A White Perspective on #BLM

6/11/20

Hello! I couldn’t bring myself to write last week for a lot of reasons. One of those was this immense pressure to somehow find all of the right answers, have all of the right opinions, and to find all of the right resources. It was as I sat down today that I rediscovered something that I didn’t realize would help me in this endeavor… An essay I recently wrote about another rather complicated topic. While I will not be digging into that today, I found that my final answer wasn’t an answer, but more so an observation…  

            “…Choosing a hard and fast opinion will do no one justice in the discussion of human life. Throughout this exploration of mine, I have come to see that the beauty in our messy humanity is not fighting to be correct, but rather extending grace in the chaos and working together towards a better tomorrow.”

While systemic racism, public policy, cops, looting, protesting, and politics are far from what I was writing about above, I feel like with only a few tweaks it could have easily been my “answer” to this topic as well, and it would look something like this…

“…Choosing a hard and fast opinion will do no one justice in the discussion of human life, rights, and freedoms both physically and mentally. Throughout this exploration of mine, I have come to see that the beauty in our messy humanity is not fighting to be correct, but rather extending grace in the chaos and working together towards a better tomorrow.”

 Does this statement satisfy everything? No. But as I dove into resource after resource, article after article, video after video, testimony after testimony, I realized a few things. Firstly, that I was incredibly overwhelmed. I still can’t fully comprehend the pain everyone is feeling right now all over the world because it is so immense. I am a big empath by nature and often have to put on a cold face to exist around other people for fear that I will burst at any moment. I feel energies in every room I enter, every household, every public space. And trust me, I have been feeling all of this. I barely realize it until I am driving alone and my mind wanders for a few moments before my face turns into a tomato and I can barely breathe.

For me, speaking out on this is horribly scary. Why? Because I have had a white experience growing up. I may have Native American blood in me, I may have some family in several Spanish speaking countries, but you will never look at me and see it. I didn’t grow up with any cultural ties, I grew up in white American culture. So, to mention it seems rather pointless. But I like to think that knowing my ancestry softened my heart in a way that maybe it wouldn’t have been otherwise. I have deeply felt the injustice of my Native American family and I resent that their culture was stripped away, leaving me wondering what traditions I will never get to know and be a part of. So, for what that is worth, I had a small basis by which to understand injustice even if I never faced it myself.

I have had privileges completely unknown to me until I realized other people didn’t have them. I expected a certain treatment from my environment because in my head, we all deserved respect and kindness. I had no idea that it wasn’t the same for everyone.

Over the years as I have grown into myself, listened to friends in the black community, and witnessed for myself, I can now spot injustice all over the place. The world tries to sweep it under the rug, but God always brings what is done in darkness into the light. And in this season? We have seen a lot of things dragged tooth and nail from their dark corners and into bright places. But what do we do with all of it?

I participated in #blackouttuesday on Instagram recently to stand in solidarity with the black community. On twitter, many people were discrediting white people who had posted the black square but hadn’t used their media to post otherwise. Meanwhile, I was getting black lash for posting too much.

I was researching, looking for stories I wasn’t taught in history classes and so on about black history in America. I then see several rather sarcastic posts saying to use google to find more information and stop asking your black friends. It made me embarrassed to the point that I even deleted a Facebook status where I’d asked my friends to share any resources with me so I could add them to the ones I was already finding on my own.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand the hostility and the anger. I am the color of people who continue to oppress another group of people and it is unreasonable to assume they will open up and trust me when they have likely been hurt before by doing just that in the past. I have felt the heaviness of that for a long time. And because I don’t want to take the easy route of silence, I have made multiple attempts through intercultural honor societies, friendships, and so on to stand with the black community and other minority communities. Most of the time? I am met with this overwhelming sense that nothing I could ever do or say is right. I will never understand. I can’t possibly relate. I should go figure it out on my own. And then, if I stand too strongly and use my voice too loudly in support, I am risking saying something that I am not allowed to say as a white person or causing strife with some of the people I love most in the world who look like I do.

