[Durham INC] New from the Rev-elution - Jeanne Lucas

Thu May 24 13:01:52 EDT 2012

But you're missing 'my' point.   You're focusing on the fear in a tiny few number of white people.  I understand that you want to help them with their fear.  And believe me, I want to help them with their fear too, and have tried!  You can preach to the choir till the cows come home. But those tiny few number of white folks still fearing you aren't listening. You can repeat this message a thousand times.... and who is sitting behind you?  Listening to every word you say?  Hearing it over and over again?  Little boys.  Little boys who want to be just like you because that's what little boys do.  They want to be just like those they admire.

You preach to the choir.  Wanting desperately to help those tiny few number of white people stop fearing.  Do you mention the vast multitude of white people that don't fear you?  Do you even see us out there?  My grandfather fought, spilled his blood, and abandoned his family for years of his life FOR YOU.  There were white people fighting for YOU during the civil war, civil rights, school merger and little ol' me from podunk Iowa started fighting for YOU when I got here.

Please, please hear me when I say those walking beside you are more than weary of hearing this sermon you are bound to.  You are.... BOUND .... to.

Oh, you're being heard!  Yes, you're being heard.   The white folks walking beside you are hearing, over and over again... and so are the little boys.  And the little boys learn it in preschool, elementary and by the time they're in 3rd grade it's anchored to their soul.

You said in an earlier email, something about white people telling you they're tired of this story and they wish you'd get over it already.  (memory is a problem for me, remember?)    Yeah... I've been walking next to y'all for 18 years and it's getting hard to put up with being ignored and overlooked, as you look for those 2 white people who crossed the street.  Mighty tired of hearing this over and over and over again.  And mighty tired of trying to repair the damaged psyche in the boys who sit in my classes.. knowing they'll go home and hear the same ugly story all over again.

And I ask again... how many white people will it take not crossing the street?

Christine Chamberlain

________________________________
 From: Carl Kenney <revcwkii at hotmail.com>
To: christinebbd at yahoo.com; inc-list at durhaminc.org; inc-list at rtpnet.org 
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 9:07 AM
Subject: RE: [Durham INC] New from the Rev-elution - Jeanne Lucas

You're missing the point. My focus is in helping people understand, not that women cross the street when I approach. I understand why they cross.  It's fear.  My work is about helping people look past all that fear and hate.  Can you hear that? Are you incapable of hearing how race plays games with those operating with good intentions?  My hope was in helping you see the difference between white poverty and race.  One you can remove, the other remains.  No matter how hard you try to avoid it, you never know when it shows up to remind you it's still there.  What is the root of your deep angst?  Why is it so hard for people to talk about race?  Is it too painful to allow a person to share a perspective that exposes more than you are willing to accept?

This is the reason I have decided to hold a book study of Derrick Bell's work "Faces at the Bottom of the Well". The group will be led by me and Tim Tyson at the Center for Documentary Studies.  Bell's book raises interesting points related to race.  It may help for you to attend.   We are working on the details.

________________________________
Date: Wed, 23 May 2012 20:54:08 -0700
From: christinebbd at yahoo.com
Subject: Re: [Durham INC] New from the Rev-elution - Jeanne Lucas
To: revcwkii at hotmail.com; inc-list at durhaminc.org; inc-list at rtpnet.org

And I ask you, Carl, how many white people did not cross the street today? 

How many white people will it take not crossing the street to lift you up?  If it were me, I'd not only lift you up, I'd carry you until you could walk beside me.  But this you ignore, to focus on the 2... 

Christine Chamberlain 

________________________________
 From:  Carl Kenney <revcwkii at hotmail.com>; 
To:  <christinebbd at yahoo.com>;  <inc-list at durhaminc.org>;  <inc-list at rtpnet.org>; 
Subject:  RE: [Durham INC] New from the Rev-elution - Jeanne Lucas 
Sent:  Wed, May 23, 2012 10:49:24 PM 

There is a massive difference between understanding and enabling.  Understanding the difference is critical in this discussion.  There is also a massive difference between overcoming white poverty and getting past racism.  One you can hide and move on with no one knowing your past.  The other follows you, and, when you least expect it, will whack you in the face.  With that being said Christine, let me make a blunt observation.  It's one that you may not be able to understand; however, it's one that has to be made.  It's related to how your comments are heard  It comes across as liberal racism.  It's the type of liberal rhetoric that hinders progress between well intentioned folk like you, and people like me grappling to move the nob in the right direction. How is that, you may ask.

It begins with how many people talk about race.  They do so by denying it is real.  That is done by using their own past and success as evidence that any one can achieve the same.  All it takes is a bunch of hard work and the right attitude. Really? Is that all it takes?  Can you truly assert hat your experience is the same as a black boy who has to overcome how other view him?  Is it proper to assert that all those people want to remain on welfare, and have you considered that most of the people on welfare aren't black?  

