Exponent II's Blog, page 169

Stupid Beehive!

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This is me, sometime in the early 1990s.

I am terrible at sports. My family didn’t play or watch them growing up. I can’t remember the rules, and I’ve never been to a football game that didn’t make me want to stretch out on the benches and take a nap. It’s just not in my DNA, and I have completely accepted this fact at age 39 (today, actually, because this posts on my birthday). Don’t invite me to your Superbowl party, because I’ll be absolutely no fun.

 

But as a teenager I hadn’t figured this out yet. I thought that maybe I would get into sports if I just tried harder, so every year in Young Women’s I would sign up and play with our church basketball team. Even being the non-sports person that I was, I could tell we weren’t the best team out there because our practices revolved mostly around learning how to dribble the ball with only one hand. Honestly though, I needed even more basic help, like someone to explain which basket I was supposed to shoot at. (It would mysteriously change halfway through the game, and NO ONE WOULD TELL ME THIS FACT, which it turns out, was kind of important for me to know.) (Although on second thought, I only made one 2 point shot EVER in my entire YW’s basketball career, so maybe it didn’t really matter much which direction I was shooting.)

 

When I turned 16, I decided to get serious. I opened the encyclopedia to learn what the rules of basketball actually were. (Sadly, what I really needed was the internet because encyclopedias don’t explain how to play sports – but I was living in the 1990s. The internet didn’t exist! I was doomed.) I decided that even if I didn’t know the actual *rules* of basketball, I would make up for it by being extra tough, and super…sporty-like. I went out into my first game of the season mentally prepared to be very aggressive, and to make some shots and baskets (maybe even on the right side of the cultural hall). Within minutes, I stumbled over a tiny 12 year old girl and aggressively pushed her out of my path, then I muttered under my breath, “Ugh, stupid Beehive!”. As soon as those words left my lips however, I felt instant shame. Oh my gosh, what did I just DO?! I just whispered that a Beehive was stupid because *I* tripped over her. She probably knows what she’s doing more than me. I’m a Laurel. I probably just humiliated her and she’s going to go home and cry. Did she hear me say that? Did anyone else hear me say that? Did Jesus hear me say that? I AM SO SORRY I JUST SAID THAT!!! 

 

I couldn’t figure out who I’d even said it about, because there were so many little Beehives wearing matching jerseys running around on the court. I couldn’t stop the game and apologize! I just wanted to lie down and disappear into the floor over the shame of it all, but everybody else was still totally absorbed in this dumb basketball game and there was nothing I could do.

 

Except – I could be super nice for the rest of the game. I stopped mindlessly jogging back and forth from one end of the basketball court to the other, (occasionally catching the basketball on accident and looking around frantically for someone on my team to yell, “Abby! Throw it to me!!”). I started helping people up who fell over. The moment anyone was bumped I would put my hand on their shoulder and say, “Are you okay? Did you get hurt? You’re doing so awesome!” I became an over the top cheerleader on the court that day (and probably became even less helpful to my teammates than normal), but I wanted so much to make up for what I had done earlier in the game.

 

I kept doing that same thing the whole season. I couldn’t shake the memory of what I had done, and I kind of liked being the cheerful dork on the court telling everybody how awesome they were, so that became my new version of playing sports. It suited me well. At the very end of the season, they awarded the champion teams, gave out prizes for MVPs and top points earned, and THEN…they announced the person who won the “Good Sportsmanship Award” and it was (drum roll) ME!!! And honestly, it all started because I shoved a little girl and called her a “stupid Beehive” under my breath. That’s what spurred me to win the most beloved award of my entire lifetime sporting career.

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This is me as a laurel, standing next to a girl in my neighborhood. (Funny unrelated side note – I’m in a skirt that I bought at a thrift store but never wore out of the house because it felt way too scandalously short. I only put it on once for this picture.)

 
I pulled out some of these old photos last week because the little girl standing next to me is getting married this summer. The photographs brought back a rush of memories of being a teenager, when I made frequent mistakes and consequently learned so much in a very concentrated period of time. Throughout my life I have said or done many things that felt wrong afterwards (sometimes immediately, sometimes much later), but regretting the memory of what I got wrong has often inspired me to do more fixing of my internal problems than any outside force ever could.

We are in a very turbulent time with many people crossing a divide to communicate with people different than them for the first time. I have personally made mistakes broaching the topic of race and racism, and I am sorry for that. I still have a long way to go and a lot to learn. 

