Why Did They Do That?

 NOW, WHY DID THEY DO THAT?

BY

Phoenix Hocking

“When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’ And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray.” Matthew 14:13-23

Have you ever been to a party? I mean one whiz-bang bash, with food everywhere, and music, and the drinks flowing freely? The buffet table piled high with goodies? Okay, keep that picture in your mind for a moment.

Now, picture Jesus, one lone man. Picture the crowds who had followed him, five thousand men, and add probably another ten thousand when you include the women and children.

There was no buffet table in that place, on that hillside. No host making sure the guest’s glasses were kept filled, or saying, “Oh, do try the salmon. It was flown in fresh this morning.”

Now, imagine the disciples, surveying the crowd and thinking, “Good Lord, this is going to get real ugly, real fast. There’s no food for this bunch; the kids are crying and some of the people look like they’re getting ready to faint. We need to send them into town to get some food.”

Yeah, like that’s going to happen. What nearby town is going to have enough food for fifteen thousand guests to drop in unexpectedly, all wanting to be fed? You should pardon the slang, but … not bloody likely.

So, here is Jesus. One lone man. “You give them something to eat,” he says.

Ok, boss. Sure, boss. No problem, boss. Um, and where are we supposed to get enough food for this bunch? Maybe Moses could get water from a rock, but I don’t think we can find enough food for this many people on such short notice. Better send them away.

No chance. Jesus has other things in mind. He has the crowd sit down, we’re told in another place, by fifties and by hundreds. A kid with some fish and some bread is willing to share his lunch. Gee, that’s real nice, boss, but have you looked out there? Do you see how many people are out there?

But Jesus blessed the bread and the fish, and miraculously all are fed. All are not only fed, but fed and satisfied, fed and filled. Full tummies. Babies snoozing with contented smiles. Mothers enjoying a meal they didn’t have to cook. Dads just enjoying a real rest.

But now…wait. What? “They took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.” Now, why did they do that? Why collect the remnant of the meal? Why not let those in the crowd have the rest, to take some home or save for later? Or did they only collect what was scattered on the ground?

Were they just being good hosts, cleaning up after the guests? But, no, the guests are still there. Jesus hadn’t dismissed them yet, and what host starts cleaning up a party while the guests are still there?

Picture the disciples moving through the crowd, picking up the broken pieces of bread and fish. Twelve men pawing their way through fifteen thousand people, collecting the leftovers. Just think of the logistics of that. Picture a baseball stadium that holds about fifteen thousand people. Now picture twelve men trying to gather up what was left of the miracle. How long did it take them? Why did they do that?

I’m not so sure Jesus asked them to do that. Scripture certainly doesn’t say he did. I think they did it on their own, and I think Jesus was pissed. Perhaps they wanted to be sure they had enough for themselves later. Maybe they just wanted to clean up the place and not leave a big mess. Maybe they thought they’d have some for the next crowd. Who knows why they did it?

But we’re told that immediately after they collected the remnants, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead to the other side of the lake. Okay, now why did he do that? I think he wanted some time alone with the crowd. I think maybe he wanted to apologize for his disciples boorish behavior.

I mean, how distracting would it be, when you’re trying to listen to someone, to have the cleaning crew come through? “Excuse me, could I just have that piece of fish there? Thanks.” “I’m sorry, that bit of bread under your sleeve, could I have that? Thanks.” “Oops! Sorry! I didn’t mean to get your head with my basket. Are you okay?”

Maybe Jesus had more teaching in mind, now that people could pay attention to what he had to say instead of thinking about how hungry they were. And with the cleaning crew coming through, it was just not the right time to teach what he wanted to teach.

Picture Jesus. He’s watching the disciples collecting the remaining fish and bread. He’s loving them, but he’s not a happy camper. Maybe he’s thinking, “I had something I wanted to do here, but I can’t do it now.”

Now picture the disciples. “Look, Master! Twelve baskets full!” Beaming, smiling, proud. Like they’d done something really good. And Jesus is thinking… Well, who knows what Jesus is thinking? Maybe he’s thinking, “I gotta get these guys out of here. I need some more time with my people, and I can’t talk to them with these yahoos sitting around like the cat that ate the canary.”

