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The Straightjacket of Racism

I convene a weekly group that gathers to discuss spirituality and our lives.  It is a wonderful group made up of so many diverse, loving characters.  We have all sorts of folks from athletes to musicians.  Some are still working and some are retired.  It is a group which gathers simply because we want to gather.  There is no credit, no prestige---nothing---in the fact that we do it.  Requiring any kind of attendance or participation would radically change the group.  I would probably drop out!

            Typically, we read a book to provoke some thoughts.  But we are not a book group.  One of the books we have worked with is Sophfonia Scott’s, The Seeker and the Monk.  Scott is the seeker and the monk she puts herself into dialogue with is Thomas Merton.  Merton died in 1968, so Scott never met him. He was Catholic; she is not.  She is an African American woman.  Merton is neither. One of the chapters in the book focuses on racism and her experience as a black woman with that reality. 

            Interestingly, Merton wrote quite a bit on the topic, even though he was in a rather self-enclosed monastery in the middle of Kentucky.  But he was not oblivious to her world.  He was born in France and spent considerable time in his adolescent years living in England and other parts outside America.  He joined the monastery in 1941, so he also was very aware of Kentucky as part of the South.  Reading his works on race is still quite profitable, as Scott discovered and shares with us as readers.  As tempting as this is to develop, I share instead another aspect of our group discussion that I could not have planned.

            One of the members of our group is very well read and does it in areas I don’t even know exists.  She brought to the group was a poet, Gary Lark, whom I did not know.  She shared a piece from the cover of his recent collection of poems, Easter Creek.  I want to share some of that here and also note my gratitude to my friend for introducing me to this poet.  The poem begins:

I was born into a racist family
in a racist town, in a county
that took its bigotry for granted
 I was born into a loving family
in a community of generous folks
who gave me all they could.

I wince when I read these words, because it could be describing me.  Probably for Gary Lark and certainly for me, I did not even know this was true for me. Gratefully, at some point I became aware that I was a racist---prejudiced and all the rest.  To become aware brings the possibility of change.

            That said, to be aware is to learn how pernicious racism really is.  Later in the poem this is articulated in a helpful manner.  Lark says,

 The racism lived in mechanisms of thought,
 carried from place to place
 like great-grandma’s quilt…
Racism was woven into the fabric
like a smoldering thread.
To dismiss or deny is to hand down
the garment from generation to generation
like some immutable heritage.

            The first step is to accept we have to change and grow.  That is what I am trying to do.  I have grown immensely since those early days of youth.  But I have so much more to do.  And then there is the systemic racism that continues the pernicious effects of racism.  There is so much work to do.  It ties nicely to the final image I choose to share from the poem.

            Lark describes what racism does to us:
            It puts a straitjacket on everyone.

    What a graphic image---a straightjacket.  If you ever have had one of those on, you know you are powerless to do anything.  But getting it off is not impossible.  To do so, however, you need help.  And that seems to me to be the clue.  We all need help.  Racism is more than an individual problem; it is a communal or society problem.  We all need help.  Those who are free of the straightjacket have to help us who are still bound.  No doubt, many of those helping hands will be black hands!

            This is precisely where my friendship with Sophfonia will be helpful.  It is helpful because I know she will be helpful.  For me this is one more instance of the need of grace in our lives to live the way we should.  That makes it a spiritual issue for me.  I know Merton and Scott would agree.  Now is a good time to ask for help.  Let’s get this straightjacket off!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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