July-August, 2020 Megillah
RABBI'S NOTES
I am writing these notes the morning after the Fort Bragg City Council held a special meeting to consider changing the name of Fort Bragg.
Fort Bragg was named after an undistinguished Mexican-American War-era general who later (after our little coastal settlement was given his name) fought for the Confederacy. Fort Bragg was named in 1857, 163 years ago, by Lieutenant Horatio G. Gibson, who established the fort for the purpose of containing and suppressing indigenous people who lived here. The name is bad; the injustice represented is much worse.
I’m supportive of changing the name, but the move to do so raises for me a larger paradox about the moment we are in. Michelle Alexander writes persuasively in The New Jim Crow that there is a continuous stream of government-imposed suppression of African Americans running from slavery through Reconstruction through Jim Crow to policies of redlining, segregated schools, and voter suppression to the “war on drugs” and to mass incarceration today. A couple of days after the 2016 election, Reverend William Barber, leader, most recently, of the Poor People’s Campaign, gave a powerful sermon making the point that anti-Black racism didn’t start when Donald Trump became president, but has a 400-year history. (For me, Professor Alexander and Reverend Barber are beacons worth listening to and learning from.)
I have done relatively little in my own 62 years of life to push back against the stream of injustice (these streams, actually, since the suppression of indigenous people is its own centuries’ long horror story).
This year on Memorial Day, George Floyd was brutally murdered by a white Minneapolis police officer while three other officers stood by. This touched off the uprising which is so compelling today. A couple of days later here, there was a strong and well-attended student-organized rally in front of Fort Bragg Town Hall, which I attended. I was proud and moved to see so many young people and people of color who had come out.
While I was standing there (hanging back a bit, trying to maintain social distance) someone handed me a sign: “Honk Honk to End Racism!” Even though people probably couldn’t see my sign, passers-by were honking wildly.
I felt stupid and sad holding my sign: if only it were as easy as honking! Other signs had variants of the slogan “White Silence Equals Black Violence.”
And I’ve been mulling that one too.
I’ve been deluged in recent days, and I imagine many of you have too, by webinars and reading lists and workshops on showing up for this moment. One powerful piece of writing that came my way is “The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture,” by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun (https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/white-supremacy-culture-characteristics.html). I received it from Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), an organization I admire. Jones and Okun write in their introduction:
The characteristics are damaging because they are used as norms and standards without being named or chosen by the group. They are damaging because they promote white supremacy thinking. They are damaging to both people of color and to white people.
The second characteristic they list (after “perfectionism”) is “sense of urgency.” I find myself thinking about urgency culture these days: the hurried search for a gesture, any gesture that will “do something.” I can’t tell you how many e-mails I’ve gotten in the past month that begin with “We must…!” The current uprising IS urgent. It is a moment of passionate outrage, and it has brought about real possibilities for changes that were unthinkable even a few months ago. The moment must be seized, no question. The fact that we are in a moment of strongly calling out 400 years of systemic racism makes this truly an urgent moment.
Paradoxically, however, it also seems like a moment to think, to be sober and serious and even humble, not to jump into the first action that comes our way, whether it is honking our horn or changing the name of our coastal town. It seems important to me to realize that racist injustice has been prevalent in this country for 400 years and is not going to be derailed by quick and clever actions.
Another characteristic in Jones’ and Okun’s white supremacy list is “paternalism.” One of their definitions of paternalism is: “Those with power think they are capable of making decisions for, and in the interests of those without power.” It think of that slogan: “White Silence = Black Violence.” I actually know so little about what would be truly in the interests of those without power that I wonder whether maybe some white silence would be a positive contribution at this time.
There have been torrents of racist injustice in this country since its inception. How does one stop a torrent? Carefully. Respectfully. Paying attention to people who’ve been dealing with it for a long time. I plan, for one small act, to reread and reflect on the powerful Platform of the Movement for Black Lives (https://m4bl.org/policy-platforms/) which, I think, represents a coalesced vision of Black Lives Matter movement leadership. It was first published in 2016 and has been updated for 2020.
(The M4BL Platform was controversial in some parts of the Jewish world when it first appeared because it calls out the lopsided allocation of U.S. aid, including aid to Israel. I support this plank; you may not.)
I’m not sure how to distinguish between the genuine urgency of this moment of uprising and the reflexes that come from white supremacist thinking: “I must act decisively and quickly.” or even, “It’s all about me.” I’m not sure how to distinguish between the moral mandate to speak up and the white supremacist cultural reflex of paternalism, which thinks that my voice and my opinion are more crucial than others’.
I support renaming Fort Bragg. I support demonstrating here on the Coast. I support posting a sign in your yard. I support honking. I support white people facing our blind spots. But I also support reckoning that, while we may be new to flood control, others most certainly are not. At this urgent moment, the strongest mandate I can discern is to listen.