So, off to the boat they go. Immediately, Matthew says. Not a few minutes later, not after another teaching, but immediately. What must the disciples have thought? “But, Master, aren’t you coming? Don’t you want just one of us to stay with you? You don’t mean to stay here alone with this crowd, do you?”

But no, Jesus sends them off to congratulate themselves on a job well-done, while he stays behind to have a few last moments with the crowd. Maybe he heals a few more people, hugs a few more broken souls, extends more blessings to everyone.

And then he goes up the mountain, alone, to pray. What must his prayer have been like? “Dear Father, please keep me from bashing in the heads of those numbskulls who just don’t get it?”

Okay, maybe not.

Maybe his prayer was more like, “Father, thank you for what we’ve accomplished here today. People were fed, people were healed, and even my disciples who get it wrong more often than not, have good hearts and were trying to do a good thing. Bless them all. Amen.”

I really don’t know why the disciples collected the leftovers. But I have a theory.

I think those broken pieces of fish and bread represents US, you and me, our pitiful broken selves, lying on the ground, ready to be trod underfoot, left behind, worthless. But not to God. To God we are worth keeping, we are worth gathering, we are worth holding close to His heart, safe, cherished, forever.

And I don’t know why Jesus sent his disciples away and dismissed the crowd by himself. (Imagine Billy Graham at one of his crusades saying to his staff, “Y’all go on now; I’ll take care of the crowd by myself!”)

But I think I know why Jesus went to pray by himself.

I think he went to pray by himself for the same reason we do. It’s because while prayer in concert with others is a very good thing, prayer alone with your Father is even better. Prayer alone with our Father is where we can come clean with what’s in our hearts and our minds. It’s where we can confess our fears, worries, concerns, doubts and questions. We can bring our sorrows and our joys, and know that both are safe. We can just bask in the presence of the Almighty without other people around to judge whether or not we’re “doing it right.” We can weep or we can laugh, or we can get rowdy with the Lord, if the Spirit moves us.

So, even though we may start out as just one person in a crowd of thousands, in the end, we can simply bask in the joy of being in the presence of Him who made us all. For there is no condemnation with God, only love.

Be grateful

It looks like that refund I was supposed to get won't be arriving any time soon, if at all, so now I need to decide which of the extra things that I need to do will get done first, and which can wait. I think I'll get the oil changed on my car first. Next, probably ordering printer ink. I have no idea how much I have left, but I'm pretty sure I have enough for a while. I need to get my sewing machine taken care of. Shingles shot, which I've been putting off. Maybe upgrade my passport so I can travel overseas to see my daughter and my grandbabies. Maybe get new glasses. Kind of down on the bottom of the list since I think mine will do for a while longer. I could use some more batting once I get the sewing machine taken care of. Maybe get my hair cut. I like the style, but it's getting a little long.

And why am I telling all of Facebook about this? Maybe it's just a little proof that with all the absolute craziness going on in the world, life still goes on. Little things in little lives matter. I am grateful for my little life. I'm not trying to crowd into a train with my children and my pets, trying desperately to flee a war-torn country with bombs falling all around me. I'm not living under a bridge, trying to stay warm. I have food in the fridge and a roof over my head. I have family and friends who love me. I can see. I can hear. I can feel.

Does my little life matter, in the grand scheme of things? I believe it does. Not because I'm important, because I'm not. My life matters because my life touches other lives. It is up to me to make sure that when I touch another life, it's for good and not for evil. I have no idea if my smile matters to another. Or if I compliment someone that it just makes their day. Or the little act of holding a door open for someone, or letting someone go ahead of me in the grocery checkout line is the one tiny random act of kindness that makes a person know others can be kind when they've had a horrible day.

Be grateful for your little life. Be grateful for your job, for your roof, for your food. Be grateful for your coat, and give that second coat you're not using to someone who needs it. Be grateful you have a car, even though gas prices are through the roof. Be grateful for doctor bills, because it means you have access to health care. Be grateful that for all the problems we have in this country, we can still live in peace with each other, if we choose to.

 

9/11 - OLD THOUGHTS AND NEW

 Today is the twentieth anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States.  These attacks were my generation's "Pearl Harbor."  And our response was much the same - anger, fear, retaliation.

I was living in Maine at the time, working as a Pharmacy Technician at Walmart.  When the reports of the first tower being hit by an airplane came in, we really didn't think too much of it.  We all thought it was maybe some Piper Cub that got disoriented or something.  But then, we heard about the second tower, and thought, "Oh, no.  This is war."

