How Are We Known?

Imagine how it must have felt. For those first Jesus followers, the people we call his disciples, to know that their leader was leaving them. To know that the person who had the courage to do what was necessary and the power to keep them safe – was no longer going to be with them. For that group of people, who risked their lives speaking truth to power, working on behalf of the most marginalized in their society, who knew that they were seen as dangerous outlaws for challenging an unjust empire – that night described in the Gospel of John must have been one filled with fear.

And when the worst happened – when their leader, the one they relied on for protection was killed – the shock of that moment must have been unbearable. The anguish, the uncertainty about their own safety – “if they did not spare him, how will they spare us?” How on earth could they have gone on sharing a message of justice when it meant imprisonment? Why, in a world where challenging corruption and speaking on behalf the oppressed would get you killed, why would they ever want to make themselves known?

Back in August when I was a new intern, I attended a hearing about the Trinity Center’s winter homelessness shelter. I’d been warned about the pushback it was receiving, and was grateful to see several of you there as well. But I didn’t realize how much our presence mattered until members of the public addressed the council to share their opinions. Particularly their opinions against the shelter. As some of you may recall, several of the statements that evening dehumanized the people who would be served. Residents “concerned” that the people living in the armory would break into their homes or go to the bathroom on their lawns. Parents worried that there was nothing to stop the people in the shelter from attacking them and their children. Almost all of them agreed homelessness was a reality that needed to be addressed, but many didn’t want even a temporary solution “in their backyard.”

I admit, I was horrified. As I sat in the room listening to these statements, it became harder for me to keep a straight face, that unreadable but present expression that often accompanies what we in the ministry call the “non-anxious presence.” In the midst of these exchanges, unable to hold my shock on my own any longer, I texted Rev. Leslie – “Minister Face is really hard to keep right now.” A minute later, I got her response – “We often preach about the world we want. This is the world we live in.” And that got me thinking.

 “We often preach about the world we want.” Well, what is the world I want? The world I want is a place where the dignity of all people is acknowledged by individuals and systems alike. Where there is equitable access to opportunities, where we embody a shared sense of preservation in our engagement with the environment. The world I want, the world I think we all want, is a place where all life can not only survive but all life can thrive, in mutually supportive relationships.

So if that’s the world we want, what is the world we live in? I’ll be honest, my experience of the world these days – it’s in a tender place. Although several businesses and celebrities have vowed to boycott North Carolina in response to its recent transphobic legislation, that has not stopped other states from considering similar laws, including Mississippi, where it is now legal to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals in the name of religious freedom. This past week, a group of us here at MDUUC shared our reflections on Bryan Stevenson’s book, Just Mercy, which left more than one of us feeling overwhelmed by the degree to which our criminal “justice” system perpetuates racism and sentences black men to death in a manner that is too similar to Jim Crow era lynchings to be ignored. And in my own experience as an Arab-American Muslim, the world we live in is breaking my heart. Each morning I wake up wondering not if but “what time today” will I see Islamophobic rhetoric dominate the headlines. And each time some seemingly random act of violence occurs, I find myself praying “don’t let them say they are Muslim,” because I know the backlash that will follow if they do.

And when it comes to our physical world, this one precious world that we rely on to sustain us, that heartbreak is just as strong. We know the basic statistics – carbon dioxide levels are at their highest in 650,000 years, and they keep climbing. Like our time for all ages presented in simple terms, our global temperature is on the rise, and the impact is significant. Extreme drought and heat waves are occurring more frequently and are at risk of becoming a normal, annual occurrence. Hurricanes that have already devastated communities around the globe will continue to grow in intensity and frequency. And the arctic, a place known for its frozen terrain, is projected to be ice-free by the mid-century.

A closer look at the human costs is equally disheartening. For indigenous people around the world, whose lives are deeply dependent on the natural environment and its resources, warmer temperatures, deforestation, and fires limit their access to vital food sources. Here in our own backyard, in West Oakland, residents who are already experiencing the destructive health effects of emissions from ships and trucks are now facing the possibility of coal trains going by their neighborhoods. In a part of the state where the pediatric hospitalization rate for asthma is double the state average, families – particularly children of color – are at risk for even more respiratory harm.

Climate change affects everyone – but its effects on the poor and people of color make it a racial and economic justice issue that is often forgotten. Populations that have been systemically marginalized by governments and globalization, people who are largely NOT responsible for climate change, are the ones who bear the greatest and most devastating burdens. And still, with all of this scientific evidence and the price paid by the most vulnerable in our world, there are leaders who continue to deny that there is any danger – who deny that all life, and especially the people and beings whose voices have been historically silenced, is at great risk.

The world we live in is a place where suffering can seem so widespread that it is impossible to know every place it is occurring. The challenges in our reality can make us feel so powerless that we enter into a spiral of fatalistic despair. In the case of that August hearing, the world we live in shocked me. And when I see people in positions of political power deny the realities of climate change, defending projects that increase the burden it has placed on people of color and people in lower socio-economic classes – I am devastated and I am angry. Is this really how things are? Is this really how things still are? This blatant classism and unfiltered hate, the severity of institutionalized racism and politically-backed systematic dehumanization…this was the world I read about in my high school history textbook – is this really still the world I live in? The world we live in today?

Yes. And we need to know that. When we are confronted by the actualities of oppression in our society, the real suffering and harm experienced by communities that have too long lived in the margins - in the moments when we come to the edge of our grief – it can be so tempting to turn back to that place of ignorance or make ourselves numb with false assurances that it’s “not really that bad.” But we need to know and name our reality, as painful and difficult as it may be to acknowledge. We need to confess what is actually happening around and to us. To be explicit about the shock and anguish that we feel. We need to let our cries out and let our tears fall.