I have learned that communication is so, so hard. People will say things about you to everyone but you. People will have opinions about your opinions and block you before engaging in any sort of conversation. I have seen viral posts of people breaking up with their significant others because of one sentence that opens the door to a discussion, but they didn’t like that discussion and the media praised them for impulsively discarding the relationship. It is wildly acceptable in this day and age to sit on your side, plant your face in the dirt, and to tell everyone who approaches you to basically go to hell. 

In my blog, all I can really do is write from where I sit and from my walk of life. I know that I risk being scrutinized, hated, and judged for everything I post. But I just ask you to hear me on a few things…

1.     A lot of the young people I know with a white experience are just now getting a real glimpse of what being black in America looks like today. We are realizing that history classes made civil rights feel like ages ago when it wasn’t even a lifetime ago. We are realizing that even though history classes closed the chapter in the book, it didn’t actually end. In a weird way, I compare it to say a documentary on someone with a disease or disability. Someone who has never walked in those shoes will not even know that those shoes exist. But after you watch it, you have a newfound understanding because someone invited you into their perspective. Then, you gain a curiosity and an awareness that you will never lose again. It is like how you can never un-know something once you know. Say you are adopted, and no one tells you until you are 15. Nothing about your life changed maybe, but now you will walk around for the rest of it knowing that your reality was not what you thought it was and will never be the same again. That is how I feel right now and how a lot of my white friends feel. We are hungry to learn, to hear, to understand, to listen, to support. I can guarantee you that when a white friend asks a black friend for their stories or resources, it is not done in malice or to annoy. It is an attempt to show that they care and to show that they have respect for the sources you deem most helpful rather than only trusting a third-party source. If a friend asked me for recommendations on some new artists to listen to, I would be happy that they value my opinion and excited to share my discoveries with them. I know those two things aren’t the same, but I guess I am just asking for some grace. Or if you aren’t in a mental space where you feel like sharing, that is totally valid. I just ask that you communicate it kindly if you feel inclined to respond!

2.     Yes, I know this movement isn’t new news. But it is the first time in a very long time that we have all been sitting still and forced to confront reality and where we are falling short. It is also the first time in history that there is this much technology and information that can no longer be hidden from the public. When life was normal, we had a million distractions, a million other stories passing on the news. Anything that had to do with BLM was swept away as quickly as possible. And while I saw the stories, cried for them, took note of them, life pushed me forward. I was in college losing my hair and basically killing myself to get a degree. For others, maybe they are new moms or dads. Maybe they work three jobs to make ends meet. My point is that none of us has an excuse to be ignorant, but we all have to have some grace with each other in this time. Instead of demeaning those who have recently had their eyes opened for all of the life they lived before with their eyes closed is not going to help anyone. The truth is that the majority of white people want to do better. I have seen it. The minority that still want to grasp their oppressive ways won’t be relevant forever.

3.     Now is the time to give the stage and the microphone to the black community. I can’t believe how many times it has been ripped away from you. I am deeply sorry for the moments I have sat by, not dug deeper, not sat down long enough to search my own heart. I don’t remember when, but my mom made me a Facebook account when I was 11. I do remember at some point since then sharing an “all lives matter” post. If you can find it, more power to you. I am too annoyed with myself to even go looking for it. I listened to the narrative of people around me who didn’t truly understand either and I didn’t have my own opinions at the age I shared it. I used to think it made sense and that everything was equal in the world so why was #BLM needed? They had rights now. Nothing was unfair. I hadn’t seen racism happen before. By the time I got to the end of high school and into college, my heart changed immensely and I had new experiences under my belt. God started opening up my eyes. I regret ever thinking the way I used to, I am embarrassed by my childhood ignorance. I also used to hate rap music because I just didn’t get the point. I found it offensive and hard to follow. Now? I get it. No one would listen to you otherwise; rap music is a genre about being heard and using your voice in whatever way will make people listen. And so, I have made a point to listen to artists like Lauryn Hill, Chance, and several others since. I have learned to appreciate the genre in a much deeper way, and I am angry that I ever felt otherwise.

