A message from your de facto spokesperson for all things Black.
A title reluctantly held from Martin Luther King's birthday until the end Black history month.
It happened again.
Someone mentioned something involving negro spirituals and it was as if a record scratch went off in everyone's head. Conversations paused hurriedly and I could feel all the surrounding eyes moving to me, the only Black person within hearing and so therefore the person most feared to offend.
I find myself the “de facto spokesperson for all things Black” starting in the middle of January, around MLK’s birthday until the beginning of March, when Black history month is over. Then everyone born with an XX chromosome takes the “we don't want to offend you by what we just said" baton.
It's exhausting. And makes for a queasy feeling in the belly. It's an awkwardness that has not gone away, only getting more anxious and uncomfortable as time goes on. Our first impulse as human beings is to retreat from such feelings. Who wants to wallow in the knowledge that millions of people have suffered unspeakable injustices so that our modern way of life can exist? Much better to sidestep all that and focus on the game or the weather or what you're planning on having for dinner.
This particular response has gotten more attention than usual lately with school boards and governorships across the country creating laws forbidding teachers from discussing hot-button issues that generate that sickening feeling in the belly whenever you talk about them, be it about race or sexuality or any other protected faction of our society.
That is the cowardly way to deal with all of this. It's easier to live in denial. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. And if you can make it through life without feeling any discomfort, most people would choose that path. Those people would be doing themselves and our nation a great disservice. Pulling away from pain is only a temporary fix. The thing that caused the pain is still there, you're just actively choosing to pretend like it's not. If you get into a car accident and break your leg, denying that it all happened isn't going to make the broken leg go away. It's going to make the broken leg worse.
People are so worried about feeling negative emotions. We train ourselves to actively “rise above" negativity like envy or anger or sadness or rage or jealousy or even hate. That is exactly the wrong choice in that situation. Considering a negative emotion like jealousy, the emotion isn't bad or good. The emotion just is, it exists without judgment or motive. The emotion in self is not the enemy. Trying to suppress the emotion is an act of insanity and quite foolhardy. Imagine you're in a dark room with no lights, making it impossible for you to see anything around you. Think of your emotions as a flashlight, a tool you can use to light your way in an area that otherwise would be impenetrable by sight or vision. The emotions are the problem as much as your flashlight is the problem. Our emotions are not the enemy. The problem is not that you feel the emotions, the problem is what is making you feel the emotions in the first place. Emotions are a guide for us to discover areas within our way of thinking that need care. To rid yourself of emotions, even if it were possible, would be the same as throwing away your flashlight while in pitch blackness, right when you needed it the most.
Keeping that in mind then, we must resist the urge to shy away from the uncomfortable feelings concerning race and sexuality and every other uncomfortable conversation that is out there. Those uncomfortable feelings are only pointing us to an area in society and within ourselves that still require our care. Those uncomfortable feelings are our friends. When we get turned around and don't know which way is up, or if we ever catch ourselves thinking that all the problems in the world are solved, that queasy feeling in your belly is the canary in the coal mine. It can often be a single voice, soft yet relentless, tweeting out a warning to all those brave enough to listen for it.
Be brave enough to listen.
Below, I've shared the script of a presentation I've made these last two years with the Santa Monica Symphony at their annual Martin Luther King celebration. It's about the history of the protest song"We Shall Overcome” and how its rise in importance as a civil rights anthem is inseparably linked to Martin Luther King Jr.:
“We Shall Overcome” owes its origins to many peoples across continents, musical styles, and centuries. Fittingly, it was a protest song belted from a picket line in South Carolina that contained the first snatches of the song we know today, providing a soundtrack of protest way back in 1945.
After an improbable musical journey, on September 2nd, 1957, Pete Seeger plucked OUR tune out of his guitar as he taught an audience its simple beauty. An audience that included one Martin Luther King Jr, who was profoundly moved by the piece. Dr. King would catch himself humming the tune later, unable to shake the song from his mind. “There’s something about that song that haunts you,” he said.
Everywhere King went, the song also went, quickly becoming the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. Easy to learn and sing, it offered clarity of vision as protesters confronted prejudice and hate in the battle for civil rights. They rallied and marched, armed only with this song and hope for better days, and were met in kind with billy clubs, police dogs, firehoses, and death.
Images of the brutality shocked Americans across the nation, forcing them to finally face the conflict rooted in the foundations of this nation: How could America be the land of the free while also denying a people their freedom? Justice only for a few wasn’t justice at all.
While slavery had officially been outlawed for nearly a century at that point, unofficially the practice continued, certainly within the Jim Crow South. And so it wasn’t until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, banning racial segregation in schools, restaurants, theaters, and hotels, and adding the might of the federal government to the cause and the will to actually enforce these laws, that Blacks tasted true civil rights for the first time.
The path to equality is covered in blood and hate but no savagery would ever be enough to silence this rallying cry. Every beating, mauling, and act of malice was met with the promise that we shall overcome. We‘ll walk hand in hand. We shall live in peace. Equality is not a destination but ever our journey, so the song serves to remind us, even today, that no matter the trial or obstacle of the moment, we shall overcome someday.