It isn’t always easy to enter that place of our harsher realities and heartache, but it is essential. In the words of civil rights activist and writer, James Baldwin, “we have to look the grim facts in the face because if we don’t, we can never hope to change them.” Without facing the challenges of the world we live in – without letting them move our hearts and spirits and break them open – our hopes for the world, the world that we want, will not have roots in our reality. And as Unitarian Universalists, we come from a long line of voices that spoke of the need to root ourselves in reality, in the world that we live in, not only when it comes to shaping our faith but also when it comes to acting upon it.

One of my favorite Universalists, Clarence Skinner reminds us that hell and salvation are not afterlife concepts but “humanized and socialized” processes. Both are the result of our own actions as well as our existence in a “world of humanity from which [we] can by no means wholly disentangle [ourselves].” Hell already exists, in human suffering and the social evils that bring it about. And heaven, the world that we want, the shared salvation we hope for, cannot be built until we fully acknowledge those heartbreaking parts of the world that we live in.

Using our acknowledgment of this hell and heartbreak to root ourselves and actions is a process that Rev. Otis Moss, Jr. recently called “prophetic grief.” Prophetic grief takes our pain and turns it into power. It does not deny the realities of suffering and oppression but it is resolute in the faith that there is something healing that we can always tap into, holy forces of justice and change that remain stronger than the most hellish of realities. Prophetic grief does not ignore the world we live in but takes ownership of it, and uses it as the inspiration to act in new ways that heal. Our prophetic grief sees our reality as the reason why we must strive to be a source of hope.

And while Rev. Moss speaks from his context in black faith communities, his idea of “prophetic grief” is one that crosses faiths and cultures. One of the verses I find myself turning to time and time again in the Qur’an says the following: “Through hardship there is also ease. Through hardship there is also ease.” This verse, repeated in the original text, is said to have been spoken by the Prophet Muhammad in one of the most trying times of his life. Living in Mecca, having been shunned by those in power for speaking against the ways in which their economic practices cause harm to others – Muhammad, his followers, and his family were on the brink of death. And yet, the verses that are said to have been revealed to him in that moment assure him that he is not alone. That there were forces supporting him far greater than the ones causing him harm. That through his hardship, there was also ease, because he fought on the side of that greater good that we have seen emerge victorious in history even in the harshest, most hostile of settings.

This concept of “prophetic grief” also resonates with Unitarian Universalism’s understanding of our expanding potential. It reminds us that our faith, our power as people, is rooted in an infinite love that we can and must continue to discover new expressions of everyday. As UU theologian Rebecca Parker writes, “I believe we are living in a time when the best is asked of us, and this best is far beyond what we thought we were capable of or what we thought we would ever be asked to do. I believe that in rising to the occasion of what is asked of us now, we will discover a depth of strength and a richness of love and courage that we did not know we could claim or achieve.” By naming our reality, we live into our ability to connect to others with a genuine awareness of what is actually happening to and around us. We build relationships that are rooted in sincere companionship and compassionate trust, and remind one another that in the midst of devastation, our ability to create and love is still possible and is infinitely stronger. Whether we call it prophetic grief or rising to the occasion, our honest acknowledgment of injustice in the world is what expands our capacity to change it.

So where does our naming the world we live in take us? What is the payoff of taking that risk and making ourselves known? Months have passed since that August meeting, and in that time, we saw the shelter organizers root themselves in reality. They held community meetings to address concerns and continued attending council hearings to defend their cause. At one such meeting, three youth spoke. Three teenaged girls who spoke in support of the shelter, imploring the community to consider how it wanted to be known. How the city had a responsibility to send a message of compassion and care by creating this shelter. And eventually, in spite of multiple setbacks, the shelter was approved and operated in the winter. Over that time, support from community members grew, to the point that one person testified to her change of heart at later meetings. She was so impressed by the shelter’s organization and the safety it actually created in the neighborhood, that she supported its renewal in the next year.

It may not seem like a major victory or that significant of a change. A few people supporting a temporary solution to homelessness in one city doesn’t seem like a whole lot. But it is. Each person’s shift in opinion, this city’s willingness to try something new, is a glimmer of the world that is possible to create using the saving resources of the world that is. Changes of the heart, cultivated by the love and rising to the occasion of advocates and people of faith, is a reflection of our transformative power, our ability to confront the ugliness of our world knowing that we have access to forces of healing and change that are greater and more beautiful than the ones that can cause pain.

That same transformative power is accessible in our efforts to address climate change. In our time for all ages, the children acted because they had the courage to name their reality. They knew that if they worked together, even the smallest actions would have a great impact. And they made themselves and their reality known, reaching out to children around the world, putting their faith in a healing love they believed was greater than the destructive harm they had encountered. Here in California, many of us are doing what we can to name our reality of severe drought, and address it in many small ways that make a huge collective difference. Living with three other people, I am amazed by how a little bucket in the shower saves enough water for us to grow our own vegetables. I am admittedly a little disturbed and somewhat nauseated by how my cat has developed a taste for that bucket of used shower water. I suppose he wants to contribute to our conservation efforts by reducing the amount of times we have to refill his water bowl.

Turning off lights, using public transportation, recycling, putting solar panels on a church sanctuary – at an individual level these may not seem like they make a dent, but collectively, we know they can and do have a tremendous impact. And when we trust in that greater good and the human impulse to heal by asking others to join us in these small shifts, we make ourselves known, and make a new reality possible. Our ability to tap into those forces of healing and change doesn’t just end with adjustments to our daily routine. It includes making ourselves known in risky ways that confront the devastating effects of climate change, especially those felt by the most marginalized in our world. Last summer in Portland, Greenpeace activists rappelled off of a bridge in an effort to prevent the passage of the MSV Fennica, an icebreaker ship that was bound for oil-drilling operations in the Artic. Although the ship eventually passed through, their efforts made them and the realities of such oil drilling activities known.