In the lingering embarrassment for those missteps, I’m trying to remember how mortified I felt after saying “Stupid beehive!” during the Syracuse Second Ward basketball season of 1997, and how that spurred me into action afterwards. I don’t need a Good Sportsmanship Award this time, but I still have that desire to be better. All of us will need second chances in our game of life, and sometimes it’s exceptionally painful to give them to ourselves. (It feels so tempting to lie on the floor and just disappear in shame.) Despite that, I want to do better the next time around, and then better the time after that. I want to help my children do and be better than me. And above all else, I want to help create and live in a world of equality and justice for everyone, no matter who they are or what they look like. 
 

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Here’s (almost) 39 year old me with my youngest daughter – someone who already seems destined to follow in my footsteps as a short and very untalented basketball player (but cute in glasses).

 

Mormon Mommy Protest

I have been hesitant to join a large Black Lives Matter protest because I have several immuno-compromised members in my small quarantine circle.  My father has severe asthma, my father-in-law has an auto-immune disease and the only friend I have in my circle has stage four cancer.  So I have been extremely cautious and vigilant about any contact beyond our group and a crowd seemed like a choice of exposure that wasn’t fully mine to make.  It really bothered me, however, because I am a show-up-at-protests kind of gal.

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Then I got a text from a woman in my ward who had never protested before and asked me if I would keep her company.  I told her cautiously that I would, but if the crowd was too dense I would need to keep to the periphery.  However when I arrived at the designated time and place I realized she was protesting alone and wanted moral support.  Well I can do that! So we stood together with my kids in front of the courthouse by the road holding signs.  An old racist dude came up to us and tried to get us to take down our signs and parroted predictable nonsense like the real problem is Black-on-Black violence and the real racists are Black people who at some point in his life were mean to him.  It was good to have a teammate in taking turns shutting him down.

I posted a picture of my friend protesting to Instagram and several of our friends reached out and said if we ever went out to protest again they would like to come, but were intimidated by going alone.

So we arranged what one might call a Mormon Mommy Protest.  It felt a bit like some kind of Enrichment Activity, a Mom n Me morning playdate.  I proposed that we protest not at the usual place in town (the federal courthouse) but instead choose the busiest intersection within our ward boundaries.  First, it would allow some of us to walk there, making it more accessible if you’re bringing a youthful posse.  Second, it felt more vulnerable to stand in a place where people we knew would see us, and I thought that that was a good thing – push ourselves to do something uncomfortable that was right.  

We had four moms, three strollers and a total of eleven kids with our handmade signs.  I packed snacks and sunscreen for my crew (5 and 2) and we held up our signs for about forty minutes before the two year old got dangerously fidgety for standing at the side of a road.  It provided us with good opportunities to talk to our kids about the issues and to get them directly involved in making signs, waving and talking to passers-by.  Afterward my friend with severe social anxiety (who is also my ministering sister) thanked me for keeping her company because she had wanted to participate but her anxiety had made it overwhelming to contemplate.

My point with all of this is not to congratulate myself.  Instead, I wanted to offer a suggestion of a way that someone who has never been to a protest, or who may not be able/feel comfortable going to a large gathering can still participate in meaningful ways.  When a driver sees a neighbor, a schoolmate, their ministering sister, a friend standing out to share a message, it hits home.  We saw ward members driving by and my ward can be fairly conservative (for Oregon.  We’re probably Godless heathens in more orthodox parts of God’s kingdom). And this kind of activity, I believe, is exactly why we have ministering sisters.  If your ministering sister has ever said “call me if there’s ever something I can do,” call her.  Say “I want you to write on a piece of cardboard and stand six feet away from me at X intersection at 3pm.  Will you be there? I can bring snacks.”  Incidentally, our protest was originally scheduled for 10am, but then everyone had some kid-related conflict.  But the beauty of a tiny protest is that it was the work of a moment to find a new compatible time – we had no speakers, no march (beyond our sidewalk), no need to schedule with the city.  Protesting is fully compatible with being the caregiver to small children if you choose to make it so.

So if you have not yet participated in a Black Lives Matter protest, make your own.  Schedule it around homeschool and naptime and meals.  Social justice also needs to happen at 3pm at the corner of your street, as much as it does downtown in the evening.   I’ve been schlepping my kids to protests since they were in the fetal stage and every year our yearbook features pictures of us coloring our protest signs for various causes.  It’s a fun craft project and is also a natural segue to talking to kids about tough issues, and about how in a concrete way they can stand for truth and righteousness.  As I walked home, pushing the stroller and carrying our sign it occurred to me there is no real reason I can’t always have a sign when I take my kids for walks – a march of three with important things to say.  So call that Mom n Me group and text your Lunch Bunch. Post in Reading Between the Spines or your Knit-wits and recruit friends to help you say what is in your heart.

