do they matter enough that you would count yourself lucky to have my son as your neighbor? Enough that you would reach out and wrap your feathers around him when necessary?
This! You are always peeling back another layer. Thank you for that! Press on!
Read every word.
Thank you for your transparency, poetry and family.
It's always a good day when Shannan Martin shows up in my inbox.
Shalom to you.
Write on.
I want my eyes to be open and my words to be kind yet strong. Thanks for your voice in this space!
ugh. I want to do better, to be better - I do! I'm not racist really - just sometimes fearful . . .
It's so hard but helpful to acknowledge to ourselves the small ways we HAVE allowed racism to creep in. I think most of us would say "I'm not racist!" and yet until we can really dig deep and root out the junk, we can't grow. Thank you for being here with me and for your honesty here.
" Do they matter enough that you would count yourself lucky to have my son as your neighbor? " Yes. Your son Robert has always had a soft spot in my heart. It's HIS story that the Holy Spirit used two years ago to work in my heart to bring "our boy" into my heart and home (soon to be another kid!). Without Robert, and his story that you share, my life would not be the same. Thank you for continuing to share the message of Black Lives Matter.
I love hearing of others who throw the door open.
It’s definitely been thrown open. But heads up to others, life is surely more messy (in every sense of the word!) but also more rich, when you do that.
Shannan I am trying to understand and pray about “Black Live Matters.” The thing I have the most difficult time with is all the things that make it offensive like Gone with the wind, riots and removal of history. We need to talk sometime. I hesitated to post this but wouldn’t it be racist of the kids to notice color in Michigan. I thought we were not to see color. If whites were walking around counting different colors it would be a HUGH racist issue. That’s the stuff I don’t understand.
Hello! I'm glad you sent this over, and apologize that it took me so long to respond. Truthfully, I've thought about your email many, many times. I appreciate that you're trying to understand. It's all so complicated and I continue to learn as I go, to better understand history (because I wasn't taught much of the grim side of slavery/Jim Crow/segregation, etc...) and what I was taught was often flawed. I'm also learning to understand where God is leading me in all of this. What sits well in my spirit, even (especially?) when it is disruptive to the culture around me.
I'm not familiar with your Gone With the Wind reference (other than to know that the book and movie glorify the Civil War in a way that is both unhelpful and hurtful to PoC) but I've come to see that monuments honoring Civil War "heroes" is also an example of glorifying the wrong side of history. Someone on social media put it like this, which was helpful to me, "Most Christians agree that Satan plays a significant role in our understanding of Christian faith, but churches would never build a monument to Satan." So to say that removing Civil War monuments is "erasing history" is not accurate. We will never be able to erase our history. We feel the impacts of it all the time. But we can choose to not glorify the parts of it that reveal our darkest days.
As for our beloved boys in Michigan, I more and more aware that they (along with Ruby!) notice the presence of other PoC because they feel safer when they are not alone. It's unfortunate that so many of us were taught that color-blindness is the goal. I see now that this is a position that really only white people can hold. PoC are always aware of their color, and should be! We celebrate different races and ethnicities and colors. We want our kids to be proud of how God made them. I long for the day that they will not feel inherently unsafe when they recognize they are in all- or majority-white spaces. THAT should not be so. (On that note, as the mom of all non-white kids, I am constantly "walking around counting different colors." This doesn't mean I am behaving in a way that is racist. Rather, it means I now recognize just how white the world is, and how that breeds inequity and racism. I'm always asking myself the question, WHY is this space primarily white? What has caused that? I'm doing this because of what my kids have taught me and because we can't fix what we can't acknowledge.) Someone else said it well: If we can't see race, we can't see racism. So in many ways, "color-blindness" actually allows our racism (which I believe is in the hearts of all white people, to varying degrees, and takes real intention and work to be eradicated) to go unchecked.
Whew! That was a lot of words. I truly appreciate the conversation and would welcome further conversations!