And it encouraged many to believe they too could be a part of the movement for healing change. On March 23, UUs were among the hundreds who protested an oil lease auction in New Orleans, seeking to bring an end to gulf-area oil and gas drilling that caused harm to the local environment and communities. Here in Oakland, local communities and organizations like the Sierra Club and Communities for a Better Environment, are mobilizing an effort to prevent the approval of health-destroying coal trains – an effort that we too have the power to support.

“We often preach about the world we want. This is the world we live in.” These words hold the answer to why those early followers of Jesus eventually chose to be known. To remain hidden and accept the world as it was would have meant admitting that the world they wanted was not possible. It would have meant saying that that the world they had committed their lives to, the justice their leader had taught them to fight for was not actually within their capacity to create.

But when they chose to make themselves known, they put their faith in something greater. Not something outside of their reality, but something embedded deep within it. They put their faith in the compassion and healing that had to be greater than the hate and harm they encountered. In loving one another, just as Mary did when she reminded them there was something greater than their pain, they made themselves known as believers and creators of the Good. In naming and challenging oppressive realities, in proclaiming the good news of a holy impulse for justice, they put faith in the possibility of change. And they put faith in the capacity of people to bring it about

That text also helps me understand how we can be known. Like those early followers of a radical Jewish teacher, like the sacrificing and perseverant Muhammad, we can make the choice to be known to a world that needs our honest and engaged faith. We can choose to be known to this world as people who see the harshness of reality, who name it and grieve it, and who still believe that it is worth the risk to put our faith in love. We can be known as people who dive into the pains of this world and turn it into power. We can be known as people who rise to the occasion because we are supported by and possess a healing and creative love that is far greater than the harming and destructive forces we work against. We can be known as the people who recognize that the world we want is the world we live in, because together we have the power to change it.

(Preached on April 17, 2016 at the Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church)

Where's the Apology?: Unintended Erasure Is Still Real Erasure

Earlier today, a visibly public voice in anti-Islamophobia movements made a mistake. Arsalan Iftikhar, editor of the Islamic Monthly, a quarterly print-publication with a regularly updated online presence, wrote a piece on the nature of Islamophobia in the United States. His intent, from what I gather reading the article, was to point out the "fashionability" of Islamophobia in US-American culture. It seemed as though he was attempting to point out its increasingly acceptable and popular nature in light of the actions of public figures such as Donald Trump, Bobby Jindal, and John McCain, and the blatantly racist and Islamophobic treatment of Sudanese-muslim student Ahmed Mohamed in Irving, Texas.

Unfortunately, his intent was not his impact because of a sizable mistake - the title.

Iftikhar titled his article "Islamophobia is the New Black." When I first saw this title image pop up on twitter, my eyes widened and my heart began to race. "Not again," I thought. "Are we really playing oppression olympics?" I was livid that another "brown" muslim was erasing the presence of black voices within Islam, and playing into the narrative that the experience of being black in America was the same as being a (non-black) muslim. 

In spite of the fact that every iota of my being wanted to flip out and walk away from the computer in a frustrated rage, I read the article. I wanted to be able to point out where his arguments were flawed, call him into accountability with precision. But as I read, I realized that his article was not necessarily implying that the struggle of muslims in the US is replacing or similar to the struggle of black people in the country. For better or worse (in my opinion, worse), there was virtually no mention or analysis of the historical racism experienced by black people in this country. He was resolutely focused on pointing out the popularization of Islamophobia in the US and nothing else.

And that only makes the impact of his egregious error that much worse.

Iftikhar was so focused on making his point about the "fashionability" of Islamophobia that he completely ignored the context within which he was writing. He was exclusively looking through his lens, his interpretation of an historically and culturally-significant word within a particular phrase, that he overlooked the harmful impact his attempt to be "catchy" would bring about. In his attempt to be culturally-relevant, he was actually so irrelevant and unaware that he hurt more people than he helped. He did not consider the real impact of his word choice, and in doing so he exemplified an ongoing flaw among muslims who are not black. He failed to see the impact of his actions in a society where anti-blackness runs rampant and is still denied by so many. He failed to see how he, as what some may call a "brown" muslim, acted in a way that ignored the aanti-blackness that runs rampant and is denied within muslim communities as well. He did not consider the impact of his original title phrasing- further isolating black muslim voices and creating a sense of competing oppressions that erase their presence. 

Yes, "____ is the new black" is an expression about fashion. But in today's world, where race and racism are rightfully at the forefront of efforts for liberation, how we use even seemingly unrelated expressions matter. In a world where the phrase "Black Lives Matter" is often met with the erasing response "All Lives Matter," Iftikhar's title is unintended but nonetheless real fuel for that racist fire. In using an expression that includes the words "the new black" - an expression which replaces/erases blackness - he unintentionally but actually activates the psychology that tries to erase the particular struggle of black people in the US. It may be a phrase that speaks about clothing, but in the hearts and minds of the people who hear/read it, it will be heard/seen as a phrase that speaks about race. His title uses a phrase that plays into the super-cessionist "our oppression is cooler than your oppression" narrative, a narrative that puts two different (though undoubtedly intersecting) struggles in competition. In using this word "new," he sought to equate his particular experience with one that he, and anyone else who is not black in the US, can never know. Arsalan Iftikhar tried to use wit to get attention, and his lack of nuance and critical thinking around word choice destroyed any credibility to his contribution. While the content of his article makes interesting points, his title choice was a culturally-obtuse, context-inappropriate, and racially harmful one. And, thankfully, he did change it.

