Tuesday, August 19, 2014

When I wasn't who the police thought I was...

Right now, I am struggling with just how disturbing the news is. I hear about what is happening in Iraq and Syria at the hands of the Islamic State, and I want to vomit. Then I read the latest new coming out of Ferguson, Missouri, and I want to cry at the reality of race in America.

I don't really know how we're supposed to respond to news of hate, but I do believe, as a follower of Christ--as one who sees reconciliation as quite central to the message of Christ--silence is not an option.

But it's also difficult.

Namely, because I don't live in America, Iraq, or Syria. Moreover, when speaking of America, I am a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Southern girl. Sometimes I feel even ashamed to speak. I don't know how to speak of racial profiling, because I've never experienced anything but the privilege of favorable profiling. Likewise, I feel stunted in my ability to discuss the frustration, anger, and desperation that we see now exploding in Ferguson.

I'm quite simply the wrong person.

Yet as my Facebook wall fires up with mostly compassionate responses toward the residents of Ferguson, there are a few others--mostly from people with whom I grew up--posting angrily. White people. Angry. And it scares me.

Race is complicated, and white people really have few opportunities to experience the full dimensions of its ever-present existence in daily decision making.

There has lately been an old memory that has haunted me a great deal. It's actually a story I usually enjoy telling, and everyone gets a good laugh, but right now it doesn't feel funny.

You see, a few years back, I lived in southern Louisiana, and I frequently made the 14 hour drive from North Carolina (where my parents lived) to my home in Louisiana in a single day. That allowed me more family time, and I was able to get the drive done with all at once.

However, there was a risk to it, because, at that time, there was no available bridge across the Mississippi to the small parish (Louisiana word for "county") where I lived. On the western side of our little segment of the Mississippi was New Roads, my home at the time, and on the eastern side was the much wealthier (and whiter) town of St. Francisville. This meant that at the very end of my drive, I was required to take a ferry from St. Francisville to New Roads. The risk was not leaving early enough and missing the last ferry for the night.

Well, one particular holiday return, I apparently had allowed time to slip by a little too much, and as my car wound through St. Francisville, just miles from my home, I had the heart-sickening realization, I might not make it.

I did what anyone would do: I sped up. Not a lot. But enough. About 10 miles over the speed limit.

I should add that at this point the road I was on could only be going in one direction. In just a couple more miles, it would dead-end at the ferry stop. There was absolutely no other place I could be going. From wealthy St. Francisville. To New Roads.

That was when the lights began to flash behind my car. Shoot, as I glanced ahead, I noticed the speed limit had dropped 10 more miles. My first time ever to be pulled by a cop had to be when I most desperately needed to rush!

I was not afraid, naturally, only frustrated. I did not even notice or pay attention to the fact that I was in a darkened area, where there would be no witnesses to whatever occurred. It did not even strike me as an important detail.

Then as I turned off my car's engine and pushed the break in, I had my first fright.

The police's lights continued blinking and shining, and out of the microphone of the car, I heard the policeman's voice boom, "Will the driver of the car, please, exit the vehicle with the hands in the air!"

Mind you, though I had never been pulled by a police officer before, I had been in the car many times before, and I was well aware I was not being handled normally.

That's when I first realized how dark it was and how the nearest businesses weren't necessarily close enough to be paying any attention. That's when my heart skipped a beat, and I wondered what this officer's intentions were. The officer's orders boomed again. That's when I considered restarting my car and going until I found a well-lit place where others could witness the transaction. But I was also frightened that this man would assume it was a chase.

I was terrified, when I finally complied. I stepped out of the car with my hands in the air, as the officer got out of his car, his hand on his holster.

And then he saw me.

The elderly officer broke into a smile, allowed me to get back into my car to find my documents, and asked me how I was doing. He then quite gently asked me if I had noticed I was going above the speed limit.

I was shaking and terrified. I couldn't transition to his friendly demeanor quite so fast.

The man felt bad for me, when he realized I was trying to catch the ferry so that I could teach in the morning and actually told me to get going again and hurry up.

That was all. No ticket. Nothing.

I was speeding.

But I didn't look like the person rushing to New Roads that he thought I would be. Appearances was all it took to reassure him.

I did, in fact, miss the ferry and spent the night in St. Francisville, rising quite early to cross on the ferry the next morning and meet my students at the school.

Usually when I tell this story, using just the right intonation and a wave of my left eyebrow, everyone cracks up at the point where the officer saw me. I mean, I'm this small little blonde-haired teacher with my hands in the air. It is funny.

Except when it's not.

What if I had been someone else? A different teacher? What if I looked different?

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the officer would have shot me, but... The problem with life is that it's full of split-instant decisions, in which quick observations, inform us, accurately or inaccurately, what situation we're in. In my case, before he saw my face, where I was coming from and where I was headed in had frightened him enough to demand I exit my car with my hands in the air. My face, however, quickly cleared me of guilt. What if it had not?

I've always wondered about that. I know it would not have gone so easily that evening.

Right now, this memory is fresh as I look at the frustration and fear exploding out of Ferguson. I can never know what it feels like to fear police daily, because my face has always exempted me from any extra scrutiny by police. I can't know, but I also can't accept how very ignorant to this sort of treatment white Americans sometimes are. Yes, we can't really know, but we can see bits and pieces of it upon occasion, and it ought to be enough to horrify us and inspire only the deepest compassion and a desire to work to see things change. And it must inform our understanding of what is happening.

There's a great article on The Guardian about what's happening in Ferguson and riots in general that I recommend reading: Check it out. Just don't be silent. And think about that anger.