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The Blood and Sins of All Generations

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Painting by Ron Richmond

The violence of racism is not new.

Many of us are just becoming aware of it, because of recordings shared, and because of more voices speaking out.

The history and systemic racism in our country, church, families, and all communities, goes back to all beginnings, through all generations.

How can we overcome something that permeates so many parts of our society?

I have looked again at what I have learned and seen through my life, of those that reinforce the embedded racism by denying it exists, choosing to let it continue. And of those who do the dangerous work of exposing the deadly nature of racism, and give their lives to the work of eliminating it.

The blood and sins of countless generations seem to be splattered in front of us. No matter how much some try to cover it, it can not be hidden.

Now needs to be a moment of cleansing, on many levels.

We, as humans, have great resistance to this kind of cleansing.

I had to confront my own reluctance about it.

Several years ago, I was reading about some similarities in the sacred rituals of various cultures, and how common it was to have cleansing rituals linked to journey rituals, and important life events.

I was reminded of the powerful practice of clearing, or cleansing my mind, before participating in important mindfulness trainings. In the clearing practice, you take a moment to respond to questions from a coach, or from yourself, about your thoughts, and life actions. This practice is something I have tried to adapt and practice when I seek to take actions that make a difference in my communities.

“Is there anything going on in your life that is not complete?

Is there any place where your integrity is not in line – in your relationships, with this action, with promises you have made?

Is there anything that is in the way of you being who you commit to be?”

When I have been willing to ask myself these questions, even when it is not easy to answer them, a type of intentional focus of energy and thought can occur. Much of the noise of mixed messages from various sources, traditional rhetoric, pressure to conform, ineffective busy work, and other types of clutter – is easier to recognize.

It is a ritual of cleansing that clears away obstacles to creative living.

Is this kind of intention in mindfulness practice similar to the purpose of some of the cultural cleansing ritual?

I wanted to see what insight I could gain from immersing deeper into the symbolic cleansing ritual of my culture. I chose to spend hours participating in the repetitive motions, and listening to the words, over and over.

Hour after hour, the words and motions, over and over and over.

Gradually, other noises and voices and concerns and thoughts cleared away.

After nearly 4 hours, something happened.

There was a rush of voices, the presence of countless beings. Somehow, a few were distinct. Emma, Joseph, Brigham, Eliza, Lucy, Hyrum, Spencer, specific ancestors, my father, my grandparents, so many among countless more. There was sorrow and pain in the midst of pleading…

“Only you can cleanse the world. We can’t do it for you. Please, be clean from the blood and sins we didn’t see. We are sorry. Please.”

I almost felt I was out of my body, present with all these beings, as my physical being continued the repetition of words and motions.

There were no excuses from them, no dismissals of the destructive, even deadly harm done by words and actions that excluded or eliminated entire groups of people from communities, sacred rites and spaces, adjusted doctrines, descriptions of eternity, and even a place in God’s love.

I felt agonizing pain and profound regret, waves of it coming from them. But no pleas from any of them for relief. Just a profound awareness of their part in the continuation of the great sin of defying At-One-Ment. Their pleas were for those living now.

There seemed to be an awareness that there would never be redemption, or complete salvation for anyone, until the blood and sins of barriers, and conditions on love, and exclusion of the other, and intolerance of differences – until this was cleansed from the earth. Until it is cleansed from our hearts.

I did not seek to know details. Even with a lifetime of studying and valuing transparent history, at that moment, I did not feel a need to know specifics from them about how they saw their part in perpetuating the sins all generations. In the moment of indescribable presence with more beings than I could comprehend, I felt an awareness from them. So many had dedicated their lives to the idea of restoring the gospel of Christ. They had been inspired to seek, and receive, and live so much. They were a part of the dawning of a brighter day, as some of most radical insights about eternal relationships we each have with Gods who invited us into ever expanding wisdom and existence came to light.

But, just as it is now, being a part of great work does not automatically eliminate human weakness, and bias, and fear. It does not automatically make you someone who will courageously risk all, and have the insight to cleanse yourself of all ungodly thoughts and actions.

What insight they gained from perspective beyond the veil is what caused them to reach out in every space that opened for them to communicate, in every space where clutter of thoughts, and “should” and “shouldn’t”, had been cleansed.

Their work on the earth is not finished.