But he continued to ignore the harmful impact of his words.

I was glad to see that in an updated version he changed it to "Islamophobia is Cool in America Today." But I remain disappointed and frustrated by his reasoning why. In his updated version, Iftikhar includes an "author's note" that explains his intent behind the original title, and his reason for changing it. But nowhere in that paragraph of text does he apologize. Nowhere does he mention that the change followed numerous voices, many of them black muslim voices, which called him out for using such an inappropriate and harmful title. Nowhere does he admit that he made a mistake, and that he was called-in to account for it. And in doing so, he perpetuated the erasure of black voices in Islam. He perpetuated the super-cessionism that his original title encouraged, by not pointing out why it was in fact problematic. He remained focused on his lens. 

And he was horrifically defensive about it.

In his note, he wrote that "as people who are well-versed in the English language are quite aware, most people know that the phrasal template “_________ is the new black” is generally used to denote something that is “cool” or “fashionable” within society today." This could not be more insulting to the people who called him into linguistic, cultural, and racial accountability. Rather than take responsibility for his own mistake and oversight, he puts the blame on the very people he harmed. He implies that anybody who read his original title as having harmful implications for black people and black muslims in the US was not "well-versed" in the English language." What does this do except to further deny and erase the voices of the people he claims to be speaking in support of? It saddens me that he felt the need to discredit the linguistic capacity of his critics, of his community, when he was the one that committed the error. Why not acknowledge the reality, apologize for his oversight, and then move onto his article? Wouldn't that have been more effective, more honest? He missed an incredible opportunity to acknowledge differences and intersections in liberation that require care and accountability to the most marginalized in our communities.

But he still has a chance.

I offer this lengthy, and yet still incomplete, critique of Iftikhar's actions as a reminder that he still can shift his behaviors and attitudes - we all can. I hope that he, as a writer and editor, considers the real impact of his words that go beyond his lens of intent. I hope that he, that all of us, recognize that liberation means being accountable to one another. And being accountable means having the humility to acknowledge our mistakes and learn from them. I hope Iftikhar writes another piece - one that reflects how he made mistakes that caused unintended but real harm, and how he will strive to be stronger, more inclusive, and more racially-conscious in his future efforts. Humility, forgiveness, and learning are all integral to justice and to Islam - I hope that he, that we, will come to embody that possibility.

The Danger of "Free Speech" When Not All Are Free

It is time for some much needed nuance. In the wake of the horrifying attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo that left twelve people dead, I’ve seen a range of responses. Some were from Muslims who condemned the attack, describing it as a total violation of Islamic values, and even creating their own pieces in solidarity with the artists who were killed. Others have been from Muslims that say the attack was deserved because the artists at Charlie Hebdo were engaging in blasphemy. As a Unitarian Universalist Muslim and a seminarian, I personally agree with the former category. Nobody should have their life violently taken away. No one should be murdered for the expression of an opinion. I mourn the deaths of the individuals who were killed, and believe that the gunmen who were responsible committed an abhorrent act. However, these contrasting responses are not the ones that I want to more deeply explore at the moment.

In the past two days, there have also been multiple voices talking about the principles of free speech or freedom of the press as they pertain to the work of Charlie Hebdo’s artists. Some have praised the inflammatory content of the satirical newspaper, describing it as necessary and justified blasphemy. Others have encouraged people to not only continue looking at these comics, but to also keep sharing them, because no religion should be so uptight that it can’t take a joke. Some have gone so far as to criticize the papers and individuals that are refusing to reprint or editing images from Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons, saying that they are letting terrorists win. These voices claim that, yes, the artists at Charlie Hebdo make blasphemous comics, but that the offense to religious extremists is necessary to end exactly the same violence that would follow, to address the same hypersensitivity of belief that prevents such free expression.

I agree that engaging in potentially life-threatening blasphemy is something that can help in countering the oppressive religious perspectives that make it life-threatening in the first place. And artists play an important role. Look at the work of comic-activists like Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidallah, part of the “The Muslims are Coming” tour and film, whose jokes could offend people of any religious ilk. Their comments have been labeled as blasphemous and are definitely not welcome in certain Muslim circles, but they make them anyway. They “blaspheme” to help people both within and outside the Islamic traditions move away from oppressive interpretations of Islam that call their actions blasphemy in the first place. Perhaps what helps give more weight to their views is that Farsad and Obeidallah are Muslim. They are not speaking as outsiders, but use humor and wit that addresses the faith community to which they themselves belong. They not only have the ability to tolerate blasphemous jokes – they and others who are Muslim are making them too.

But with Charlie Hebdo, the situation is different. It is not a simple matter of religious blasphemy or making sure Muslims learn to “tolerate a joke." The people claiming that the work by Charlie Hebdo’s artists is needed are taking a dangerous position. Yes, its allegedly blasphemous content discredits the minority of individuals who use their interpretation of Islam to commit heinous acts. But focusing only on how its blasphemy promotes freedom of speech minimizes an important reality: many of these cartoons are just flat out racist. Their caricatured images of Arab-looking men, whether they are meant to be images of the Prophet Muhammad or members of the Islamic State, echo images that have been created for decades to mock and dehumanize Arabs and Muslims alike. In John Espito and Ibrahim Kalin’s book Islamophobia: The Challenge of Religious Pluralism, scholars Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg analyze the history and content of cartoons depicting Muslims. Their work shows that the caricatured images distributed in the Western world are oversimplified and “too often slip into stereotypes of Islam.” Physical attributes are generalized and exaggerated, such as clothing (a kufiya/gutra) or facial features (large noses and extensive facial hair). They are often depicted in the midst of sinister acts, or turned into excessively effeminate caricatures to illustrate “political seductiveness.” In Charlie Hebdo, these stereotyped traits are also used, and often combined with homophobic imagery, moving their cartoons away from justifiably blasphemous, to dehumanizing and further marginalizing already oppressed populations.

