In the last few weeks, especially since the Charleston Massacre, I've seen a number of white people asking the question, "What should I do?" I've noticed this question has been asked on a personal note, but more and more I am seeing it asked on behalf of others. Like "Hey I know some white people who get it, and they are itching to do something but I am not sure what to tell them. Help!?" Have you seen this, too? After witnessing this on a few occasions, there a couple of potential pitfalls I would like to address: 

1. The reading and learning never ever ends. There seems to be this thought process that one can read a few books, and then once those books have been read, its time for the "real" work to begin. Well, friends, reading and learning is a big part of the work. Its part of having your worldview shaken, relearning American (maybe even world) history. Its being able to see and recite the connections from yesterday to today. The reading and learning never stops because there is always more. More ways to be challenged. More stories to hear. More studies to take note of. More myths to bust. A commitment to learning is necessary for this work. If you all could see my nightstand... covered in books all the time. My wishlist on Amazon is ridiculous. Because learning is work and we must give ourselves wholeheartedly to (un)learning what we thought we knew and learning news of being. 

2. Be aware of the motivations/assumptions behind that question. Sometimes the "tell me what to do" demand smells like the white savior complex (insert stinky face). You see, I sometimes wonder if white people read and listen to stories about racial injustice and believe that we are the ones who need to be saved. The system of racial oppression is killing us in America, but know it is you who needs to be saved from participation in the system. Does that make sense? The system continues to operate because white people refuse to see how they are perpetuating the system, are active participants in the system, have been reared in the system, are protective of the system, are beneficiaries of the system, and consequently destroy your own soul and our lives. Systems of oppression lead to death, and too often its a black or brown body being buried. The way we get saved isn't by your riding in on a white horse and doing something for me... its by recognizing that you have supported this system and choosing to save yourself (your friends, family, church and community) from white supremacy. You can go to all the protests and rallies, you can post all good things on social media, but if you are not actively saving yourself from white supremacy, you are still a danger to me. As you begin to recognize white supremacy in yourself, you will notice it in the systems, structures, actions and reactions in the world around you. At that point you can challenge it with me, because you can no longer ignore its presence. 

3. Don't assume there is only one answer. This is an extraordinarily hard question to answer if you are not asking someone you know personally. Tossing this question out into social media seems to me a strange practice. I understand asking for resources, wanting to know about events, looking for essays and answers to specific questions. But it seems to me that I would have to be pretty magical to be able to answer how you personally should start participating in racial justice. I think it comes from the subconscious assumption that there is a secret answer to this question that only people of color possess. I have bad news: doesn't exist. But this is also good news. It means that you can use your gifts, skills, and talents to work right where you are. If you are an artist- use your art. If you have a gift for organizing, help organize. If you are a pastor, start preaching. If you are small group leader, start teaching. If you are a teacher, rethink the curriculum. If you are a nurse or doctor, take a look at the system in which you work- who is being helped? Who isn't? Why? Think about what you are passionate about. Are there racial inequalities that you have been ignoring? Or if God is awakening you to new issues- like criminal justice- consider getting connected to a local organization working on that very issue. There are many books dedicated to help us understand the work of racial justice and reconciliation. There are concrete steps we should take as part of this work (i.e. learning and reading), but I want you to do the work wherever God has called you to be. 

4. Be gentle. I know it may seem like all people of color should jump up and down and celebrate when white people "get it" and are ready to "get to work". But for a moment just pause. Consider how long it took or how much it took to get you on board. I think its great that following the Charleston Massacre doing nothing is no longer an option for you, but consider how that feels to black people. We have been shouting about racism non-stop for a solid year and it took 9 lives shot down in a Church to convince you to be active? That sucks. Glad you are here. I want you to get to work. But can we acknowledge that sucks? Additionally, be gentle in giving people of color time to grieve if a major tragedy was your impetus for change. In those moments we need to recover. We dont want to be teachers, guides, role models, etc. We want to grieve. We will get back to you, but be gentle with us. Recognize that we are not hardwired to be teachers, like little robotic armies waiting for our next pupil. We feel. We cry. We mourn. We need time. 

So, in closing, wanting to do something is good. We want you to get involved. Just be mindful of the ways you ask.    

A letter to my sisters: 

My very first airplane flight was when I was a small child. I was the flower girl in my aunt and uncles wedding, but we lived on opposite sides of the country. So my family packed up a little bag of entertainment for me to survive our plane ride. All I remember about that flight is playing with paper dolls. Do you all remember them? The bodies were essentially cardboard cutouts. The clothes covered the front of the body by folding the small tabs around the edges. For much of the flight my paper dolls tried on various dresses, shorts, hats, even sunglasses. I could dress her in casual clothes or I could make her truly fancy. Moment by moment, I was deciding who she was and I was engrossed in my own imagination. 

When I first started working towards racial justice and reconciliation, I had a really bad habit of making myself into a paper doll. For years I would walk into a white space let the room dictate whether I should be casual or fancy, easy going or passionate, outspoken or quiet. I allowed people to tell me who I am, but more devastating, I let them tell me who I am not. 

Not multifaceted. 