None of our work will be finished until we are cleansed from the blood and sin of all generations.

I have wondered…how many times, how many ways have our ancestors tried to reach out, and plead with us to cleanse this generation, now this generation, now this one, and on and on. How many more generations of ancestors will be added to the countless numbers who are trying to reach through the veil, and complete the work of restoring the good news.

We are all a part of each other.

What happens to any, happens to all.

Christ revealed at-one-ment on a level that defies description. It can only be experienced by practicing connection through all circumstance, and love without condition.

It is through that wrestle, that journey, that is where we create salvation.

I feel Christ’s message from his parable about the Samaritan, and the sheep and the goats – If there is anyone you don’t love, you don’t love anyone. We are invited to experience the love of God, without condition. Anything less is not Godlike love.

This experience expanded that view. For those seeking At-One-Ment, the work is not complete until all generations are cleansed.

That can only happen now.

Yes, we must learn from the past. We must study our history. We can be inspired by the courage, and wisdom, and radical creations of our ancestors. We must learn from their failures, weaknesses, fearful actions, and harmful abuses of power.

At some point, we need to acknowledge that our awareness of past failures will only make a difference when we shift from blaming and anger (no matter how justified), to confronting our own place in the countless generations that perpetuate the blood and sins of racism, sexism, homophobia, abuse of power, and all ways we kill each other off – and then doing the work of ending it.

It might take all the generations that will ever live to cleanse humanity of all this blood.

But I am most concerned with this moment – now.

Now is the time to do our work.

We are all connected in this.

Let the blood and sins end with us.

No One Is Comfortable

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I know I’m late to the game. It’s been a long time since I sat down and just read books, and I’m finally at the point in quarantine where I’ve relaxed enough to lie down on the couch with my Kindle and not care what my kids are doing. So I finally read Rachel Held Evans’ Searching for Sunday last week, and laughed and cried over it, and mourned Rachel’s death, and thought about what church and our larger society should look like.

Evans writes about starting a small church called The Refuge, whose mission statement includes,

“We’re all hurt and hungry in our own ways . . . .

We find faith as we follow Jesus and share a willingness to honestly wrestle with God and our questions and doubts.

We find dignity as God’s image-bearers and strive to call out that dignity in one another.

We all receive, we all give.

We are old, young, poor, rich, conservative, liberal, single, married, gay, straight, evangelicals, progressives, overeducated, undereducated, certain, doubting, hurting, thriving.

Yet Christ’s love binds our differences together in unity.

At The Refuge, everyone is safe, but no one is comfortable.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about “everyone is safe, but no one is comfortable” and how it applies to the protests surrounding George Floyd’s murder. It seems to me that the people who are safest–I’m a white suburban-dweller who has generally had positive encounters with police officers–are very uncomfortable at this point. And that’s the way we should be.

I think we might be not strictly safer (tear gas and rubber bullets are no joke, and should never be used on our own citizens) but more comfortable in our own souls if we joined the protests, if we spent more time demanding police reform (a tweet I saw today said, “What if the police stopped recruiting discharged members of the military and started recruiting female social workers?”) and government accountability, if we acknowledged that the system we live in is radically unfair and that maintaining it is un-Christian. If we are going to truly follow Jesus, we need to honestly wrestle with our questions. We need to recognize the dignity in each other. We need to recognize that “we” isn’t just “my affluent ward” or “Mormons” in general. We are all hurting and hungry. We are all homeless, children, the elderly, the struggling. We are black and brown and white, cis- and trans and non-binary, able-bodied and disabled, and we are all mistreated by the police when one of us is mistreated.

I’m heartened by the progress we’re beginning to see and the changes that we’re beginning to make. We have a long way to go. We are all part of the family of God. Let’s act like it.

Guest Post: That Which is Beautiful and Sacred #CopingWithCOVID19

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Before COVID-19, I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable watching 11-year-olds pass the sacrament knowing that I could not. Every Sunday this wound grew bigger and bigger. And then the world shut down.

My ministering brother is a member of the patriarchy. I mean the most patriarchal of the patriarchy, and I love him. He offered me the sacrament the first Sunday off of church. Sometimes I am not the most kind when setting boundaries. I panicked. How could I say that I wanted a break from the sacrament kindly? I lied instead. I told him I was out of town. But then I realized that my actions were outside of my integrity and I wrote back, ”Sorry for lying. I am in town, but taking the sacrament is too painful for me right now. I need a break. I did not know how to say that in a kind way. I am learning.” That text was beautiful. It was sacred.

