Racism Can Be Passive, Too, You Know

 

    Okay, so I've refrained from writing about Ferguson all week. Why? Well, I'd rather those who have something important to say (See Osheta Moore, Stacia Brown, and Sarah Bessey for examples) have the platform to say it.
    But...as someone who grew up barely thinking about race, I do now have one thing I'd like to say:
    Just because you don't chant around a burning cross, lynch or shave your head, doesn't mean you're not a racist.
    Passive racism exists.
    Let me explain.
    I don't hate black people. I have dear, dear friends of color. I grew up in a community that claimed race didn't matter at all (which is a well-intentioned but dismissive and over-simplified view, honestly).
    So imagine my surprise (and revulsion, and denial) when I took Harvard's Implicit Test and found out I have slightly negative connotations regarding people of color.
    I'm not a racist, I thought in horror. Never! I've never treated or felt differently about my black friends, Asian friends, Indian friends, white friends. But...when it came to strangers on the street...
    Too bad my opinion of myself didn't line up with my results.
    At first I dismissed the results. Inaccurate, biased. I am not a racist.
    But then I began noticing problems. Specifically, why did I feel a bit more antsy when a young black dude with dreadlocks and sagging pants passed me than a white guy with messy brown hair and stains on his grey T-shirt?
    Then I started reading about how women with black sons are terrified of them getting shot.
    At first I bristled at that. Why are you so angry? You have equal rights!
    Eventually it hit me: racism can be active, obviously. But racism, like the sexism I know so much about, is also a systematic, passive beast.
    You can say black people have equal rights, I don't hate them, I have black friends, all you want. You're right, in theory. And then you also complain that it's their culture to get pregnant young and cheat welfare. You complain that they're in poverty because they don't work hard. You use the Bible to say they're under the "curse of Ham."
    Might I suggest that when the majority of impoverished city people are people of color, there is something else going on: a systematic racism.
    If you have negative connotations about black people that you wouldn't have about white or Asian or whatever, you are a racist whether you hate or not. 
    The first step towards recovery is admitting you have a problem. So deal with it.
    I don't know exactly what happened in regard to Mike Brown. But I will guess that Darren Wilson, like the majority of Americans, doesn't consider himself a racist. Yet when multiple witnesses describe him shooting a kid who had his hands raised, something iffy probably happened.
    Maybe over-reactors like Chief Jackson and news commentators like Bill O'Reilly and everyone else heightening claims of looting above the fact that someone was needlessly killed don't consider themselves racists, too. But, again, if you have negative connotations about black people that you wouldn't have about other races, you are a racist whether you hate or not. 
    Maybe you haven't had to confront your racism because you're the majority. Fine. Start confronting it now. Everyone is made equal, unique, imago dei.
    Start acknowledging your participation in this system, educate yourself, and for God's sake start caring.
    Caring will hurt. I'm kind if sickened at my own participation in this system via simple white privilege. But it's necessary for change, so more innocents aren't killed for holding a toy gun in Walmart or jaywalking.
    Passive racism is still racism, and it needed to end before it existed.

Is Suicide Cowardly?

*Trigger warning for self-harm and colorful language used to depict said mindset.

Do you see me?