Not a leader. 

Not playful. 

Not present. 

Not effective. 

Not needed. 

In my desire to be a change agent, I lost myself. The weight of the paper dresses and hats and sunglasses became too much. They became too much when I realized that I am nobody's blank slate. I am fully human and fully alive. I am not perfect. I am not finished growing. But my body does not exist for the whims of others. 

Ever since the Charleston Massacre, I have been trying to figure out what to say to my sisters. Is there anything left to say? We watched Dajerria's body suffer the trauma of unregulated power. We pushed back against Dolezal's stories while so many people denied, minimized or erased our own complicated narratives of life in a black female body. We mourned 6 women shot to death in their church by a white male claiming to be concerned about white women being raped. And this was just the month of June. 

Most days we must wake up and reject the simple, ill-fitting, paper-thin narratives of who we are and who we should be. We live in a world where we must convince others that our stories matter, that our bodies are traumatized, that our voices are needed, that we are brilliant 

vulnerable

goofy 

gifted 

spiritual 

inquisitive 

curious 

real. 

We are real. We are real people with hopes and dreams. There are places we want to visit. There are people we want to meet. There are many different ways we wish to leave out mark on the world. We are unique. Contrary to popular belief we each carry our own personality, our own way of engaging culture, our own histories, our own styles, our own interests. We are not impervious to those around us. We feel pain, many of us deeply. We know disappointment. We are intimately familiar with anger and numbness and passion and joy. We are messy. I breathe our culture in, and out again into the world transformed.  

You, my sister, are no one's paper doll. 

Your body is worthy of care. Your body is worthy of care.  Your body is worthy of care. Your feelings are valid, your worth immeasurable, your legacy is still being written. 

I know this cruel and dangerous world would have you believe differently. It would have you believe that you are wrong. Not that what you think is wrong, or what you believe is wrong, but that you are wrong: your body, language, culture, knowing. We, together, must reject this message. Your body is strong but worthy of gentleness. Your language is beautiful and complete, your culture is vibrant and rooted, your knowing is deep and vast. 

I know these words do not save you from pain, but I hope they help you through it. I know these words dont take away the fear, but I hope they inspire courage to keep being yourself. I know these words dont fix it, but I hope they offer just a glimpse of healing. I know these words aren't wide enough to cover all the places where it hurts, but I hope your wounds are safe here. 

I hope your wounds are safe here. 

-Austin 

On Saturday morning we were schedule to have our third chat on Radical Reconciliation. But I have to be honest. I am not in a place to talk about reconciliation in any authentic way. The unfolding, unending nightmare of racial injustice and hatred is quite frankly overwhelming in this moment. 

But rather than cancel altogether, our friend, Kelley, had a great idea. Lets instead come together to lament. You can use prayers or poetry, Scripture or your own words. Just use #WeLament at the end of each post so we can all see the posts. Feel free to post all weekend long. 

This is, of course, only practice for what I hope we will all being doing in our community spaces. This is not a substitute for the power of lamentation in real life, but I hope it helps to practice in this space. 

We will figure out how and when to return to our book chat, but for now, we lament. 

I need to open by asking for grace for the words I am typing now. I need grace because I am not super human or super woman. On Wednesday night I was laying in bed, finally getting over a cold. I was about to turn on the Golden Girls as I fell asleep when I decided to check my phone one more time. When I opened it, I saw immediately Chris Hayes describe a shooting in a black church in 140 characters. I have been through a range of emotions since that moment- grief, rage, frustration, numbness. I have wept and pounded on tables. Much of my emotional journey is all over twitter where I generally don’t hold back my humanity. I say all this to drive home the point that I am human, with deep feelings and emotions over what has transpired. I do not feel “strong”. I don’t feel “passionate”. I feel grossly, overwhelmingly human. But I don’t know what else to do besides write. I hope that my words will be helpful to someone, but please know, they just might be more for me to make sense of the world, than to change it.

I’ll start with a confession. Last night when I went to bed, I just knew by the time I woke up we would know who the shooter was and that he would be apprehended. I couldn’t believe it when I discovered the shooter was still at large. However, within just a few minutes new reports started pouring in that the suspected shooter had been captured. As various officials were interviewed there was a resounding theme. “Safety has been restored.”

“Our community can now come together.”

“Now the healing process can begin.”

“The threat is now over.”

Though I understand what these officials meant. I want to say that safety has not been restored. I am glad the suspect is in custody. I really am. I am glad for the country, but I am mostly glad for the community of Charleston and anyone that was afraid their home, church, community center or neighborhood might be another target. But my gratefulness does not extend far enough to create any sense of safety. For the next few weeks, maybe even months, black churchgoers will not feel safe because we know the threat is not over.

There have been far too many mass shootings in America. I still remember watching columbine and Virginia Tech unfold on the news screen. More recently I remember crying over Sandyhook, shock over the movie theater shooting, fear that my own mentor could have been a victim of the shooting at Seattle Pacific University. Those were frightening, awful, gut wrenching moments in their own right. They and many more ripped our hearts out, created trauma for so many families. But this is different.