The television sets were turned on all over the store, with one being immediately outside the pharmacy.  We did our work, with one eye on the events unfolding before our eyes at the same time.  I went home for lunch, to turn on the TV and watch it again, and again, and again.  

As the news poured forth, all of America was transfixed.  How could this possibly have happened?  What actually DID happen?  When the towers fell, and the Pentagon was attacked, we were beyond stunned.  So many emotions, and I don't think we really knew what to do with them.

Walmart ordered 500 American flags.  They were gone within the hour.  Donations began pouring in to benefit survivors and first-responders.  People seemed kinder to each other, more gentle in their dealings with others.  In some respects, the immediate aftermath showed America and its people at our best. 

Me?  I did what I always do when disaster strikes.  I wrote.

I decided to go back through my journals to see what I had written then, mostly to see if my views have changed over time.  What I wrote then is below:

My Response As A Christian

     This morning after church I went to breakfast at a little cafe' on Main Street.  This is not a fancy place, nor a busy one.  It serves plain food at decent prices.  I sat myself at the table in the middle of the room, with a view straight out the front screen door.

    Across the street on the left is a thrift store, decked out in Fall finery.  On the right is Eastman's Barber Shop, its red, white, and blue barber pole still, for now.  A flag is painted in the window, with the words, "God Bless America."  Between them, at the outer edge of the sidewalk, and about every 20 feet down Main Street, is a one-story flagpole, with the American flag at half-staff.

    I am confronted with the task of trying to make sense out of something that seems so senseless; of trying to find some semblance of peace in the midst of this act of war.

    My human nature calls for revenge, cries out for retaliation, makes me want to strike back, to kill and maim and make suffer those who were responsible. 

    But what must my response be as a Christian?  Do I throw the words of Jesus out the window because they seem inconvenient right now?

    The times Jesus lived in were troubled and turbulent.  The Middle Eastern peoples have been at war with each other as far back as anyone can remember.  Jihad is not new.  So, when Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'  But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer.  But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also..." And "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven..."  He was not speaking to a world at peace, but to a world already at enmity with itself.

    Are His words any less valid today, in this time and this place?   Is our world not also at war?  And does not St. Paul not speak to us in our time of trial as well?  "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.  Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.  Live in harmony with one another.  Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.  If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.  Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengence is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."  No, "if your enemies are hungry feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads."  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

    Surely not!  Everything in me shouts out at the seeming folly of this.  But, Jesus didn't mean this.  He couldn't have meant this!  Surely not.  Surely not.

    Or did He?  Jesus gave us the only way to respond to violence and hatred - not with retribution and violence ourselves, but with love and with goodness.  "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."  If we respond to this crisis by bombing innocent men, women, and children who had no part in this horrible deed, how then are we different from those who perpetrated this act upon us?  Of course, we are allowed to defend ourselves, but in the process, let us not become tyrants and dictators to the world.

   After Pearl Harbor was bombed, people said, "The world will never be the same again."  And after President Kennedy was assassinated, people said, "The world will never be the same again."  And after the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Columbine shootings, and now this, people are saying, "The world will never be the same again."  And they are right.   Because when has the world ever been the same?

    It is not the tragedy that shapes us as a nation, as a people, and as individuals.  It is our response to the tragedy that shapes us.  Will we allow our lust for revenge to shape the path this country takes from this point forward?  Or will we take that extra step; swallow the bile that the thirst for revenge builds in us, and find ways to live peaceably with our neighbors?

    If we want a peaceful world, we must be a peaceful people.  As Americans, we have become insular and ignorant of the suffering of others in the world.  We care about ourselves and our quest for the almighty dollar instead of caring about Almighty God, His world, and those people less fortunate than ourselves.  

    Has our lust for power and wealth brought on this hatred of our land?  We see ourselves as The Good Guys, but were we the "good guys" when we slaughtered innocent women and children during the Gulf War, and then bulldozed their bodies into mass graves?  Were we the "good guys" when we rounded up loyal Japanese-Americans during World War II and herded them into camps in this country?  I believe we need to take a good, hard look at ourselves as a people and as a nation and see where we might begin to change our view of the world, and then change ourselves.