Weeks passed. The virus raged. I decided to bless my own sacrament. I knelt down with my homemade bread and water. I fumbled through the prayers as my German shepherd tried to eat the bread. I kept messing up because I had not had the privilege of reading those prayers aloud every Sunday and maybe because a large animal was crawling on me. It was beautiful. It was sacred.

A few weeks into blessing my own sacrament I felt as though something was missing. I missed the communal aspect of the sacrament. So I called a Mormon feminist friend and we blessed the sacrament together over Zoom. Two pieces of homemade bread, water, thousands of miles and two mountain ranges between us. It was beautiful. It was sacred.

A little later I realized as a child raised in an alcoholic home and as a single woman, my whole life has been spent taking care of myself or others. I needed to feel taken care of, even if it were in a small way. I called my ministering brother. He knelt over homemade bread and Dixie cups of water as we all stood six feet away with our masks on and blessed the sacrament. It was beautiful. It was sacred.

A week later my ministering brother offered the sacrament again. We could not coordinate schedules. I said, “No big deal, I will bless it myself.” He condemned my choice and told me I was not living in my integrity holding a temple recommend and blessing the sacrament myself. He knows integrity is my compass. Integrity no matter what the consequences. So I told my bishop that I had been blessing the sacrament and it was beautiful. It was sacred. He could make whatever choice he wanted with my temple recommend as it was his prerogative, but I would be blessing the sacrament.

I got a response immediately. It was paternalistic. It was mansplainy. He told me that it was my choice as to whether I held a temple recommendation or not, but he would advise against it. My disobedience would pollute the temple. He was confused as to how a woman who blessed her own sacrament could give so much to the community and the ward. How a woman who blessed the sacrament would even want to go to the temple. I realized he was having a hard time categorizing me. I have a hard time with that too sometimes. Sometimes I do things and worry they make me a bad member of the church or a bad feminist. But then I realized categories and rules are arbitrary and they do not exist. Just as each different experience blessing the sacrament was sacred and beautiful, each of those parts of myself are equally sacred and beautiful.

I emailed him back. Since it was my choice whether to hold a temple recommend or not, I would keep it. I answer to a loving God, not him. I had a clear conscience. I said I will continue to pay tithing, obey the Word of Wisdom, serve like crazy because I need that healing, pray several times a day, read my scriptures, show up for this community, try and stop swearing and then fail a million times, show up for church every damn Sunday, attend the temple … and bless my own sacrament, and advocate for full equality for women, and question prophets. And each and every one of those things is sacred. Each one of those things is beautiful. My God is bigger than categories, such as good members of the church and bad.

Anonymous is a teacher, horseback rider, reader, sister, doctoral student and friend.

Guest Post: Hands

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“To Serve and Protect” sculpture after protests in Salt Lake City

by Sarah Carter

When I heard about the slaying of George Floyd, I thought about the community guilt we, especially we white US citizens, have in his death. During the protests in Salt Lake City, red paint was poured on the sculpture of bronze hands that stands in front of the Public Safety building there, originally titled “To Serve and Protect”.

I don’t know who the protest artist was who poured that paint, or what their thoughts or intentions were in that action. I don’t know if they are aware of the symbology of hands in LDS theology and culture–how much we use hands for, what they mean to us all. But as I experienced this new art (it’s been cleaned/destroyed now, so photographic evidence is all we have), I was flooded with emotional connections to how hands can be used to serve, to protect, to heal, to harm, and the visceral awareness that our hands are unclean, and only true repentance, including both change in our actions, the system of what actions we allow and condone AND our countenance, our thoughts, awareness and feelings, will bring us to the grace offered by our Savior, who was beaten and killed by soldiers and courts who did not recognize his life as worthy; our Savior, who cried out for a parent in his despair, and died as onlookers stared and did not help.

Hands

Held out

Offering help

Cupping

Gathering manna from heaven

Forgiveness

Miraculous nourishment

Hands that should help

Sometimes hurt

Clean hands and a pure heart

Hands reaching

For help

Welcoming in fellowship

Sealing deals

Sealing covenants

Hands raised in support

Solidarity

Thanksgiving

Unearned grace

Laying on of hands

Blessing

Healing

Conferring authority

To serve

Without power or influence

But love

We are His hands.

The blood on our hands

Is His too.

Sarah is the wife of one husband, a teacher at two colleges, a mother of three young adults and a creatrix of imagined worlds. She wants to learn more about Juneteenth this summer.