What makes these cartoons even more dangerous is that their satirical illustrations become the predominant images in the mind of a populous with limited exposure to the people and traditions whom they caricature. The rich diversity that is found within both Arab and Muslim populations (which are not synonymous) is completely ignored, replaced in the Western mind by belittling images that conform to, rather than challenge, overly-simplified norms. The actual majority of these objectified groups are erased – they do not exist in Charlie Hebdo’s world. Moreover, whatever valuable impact the cartoons’ blasphemous content have on challenging oppressively-conservative interpretations of Islam, it is obliterated by their reinforcement of any pre-existing Islamophobia, xenophobia, and racist views towards Arabs. These days in particular, Europe faces a disconcerting rise in public demonstrations against Islam and immigrant populations, and the images in Charlie Hebdo only solidify the stereotypes that fuel them. (See this post on “The Hooded Utilitarian” for more examples of cartoons). As a popular media source, Charlie Hebdo has the power to present a nuanced analysis of the Islamic traditions, but instead caters to existing and harmful stereotypes.

This reinforcement of degrading stereotypes is compounded by the fact that the creators of these illustrations are mostly white, European men. Their illustrations come from a place of racial and cultural privilege, and totally disregard the continued effects of colonialism, white supremacy, and Christian hegemony in our world. The cartoons of Charlie Hebdo ignore the oppression that Muslims have encountered in Europe since the Middle Ages, when European Christians saw Muslims as underdeveloped apostates, yet still appropriated elements of Islamic scholarship and culture. They conveniently overlook the white European imperialism that colonized early Arab civilizations, and which continue to exert control over “Middle Eastern” and Muslim nations through military operations and political destabilization. Perhaps most difficult to realize is that this continued impact of colonization has actually contributed to the development of religious extremism – the same extremism that carries out attacks like those in Paris.

Let me be clear. I do not in any way blame the victims of this violent attack. They did not deserve to die in such a brutal way. I vehemently condemn the actions of the gunmen in the attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices. Their violence has done a great disservice to the majority of Muslims who would never approve of their decision to commit murder to silence an opinion. It is horrifying that artists were murdered for expressing their views on dangerous interpretations of Islam, no matter how controversial their approaches might have been. The actions of the gunmen go against the calls for reason and the appreciation of difference in Islam, and these artists paid the ultimate price as a result. As more information comes out about the victims of this attack, it is clear that the shooters were not really acting on behalf of any faith. Several of the individuals killed were not even part of the Charlie Hebdo staff – one of them was Ahmed Merabet, a 42-year-old Muslim police officer. Not even the people negatively impacted by these cartoons were safe from the attackers’ violent extremism. The gunmen were not defending anything – they were attacking everyone.

I genuinely mourn the taking of these artists’ lives. They were more than just cartoonists, they were human beings with stories and lives more detailed and complex than we will ever know. But the violent nature of these individuals’ deaths does not mean I must celebrate their harmful actions along with their laudable ones. Freedom of speech and a free press are indeed important elements of a progressive society, but they come with the caveat of responsibility. The cartoons of Charlie Hebdo are not sacred ground for ensuring the freedom of expression. They are a reminder of how easy it is to forget that free expression does not occur in a power vacuum. They are a reminder that having a platform to say something inflammatory requires the serious and critical consideration of what that platform is built upon. Having the power to offend or criticize different people and traditions necessitates the constant evaluation of the structures within which we all live.

What those rushing to defend the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo fail to recognize is that freedom of speech is not the freedom to perpetuate marginalization. They deny the oppressive realities that give this paper the power it has. Those who are blending pain over these artists’ horrific deaths with the importance of freedom of speech ignore the reality that several of the paper’s images perpetuate stereotypes that dehumanize already marginalized populations. Those supporting Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons are forgetting that they are produced within a white Eurocentric context that promotes racism and Islamophobia, while totally ignoring the centuries-long oppression of Arab and/or Muslim peoples. It is possible and necessary to come together to support the right to free press and free expression in the wake of this attack. But it is also possible and necessary for us to acknowledge that not every action and image produced by those killed falls within those categories. We can mourn this tragic loss of life, but we must also do so responsibly.

Turn

Thousands of police officers turned their backs to Mayor de Blasio at today's funeral for Officer Ramos. Their actions turned a moment of mourning and shared pain into a show of hostility and politicization. In a moment where understanding and dialogue could begin, where hearts and minds could be opened to the reality of the evil that has all of us, ALL of us, in its grasp, they literally turned their backs to an invitation to begin working together. 

Despite the disappointment that a moment of remembrance has been turned into one of sensationalized anger, I will not demonize the individuals who made the decision to turn away. I do not condone their actions, the misguided logic behind them, or the hypocrisy of asking for no protests in the days before the funeral while engaging in a protest at the funeral itself. But the need to release the pain, anger, shock, fear, loss, and lack of control - that, I fully support. The need to feel safe, to live in a world where lives are not at risk, where systems and leaders do not appear to be stacked against you but in support of your needs, where the value of one's life and work is recognized by all, to simply be heard and seen as human - that I fully support. It is why thousands upon thousands upon thousands have marched in the streets, shut down malls, trains, and airports, held vigils and prayer services, and met with those presently in power to lift up the voices silenced for far too long. It is why we cannot stop, because the forces that keep all of us fighting one another will continue to have us killing each other if we do not turn to see them, to face them head on together. It is why we too mourn for and alongside with the families who have been forever changed by a loved one's murder.

