[Oe List ...] Being Black in the Order Ecumenical

Wed Jun 6 05:25:14 PDT 2012

Dear Joyce,

Thank you for this.  I dare say that in light of the ongoing conversation it took a bit of courage, probably the same kind of courage it took for you and the others to become a part of O:E back in the day.

It would be interesting and, at least for me, informative for you and me to sit someday and compare notes, both having been born in Gladewater at about the same time and raised in almost the same community.  (We moved to Longview when I was 4.)  I remember well the movie theaters, buses, drinking fountains, schools, etc. with black and white separation.  It's a wonder any of us of whatever color ever survived the sterotypes of inferiority or superiority that we were washed in.

Going to the University of Texas in Austin my freshman year in 1956 (which was otherwise disastrous) began the process of awakening my social consciousness and conscience.  The student body there was "integrated," meaning people of color were allowed to go to the same classes as whites, but there was little or no common participation beyond that.  For example, the Southwest Conference was still segregated.  As an aside, I was later at SMU when Jerry Levias broke through that barrier when he accepted a scholarship to play football.  The parents of the white kid with whom Levias roomed on road trips received hate mail at their Garland home for letting their son room with a black.

But what most got my attention and stuck in my mind was back at UT.  I was 17 years of age and could hardly be said to have broken out of the East Texas mindset, and yet this event grabbed me.  In the fine arts department a black woman was cast opposite a white male in the production of a romantic opera.  The outcry from the white community was such that the young woman was removed from the cast.  The episode came under national scrutiny and Harry Belafonte got wind of it, came to Austin to meet with her, and offered to pay her tuition to any school anywhere in the world to which she would choose to go.  The part of the story that really got me, the young woman opted to stay right where she was.

As to my awakenment, this all culminated with, as you call it, the "second civil war," the American civil rights movement of the 60s.  The 2x4 across my head was the death of MLK, Jr.  I went into the tomb, a period of abject depression that lasted several days, unlike I had experienced before or have since.  The phrase from the poetry, "ah but it is good to have died" resonates clearly with me when I think back on that experience, but it didn't feel that way at the time.  I returned a resurrected man, but what that came to mean was not at all what I anticipated.  Reminiscent of Tillich's grace happening, I woke up the same as before yet different, facing in a new direction but with a very long journey ahead that was just beginning, and for me it continues to this day.  I remember well the conversations in the Order about "inverted" or "turned-in" racism and I can think of many examples over the years of my exhibition of that within
 myself, some quite recent, and I am always a little shocked.  I have great hopes that I may finally, if even on my death bed, overcome prejudice, but I'm not placing any bets.

I did not intend to get into all this when I started this email.  I only wanted to thank you for your statement and for your collegiality over all these years.  It's strange how this stuff just began to roll out once I got started.  I'm not sure what the take away is here, but I am clear that this journey toward wholeness is a long one.  It is a very solitary journey and yet at the same time it occurs in the presence of a whole community of saints of which you, my dear friend, and Shrop, and Dharma, and Ching Ping, and a woman in Pisinemo on the Papago reservation with whom I had one very significant conversation, whose name I cannot remember, and countless others are a part.  And for this I am grateful.

Randy

"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires."
-Martin Buber (adapted)

________________________________
 From: Joyce Sloan <jsloan45 at gmail.com>
To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> 
Sent: Wednesday, June 6, 2012 1:21 AM
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Being Black in the Order Ecumenical

Right you are Marshall to note the absence of reflections from black Order members in the conversation that has been going on. In recalling the conversations Shrop, Carlos and I had about the struggle with being black in America and in the Order, Randy requested that I share the gist of those conversations with colleagues as a kind of tribute to black Order members who had died.  Then my life went in a tailspin and I just got a breather long enough to respond. Anyway, here goes.

We often conversed about how the experience of being black in America was undeniably shaped by the enslavement of black people by white people and the subsequent relationships and identities that were born of that situation. We talked about how those relationships and identities gave rise to stereotypes that played themselves out on the stage of American History as if they were in fact reality. For us they were contained in the stark contrasts between us such as slavery vs. freedom, restrictions vs. privilege, intuition vs.logic, dark skin and eyes vs. light skin and eyes, kinked hair vs. straight hair, full facial features vs. thin facial features, and on and on. For me this was compounded by the 
struggles of being a black woman in America breaking and breaking through the 
stereotypes of  the 
nurturing mammy, the permissive Jezebel or the stiff necked 
unyielding matriarch.   It is no wonder that it took hundreds of years and a another civil war (AKA the civil rights movement) to reveal the illusions out of which both races were living in terms of what was good, and human and beautiful.