Cast Away, Together Alone

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I am on a capsizing ship but there is no lifeboat, I sink . I clamor to swim and those in the lifeboats tell me that if I just swim hard enough I could just save myself. The tide fights me until a golden sand reaches out and offers me a hug. I gladly accept her embrace ignoring the ocean who is green with envy. Tears swirl down my face like tiny skiers on a salty slope as my arms and legs surrender to the sand. Moments later, the lifeboats angrily meet the sand without notice or concern. 

A sea of lifejackets spread like chicken pox across the sand with dots of demanding orange.  In disgust, they point out my hair, swollen limbs and tattered clothing demanding to know why I am not presentable. The others had managed to arrive with lifejackets and the assistance of the Coast Guard. Shouting, pointing and insisting that their lives matter too. If I were just strong enough tread water a little longer, I could have waited for help to arrive. After all, they were involved in the shipwreck  and managed to get to shore.

 Others voices clamor to rescue me, yet I am still trampled by those running towards freedom. I am beat. My face sinks into the sand and my lungs scream out in rebuttal. The sand opens her arms and the ocean eagerly takes hold. I am drowning. I grab a leg on the sand to get attention; pleading. The voices go dark and overtake me. I am drowning. I am drowning. Where is my life vest? Why do you stand idly by and watch me take my last breath? I am drowning.

As a Queer Person of Color, I am drowning and I am the only one who can rescue myself. I live on the outskirts of privilege I will never own or have rights to. I am entangled in a complex web of systematic racism that seeps into every part of my being . It is a terminal illness for which there is currently no vaccine. My voice is silenced and my tears go unnoticed. I am told that my color is insignificant but in contrast that I must conform to a eurocentric standard of beauty.  I will never be enough. 

Do not sugar coat my oppression.  Let me be clear: hate is not a thing of the past or just in the south or limited to acts of violence. Oppression is the chain which binds me from freedom and enslaves me in racism, homophobia and anchors me from privilege. It is both the source of endless  strength  and the weakness in my achilles heel.  Do not sugar coat my oppression.

 I am defined by a narrow-minded ignorant society that is entangled in colorism. I celebrate my juicy lips, my thick thighs, large perky breasts, and curly hair. I do not need to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards in order to appease your fragility. My ancestors were stripped of all essence of royalty. The rights to the throne were always ours and our birthright never changed due to circumstance. I am an African Queen. I am an African King. I wear my crown proudly  and with no need for explanation. Bow down or be banished.

 I am an intelligent, creative, outspoken person who is mad as hell.  The bloodshed of my family stains my soul and despair creeps in suffocating my every will to keep moving forward. Do not silence my screams and my intense rage.  Make no mistake, I see you hiding in the shadows with a scowl of disapproval. I will not succumb to your judgement nor will I ever get a just trial. You are killing my people……. you are slowly and intentionally killing society.  Let’s not forget that It is our blood that made the American dream that you so casually  strip  away one life at a time. Do not claim to love all, but only accept some. 

I am shipwrecked, cast aside and left deserted on an island of injustice.

I am not alone. We are still here. We are still fighting. We are still here.

 Can’t you hear our plea? Can’t you feel our tears? Can’t you see our blood ?

Will you ever let us free from bondage? The debt has been more than paid…

What is the worth of a soul?

The Hate U Give: Book review and commentary

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As we mourn the death of George Floyd and so many of our Black siblings at the hands of police and other white supremacist people and systems, I want to share a resource that helped me have greater empathy, love, and understanding for Black folks as they manage the daily struggles of existing in a racist system. 

The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas, is the story of a sixteen year-old girl  named Starr whose close friend, Khalil, is shot by a cop during an unjustified traffic stop. The officer asks him to get out of the car, and when the boy tries to turn away from the cop to speak to Starr, the officer shoots him in the back. Starr watches Khalil bleed on the pavement. She watches him die. Nobody comes to cover his eyes or close them. 

The story follows the aftermath of this event, how she copes at her mostly white private school, how her uncle, a police officer himself, responds. How the community holds protests, demonstrations, and riots. How trauma fueled by hate leads inevitably to anger. 

Aside from the gorgeous writing that pulled me in from the first page, and the wholly relatable characters, the book is rich with themes surrounding racism, justice, Black power, the struggle many Black folks face between wanting to improve the neighborhoods they come from and wanting to protect their children from the violence brought on by intergenerational poverty and trauma. Most compelling to me, and most relevant as I’ve watched the rage of the oppressed erupt in literal fires all over the country, is the phrase the title alludes to, which was coined by Tupac: The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody (THUG LIFE). 