Saturday, August 16, 2014

That time I balanced a cake while sitting side saddle

Last night around midnight, I had one of those "Aha" moments, where I thought to myself, "I think I can possibly write about my current ordinariness." I also thought to myself, this makes me that Westerner--who think it's funny to write about ordinary events. Okay, forgive me.

You see, I was at that moment sitting side-saddle on the back of a motorbike that my husband was driving, slipping and sliding over a muddy path, with my weekend bag, my purse, and a carrot cake (which I am quite proud of having made) on my lap--that is without tupperware... In fact, the carrot cake was still on its ceramic dish, with a plastic bowl over it and a grocery bag wrapped around the whole thing. Then there was the enormous bag of blankets and linens, as well as the computer bag, between my husband's feet, which he balanced while driving, in addition to the bananas and grapes in the front basket. We relatively comfortably slid our way through the muddy path and under frighteningly low electrical lines, made our way to the church, and were in bed not too far after midnight.

I am writing about it now, because until the moment when I thought of all of you, who might read this, it had not occurred to me that it was all that strange of an event. I mean, there was the part about it being midnight, and our evening had not exactly been planned this way. Certainly, it's not how every Friday night goes. So, in all those ways it was unusual, but it felt only normally unusual--not particularly daring or the least absurd... until I thought of you all.

The lead up to that moment was that we were helping a young woman in the church, who had been renovating her father's house. She'd asked us to pick up a truckload of furniture for her on our way up to the village yesterday. We did, little knowing that our truck would, several hours later, get stuck on the road to her house. This led to an amusing burst of help from rather tipsy neighbors and family (and thankfully some sober help as well), who helped carry all the quite heavy furniture to her house. Meanwhile, without thinking twice about it really, we left the truck in the road and traded it for the young woman's motorbike to get home. We emptied the truck of all the belongings we'd need, piled them high on ourselves/the motorbike and took off back to the church. Naturally, I was still in my meticulate professional dress, which I had worn in the morning to teach--hence the sitting side saddle.

My approach might easily have been one of annoyance, but I really have all of you to thank for changing that. When I thought of you all, I just suddenly felt like such a dare devil on an adventure that I positively wanted to laugh at the absurd image of my husband and me on that bike, with all that stuff, in that midst of that midnight, at that time of night! So thank you for transforming such an ordinary moment into one of excitement and intrigue! It is therefore in honor of you and out of gratitude that I have written this entirely frivolous blog post. Hopefully you smiled at the mental image anyway.

Now, let's hope we get the truck out!

Saturday, August 09, 2014

When violence takes someone...

These days I am in a quiet (if busy) phase of life. I no longer live in an IDP (internally displaced persons) camp and have to face the realities of displaced peoples daily. I no longer teach in a center for migrant workers, who face daily discrimination and insecurity. I no longer listen weekly to the tales of horror coming out of Arakhan State and the violence in Kachin and Shan States. (Go here to be educated on those realities.)

Instead, I spend my time teaching an adorable group of 25 second graders, mastering the art of sourdough bread-making (go ahead and ask me about wild yeast and my absolute excitement over this kind of bread making!), looking up recipes for fermenting vegetables, and falling in love with my husband more everyday. Like I said, it's kind of quiet. Maybe old-fashioned even. Rather restful. And definitely quite normal, for a girl whose adult life has been usually led in rather not-so-normal locations.

I think it's given this backdrop of not being surrounded by violent situations anymore that I am coming to process the violent deaths of two different friends.

[NOTE: I am not including my friends' names, as there will be already, unfortunately, far too many Google results regarding their deaths now, instead of their lives.]

Both friends are individuals with whom I had lost contact after a few years, and neither had ever been in my closest circle of friends, yet a few good conversations sealed the label "friend" years ago. One was a good friend for a summer during Teach for America's training institute, but when we were placed in distant schools, that friendship never really progressed further. The other I spent a year living and working with in high school as a Page for Congress. That's enough for a connection. Within a short time of each other, the first was murdered by her boyfriend, and the second committed suicide.

Both were far, far too young to die.

There will probably never be any great words of wisdom that come of out of such violence (I learned that years ago when first finding myself immersed in the pain of an IDP camp), and so this post is not about that. What it is about is connecting.

Upon reflection on the sudden loss of these two beautiful individuals, I've realized there are many people that I respect, cherish, and love, with whom I no longer connect regularly, due to distance and life circumstances. There are people I would call even close friends, with whom I rarely speak anymore. High school friends. College friends. Friends of other life circumstances.

So, friends of so many different life phases, here's what I want to say to you: I cherish you.

I may not always know how or when to reach out to you, and I know that a long-distance friend from a past life is not the same as a friend in your current here-and-now, but I do cherish you.

Moreover, I respect you. You became my friend, because I respect who you are--the person God created you to be.

We live in a violent world, where we are not guaranteed a tomorrow ever. Random violence, sickness, or accidents could take any one of us today. Yet for both of my friends, who have now left this world as very young women, as far as I understand, the circumstances that led to their deaths were not new. In light of this, all I can think to ask right now, friends, is that you not give up--that you refuse to see yourself as trapped in any situation. You're not stuck, and if you're struggling right now, there's more to this great, big world than pain. Take the steps, any steps, to get help and move beyond the painful circumstances that can trap you.

Meanwhile, let's make sure we love each other thoroughly. We've got today to give out every drop of love possible. I'm going to attempt that, and meanwhile, I'm also writing some of those dear friends that I haven't heard from in a while. A little encouragement goes a long ways during the dark nights of our souls.