4.     PLEASE… let us all listen to the black community. They have been screaming, shouting, begging to be heard. We have invalidated them more times than I could ever personally know. God stands on the side of the oppressed and if you call yourself a Christian who is doing anything other than that, you need to search your heart. 

I have so, so many more things I could say. But I am not one for politics and it is unfortunate that this human heart issue has been twisted into that. Looters, crime, police brutality, republicans, democrats… They are not the root of this issue. They do not get to say if it is valid or invalid or anything else. They are just making noise, but they don’t get to determine whether or not injustice has been done. It is just a fact that it has. There have been many casualties as a result, and it absolutely breaks my heart to see it. I don’t think it is right that protestors have lost their lives, police have lost their lives, businesses have been destroyed. But those issues to me are completely separate from this one which is why I decided not to dig into them today. I have heard many people justifying their bias against the black community with all of the noise that resulted from the root issue. And that is wrong. If you can truly say that the looters and destruction has invalidated black voices and their rights, I don’t understand or agree with you. That doesn’t mean my heart hurts any less for the cops who are suffering or their families facing loss and public hate. That doesn’t mean my heart hurts any less for those who have been harmed while protesting or for those who have lost their businesses. If you think that I am not allowed to post this blog without digging into politics or blue lives, then why is that? I do not believe I am being insensitive because I stuck to what I believe is at the root of this discussion. And by doing that, it does NOT mean I am advocating for death and disruption and violence just because I support the black community in America.

Also, standing with them does not mean I have to “apologize for being white” or that the hard work I do in life is somehow invalid because of my skin color. I don’t know where on earth that came from because that is not even close to the message. I am allowed to apologize for my blind eye, for enjoying the comfort of the privilege I was born into because it was easier than the opposite. I am allowed to grieve the fact that I was ignorant and that I was wrong. I am allowed to be sorry for slavery and oppression and Jim Crow and assimilation and every other thing that has hurt the black community. Not because I participated in those things, but who is to say I wouldn’t have if I was born into that time period? The truth is, if all of us right now were born into that system of slavery and oppression, we would have likely been just like our ancestors. And I can say that confidently because look at the world today! We struggle still to let the beliefs of our grandparents and their grandparents die for good. Even if we personally have never had a racist thought in our lives, did we stop racism when we saw it? Did we even know how to recognize it? If I had a friend whose parent passed away, would I not say “I am so sorry… there are no words. I am here for you?” Of course, I would. And that is why I say sorry. Not for things I can’t control like my experience or the color of my skin or for the past, but for the pain they have endured due to all of those things. Because they are my brothers and my sisters. Because I love them just as much as I love myself. Because I want to celebrate their victories and I want sit in their pain. I want to be with them, not just for them.

I pray for the day that instead of accusing, blaming, and overpowering each other, that we can learn to communicate. We can learn to meet in the middle. We can learn to listen. We can learn to stop justifying old wrongs and grieve our mistakes and work together for a better tomorrow, much like I said at the beginning of this blog. We will never grow to love and understand each other if we do not come together, if white does not listen to black and black does not listen to white. We all need to hear each other and love each other. Love conquers all hate and it is the only answer for us today.

While I covered what I feel is the heart of the unrest in this country today, I ask for your patience from a policital standpoint. So much is going on and developing and I am still trying to sort through what is true. I don’t know my thoughts with 100% certainty and wish to keep politics out of this particular blog. That does not mean that in coming years I will not develop stronger ideas, but that for now, I am still educating myself.

I am listening, learning, and I will be for the rest of my life. My eyes are open wide, and they will never be closed again. Thank you for reading if you got this far, whether you agree with everything I said or not. As always, I encourage discussion so contact me with your thoughts. I know I can never really do this topic justice, so thank you for your grace. I love you all!

See you next Sunday,

-Lexi Cummings