A note from my long-time Friend John Baker in response to my January 17th Blog writing about the disconnect and disfunction in American politics and religion: “This should not surprise anyone.....people of color get it and are very afraid to this very day of the "masta who lives in the big white house".....white folks see disconnect and never understand that they have created a culture that serves them well to the exclusion of what we call…"others".
I thought about my friend several times today as I participated in San Diego’s 26th annual All People’s Breakfast honoring the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr… the theme was “I Have a Voice.” I was quite sure John would remind me how difficult it is to cultivate a colorblind voice, a voice that doesn’t come first from the race of the speaker… and that when the speaker is “white” the voice mostly assumes and projects privilege and entitlement.
For several years the All People’s Breakfast was held in the pristine San Diego Convention Center and three years ago in the Hilton Hotel next door to the Convention Center. For the past couple of years, however, a more appropriate setting for the breakfast has been an Industrial building. Cranes, shelves hugging walls, and other left-behind equipment from the building’s past are reminders that real people doing real work occupied the space until recently. It felt good. The crowd was a people potpourri reflecting the very real San Diego demographic. I helped set up a display of photographs around “Visualing Social Justice,” and a couple of us were on hand to talk with people about the pictures. I wonder how “white” my voice is when I talk about social justice.
2 comments:
Enjoyed your writing.....regarding a colorblind voice....not a needed outcome..... instead white folks embrace their color
value their whiteness as blacks value their color
?...as it is said....be who you is......if you are old and ugly...be old and ugly...but be who you is....
Knowing they too are of color and recogizing all the colors of the rainbow are glorious and count
All colors bring signatures and bring benefits
Then see the harm white culture does to our community....
As it hurts whites and people of color.....let us affirm our color, recognize what we are and what we have that is common and see clearly the color we are
hold hands and say Free at last free at last ...we are free at last With liberty and justice for all
Agape
Mi hermano Si se puede
Jb
Too many have reached a too comfortable, self-congratulatory self-deception of color-blindness far too soon. We need to remember the sins of our past (collective AND individual) and grieve for them, and root out all of that which is still deep and undisturbed in far too many of us. At the very least, there is a self-cleansing penance that remains overdue and incomplete.
Post a Comment