The violent loss of life serves no purpose in this world except to destroy it. The deaths of Officers Ramos and Liu are horrible tragedies that were in service to the same monster that claims the lives of black people everywhere. It continues to breed disconnection, hostility, oppression, and violence of all forms with its demonic use of fear. But it does not have to remain that way. We do not have to stay trapped in the structures that cause all of us pain, that deny humanity, that generate suffering and claim lives, that separate us by making us fear each other. We can change the systems we have found ourselves in, systems that we may not have created, but systems that we absolutely have the power to dismantle and replace with ones that no longer find roots in the sin of white supremacy. Those who lived before us built these systems, and it is no doubt a difficult truth to recognize that we live in ways to perpetuate their presence. But there is also hope that comes along with acknowledging this reality in our lives - if people built those systems long ago, than today we, with our greater numbers, knowledge and love, can build something better. If the monster needs us to behave and believe a certain way in order to maintain its survival, we can choose to change in ways that will destroy it once and for all. 

If we choose to turn to one another in moments when our pain, anger, shock, fear, and loss tempts us to turn against each other, we begin to loosen the monster's grasp of our hearts and minds. If we choose to hear and see one another, choose to sit, stand, and lie down next to each other, we can all turn and face together the truths that divide us, control us, and kill the ones we love. If in our sadness and shock we are willing to see the difficult explanations that bring us closer together rather than the easy lies that drive us apart, we will take down those structures that have only destroyed our world, and can create new ones that will heal and rebuild. If, in these moments when we feel no sense of control, we listen for those voices that subvert the controlling norm, we will reclaim our collective power. If we do not turn away but turn towards, we will stop dying and start fully living.

Stupid F*cking Octopus

I’m sorry that the world keeps denying your struggle.

It’s disturbing that nobody can see
the blood on their hands.

I’m horrified that institutionalized hate claims your lives.

It’s a sin

that children are killed as they play.

I’m stunned that “allies” can be the most clueless of all.

It’s absurd how the loudest supporters

can be the strongest at silencing.

I mourn that centuries of pain and suffering aren’t just yesterday’s roots,

but the branches and leaves

hovering over all of us today.

My heart breaks when I hear your weeping…

so please don’t call my pain a distraction from yours.

God forbid my cousin is detained because of his name,

and that the guards subject him to waterboarding every day.

Did you know rectal feeding has no nutritional value?

God forbid my friend’s father is killed dancing at a wedding,

because they think his family’s ululations of celebration are war cries.

Do Americans still fire guns into the air on the Fourth of July?

God forbid my friend’s niece is killed by Israeli war planes,

collateral damage because she chose to sleep in her own bed.

Amazing how civilians are terrified of those “freedom fighters.”

God forbid that a Sikh cab driver picks up the wrong customer,

who tries to shoot him in the head for wrapping his long hair.

He should have put an American flag on his radio antennae like my dad.

The world threatens your lives and loved ones,

but that doesn't mean my fears are less valid or real.

I know my pleas are addressed to you,

but it is something else that has me screaming to be heard.

It’s that goddamn monster that keeps strangling me with one of its tentacles.

You know the one,

that fucking octopus,

with a tentacle that looks an awful lot like a noose

the barrel of a police officer’s gun,

or a school-to-prison pipeline?

The same stupid octopus,

with suction cups that look like hundreds of unmarked graves at the border,

the words of a new immigration law

or an armed militia by a barbed wire fence.

The same stupid, fucking octopus

that looks like the necklace of beads that “bought” an island,

that inks out its disease and genocide,

and claims a God-given right to all oceans and lands.

The same tentacled monster

that won’t let me board a train before thoroughly searching my bag,

and has TSA asking “Why do you need two bottles of water?”

Here’s hoping I don’t get thirsty and they think

I’m turning my bladder into a bomb.

It’s that stupid, fucking octopus that has me screaming,

that is trying to squeeze the life out of you and me.

It’s smart. It’s crafty.

It knows to hide behind its different legs.

It learned early on to deceive us
by keeping us far apart.

This fucking octopus
– it is efficiently sinister in its work –

it convinces us that to survive

only one margin can be at the center.

It tricks us into fighting one another.

This stupid octopus has us looking only at its tentacles,

hiding its slimy, slick, and manipulative body

behind words like “Illegal Immigration,” “Terrorism,”

or the “War on Drugs.”

This stupid, fucking octopus knows

the best way to stop all of us,

is to have us silence each other.

But every once in a while, the octopus slips,

(out of desperation? pride? instability?)

and our eyes trace the length of the tentacles gripping us tight.

The opportunity comes

to get a glimpse of something monstrous hovering above.

That calculated presence, that ancient oppressive base,

watching, waiting, connecting us all

with its nefarious schemes of universal and self hate.

This colossal controlling monster;

bigger than our margins,

but afraid of our power all the same.

It happens in a moment,

gone as fast as it arrives,

but long enough to leave the memory of a question.

Maybe there is more than me.

Maybe there is another way.

Please believe me.

I really don’t mean to distract from your pain.

I have no intention of erasing your struggles or cries.

But I also need room to scream because of mine.

I need to cry out because I know

the tentacle around me is just part of something more.

I remember that body lurking above.

I feel its invisible, domineering gaze.

I feel its pulse on my skin.

I know it has you too.

I scream because this cycle is one we should know.

Haven’t we seen how our poking at one tentacle won’t do a goddamn thing?

