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March 29 - July 19, 2020
The sacred act of walking together toward justice was usually preceded by a pre-march meeting that began with a prayer service, where preaching, singing, and exhortation prepared the people to move toward the hope they all held.
The end result was that a purportedly Christian nation was forced to view its black citizens as a prototype of the suffering God, absorbing violence into their own bodies without retaliation.
Since I had not yet heard of the scientific theory of complementarity—the ability to hold diametrically opposed ideas or realities within the same conceptual microcosm—my friends and I considered material success and social consciousness to be alternatives that would lead in completely divergent directions.
Some of the pharaohs of the twenty-first century are white, some are people of color. The oppressors of communities of color no longer wear white sheets; instead, they are law enforcers and policy makers.
The assault upon her humanity was complete when she was subjected to one of the first involuntary hysterectomies (also known as a “Mississippi appendectomy”) inflicted on poor rural women in the South.[13]
Her practices spoke to the depth of her contemplative spirit. In the face of catastrophic suffering, Hamer worked, loved, sang, and resisted the powers that be. She was jailed, beaten, and hunted by the enforcers of the social order after registering to vote.
A positive religious faith does not offer an illusion that we shall be exempt from pain and suffering, nor does it imbue us with the idea that life is a drama of unalloyed comfort and untroubled ease. Rather, it instills us with the inner equilibrium needed to face strains, burdens, and fears that inevitably come, and assures us that the universe is trustworthy and God is concerned.[18]
They are still not comfortable with the King who rejected capitalism and used antiwar rhetoric. King is blurred and co-opted in our postmodern era because we have assigned him to a static identity and ironed out the contradictions that are often found in the lives of contemplatives.
King defined agape as “the love of God operating in the human heart.”[20]
I believe that his use of this phrase was a hint about his own contemplative journey. Perhaps the steepest climb on the life journey is toward death. It requires trust that may not have developed during life; it requires relinquishment of attachments. It is an arduous task.
Suffice it to say that Malcolm was killed when he broadened the liberation movement to mainstream Islam and the African nations, and Martin was killed when he broadened the Civil Rights Movement from lunch counter sit-ins to a cross-cultural economic battle for the rights of the poor regardless of color.
The contemplatives who led the movements differed significantly in their spiritual orientations, but each journeyed inward and then returned to the community to share the gifts of the spirit.
The BLMM is a new phase of the continuing communal resistance to the oppression of black people in the United States but was specifically inspired when unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin was killed with a bag of candy and an iced tea in his hands.
The phrase Black Lives Matter appeared for the first time on Facebook in July 2013.[5]
I continue to be surprised at how little Black lives matter. And I will continue that. Stop giving up on black life . . . black people, I love you. I love us. Our lives matter.[6]
One cannot help but wonder why the same battles for justice must be fought by every generation? Certainly, there were enough sacrifices, martyrs, and legislation during the ’60s to ensure justice for all. Yet, the book of Ephesians reminds us that the battle for justice is spiritual, that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities and the rulers of darkness in high places.”[7]
Then, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the towers in New York came down and Islamophobia rose. For African Americans, it was a relief to no longer be the only focus of America’s racial ambivalence, but there was also the realization that racial hatred was not shifting from one group to another; it was spreading like a virus.
Since President Obama’s election could not have been accomplished without the votes of cross sections of the public, the false conclusion of many Americans was that his election signaled the end of racism. This premature conclusion focused on racism as personal action and not the systemic modalities of oppression seeded in every aspect of American society.
Obama took office as opponents in Congress and the nation gave notice of their intention to make him a one-term president.[10]
Although justice seeking is intergenerational, BLM activists identified clear differences between their movement and the CRM.
Moreover, it is almost impossible to assassinate a dream or hinder its fulfillment when it is being actualized in a community rather than through one charismatic leader.
The demands of the BLMM are not new, but the fact that queer women are the founders and inspirational leaders is very different from the male leadership model of the CRM.
The CRM assumed that once the impediments to inclusion were removed by legal mandate, African Americans would take their place as full citizens. The BLMM makes no such assumption.
We breathe together individually and communally to invoke the spiritual strength to withstand and resist injustice. Yet, it is the denial of breath that inspires the contemplative aspects of BLM’s activism. One of the most poignant battle cries of the BLMM is “I can’t breathe.”
