“The secret to white privilege is that if you don’t want to hear something, you don’t have to,” my mentor Ed Rodman said in a video retrospective: “A Prophet Among Us” (.https://www.episcopalchurch.org/ministries/social-justice-advocacy-engagement/prophets-among-us/) An African American Episcopal priest and civil rights activist, Ed died a year ago at 81. His wisdom and legacy live on.
Every day we are receiving messages from the new Administration that many of us don’t want to hear, but are nevertheless getting through, and which are producing levels of fear, anxiety and outrage that have not been experienced before – not only in me, but in so many people I talk to. The privilege of being able to curate what we hear and learn is being threatened by cruel orders and punishing directives that pummel the ego and roil the soul. What’s next, we wonder? Is democracy done? What can I do?
The anxiety, fear and outrage are real – and need to be acknowledged and dealt with. And they can serve as motivators for action. That said, we can get stuck in a maelstrom of distress and despair, to the degree that we end up only hearing our own angst and those who are reacting the same way. And if our actions are framed from our platform of anxiety, fear and/or outrage, they often end up setting off those same psychic nerve endings of those who are implementing the directives, not to mention the many people who are celebrating the conviction that the President is draining the swamp and righting the ship of State. And then we end up with a perpetual standoff that is filled with vitriol and the potential for violence.
A couple of weeks ago one of the designated Sunday readings was the story of the burning bush. (Exodus 3:1-10). Like many of us, for years I couldn’t get my mind around the prospect of a bush that was on fire and didn’t burn up, combined with a voice of God that spoke directly to Moses. So I more or less dismissed the story because of all the fantastic (as in fantasy) claims it made. But in recent years I have paid more attention to the reason God appears to Moses in such a unique way: God saw the misery of the Hebrew people in slavery and heard their groaning. God acknowledged their pain. Hearing people’s pain caused God to appear, have a voice – and issue a promise of bringing God’s chosen people into freedom.
As we continue to fashion responses and actions to what is happening in our country, I think it is important to be able to hear the crescendo of groaning – not only in ourselves but in those who are being most affected. And to recognize that at some level our anxiety, fear and outrage are manifestations of the pain that is wounding our individual and national soul. That wound, that pain, renders us vulnerable and can also help to keep us humble, both of which produce responses and actions that unleash a different, and more abiding, kind of power from the responses of anxiety, fear and outrage.
The pain is not just one way. As so many of us experience the pain from the onslaught of orders, firings, security breaches, policy shifts and directives, it is also important to note the pain which we inflict on others, and which we don’t want to hear or recognize. This is a privilege of hearing only what we want to hear, and I am reminded of it regularly.
A few years ago, I attended a gun show. While walking around the various displays, I was listening to a language that was foreign to me – about ammunition coefficients, holster flexibility and accuracy quotients. That unfamiliarity brought me to the realization that the gun culture in America has been with us from the very beginning, and is being protected by the vendors and buyers at the gun show. Their anxiety, fear, and outrage at people like me is due to their perception, mostly accurate, that those of us who want to impose restrictions on the sale and use of guns is really an intent to destroy the gun culture, and in so doing, to erase their identity. My disdain, my self-righteousness, was — and is – not only inflicting pain, but is causing the gun culture to double down in their resistance to any change in gun laws. My arrogance prevented me from hearing their strong commitment to gun safety. A huge part of me doesn’t want to hear or acknowledge that arrogance. I want to retain my privilege of hearing only what I want to hear, and not paying attention to how others are hearing me.
We need to recognize our privilege, however we come by it, and then work to let it go. So we can hear what we may not want, but need, to hear. Our souls, and that of the nation, depend on it.