The power to aggravate is not the power to change.

It just makes the monster squeeze all of us tighter still.

I learned from tracing history that 

freeing myself will do nothing to the body above.

Finding my own way out of its grasp

will only bring more harm to you.

Cutting off one part of this monster

leaves it angry, desperate,

more likely to kill anyone who remains.

What I know of liberation 

is that it is not real if I claim to be free 

while another is crushed to death.

Haven’t you learned the same?

I promise,

I scream not above you, but alongside you.

My pains are not just for me but for us.

This suffering is too big to be carried by one.

But our power to heal is destroyed
when we deny each other.

I cry out with you, asking

why do we maintain these tentacle-lined boxes that keep us apart?

Why are we so willing to help the monster do its work?

When will we finally see

that our divisions bring us no closer to freedom,

that ignoring each others’ pain denies the reality floating above?

When will we wake up to the truth

the hope

the solution

that we must be partners in our struggles to find release

from the monster that divides its victims

so it can protect its irrational self,
so it can hide its true form?

God forbid this stupid fucking octopus

has us fighting each other

while still killing us in its grasp.

"Are There Not Wrongs To Be Righted?"*

On August 9, 2014, Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in broad daylight. Multiple witnesses testified to Michael Brown being several yards away and holding his hands up in surrender at the time he was killed. On Monday November 24, prosecutor Robert McCulloch announced that a Missouri grand jury decided that there was no probable cause for criminal charges against Officer Wilson. This announcement came only a few days after a 12-year old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a police officer in Cleveland, Ohio while playing with a toy gun, and Akai Gurley was shot and killed by a police officer as he was walking down a stairwell with his girlfriend. Both victims were also black. Neither one had confronted the police. Neither one was warned about the impending fatal shots.

I don't believe in original sin, in fact I believe the exact opposite. We are all born pure and good, perfect in the way that creation/creator formed us to be. We are born out of, and to continue, the forces of creation that drive existence. We are born with the capacity to know right from wrong, to choose love over hate. We are born with the innate ability to sense what is just and to detest what is evil. We begin not with flawed souls, but as perfect and beautiful beings with purpose and potential.

But we have all been born into a world that has been reshaped by those who have forgotten how they were created. We have all been born into a social order that does not live up to what it was meant to be. We have been born into a world that tricks us into thinking that wrong is right, that evil is just, that violence is peace, that hate is better than love. We have been born into a world that has been horrifically altered from its natural order, and now seeks to deny the purity and goodness of all. That seeks to tear us away from what is inherently our right and responsibility.

It is time to name and confront the lies at the foundation of this altered world order. We can no longer deny that the pain and suffering infiltrating our lives is not driven by forces of creation, but by forces of destruction. We can no longer let ourselves be tricked into believing that justice is the way of our current social systems and structures. The innocent lives that continue to be claimed without consequence prove that we are not there. But we can be. We were meant to be there, and we have the capacity to return.

It is time for us to remember our purpose and potential. It is time to remember who we are, and remember what this world is meant to be. It is time for us to look into the depths of our being and reclaim what we know is right, what we know is good. It is time for us to remember who we are and stop acting like the people a corrupted world order has told us to be. It is time for us to hear the voices crying out from that place of innate knowledge and love, and to let them redirect us to where we were created to be.

Unitarian abolitionist and womanist foremother Frances Ellen Watkins Harper once wrote “We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity, and society cannot trample on the weakest and feeblest of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul.”* Her words ring even truer today, as our society continues to find more subversive and deceitful ways to otherize and oppress. If we allow those forces to remain, our souls will remain cursed. But there is hope, and it is inherent to our very being. We did not come into this world with sin in our souls or hate in our hearts. But so long as we continue to let the world remain in its corrupted state, we let evil deny our true form. So long as we let violent lies take the place of truth, we will never return the world to its natural place of justice and peace. Let us find strength by remembering who we really are, and find courage in knowing that we can, and must, return this world to what is was meant to be.


*Title and quote both from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's speech, "We Are All Bound Up Together." (1866)

Binding Together

The following two-part sermon was delivered as part of the Unitarian Universalist Student Chapel held at Union Theological Seminary on November 12, 2014. The chapel name was "Binding Together," and included a choral version of Ysaye Barnwell's "Wanting Memories."

First Reading

A Litany of Restoration 

by Rev. Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley

"If, recognizing the interdependence of all life, we strive to build community, the strength we gather will be our salvation.

If you are black and I am white,

It will not matter.

If you are female and I am male,

It will not matter.

If you are older and I am younger,

It will not matter.

If you are progressive and I am conservative,

It will not matter.

If you are straight and I am gay,

It will not matter.

If you are Christian and I am Jewish,

It will not matter.

If we join spirits as brothers and sisters, the pain of our aloneness will be lessened, 

and that does matter.

In this spirit, we build community and move toward restoration."

First Sermon: Wanting Inclusivity

I really want to love this reading. It starts off so powerfully. Salvation is a community affair. It’s not “my salvation,” or “your salvation,” but “our salvation.” It is an active and universally inclusive process, driven by an understanding that our individual journeys are necessarily woven together, shape each other, and give us strength.

And the ending. “The pain of our aloneness will be lessened,” and we will “move toward restoration.” It’s recognizing the brokenness that exists in our world. It’s recognizing the suffering that can come from feeling abandoned or dehumanized by our society because of who we are, what we think, who we love. And it’s recognizing the possibility of healing.

But it’s not recognizing me. It’s not recognizing a lot of people.

