I was out of town for a few days this past week at a conference in DC. The conference was great; I ran into lots of old friends and made some new ones.
Going out of town can sometimes bring forth different perspectives--being in a new place, seeing different things, meeting different people.
The first day I arrived, I was very early for registration, so I decided to play tourist. I'd been to DC a number of times but I had never been to the National Cathedral, so I went.
What a sight--two images are above. Incredible majesty, the artwork in the stained glass windows, the organ, the statues, the chapels: link.
And yet, I was somewhat disquieted.
The cathedral is the headquarters of the Episcopal Church USA: link. The church was founded under the auspices of the federal government, in order that the nation might have a national "church," as a place of prayer and as a place to give thanks. Various presidents had their funeral services there, and various famous individuals have been buried there in the cathedral's crypt.
Why the disquiet? Not because it was founded in the name of the federal government in a way which might seem to violate the separation between "church and state," since I believe the 1st amendment had to do with proscribing the establishment of a state religion, but without precluding discussions of political questions which might have religious (moral) implications.
Instead, I was troubled by what seemed to be this notion of "God is always on our side..." There were statues and themes in honor of some secular military heroes, for example, whose efforts seemed to be more about putting forth an imperialist (political and economic) agenda that enabled the exploitation of people of color. Such an attitude can lead to a certain hubris (sinfulness) in that we don't critique ourselves in the face of our questionable behavior.
This was on par with the white family I spoke of in another post who paid for icons in their local Episcopal church, at the same time they owned slaves and profited from the slave trade. A descendant has written a book and done a documentary in an effort to understand where the family's wealth and prestige came from.
On the other hand, though, it could also be a place of reconciliation. Martin Luther King once led a service there, as did Bishop Desmond Tutu.
I wondered, though, whether any of the tourists were even Episcopalian, or were they just there to see the sights? The church is not non-denominational at all. They do have services and instances when the tourists are banned from visiting and playing "tourist."
Interesting too, being in a place where most of the workers were black, but all the tourists were white. One of the black women employees chatted with me, and when she talked about it, it resonated...If it is a church, a place of prayer for all the people, why are "all the people" not showing up? Is it "too Episcopalian"? Is it "too white"?
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Arriving at the hotel and hanging around for a few days, I noticed there was other conferences taking place at the same time. Most noteworthy was a conference of South Asian professionals. It seemed to be a big college reunion--graduates with their families. Walking around the location where there were exhibits, I noticed the topics of the main events: how to take care of their families in their communities in the US and how to be activists "back home." The primary focus of the talks was not on economic empowerment, although there were exhibits proposing economic opportunities. But family and community--dealing with human rights issues overseas--how might they help?
Leaving on an airport shuttle to catch my flight, I overheard two of the attendees talking--two South Asian men flying back to Toronto. They were chatting about their lives, updating each other on what had been happening. One had gotten married, and the other was wondering how that went, how they met, what the family's response was, whether married life was going well for them. Then they began talking about some of the issues we have spoken of on this blog and on others: how to gain women equal rights.
But this was from the perspective of men, though! They wanted women to have equal rights in their communities, because women need rights to feel secure in their families. Women, as the foundation of the family (and thus the community) must have access to what will empower them both in the home and outside of it. They didn't even seem to mind women gaining more protections than men--in their minds, women deserve them.
I understood where they are coming from. In South Asia, dowry murders (especially among Hindus in India) and honor killings (for example, among Muslims in Pakistan) are not unusual. Women have been raped in the name of protecting or punishing violations of family honor, but without recourse to the law.
I couldn't resist, I had to butt in and applaud them for their enlightened views...
We need more men like these throughout the world.
The shuttle driver was a Kenyan, who mentioned to me after the two men got out that on the coast of Kenya (in Mombassa example), he knew South Asians, but that was the first time he heard South Asian men expressing such progressive views.