    I love this land.  I am an American, and I love this country.  I know that war is inevitable and that many innocent people will suffer.  It breaks my heart.  But my response as a Christian must always be to bless and not to curse, to overcome evil with good, to walk the second mile.  We are a proud and powerful nation and we will not be overcome in this.

    Yet, what an opportunity stands before us!  Let us show the world how Christian people respond to crises.  Not with bloodthirsty cries of, "Revenge!" but by going about our everyday business, with an extra degree of respect for others and concern for those different than ourselves.

    As we remember in prayer those victims, survivors, friends, families, police, firemen and women, and rescue workers, let us also hold up in prayer the violators as well as the violated.  "Pray for those who persecute you," Jesus said.  And even though we may not like it, He wouldn't have told us to do that unless it were the best course of action for us to take in crisis situations.

    Holy God, Holy Jesus, I pray today for all those who are suffering because of this tragedy.  It isn't easy for any of us to take Your words to heart right now.  It is so easy for us to succumb to the lust for revenge.  Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts, Lord.  Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.  Keep us strong in our defense, but let us not stoop to becoming tyrants ourselves.  Let us not take out on innocent people what a few have done.  Keep us from the sin of racism and prejudice.  Help us to find ways to heal and to bless.  May this tragedy make us kinder, and not angrier.  Give us eyes to see the suffering in the world around us, and give us the grace to help where we can.  Open our eyes, Lord, to see the good in the world around us; open our ears, to hear the truths others speak; and open our hearts to learn, through this tragedy, to listen to You.  Amen

As I read over the words I wrote twenty years ago, I find that not much has changed my outlook.  I am saddened that so many innocent lives have been taken as a result of that attack.  It hurts my heart that we don't seem to have learned much in twenty years.  I often despair of the course our country has taken in recent years.  We've become an increasingly angry, bitter, and selfish people.

I see much of my Quaker beliefs in what I wrote then.  Peace.  Nonviolence.  Compassion.  Maybe a certain naivete' that somehow Gandhi-style non-violence was actually doable in this modern age.  Now, I'm not so sure.  It seems every battle fought must be fought with screaming and shouting and parading around the streets with placards and banners.  

Back in the day, I remember that the Quakers would meet every Friday afternoon in front of the Art Museum for an hour of silent witness.  I don't know if they still do that today.  Would anyone even notice, today, if I sat on the corner for an hour in silent prayer?  Would it even matter?  

Ah, I see something else in my journal I feel moved to share.

A friend of mine wrote:  "There is no honorable way to fight an enemy like that.  They do not follow the rules of engagement.  They kill women and children and civilians without discretion.  Yet we refuse to break those very rules, which weakens us.  It's like tying up a wolf and letting a handful of small chihuahuas snap his heels until they take him down."

My response then was: " I don't think our refusal to break the rules of the most basic humanity weakens us at all.  If anything, it makes us stronger.  If we allow ourselves to throw our basic decency out just to get revenge, then we have placed ourselves in the same category as the terrorists.  This is war, and war is ugly and dirty and things happen in war that are not fair, and not nice, and not just or honest or decent.  But even knowing that, I think we need to keep our basic decency because if we don't, we run the risk of becoming a tyrant nation like those we claim to abhor."

Twenty years later, where are we as a country?  As a people?  As individuals?  Have we become kinder, more gentle, more compassionate?  It certainly doesn't look like it.  We certainly haven't become more peaceful.

But where does peace begin?  With the government?  With my neighbor?  With you?

With me?

A Brief History Lesson regarding BLM

A Brief History Lesson
by
Phoenix Hocking

I am writing this to give some sort of context to the current affairs in the United States for those folks who live in other countries.  You probably only get the horrific news on television, and may think we are a nation of rioters and looters.  So, let me see if I can explain, just a little, what brought about the rage you are most likely seeing on your evening news.

The first black people brought to this country came in the year 1619.  So, for the sake of brevity, we’ll just call it four hundred years ago.  Slaves were bought, sold, raped, tortured, starved, beaten, and lynched.  Children were sold away from their parents, never to be seen again.  They were forced to work on large plantations, with only the barest accommodation and minimal food.  Their names were changed to sound more “white,” and their original cultures were banned and beaten out of them.  Black women were often raped by their white masters, and any resulting children were rarely acknowledged, and were often sold away just as readily as any other slave.  Attempts to run away from their harsh lives were met with beatings, dismemberment of limbs, or often, even death. 