Though the weapon is the same, gun violence, this is different because the driving force was white supremacy, this act the epitome of racism, the goal to kill black people. The level of terror that black people feel in America at this moment cannot be underestimated. Because when the driving force of such a massacre is the very thing imbedded in the roots of America, thriving on the branches of generation after generation, sitting in the pews unchallenged every Sunday morning in white churches- there is no reason why black Americans should feel safe.

The sin of white supremacy is thriving in this country because white Christians refuse to name it and uproot it, refuse to confess it and dismantle it, refuse to acknowledge it and repent of it, refuse to say the words

“Its in my family”

“Its in my church”

“Its in my soul.”

Every time I write about race, someone white says “just know it isn’t all of us,” believing this will bring me comfort. It is offered as balm, but fails miserably. I would much rather people say, “I see this sin in my own heart, my own life, my own church and I am working to uproot it. I don’t want to be this way, and I will do the work to submit this ugliness before Christ.” That’s what I want to hear. Creating distance from it doesn’t serve me, doesn’t bring me comfort. Because it is in all of us. White supremacy has infected all of us who know America. If I have to deal with the white supremacist notions within myself, than I don’t want to hear about how “its not all of us”. It is. It is all of us who must learn to love blackness as an equal and authentic image of God. 

Some of us are doing that work. Naming that work. Wrestling through that work.

And others are content to let it grow. And I need you to know those are the only two choices. There is no such thing as neutrality. You are either nurturing love or hate. There is no middle ground, no third way, no alternative.

There is this pervasive belief that Christians can simply choose to be tolerant, or polite, or even kind. There is this sense that as long as certain lines aren’t crossed, that you’re okay. As long as you don’t tell the racist joke, as long as you had a really good reason for moving into an all white community, as long as you never say nigger, as long as you do charity work, as long as you go on the mission trip, as long as you never do anything mean- then you’re alright. Not so.

Jesus has two commandments. “...You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind and with all your soul. This is the first and greatest commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt 22:37-39). The second is like it. So loving your neighbor as yourself is like loving God with all your heart and all your mind and all our soul. Love. 1 John 4:20 says this, “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” Cannot.

I need you to know that these two verses fly in the face of the sin if white supremacy and racism. To not uproot white supremacy from the mind, heart and soul is to miss the mark on loving your neighbor as yourself and is hatred toward God. I repeat. The sin of racism is hatred toward God. Racism is hatred toward and denial of blackness as an equal and authentic image of God. Now you can let that live if you want to. You can try to wrap it up so tight that it never leaks out. You can try to bury it so far deep that no one ever knows. You can try to avoid contact so that you never say anything stupid. You can try to cover it up so that no one ever calls you out. You can try to fix on MLK day but let it linger every other day. You can talk about it once a year from the pulpit. You can remain silent and never speak of it at all. Those are all options. But it allows hate to live.

Those verses do not say:

Just tolerate one another.

Just be nice to each other.

Just don’t say anything stupid.

Just go volunteer.

Just take the mission trip.

Just don’t be rude.

Just give them some money.

Just build a center.

Just attend a multicultural church.

Just make sure you have one black friend,

Black family member

Black child

God demands love. Love toward God. Love toward humanity.

This love is a decision, and too many Christians have made their choice by simply refusing to acknowledge the power, the depths, the reality of white supremacy in America.

This shooter took white supremacy to its only logical conclusion- death. Now you might never shoot anyone, or plant bombs, or brutalize anyone. That’s entirely possible, but is that really your threshold, your standard for determining the health of your heart, mind and soul? My life might depend on whether or not you, your family, your church are willing to uproot racism and nurture love or instead continue to let the same evil that compelled this shooter to pull the trigger, to live on in your soul.

I hope you will choose love today and tomorrow and for the rest of your life.

I wrote on twitter that every church in America should be talking about this shooting on Sunday. But you know what? My real fear isn’t that churches will ignore the shooting. My fear is that churches will underestimate it. I fear that it will alter one Sunday’s plans and nothing else. I fear that the words will be reduced to one lone shooter, to one silent moment, to one prayer. I fear that it will change nothing about every Sunday thereafter, that it will inspire nothing of lasting significance, that no one will make a declaration to kick racism out of the pews. My real fear is that this moment will slip by just as so many others have, that white churches will refuse to see their own reflection. Or that they will and simply turn away.

That is the fear of black Americans because white supremacy is deadly. And people who look like me are its victims.

And despite this reality. We are still here. We still speak truth to power. We will mourn and cry and lament and wail. But we also fight. We resist. We refuse to be erased. My words here will be joined with hundreds maybe thousands of other black writers who will declare that we wont lay down, we wont hide, we wont go away quietly. You haven’t heard the last from us. We fight on. 

* this is unedited. and honestly i dont plan to edit it anytime soon. I'll do my best as i notice typos. I hope none are so egregious as to miss my meaning. If you want to tweet and know there is a mistake, feel free to fix it. Its all so raw right now. I need to take my time before re-feeling all these words. thanks to readers who have stuck with me through all of my demanding posts. welcome to new readers. get comfortable because demanding is my new norm.*