The point is this, what does it mean to ally with a person? Does it mean invalidating their journey by pressing your own as proof that it ain't all that difficult in the good ole USA.  In an earlier email I shared my own sad story of trying to make it in Durham.  Despite my vast education and expeirnce, I consistently get overlooked for less qualified people.  Why is that? Is it due to my outspoken ways? I consider that while watching others who share my ways receive calls for work.  Have you considered what happens to a black man who speaks up and fights for the outcast?  Consider those who fight as members of the PA.  Look at where they work.  Consider how much they make, and ask, what makes them so different from that Kenney guy?  Some say, "he doesn't want a job," I've heard that. Really.  Did I say that, or is that a conception based on the way they think about black people in general.  The white peson who is outspoken is viewed in a
 different way.

I use that as an example, not as my personal pity moment.  It's my way of reflecting on the covert ways difference is handled in public space. It happens without your knowing it takes place.  These are things we can't talk about, because once we do we're viewed as radical.  Today two white women walked across the street when they saw me coming.  There were four yesterday.  Today I wore a suit.  A black one with a white shirt.  I watched as they saw me coming.  they paused before radiply running to the other side.  he happens all the time.  Consider how that makes me feel.  They fear me.  Can you say that?  Is that part of the DNA you carry? If not, you can't speak to the build up of having to contend with all that fear.

He's hard to work with.  He's hostile.  He, he, he..there's a long list.  Or, he's too well-known.  We can't take all of that attention.  Really?  that normally is reason for being viewed in a positive way.  What's the difference.  Black men have to fuction in an acceptable way.  he has to prove he fits.  Is that true of everyone? Really? Be honest with yourself.  Is the character of a person construed in the same way as that of black men?  Consider the tretment of Obama.  Is that normal?  Be honest.  Can you really prove that we are walking on the same playing field? If not, there are assumptions that come with white privilege, and, sorry to say, it takes walking in that space to understand what that means.

With that being said, I'm not angry.  I'm faithful.  I keep waiting for people to get their head from out of the sand.

> Date: Wed, 23 May 2012 11:29:09 -0700
> From: christinebbd at yahoo.com
> To: inc-list at durhaminc.org; inc-list at rtpnet.org
> Subject: Re: [Durham INC] New from the Rev-elution - Jeanne Lucas
> 
> "Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the apples in a seed." ~ Unknown 
> 
> Cut open an apple. Count the seeds. Now cut open one of the seeds. How many future apples do you think it contains? The only way to know is to plant it, care for it, and patiently wait for them to arrive. Jesus rocked the religious people of His day with the words, "For the entire Law is fulfilled in keeping this one command, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" Jesus counterbalanced the whole Mosaic Law, containing over 600 ordinances of do's and don'ts, with one simple command to love.*
> 
> Can you imagine the incredible, limitless potential in this one command? If everyone treated all
 people, good and bad, the way they would like to be treated, imagine how many laws would be irrelevant in our country.*
> 
> If, instead of dropping to the lowest common denominator of our neighbors, we each personally raise the bar to where Jesus set it, at "love", imagine how many trees of life would be planted, watered by streams of living water, providing shade and fruit for the whole world to enjoy. 
> 
> Keep reading...
> 
> I'd like to go back to the woman I met at Costco.  In an earlier email, Carl empathized with the woman and said, "I have often felt [unseen]...  It comes with being black.  It happens so often that one is left feeling minimized and overlooked."  
> 
> 
>  I explained how I made allowances for the woman, I understood she felt the need to control her surroundings, etc.  But as I make additional allowances, because I'm
 white, ... is this still love?  If being a white person means I have to make additional allowances for a rude person, merely because they're black... then that isn't love.  This is "enabling".
> 
> Let me empathize with these feelings of yours...Going back to Iowa once again...  It was 98% white.  There is no 'privilege' to being white where I'm from.  Back there you had whites and you had white trash.  That's it.  I was white trash.  Poor.  As a poor, badly clothed, skinny white kid attending a white church filled with parents whose kids weren't, I often felt overlooked and minimized.  I wasn't invited to sleepovers, etc. The parents walked right by me, didn't say 'hey', pulled their kids down the hall faster when I was there.... Sure, I could feel sorry for myself, give myself a label, wear it on my sleeve for the rest of my life,
 because I was beaten down by my parents, ignored by society, etc etc etc. And then I could expect society to make allowances for me because I have a damaged psyche... right?  
> 
> Carl, you said when you were talking about privilege, you didn't mean monetary privilege.  You were talking about the privilege of being white.  And I say no, I have 'privilege' because I earned it.  I overcame my past, it took about 10 years, but I didn't wallow in it, I moved forward. 
> I have a unique privilege... I'm white, came from an extremely poor background, without a cent from welfare.  Welfare is today's slavery.  "Enabling".  I didn't have a family to rely on.  I didn't have the government to rely on.  I don't preach against welfare because I'm white and republican... I preach against welfare because I never had it suck me into it's
 trap.  When you're hungry and alone, with no one to help, you have two choices.  The streets or get a job.  I chose the job.
> 
> At 23, I was too 'stupid' to know any better... I started a business.  I hired people.  I started down the path of the 1% and didn't even know it.  Would I have done this if welfare had sucked me in?
> 
> Today, I think of all the wasted minds, trapped in welfare, and it sickens me, sickens me to the core.  And I can 'love' them til the end of time, but until I stop the enabling... it's really not love, is it?
> 
> 
> Christine Chamberlain 
> 
> 
> *author unknown
> 
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