 

  The civil war began when the Confederates bombarded Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861. The war ended in Spring, 1865. Robert E. Lee surrendered the last major Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865.

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

Ah, finally, Freedom!  Right?  Not so fast.

With freedom came the right to move around as they pleased, right?  But where were they to go?  With no money or skills beyond picking cotton or something similar, many simply stayed where they were, “share-cropping,” and their plight remained pretty much the same.

Black people were still kept segregated from white people.  Their schools were sub-par, if children were allowed to go to school at all.  If a black man even looked at a white woman, he could be lynched, and no one would think twice about it.  Black women were used a “guinea pigs” in medical experiments; black men, too.  The knee on the black man’s neck remained, even though black people were “free.”  Good jobs went to white people, not to black people.  Crappy, low-paying jobs went to black people.  Good health care went to white people.  Black people simply had to make do with whatever they could come up with.

“Colored” segregation was common, and not only in the South. 

   

 The civil rights movement was an organized effort by black Americans to end racial discrimination and gain equal rights under the law. It began in the late 1940s and ended in the late 1960s.  You may have heard of Martin Luther King, Jr., who was a leader in the nonviolent movement to gain equality. 

During this time, children who attempted to integrate white schools were shouted at, spat upon, and had stones thrown at them.  Black people who attempted to sit at white lunch counters were reviled and beaten.  Black men were still being lynched for the most minor of perceived offenses.  Black women were still being raped.  Any attempt at gaining equality under the law was met with vicious dogs, fire hoses, and beating from the police. 

Things settled down, a bit, after the sixties.  But inequality was, and still is, rampant. 

Black people are stopped and arrested more often than white people.  They are incarcerated at a higher percentage than white people.  If two people commit the same crime, the black person is more likely to go to jail for it than the white person. 

The police, by and large, are not seen as the black person’s friend.  Just a short list of some black people who have lost their lives at the hands of the police include:

Eric Garner had just broken up a fight, according to witness testimony.
Ezell Ford was walking in his neighborhood.
Michelle Cusseaux was changing the lock on her home's door when police arrived to take her to a mental health facility.
Tanisha Anderson was having a bad mental health episode, and her brother called 911.
Tamir Rice was playing in a park.
Natasha McKenna was having a schizophrenic episode when she was tazed in Fairfax, Va.
Walter Scott was going to an auto-parts store.
Bettie Jones answered the door to let Chicago police officers in to help her upstairs neighbor, who had called 911 to resolve a domestic dispute.
Philando Castile was driving home from dinner with his girlfriend.
Botham Jean was eating ice cream in his living room in Dallas.
Atatiana Jefferson was babysitting her nephew at home in Fort Worth, Texas.
Eric Reason was pulling into a parking spot at a local chicken and fish shop.
Dominique Clayton was sleeping in her bed.
Breonna Taylor was also asleep in her bed.
And George Floyd was at the grocery store.

It was the video of George Floyd, being killed by a white police officer who kneeled on his neck, as Mr. Floyd struggled, saying, “I can’t breathe,” that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Polite requests for equality seemed to do little to stem the tide of racism, and especially acts of violence by the police.  The rage built up from 400 years of injustice boiled over, and have resulted in what you see today.

That being said, most of the protests are peaceful.  Hundreds of thousands of people protest every day, calling for justice, peacefully.  But peaceful protests don’t make the news, especially internationally.  What makes the news are riots and looting and murder.  Yes, that is certainly happening, some co-opting the Black Lives Matter movement for their own ends.

Just as an aside, the implied word in Black Lives Matter is “too,” not “only.”

First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says:  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Peaceful protestors are exercising their First Amendment rights, and are often met with rubber bullets, tear gas, and beating.  One protestor’s face mask was pulled off and he was sprayed in the face with pepper spray, by the police.  Peaceful protesters were forcibly removed from in front of a church, using tear gas and rubber bullets, so that the president could stand in front of the church and hold up a Bible for a photo.

Sadly, the president has done more to divide this country than any other in recent memory.  Before he was elected (NOT by popular vote, but by the Electoral College, which is a whole other issue), he called Mexicans “murderers and rapists.”  He calls White Supremacists, “good people.”  He calls the current coronavirus the pejorative, “Kung Flu,” while people continue to die at an alarming rate.