Starr learns this phrase from her friend Khalil just before he is shot, and as she goes through the process of being interviewed by the police, dealing with the media, and taking in the responses of both her school and neighborhood communities, Starr’s understanding of the phrase shifts and deepens. She discusses  the idea with her father again toward the end of the story, which gives us a window into how her experiences have changed her.

As discussions around current events mount about rioting and looting, about the “right way” and the “wrong way” to protest, this phrase runs on a loop through my head. The hate you give little infants fucks everybody. Whether or not this response is right is a moot point, because whether it is right or wrong, it is inevitable. The desire to yell and scream and rage against an oppressor is a normal human response to being constantly repressed and oppressed. Right or wrong, this is the human body’s response to living in constant fear of being harmed by the people who are supposed to keep you safe. 

The trauma of oppression harms the oppressed in infinite ways, but oppressors are fools to believe it does not harm them too. We can all agree that what is happening in our streets is not ideal. We want folks to be safe, to not be subjected to murder at the hands of police, or to beatings, tear gas, rubber bullets, and being run down by those who profess to want to protect them. We want folks to be able to provide for their families with their businesses intact, but we are reaping what we have sown. We are seeing the results of the ways white supremacy and white power structures have harmed every single one of us, most especially Black people and communities. The hate we have given little infants is fucking everybody. White folks who have built and continue sustaining these systems might sit in their arm chairs writing Facebook posts about whether or not these riots are right, but in so doing they are at least complicit in sustaining these systems that, in the end, fuck everybody. In all of their tears and cries of “all lives matter” they will ultimately be on the wrong side of history, fighting against the best interest of Black folks and all of us. 

Black rage and Black tears are holy. They are an important signal that things are not right, and humans are wired to  find ways to meet their needs. We are endowed by our creators with powerful emotions that, when felt and honored, can affect big and small changes in the hearts of others, in our social contracts, in the ways governments function, and in the way laws are applied and enforced. We are witnessing the holy power of human emotion on a large scale.

The Hate U Give zooms in close on these larger truths. It shows them to us in the way Starr grapples with racism among her friendships at school, as she stands up to privileged white kids who profane the name of Khalil by using his death as an excuse to cut class, as she finds out who her truest friends are, whether they be white, Black, or other races. 

I fell in love with Starr and her family almost instantly. The way her parents love and support their children healed both parent and child parts of me. They are by no means perfect, and Starr pushes back against them often, but it is a powerful example of how parents can lead their children through even the most horrifying challenges as gentle guides helping  children find their way, rather than dictators trying to mold them into something they are not. 

This novel contains graphic violence and discusses things like drug trafficking, gang activity, and teen sex (though there are no explicit sex scenes). It also contains some light swearing including the F word. While my own children aren’t old enough for this book yet, it would be a wonderful novel to read with older teens, maybe fourteen or fifteen and older, and discuss the ideas they find there. There is nothing more powerful than modeling our own thought processes. Having a child witness and participate in discussions wherein either we challenge our previously held ideas and center the experiences of others who are not like us (for non-Black parents & children in this case), or use texts to help us process our & their experiences (for Black parents & children) is a powerful way to teach them how to grapple with these difficult subjects themselves. This could potentially be a powerful way to help Black teens process feelings about the ways they are treated and the struggles they face in our current climate. This will come with a big trigger warning for any teens who have dealt with the death of a close friend, witnessed gun violence first hand, or lives with the trauma of having dark skin in a world built to keep them down. 

I read the audiobook read by Bahni Turpin, and the voice work is as artful as the writing. There is a movie made in 2018 based on the film, which I have not seen. Watching it together might be a good way to finish off a reading of the novel with a book club or your teen/young adult children.

This book is a timely reminder of the sacred nature of rage against oppressive systems and forces. Non-Black folks need to be armed with all of the knowledge and empathy we can muster as we stand with the Black community to push for needed change moving forward.

Book Review: A Brief Theological Introduction to 1 Nephi, by Joseph Spencer

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It’s a pleasure to read scriptural commentary by someone who thinks critically while simultaneously loving holy text. Joseph Spencer’s excellent companion to 1 Nephi fills both these categories, offering an abundance of enjoyment for scripture and also tackling some of the harder parts of the book.

The section I enjoyed the most was chapter 6, about the role of women in 1 Nephi. Many Mormon women, including myself, struggle with not only the absence of female voices in the Book of Mormon, but also how men treat women. The Nephites, supposedly the mostly-heroes of the book, often seem to have serious issues with women. Spencer willingly enters into the problem without trying to smooth it away, writing, “The Book of Mormon undeniably presents a depressing picture of the situation for Nephite women” (pg. 104) and “It apparently would never occur to Nephi to set women at the heart of the narrative” (pg. 105). Yet without brushing away the problem, Spencer’s careful reading offers some compelling arguments about what the text says about sexism. 

