Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
Dear Self,
I know you. I know how much you like being told you’re doing it right.
You’ve read the books. You’ve shown up to the marches. You’ve done work, at least enough of it to feel like you’ve earned a seat at the table where the serious people talk about justice.
And now you’re watching what’s happening in Minneapolis, watching ICE kill people in broad daylight, and something in you is finally, fully awake. You’re horrified. You’re angry.
Good. That’s good.
But I need to talk to you about something that’s going to happen next.
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You’re going to hear from Black people. And, there’s just no getting around this, what they say is going to sting.
They’re going to point out that even those of us who marched for Breonna Taylor, who walked the streets of Louisville and chanted her name, got to go home afterward to neighborhoods where the police weren’t hunting us, where we didn’t have to worry about bullets flying through our doors in the middle of the night.
They’re going to note, with a weariness that sounds like anger, that the violence you’re suddenly seeing has been their climate system for generations, and that even our best moments of showing up have been but brief raids into a country where they’ve had to live their whole lives.
So, here’s what I need you not to do: don’t get defensive.
Before you say anything … well, just don’t say anything. I know the words are already forming: “I’m on your side. Don’t push away your allies just because we came late.”
But that response centers you. It makes their grief about your feelings. It asks them to manage your discomfort while they’re still burying their dead.
Here’s what you may be hearing when Black people express frustration at White folks finally waking up to law enforcement that feels like it has no guardrails.
I suspect it’s more about grief than ingratitude.
When someone who’s been drowning for years watches you finally notice the water, it’s not they’re ungrateful that you showed up asking how you could help. They’re grieving all the years you could have thrown a rope but didn’t.
Black frustration isn’t the opposite of welcome. It’s the sound of people who’ve been shouting into the void finally being heard, only to discover that what broke through wasn’t their voice but another White person’s death.
Black communities have been telling us for years: if you’re going to help solve the problem of racism, White people are going to have to police yourselves.
We can’t keep waiting for exhausted Black people to hold our hands, educate us, and offer reassurances that we’re doing okay. That’s just another form of extraction, asking the wounded to tend to the comfort of those who inflicted the wounds.
So when we hear frustration directed at newly awakened White folks, part of what we’re hearing is this: “We told you what to do. We told you to do your own work. And instead of doing it, you waited until the fire reached your house, and now you want us to teach you how to use a hose.”
And now we’re entering Black History Month.
I need to be honest about how White people like me often treat it. We share the quotes and post the pictures. We celebrate Black excellence and honor the heroes. That’s not wrong.
But Black history isn’t just a highlight reel of triumphs that we celebrate to show ourselves that the work’s already been done. It’s also the history of the impossible odds themselves. It’s the history of White violence, White indifference, and White Christianity providing sufficiently Jesus-y cover for the systems that crushed Black bodies while preaching a gospel of love.
Black History Month, done honestly, isn’t an invitation for White people to feel good about how much we appreciate Black achievement or how virtuous we are for having set aside a month to celebrate it. It’s an invitation to sit with how much Black achievement has had to overcome precisely because of us.
Here’s my embarrassed confession. I’ve wanted to be one of the good guys for as long as I can remember. I’ve wanted the recognition. I’ve wanted my allyship to come with a certificate suitable for framing and an Instagram selfie.
And when I’ve been criticized, when sombody’s pointed out my blind spots or my lateness, I’ve felt the hot flush of defensiveness. “But I’m trying. But I showed up. But I’m not like those other White people. I’m one of the good guys.”
But you know what that is? If I’m completely honest, that’s my ego asking to be exempted from accountability because I’ve managed to stumble across the right words a time or two.
Allyship that wilts under criticism was never solidarity, but merely proximity with strings attached.
So here’s what I think Black criticism is actually asking of us.
It’s not asking us to leave. It’s asking us to stay differently.
To stay without centering our feelings, without demanding that our presence be celebrated. To stay even when we’re called out, and even when we have to sit with the weight of all the years we could’ve done something but didn’t.
Dear self, the call isn’t to stop showing up. It’s to show up without needing a parade and a participation trophy.
Okay. So, we’re late. But we’re here. Let’s act like it matters.
Benediction
May we stay even when staying is uncomfortable.
May we receive correction as love, and offer solidarity without conditions.
And may we trust that the work matters more than our feelings about it. Amen.
Tony Dixon
The Rev. Derek Penwell
The Rev. Derek Penwell is Senior Minister at Douglass Blvd Christian Churchin Louisville, Kentucky. This is a free post from his Substack blog.. Click here to read Substack essay.