    Is suicide cowardly?
    No. Please.
    If you commit suicide, you are not a coward.
    You are not selfish.
    You are not stupid, fucked up, broken beyond repair.
    I know you think you're a piece of shit or whatever shaming name you've adopted for yourself. You're not.
    You probably know things will get better. But you also know you can't hang on until that happens.    
    Listen to me, please: you are awesome, worthwhile, special, unique. I know people say you're not special because they're afraid of narcissism, but I intensely disagree. After all, the very image of God is in you.
    I wish you could believe me. I know it's hard to believe, maybe impossible right now.
    I've been there. I've held scissors to my wrists and wrapped a wire around my neck and cursed the high railings on bridges, and it still scares me to admit that. You're not alone, in the midst of your depression or anxiety or bipolar disorder or schizophrenia or PTSD or OCD or whatever illness you have that makes you want to stop your life.
    You have an illness. Something went wrong in our brains. Might be triggered by guilt or genes or abuse or whatever, but it's not going to be cured by the strength to choose happy thoughts or exorcism or conversion. Cowardice and selfishness and weakness don't cause mental illness, and you are not at fault.
    You're not useless. If society says we have no need of you, if society wants to cling to its prejudices to make itself feel better, well, they're wrong and screw their prejudices all the way to the fire.
    You're actually incredibly valuable. You demonstrate, every day, your bravery to keep struggling through this pain and suffering many people can't imagine. And illnesses =/= selfishness. (Good heavens, even by thinking of suicide, by agonizing whether you're selfish for staying alive or for dying, you further demonstrate that you're not selfish).
    You are strong because you struggle on even when everything and everyone, including yourself, seems to tell you to quit.
    You're okay. Your situation, it's not okay, I know. But you're okay. God made you, He loves you, and I love you, too. You're never without love even when you can't feel it.
    You're worth life.
    Speak up. Tell someone you're in pain. Maybe a counselor. Maybe a friend or family member. Maybe even a stranger (like me or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline). Let them listen and tell them everything. Keep voicing your struggles. Don't lock yourself inside until you implode all over yourself. Really - it's not selfish or cowardly to say I need help.
    Remember that your brain is sick and it might just be telling you things that aren't accurate.
    And, here's a hug or good wishes if you don't like hugs.
    You're okay. And you are loved, friend.

Much love, and take care,
Kelley

Be Nice. No, Seriously: BE NICE.

   "Did you know 'nice' used to mean 'stupid?'"
   "God doesn't call us to be nice."
    "Jesus wasn't being nice when he overturned tables in the temple."
   Being nice obviously gets a bad rap, in both religious and secular circles, but frankly? I don't think it's entirely fair.
    The American English Oxford Dictionary defines "nice" as "pleasant, agreeable, good natured, kind."

    How absolutely awful.
    Okay, okay. Ahem. There are certainly times when acting pleasant, agreeable, good natured, or kind certainly doesn't seem helpful. After all, the world around us - scarred by wars and disease and death - isn't nice.
    But those things should not be. Saying that we shouldn't be nice because not-nice things happen isn't logically sound. If not-nice things happen, and they suck, that's exactly why we should be nice.
    However, it's damn easy to say "be nice" when you're talking in abstractions. When you delve into specifics, it's quite hard.
    Conform to superficial social graces.
    Pretend our family's perfect.
    Don't call out abuse.
    Ick. How frightening.
    But wait a second - are we really talking "nice" here, or are we confusing "nice" to mean something that's pleasant and agreeable to a specific group of people who are oppressing someone else? Are we confusing "nice" with obligations to perform and conform and ignore?
    Because there are always people on the receiving end of being not nice.
    There's the abuse victim. There's the moneychanger's cheaters clients. There's someone stifled and dying beneath expectations they weren't made to fulfill. These are people for whom being agreeable or pleasant or kind might involve you helping to stop their oppression.
    Is it nice to allow your imperfections to grow until they seriously damage either yourself or someone else? Is it nice to fit into a superficial society's image? Is it nice to let abuse continue?
    If someone is oppressing another person, they're not being nice. Isn't it actually nice to call them out on it, so 1) their victim is freed, and 2) perhaps they have the opportunity to learn, as well?
    Maybe what we really have to look at the difference between perception and being. For instance, helping the abused might not be perceived as nice to the abuser. But you're sure being nice to someone else. Perceptions can change; being doesn't.
   Moreover, the claim "we don't have to be nice" is often used as an excuse for 1) being a jerk, or b) dismissing others. For an example of b, I've often heard: well, they're gay or they don't believe the earth is 6000 years old, so it doesn't matter if they are nice: they're drifting from God. But since the definition of nice holds a Fruit of the Spirit (kindness), I must disagree.
    Niceness isn't everything, obviously. But I do think nice matters.
    Thoughts? Am I overlooking something here?

Love,
Kelley

Question of the Week: Demon Possession or Mental Illness?