I believe the strength of those stereotypes is evident even today in mufti-faceted behaviors and attitudes that  many call the legacy of slavery. I am convinced that legacy affects both black and white Americans regardless of how either one may have personally evolved.  That really struck home when Barack Obama described how his white grandmother, who he knew loved him dearly, would clutch her purse a little closer when walking down the street in the presence of young black men.  

As a young black female born and raised in segregated East Texas, black and white race relations defined my existence. It was not until l went to North Texas State University did it consciously register with me that there really were other kinds of people in the world. It was not until Carlos and I worked with the Philbrooks in Dallas that I began to believe that in spite of our history, blacks and whites could work together in a trusting collegiality. But there was (and is) no doubt that that would mean working through the residual effect of the legacy of slavery.  And that is what I, and I dare say other blacks brought with them to the O:E. That included bringing such feelings as fear, insecurity, suspicion and anger. 

I don't know anything about the conversations that led to the decision, but I think it was divinely prophetic that the West side of Chicago was chosen to forge the 5th City Model. And likewise it was prophetic that the residents of that community linked arms with the EI and the O:E to make 5th City happen.  Many other ethnic neighborhoods could have been chosen.  But in light of the history between blacks and whites in this country, known across the world, I don't believe any other would signal the glorious possibility of redemption for America and the world in a more powerful way.

Joyce Sloan

On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 9:49 AM, Charles Hahn <cfhahn30 at gmail.com> wrote:

Marshall, your words are profound and moving.  Thanks for the reflective dimension you bring to our conversation.
>Charles Hahn
>
>
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>On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 7:00 AM, Ken Fisher <hkf232 at gmail.com> wrote:
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>>Well said.
>>
>>
>>Thank you, Marshall.
>>
>>Ken
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>>On 2012-06-05, at 3:05 AM, W. J. wrote:
>>I was surprised that the question about what it was like to be black in the O:E really was not addressed by black colleagues. Instead it became a conversation in which white people TALKED about black people, remembering their names and unique contributions. 
>>We didn't really articulate how critical black order members were/are to bailing us all out of our unconscious cultural reductionisms. I write, of course, as one of the "pinkies" who showed up in 5th City after the 1968 riots. It was absolutely essential that black colleagues in the community and in the Order gave their permission for us crazy white people to stay in 5th City. They claimed us as colleagues, they put up with us, they protected us, and they confronted us with our unconscious embodiment of white male privilege and racism. They grounded us in the experience of suffering in the community and joined with us in working to transcend the internalized racist stereotypes we were all struggling with. I suspect people of color in the Order had an often unacknowledged burden to bear in dealing with white male dominance.  
>>It wasn't just that people of color were just as totally on top of everything as the white male leadership was (in other words, comfortable operating with the rational gifts of the white Ur). More importantly, coming from another profound experience of humanness, these colleagues often surprised us in their freedom from being stuck in "white man's consciousness", so to speak. 
>>I'm trying to get beyond being yet another white person talking about black people. Several years ago I had the privilege of working with Lela Mosley, Ruth Carter, and Verdell Trice in getting the 5th City film released on DVD. Lela was at the end of her days, in and out of the hospital, and on oxygen, but she could sometimes talk with me on the phone. We were going over a list of deceased 5th Citizens whose contributions would be honored on the DVD. I would say, "What about So-and-so? Is she dead yet?" And Lela would say, "No, she's still kicking!" We would laugh. And it was kind of funny, you know, just to be standing in the Awe of all those people who had decided to give their lives in that geography. Not that they were black or white, economically advantaged or not. OR: In the Order. Or not. You get that? No difference (despite the difference). I tell you we will be highly privileged to join that company of 5th City Pioneers some day.  
>>Joe Mathews said that what he was most proud of was being a 5th Citizen. Not of being the Dean of this crummy outfit called the Order. But (I would say) of standing his ground and being his "be" with the profound humanness we discovered and celebrated in 5th City. And if I can have just a tiny taste of that in my privileged white man's life, and if I was able to add just the smallest bit to the 'miracles' that we all participated in creating together, I think that would be enough for me. 
>>Marshall Jones
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