This past summer, I served as a facilitator for the UUA’s Multicultural Leadership School. I was responsible for re-centering the group for one of its sessions, and on a whim, I decided that I would use this Litany of Restoration. I thought it was perfect for this group of youth and young adults of color to hear the words of one of their Unitarian Universalist predecessors. I wanted them to see that the work we were doing that weekend, the experiences we were sharing, they were all part of a tradition that included and celebrated them. And a part of me wanted to lift up the legacy of the litany’s author, Rev. Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley, a woman whose ministry transformed the anti-racism efforts of our denomination, and whose example so many of us strive to follow.

But as I started the reading, my heart began to sink. Not everyone in the room was black or white, not everybody there was female or male, gay or straight, Jewish or Christian. I looked around the room, and I realized that I was leaving more people out than I was inviting in. And the problem wasn’t the words. The problem was my decision to bring them out of their context and into a world that was so different from the one that Rev. Marjorie had written in. I had been so eager to lift up the struggles and beautiful memories of our past, that I ended up forgetting to see the beauty and struggles of the present. I wanted so badly to show the power of the work that had been done yesterday, that I failed to see who was in the room doing the work today. I was among young leaders whose stories were so often forgotten, who struggle virtually every day to have their voices heard through that barrier of the binary...and I ended up reinforcing it.

I want to love this reading, but seeing the world as it is today, I know that I also need to critique its present use. When we look to the successes of our past, we can find the strength and inspiration to continue the work of those who struggled before us. We can follow the spirit of their efforts, and take it on in new and more-informed ways. But when we rest in the successes of the past? What are we doing except nothing? When I don’t make an effort to move beyond what I already know, how is that any different from giving up? For the people who find themselves comfortable and unwilling to challenge today’s world, how is that any different from saying “I got what I need, sucks to be you.”?

So what do I do with this reading? How do I keep the memories alive without letting them be all that I see? How do we honor but challenge our outdated successes?

Second Reading

A Litany of Diversity 

by Michael Sallwasser

If the colors of our skin or the lands of our ancestors are different,

It need not divide us.

If the genders we claim are different,

It need not divide us.

If the stages in our lives are different,

It need not divide us.

If our means of achieving the common good are different,

It need not divide us.

If who we love and how we love are different,

It need not divide us.

If the spiritual paths we follow are different,

It need not divide us.

If our abilities to think and do are different,

It need not divide us.

If our resources are different,

It need not divide us.

If we join spirits and hearts,

Our differences will not divide us, but deeply bind us together.

Second Sermon: Needing Particularity

This Litany of Diversity may offer an answer to my litany of questions. Nearly twenty years after the Litany of Restoration was written, Michael Sallwasser and others committed to work that Rev. Marjorie had started read her words in a meeting, and experienced the same tension that I felt over the summer. And with her permission, they updated Marjorie’s words. They preserved the spirit of her efforts by doing exactly what she had done in her time - they took a critical look at their traditions. Like Marjorie had advised and modeled, they chose to "witness to and actively participate in the transformation of their faith community and society." They took to heart her distinction between liberal religion, which conforms to the world and rests in our past successes, and liberationist religion, which transforms the world and critiques what lies beneath our inherited practices. Like Marjorie, they refused to settle for something that they knew they had the ability and responsibility to evolve.

And the litany itself does move us past the inherited practice of binary thinking. It no longer limits the conversation to two voices, and it allows for the constant inclusion of new identities in communities. With this looser and open language, anybody and everybody is welcome to join spirits and hearts together. But is it too loose? Is it so focused on including anyone that it actually excludes everyone? Does it do such a good job of making sure that no voices have a monopoly on the conversation, that it actually further silences those that have yet to be heard? This litany, this version of open thinking, it lifts up that our differences need not divide us, but it neglects the importance of our particularities. It tries so hard to ensure that nobody is offended, that it chooses to remain in the safety of ambiguity, conforming to the warm and fuzzy resting place of liberal religion.

See, Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley also criticized the tendency for liberalism to view “freedom in the abstract,” and this litany unfortunately seems to do that. Her original words, as binary as they were, they recognized that for us to move forward in community, our differences must be explicitly named. In order for us to be the liberationist transformers of our world, we have to give weight to the specifics. We have to be grounded not in the abstract principles that sound good, but in concrete experiences that push us out of our comfort zone. The ability to ignore our particularities and their lived realities, it comes not from a place of wanting to find universal truths, but from the privilege of never having to consider that there are experiences in the world that are different from one’s own. Removing the specifics is no better than limiting them to two options, because it brings none of our stories to the table, and lets those who have set that abstract liberal agenda in the past keep it in its conforming place.

These litanies may be Unitarian Universalist readings, but they’re not the only example of these differences in thinking. Here at Union, we have the option to create a faculty position that comes to the table with a specific voice; we have the opportunity to recognize the particularities that come from a womanist perspective, and the liberationist transformation that this view brings. But something is keeping us from explicitly naming it as such. We are stuck in our liberal, abstract freedom, preferring the warm and fuzzy resting place of ambiguity over the difficult work of concrete liberation. Like the latter Litany of Diversity, our vague approach is so inclusive, that it is actually excluding the specific voices we need to hear. Our looser language is not living up to our responsibility to change our community and evolve.

With the spirit of these two litanies in mind, it is our responsibility to balance the desire for inclusivity with the need for particularity. It is our responsibility to keep the memories of our predecessors alive, to honor the spirit of their work, by being true to what we know about our world today. And that requires us to create that open and inclusive community by being specific and concrete with our liberationist goals. The communal process of salvation that Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley wrote about in her original litany invites us to be critical of tradition, but it does not mean that we must abandon it entirely. It means that our past successes help us to see that there is something better ahead. It means that the transformation we seek will come, but we must first be willing to name the particularities that will bind us together.