Racism has America by the throat. It's so bad that President Barack Obama, speaking during a memorial for five slain Dallas police officers, can't even mention people's justified outrage over racially linked killings without getting a barrage of criticism for daring to mention the reality.
This week my husband and I represented our United Methodist congregation at Dallas meeting for clergy wanting to move beyond "thoughts and prayers" to engage racism in our community. (We substituted for our pastor, who was on vacation). After two hours of discussion, it dawned on me that there's a simple first step to crossing the racial, cultural and economic barriers that are contributing to rampant racism.
So here's my solution: Get on the bus!
John Astle and I began riding the Dallas Area Rapid Transit about 15 years ago as a way to reduce our carbon footprint and avoid the snarl of Dallas traffic, especially when attending large downtown events. Then, after our economic circumstances took a nosedive from the 2008 Great Recession, public transportation became a necessity.
Riding the bus offers one of the quickest ways I know for white folks to get out of their comfort zones and into the world experienced every day by our neighbors of color, our neighbors with limited financial means, our neighbors with disabilities, and more.
You can meet some pretty interesting people on the bus. Once years ago we rode home with Elvis. He might have been an poor man's Elvis impersonator from a low-rent downtown bar, but he stayed in character the whole way home. We got a free show.
Photo Courtesy of TriMet
Portland Bus
In May we took the bus to get to the 2016 General Conference in Portland, Ore. We booked into an outlying motel to save on expenses, and the motel was around the corner from the No. 6 bus route, which went right down to the Oregon Convention Center. Once again, we wanted to avoid traffic snarl, save some money, and do our part to save the planet.
We met all kinds of people on the No. 6 bus. There were lots of high schoolers and university students. There were families with children, mothers with children, and one man who held so tightly onto a little girl's arm that I was afraid he'd leave a bruise on her. There were more than a few elderly folks, who get "honored citizen" passes on the Portland transit system. There were lots of folks with disabilities using canes, walkers and wheelchairs. One of them, a military veteran, upon learning that we were in town for a church convention, asked me what United Methodists believe. He seemed highly skeptical when I told him that we believe that God loves him no matter what. He got off the bus before we could carry our conversation farther.
There were "characters," too. One woman tried to buy the rings off my fingers for $5. A man who got on at one stop smelled like a toilet. And then there was Little Leon.
Little Leon was an African-American man who clearly had mental health problems and who always carried a can of beer in a brown paper bag. He wore the same black outfit each day that we saw him and at least once he was loudly obnoxious. All the bus drivers on Route 6 knew who he was.
On our last trip back to the motel from the conference center, Leon asked if he could sit beside me. The bus wasn't crowded and he easily could have sat elsewhere, but for some reason he wanted my company. I smiled and told him of course he could sit next to me. For the next five miles Leon tried to start a romantic engagement with me, calling me Queen and praising my smile. He backed off when he found out that my husband was seated next to me, but he never stopped talking, sometimes incoherently, and I tried to listen and understand him as best I could. When John and I got up to leave, Leon asked to hug me, and I did, telling him to take care of himself.
I know that my encounters with the people on Bus 6 were not the stuff of lasting relationships. Nonetheless there was a dignity and grace to these brief moments. They remain in my memory as moments when two humans acknowledged one another's dignity and worth, and when I, as a believer, could see the image of God in someone else.
In my view, the opportunity to have such crossover encounters makes riding the bus into a sacrament – an act that points toward loving God and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. Lord knows how much we need that right now.
Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor & Founder of United Methodist Insight.