Every
afternoon, after finishing up my work at Preston Taylor Ministries, I walk
Dejoria and Juqua home. Dejoria and Juqua are in kindergarten and attend school
at one of the metro schools in west Nashville. Dejoria is covered from head to
toe in brightly colored accessories. She wears her neon, polka dotted socks
pulled up to her knees, which compete for attention with her bejeweled, light
up sneakers, that ignite with light and color each time her foot hits the
pavement. As we walk a few blocks down the sidewalk to her home in the
government housing neighborhood, we talk about the light that is being reflected
on the clouds, the weather and how Juqua walks too slow. Dejoria clasps on to
my hand, the moment that we step foot out of the door of the after school
program and onto the sidewalk, that is typically decorated with litter; we
slowly walk hand in hand sharing stories of the day. Juqua clasping on to my
other hand, he is shy and introverted inside the community of his peers but
loud and expressive as we venture down the concrete path; he tugs at my arm as
soon as we reach a plot of grass on a hill that he can roll down. This moment,
that I have briefly described, is most days, the best part of my day. It is in
this way of being alive that I embrace the words that Neva spoke in Faces At The Bottom Of The Well by
Derrick Bell, “True love knows no boundaries of race and politics.” (76)
Much of the focus of Derrick Bell’s
text can be concluded from these words that he shared, “I’m convinced that
racism is a permanent part of the American landscape.”(92). Preston Taylor
Ministries, where I am employed part-time; I believe was founded on a hope to
provide experiences for young people that will support them while they
negotiate the difficult environment that they were born into. All of the
children that attend the after-school program live in the housing projects in
the same neighborhood and are African American children. I cannot help but
wonder what kinds of difficulties they are meeting each day of their lives.
Most of the children that attend “PTM,” begin the program when they are in
kindergarten and finish when they are leaving the fifth grade. So, many of them
are immersed in this faith-based ministry for six years of their lives, which
is potentially just a brief piece of their childhood. I am a reading
tutor/teacher, so I spend a lot of time with the children in a small group or
one on one setting. I find my mind wondering off, while I am listening to their
sweet voices; will this place mean something to them as they go on to middle
and high school, will this experience mean something to them when someone talks
down to them and degrades them, will these relationships mean something to them
when they go out into the world to battle all the unfathomable circumstances
that their beautiful black skin will grant them? When will they come to the
same realization as Bell; “Despite our best efforts to control or eliminate it,
oppression on the basis of race returns time after time--- in different guises,
but it always returns. That all the formal or aspirational structure in the
world can’t mask the racial reality of the last three centuries.” (97)
Bell strangely meets Erika, with
WCBS, in the middle of nowhere, in the woods. She gives him a dissertation on
the theory of racial realism. A vital theme within her theory was that, lastly,
African Americans, in order to cope with this realization that racism was
permanent are to in “fulfillment,” “despite the lack of linear progress,” find
a “satisfaction in the struggle itself.” (98) Words of wisdom from the white blonde lawyer
toting a gun around in the woods, which we hope does not make a habit of
accidentally shooting bullets at logs in which African American professors are
resting against, when not fighting civil rights issues. How will African
American people realistically find peace in accepting struggle from perpetual
racism? If this is the place that we are going to come to with this social
justice issue, does this mean that we should treat all others in the same way?
As I grip onto the delicate, cold
hands of Dejoria and Juqua as we make our way thru the different colored town
houses, I can not wrap my mind around the idea of accepting racism. I hope that
my time in lecture this week will help me to see a perspective of Bell’s text
that I was unable to see through my white lens. I need more hope and better
answers to offer the life that feeds the pulse of these hands that I hold onto
each day that fill me with immeasurable love and peace that knows no
boundaries. I am interested in exploring how the message of the gospel is
understood in the new light that accepts and acknowledges oppression of the
flesh. What does the faith journey of a people that are perpetually oppressed
and offered worldly hopelessness really look and feel like?
Bibliography
Bell, Derrick. Faces At The Bottom Of The Well: The Permanence of Racism. New York. Basic Books. 1992.