   I'm curious about the relationship between whatever is mental and whatever is spiritual.
   It seems to me that a lot of mental processes are often attributed to the spiritual. For example, maybe I have a subconscious desire to do something. I could easily interpret that desire to be God telling me to do something, when in actuality it's just me.
   Or, I could feel angry for no reason. I could then attribute my anger to spiritual warfare, when in actuality, maybe I'm just having side effects from medication. And I guess this question troubles me because, um, attributing our mental processes to the spiritual can certainly give an easier answer than looking within ourselves.
   So: I suppose I see why it's easy for people to dismiss the mentally ill as influenced by demons. Our brains aren't really diseased, we're not really weak - it's forces we didn't create and can't contain.

   Of course, I don't believe this. My depression was caused by anxiety, which in turn was caused by untreated wounds from my past. Not demons.
    Yet in the Bible, God is said to have sent a spirit to afflict King Saul with depression.
    Moreover, the New Testament if rife with people who seem to display symptoms of epilepsy or schizophrenia, yet in the Bible they're called "demon-possessed."
    Naturally, this raises a mountain of questions that can only be answered with speculations. Ick.
    Oh, right, I love those questions.
    First and foremost, I'd love to ask: were these people actually possessed/afflicted by the spiritual realm, or was misunderstood mental illness the cause of their suffering?
    Some people stick to the demon interpretation, pointing to the fact that the "demon-possessed" people in the New Testament seemed to have knowledge of things they should not have known, such as the serving girl who knew that Paul proclaimed Jesus as God or the young man who could apparently discern those who truly believed in Jesus and those who didn't. They claim that most mentally ill today are probably suffering from a legitimate mental, and not spiritual, disorder.
     I suppose my objection to this theory is simply that, well, aside from suprerior knowledge, the descriptions seem nearly identical to mental health issues. And why would demons inhabit children, like the epileptic child?
     A second interpretation assumes that the Biblical writers simply attributed mental illness to demons because they lacked sufficient knowledge of mental processes. Jesus either just didn't bother to correct people, or, since he was in a human form himself, was limited in His knowledge (I think C.S. Lewis once said that he saw no incoherency between Jesus' deity and limits to his knowledge in human form, so please don't kill me for saying this).
    I suppose my main objection to this theory is, if Jesus knew, why didn't He say something? You know, a lot of mentally ill have been treated like crap throughout history due to misunderstandings like this (in fact, they still are). Maybe He could have helped us! And if He just didn't know, what do we make of His seemingly psychic abilities with the woman at the well?
    So: I'm in a bit of a conundrum. Problems abound with either answer, I think.
    Like I said at the beginning of this post, I don't think it's possible to find a definite answer to this question.
    I suppose the answer of Jesus to the mentally ill - love, compassion, yes I'll help you - is the real takeaway, the more pressing question from these stories, be the culprit demons or a troubled brain.

     Still, I would love, lovelovelovelovelove, to hear your perspectives on this. Pretty please?
   
Love you all,
Kelley

Blogging Update and Why Two Cats are Better than One

    Okay, I've kinda neglected this poor blog the last two weeks.
    In my defense, I've been moving, getting ready for graduate school, seeing my family, and adopting a second cat.
    What?
    Well, yes, thanks for asking. Given my soon to be busy nature, I have adopted a playmate for Sushi. His name is Myshkin, after Prince Myshkin in Dostoevsky's The Idiot (which, if you haven't read, I highly recommend it).

"Wait, am I on the Internets?"

    He's now Sushi's best friend, providing ample support in their never-ending quest for food and mischief.

"I love you, Sushi friend."

    Seriously. Every night they race around, pounce on each other, and wreak havoc. I just moved into this apartment, but they seem determined to redo my decor (in their defense, I'm not much of a decorator).

"We are the Face of Mischief."

    For instance, I have no idea how this toy ended up on my pillow in the morning:

    I have also awoken to find my glasses on the floor and pawns from my chess set scattered under the bed.
    That being said, this is not primarily a cat blog (yet). However, I do have half a dozen half-finished posts, more ideas, and that review of God and the Gay Christian to write.
    I shall be blogging regularly again soon, my friends. Although perhaps not as often once graduate school starts. Well, we'll see. I'll let you know.
    Much love to all of you.

Kelley