And meanwhile, black people continue to die, continue to be persecuted by the police and by the racism that is systemic in our country.  Black people continue to speak up for themselves, and white folks, who may not even recognize their own racism, don’t like it. 

Recently a white woman called the police on a black man because he asked her to leash up her dog in a park.  Another white woman called the police on a black woman who was simply sitting on a park bench.  A black man was killed by vigilantes because he was jogging in a white neighborhood.  Another black man was killed by police when he was walking home from the store, because he wore a face mask due to a medical condition.  A white woman called the police on her black neighbors who were building a patio in their own back yard.  I could go on, but you get the picture.

Implied racism is rampant in this country.  Wal-Mart routinely locks up beauty products meant for black people, but not those for white people.  People call the police on black people who “aren’t where they’re supposed to be.”  White people still cross the street to avoid a black person on the sidewalk.  Black people are still followed in grocery stores, while white people are not.  A black doctor may be applauded while wearing his scrubs, but suddenly becomes fearful when he’s wearing his hoodie. 

Okay, let me talk about monuments for a moment.  Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you’re a Jewish person, and every time you walked down the street you had to pass a statue of Hitler.  How do you think you would feel?  Well, it’s just the same, when there are monuments to slave-holders and Confederate generals all over the place. 
 Painful history shouldn't be forgotten. But it also doesn't need to be shoved in our faces on a daily basis. That's what museums are for. Erecting monuments to people who raped, tortured and abused other people should not be tolerated. Existing ones need to be removed to appropriate museums. Take a page from the Holocaust Museums, who do not sugarcoat the history, but don't glorify it either.

So, there you have it.  This isn’t a full account of 400 years of misery, but maybe it will give you some context as to what today’s protests are all about.   

Confronting My Whiteness

Confronting My Whiteness

By

Phoenix Hocking

I am a seventy-one year old white woman.  A widow.  I live alone. 

My last black friend was in seventh grade. 

I don’t even remember her name now; that sort of detail has long been relegated to the misty well of time.  We hung out together, along with a lot of other kids.  I grew up mostly in Santa Barbara, where racism wasn’t particularly overt, though as I think back on it, I’m quite sure it was there. 

My friend, I’ll call her Stephanie for some reason known only to sub-conscious, invited me to a sleep-over at her house.  She invited about 5 or 6 of us, I think.  When I asked my mother if I could go, she said no.  Why?  Because Stephanie was black.

I wanted to know what that had to do with it.  She didn’t really have an answer.  Just that black people were different, they smelled funny, they weren’t “safe.”  It made no sense to me then, and makes no sense to me now.  But I was in seventh grade, so I didn’t go.  I think Stephanie and I kind of drew apart after that.  I don’t recall if I told her the real reason Mom wouldn’t allow me to go to her house.  I probably made up some excuse.
Later, in my older teen years, a friend of mine started dating a black man.  Mom just sniffed at that saying, "the only reason she's dating a black man is because she can't get a white one." 

Back then, we didn’t call it being “racist.”  We called it being “prejudiced.”  Same thing, of course.  And Mom would deny to her dying day that she was “prejudiced.”  But as I look back, I see that she was firmly in the “separate but equal” camp. 

She hired black women as housekeepers and babysitters, though I truly don’t remember any of them.  She would tell us the story of when she saw her first black man.  She grew up in southern Missouri, and black people were not allowed in town.  But one of the porters from the train was in town, and Mom ran all the way home, thinking the “boogeyman” was coming to get her.  She told the story of how one of her black babysitters took my fair-haired sister to her black church.  Since Penny knew no church hymns, she broke into “Pistol Packin’ Mama,” and sang it all the way through.  Of course, Mom had to use her best “black” accent to tell that one, and we all laughed.

Santa Barbara was more Hispanic than black then.  Maybe still is.  So I went to school with kids of all colors and never really thought too much about it.  After Stephanie, I don’t think I made any real effort to get to know black kids.  But then, we moved around a lot, so I didn’t have many friends anyway, and the ones I did have were white. 

Enter the civil rights years.  I was just a teenager then.  I watched it on television and was horrified by what I saw.  But I lived in Santa Barbara.  Things like that didn’t happen here.  If there was racism, I never saw it.  How blind I was!