First, Spencer compares the stories of Sariah criticizing Lehi and the daughters of Ishmael mourning their father, two moments of female resistance in the early chapters of the books. By comparing and contrasting the narratives, Spencer suggests that the split between Nephites and Lamanites made the situation for women worse and that the generational transition from Lehi to Nephi actually prompted a regression for women’s status. In this section, I was pleased that Spencer noticed how Laman, Lemuel, and Nephi all use their wives’ experiences to add evidence to their own conflicts rather than actually giving voice to the women involved. For example, when the brothers discuss the suffering of the women giving birth in the wilderness, all of them seem more interested in proving a point than in improving the lives of the women involved. “When men usurp female-male conflict and transform it into male-male conflict, there’s no expression of deeper faith for the women in the company, just as there’s no hint at sharing real commitment to God. There will be further talk of the women’s suffering but only as it’s weaponized by men in conflict with other men” (pg. 113).

My only criticism of this volume is that I would have liked to see Spencer tackle Nephi’s rage and the problematic things he says about his brothers and their descendants. While the worst of Nephi’s words come in 2 Nephi (2 Nephi 5), chapter 12 of 1 Nephi includes enough of these ideas–which have been used to justify racism in LDS doctrine and policies–that a reference to them is warranted. Spencer’s clear-eyed and thoughtful reflections could add a great deal to the discourse on those hard sections.

After this first volume, I look forward to reading the forthcoming volumes about the Book of Mormon from the Maxwell Institute. This is the kind of work that will get readers thinking in new ways about text they’ve read many times before.

At the Crossroads of Being Black and LDS

 

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Guest post by Dumdi Baribe Wallentine

I remember when I made a Facebook post commenting about how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ leadership lacked diversity, especially for it being a global church. The post was made about three years ago and slowly I believe it’s improving. At the time I made that comment, a former friend’s sister commented on the post and asked me if I even had a testimony of the gospel. I didn’t have a clue as to what that had to do with me pointing out that global church leadership should be a bit more diverse and representative of its members. As Facebook is known to go, a simple post turns into a heated debate, sometimes filled with attacks of the original poster’s faith or character more than the actual topic being posted about.

To this day I still have friends who have long left the LDS church expressing to me how they don’t know how I do it, stay in the LDS faith that is.

I feel as though when you’re Nigerian, like I am, you grow up with some sort of religious belief. It’s basically an integral part of how your parents raise you. When you become an adult you can either stay with the faith or find something else to believe in, but oftentimes you end up still believing in a higher power even if it is not in the same church your parents took you to when you were a child.

I think that when you grow up with so little to your name you tend to cling on to things that give you hope, something to look forward to the next day. Personally, I can easily see why believing in a higher power provides meaning for some people. Sometimes that belief is all that a person has, especially a person that is trying to survive in a world that doesn’t want them to. And to be honest, being Black in America can at times feel this way – that you’re living in a world where some people don’t want to see you thrive or even breathe.

When I became brave enough to speak up regarding the experiences I encountered with old white LDS roommates, college buddies, and former mission companions, I noticed that the ones I called my friends would slowly disappear or fight to dismiss and excuse away the racism that I had faced, even when there were witnesses there.

“How did you know they were being racist?”-a former college friend.

“Stop talking like that, you’re not from the ghetto!” – a former mission companion.

“I’m NOT going to be made to feel threatened in my own apartment!” – a former roommate in the middle of an argument she initiated.

“When black girls wear weaves it just looks like they’re trying to be white.” – a former co-worker.

And it goes on and on. All from white LDS women. Some of them had the decency to just disappear without a word as to why after years of friendship.

I hold no anger nor animosity towards the aforementioned women. I have only learned not to trust white women so quickly and to put some sort of guard up to protect myself. I don’t think people realize how cutting those comments are and how it basically tells a Black woman that her very presence is threatening to them, how the very skin they are in offends them.

At the crossroads of being Black and LDS is an imperfect woman that has a deep-rooted belief in God and His Son Jesus Christ and His Gospel. A human being. A daughter of God who wants to be able to walk in a world that preaches everyone to be a child of God and wholeheartedly means it. Because if I am a child of God, like it is preached in the LDS faith, then that means my life matters, too.