In response to the violence, the BLMM disrupts everyday life. They block traffic and refuse to allow “business as usual.” The response is not riot or violence, it is the twenty-first-century version of the sit-in.
Johnson is right. The silence is stunning from the institutionalized churches, white and black; however, it is not surprising that white and black churches are quiet.
Allies are welcomed but are not coddled. It is not the task of the black activist to cajole and convince the white majority. As Jesse Williams noted so eloquently, “It is not the burden of the brutalized to comfort the bystander.”[23]
Accordingly, to accomplish the CRM’s goals, attention had to be paid to appearance, public speaking, and a private life that could withstand public scrutiny. The respectability politics of the black church and CRM had as a primary strategy proving their worthiness to be included and fully accepted as citizens and human beings.
As a social movement, Black Lives Matter can be understood as growing out of a specific opposition to respectability politics by insisting that regardless of any ostensibly non-respectable behavior—their lives matter, and should not be treated with deadly force.[26]
The image of Rosa Parks in white gloves, hat, and suit refusing to leave her seat sent messages to the dominant culture that she did not fit the images in their mythologies about blackness. It unsettled the enforcers of segregation, and by the grace of God she was not harmed.
Today, the most respectable image that young protesters can offer is their authenticity, resolute voices, and pride in community and culture.
The BLMM uses disruption for transformation rather than the predictable politeness and political compromises that were part of the ordinary negotiations of social activists. The BLMM disrupts both friends and foes.[28]
The BLMM focuses on the denial of black humanity by the systems structured to support oppression. And while the legal system is again the object of scrutiny, more often the cry for justice is a direct demand to “stop killing us.”
The decision to live authentically through their actions and rhetoric is not just a strategy to defeat oppression; it is one of the most contemplative responses to injustice available.
King did not have the support of the black church when the CRM began as a small group of resisters. The churches at the time, particularly in the South, lived in a tenuous agreement to keep peace through careful compromises with local leaders.
Like the high priest and Sanhedrin of Jesus time.
What looks like anger is in fact the loving, defiant, and stalwart expression of unfathomable communal grief, and the willingness to stand before the crushing arm of systemic violence fully “woke” and ready for resistance.
The problem with post-racialism is that it is a fantasy, and fantasies make a fragile basis for leadership.
Hope as I am using the term refers to commitment to the strangeness of the future—a future that is uncertain, fragile, carefully negotiated, and often wrenched, strained and disfigured through suffering, yet it is situated in the narrow space of transcendence, like the element of surprise in the narrative, the imagined possibility that brings resolution and redemption to the tragic and ironic, only to be upended and returned again to the struggle.[7]
I see this definition as an exorcising of hope as fairy wishes and magical thinking. Instead, hope becomes a complex mediation of unresolved daily suffering and trust in a “strange” future conjured but not yet arrived.
When I was growing up, no matter what you were going through, elders would tell anxious and fretful folks, “trouble don’t last always.”
Any worship leader in the black church who uses the phrase “weeping may endure for a night” will inevitably hear a call and response from the congregation, “but joy comes in the morning.”
As I note in a recent article, “If they think that they know everything about you, then you are no longer a threat.”[10]
Progressives wanted a bit more combativeness and a lot more emphasis on the liberal agenda. Conservatives mocked his professorial intellectualism as proof of his political ineptness.
Contemplative worship practices evoke the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit and an opportunity to reach toward that which is always slightly beyond human grasp. During these practices, when the veil between this life and others is lifted, the revelation of power forever changes you.
A contemplative political leader nurtured by the black church experience learns to opt for wonder in the midst of cynicism, to exercise patience despite the pressure to be reactive, and to be comfortable with “ambiguity, paradox and mystery.”[16]
For Obama and many justice seekers, the personal is political, and piety is inextricably linked to the call of God in our lives. A contemplative leadership style acknowledges that if we are to resolve our social problems, we will do so within the broader context of history and the vast potential of a future that has not yet come into sight.
There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.[19]
the purpose of knowledge is action; and the object of action is to secure loving relationships.[20]
The contemplative turn is necessary because the illusion of reality that frames our everyday life limits the in-breaking of Spirit and dims discernment.
Contemplative practices enhance human ability to mediate between multiple realities. There is always more than one source of wisdom, and the practice of listening to the “still small voice” provides access to intuition, sedimented wisdom of the elders, and whispers of the Holy Spirit.