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It is ironic, though, that women in the West supposedly have the same legal protections (on paper) as men, ie., the right to vote and own property, but safety and security can be an issue, where one has to wonder whether there really is protection for women as women. Consider all the cases we have been reading about black women being under attack from the criminal element in the community.
The misogyny reigns. We are hated by some men in the community, so we are targeted for abuse. We are targets for those who have no sense of humanity--they hate themselves, they hate everyone else, and we are seen as weaker, so guess what, they build themselves up when they beat us down!
Moreover, as one commentator on another blog suggested, others might dislike us because we are their "competition". According to this mindset, any gains we make are somehow at their expense. Are we colluding "with the man" to keep them down? Racism doesn't really affect us, I suppose, it affects them only. Sexism is not an issue for black women, I guess. Or if it is sexism at the hands of men who are black, it is not really a problem--perhaps we asked for it, or it is the "natural way of doing things."
For these men, it seems, sexism only matters when it affects women they care about. Otherwise, they hang their heads and go "tsk, tsk," which reminds me of something Nathan McCall once wrote in Makes Me Wanna Holler, about his younger days in the 1970s, I believe, joining young men in running "trains" on young women. This is how they amused themselves. Raping young black women and laughing with their pals about their exploits.
One day, a friend was listening to them talk, when he heard his sister's name being called out. He was shocked, and when the other young men realized who it was they had abused, their response to the effect was "sorry man..." His sister was just a casualty in their struggle for male supremacy, no big thing, it was just the way things were. No apologies, though, for the young woman.
Consider too, Piri Thomas, Down these Mean Streets, discussing his upbringing in Spanish Harlem in the 1950s and 1960s. Attacking young women could be the means of getting at young men considered "weak." Community dysfunction is not something new. Perhaps people, especially various black women, are just more vocal about criticizing it today, and they are less willing to excuse it as "well, the brothers are just oppressed and acting out, let's not talk about it, so that the brothers won't go to jail..." Unity required women remain silent in the name of black solidarity and saving the brothers from being under attack. But for various women today, there is no glamorization of black male criminality, as was found in Cleaver's Soul on Ice and the books by Iceberg Slim. Yes, some women just love the "thugz."
McCall's behavior as a young man came back to haunt him, though, when years later, his wife gave birth to a baby girl. It dawned on him that one day his own daughter might become vulnerable. "Yes, Dad," I said to myself when I read it, "payback hurts, doesn't it?" Too many men don't see their sisters and mothers in the faces of other women, whether or not they call black women "sisters..." It must be a basic empathy that too many men just lack. Yet, many black women have empathy in an endless supply for black men who want to exploit them: R. Kelly anyone????
Humph!!!!!!!!!
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Reading around the blogosphere, on What About Our Daughters, there is information on a book by Jody Miller, which addresses this and other such phenomena: Getting Played--African American Girls, Urban Inequality and Gendered Violence. Like Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor and Maya Angelou, hasn't Pearl Cleage been writing about this topic of black women and violence in the community, but from a fictional standpoint? It is as though our griots have been writing from the perspective of black womanism about these topics forever and a day, but have we been listening? Or have we just kept the conversations among ourselves and not educated younger women? Have we educated the men in our community? Have they even had an interest? Will they even get there if we don't say a word?
On WAOD, they have been discussing a story in Milwaukee about the gang rape of an 11 year old girl; a grown woman on the premises knew what was happening and saw nothing wrong. A sixteen year old manipulated her into "consenting." This was an older girl she was friends with. This "friend" said to her, if she didn't let the men rape her, she would not longer be her "friend." Shecodes mentioned that DJBlackAdam (listed on her blogroll: link) wrote of an eyewitness account to young men "running a train." He also read McCall's book. He spoke of the need for other young men to do what he did: stand up for young women's dignity. The ringleaders of these trains can't do them if other young men won't participate. But too many see nothing wrong with it or are too cowardly to say anything. Most poignantly, he spoke of the same type of thing happening to his mother when he was six months old.