Fast forward to my working years.  I worked in a lot of different industries, and I can probably count on the fingers of one hand how many black people I worked with.  It wasn’t a conscious thing on my part; it’s just how things turned out.  Again, I never thought much about it.  It’s just the way it was.

And then, there was church.  Now, we weren’t church goers when I was growing up.  I didn’t become a semi-regular church goer until long into my adulthood.  As I look back, though, the churches I attended were predominately white.  Still are.  It’s not that black people were excluded; they just didn’t seem to attend.  And again, I never really thought much about it, though I would occasionally lament how our churches seemed to be “lily white,” and where were the people of color?  I never got a satisfactory answer.  But I never sought out a more diverse church either.  I was comfortable where I was, and having a diverse congregation seemed pretty far down the list of what I was looking for in a church. 

And so, here I am.  A seventy-one year old white woman, living in a predominately white apartment complex in a predominately white little town. For years, I watched black people being abused on television, from the vicious dogs in Alabama, to black children being spat upon as they tried to go to school, to Rodney King, to Trayvon Martin, to George Floyd.  And it was all horrible.  It made me sick to my stomach.  It made no sense to hate someone just because their skin had more melanin than mine. 

I have told myself for years that I am not a racist.  I tell myself I am not prejudiced.  I believe in equal justice for all.  I approved of Colin Kaepernick kneeling to protest police brutality.  I approve of peaceful protest.  I abhor the violence I see around me. 

But I have to ask myself:  isn’t that all rather shallow?  I can believe anything I want to, but what am I actually doing about it?

To this day, the only black people I know are the ones who are related to me, mostly through adoption.  My great-niece has a black child.  My brother has adopted black children.  And that’s it.  Where are my black friends?  The answer is, I don’t have any.  And I don’t have any black friends because I don’t know any black people outside of my family. 

So, short of rushing out and grabbing the first black person I see and asking them to be my friend, where do I go with this? 

I find myself confronting my own racism more often.  I have attitudes I would never have thought to be racist, but I now see that they are.  I caught myself being slightly surprised when a black woman used the word “significantly” in a television commercial.  I ask myself, when did I last go see a movie that featured mostly black actors?  Do I watch television shows with mostly black actors?  Do I still have an “us and them” mentality? 

In the current protests I hear people shouting, “Say their names!”  And it shames me that I don’t know their names.    After over 400 years of oppression, I could probably only name as many people as I could count on my two hands.  And they’re just the recent ones. 

Do I really only know history through the lens of my whiteness?  Or has my view of black people been shaped by what I saw in the movies?  Gone with the Wind, Song of the South, Showboat, Shirley Temple.  All depict black people as being fairly content with their lot in life, even as they fought the civil war.  It wasn’t until the tv-series Roots came out that I even got a glimmer of what slavery was really like.  I knew the numbers, I knew the history, but it didn’t really touch me, safe in my whiteness.  Yes, it was horrible.  Those times were awful.  But that was then and this is now and such things don’t happen anymore.  How very wrong I was.

The Bible tells us that faith without works is dead.  I submit that belief without action is useless.  But what can I do?

Why aren’t I out there joining the protests?  The shameful truth is, I am afraid.  I never used to be afraid of the police.  Now, I am.  I see the police nonchalantly push an elderly white man to the ground and then walk past as he lay bleeding on the sidewalk.  I see the police taking their batons to foreign journalists who are doing nothing except documenting what is going on.  I see the police ripping the face mask off a protester and shooting pepper spray in his face.  I see them shooting people in the back, or killing them in their own bedrooms.  What chance do I have when the rubber bullets start flying and the tear gas rains down?  I cannot run.  I’m not capable of it.

If I cannot stand in the streets and shout “Black lives matter!” I can shout on paper.  I can confront my own racism and recognize my own white privilege.  I can lobby for my church to be more inclusive in practice and not just in words.  I can volunteer to work on election day.  I can vote for people who speak of peace, and dignity, and inclusion, and reject those who only hate and divide.

Mostly, I can continue to confront myself, to see myself for who I am, and to challenge my beliefs.  I can begin to recognize racism when it stares me in the face, instead of brushing it off.  And I can hold out the hand of friendship to those who fight this struggle on a daily basis. 

I see you.  I hear you.  I stand with you.