My heart is with Jewish, Transgender, Black, Latinx families.
Mourning death, political erasure, and the reverberating fear.
This is a deeply troubling time.
At this moment I gain hope from being around people whose love is expansive and contagious. People who are choosing to open up, be real with one another, and lean in.
I have been in several trainings and meetings these past weeks that have begun with the question, who are your people?
Who are my people?
I come from people who struggle with addiction, depression and untreated psychosis.
From people who swallowed abuse and spit out love. People who abused and people who fought abuse and injustice at every turn.
I’ve seen dear loved ones turn into monsters and others squashed by the monsters around them.
I always had safe housing but my dad did not.
I come from Catholics, Mormons, United Church of Christ ministers, Unitarian Universalists, atheists and agnostics. I come from people whose life purpose is to bring justice for the people.
I live a privileged life. I am a white woman married to a white man, with two white children. We own a small row house in DC. I have a social work degree and my husband is a journalist with a satisfying and secure job. We fit the mold of educated, white liberals.
We belong to All Souls Church, Unitarian, which is not only a spiritual haven, but is also a place where we practice building the beloved community.
I come from a lineage of people who saw working for justice as the purpose of this life and I feel most at home in spaces where people are breaking the norms.
The other week I was at a Movement Matters Facilitation training at a socially responsible hotel in downtown DC. The space offered a beautiful illustration of where I feel at home. The group at the top of the stairs was a room full of suits, mostly white, mostly male, all chairs lined in one direction listening to a PowerPoint. White linens on the tables. When I turned the corner and saw the room for our training I could feel my whole body relax. Our room was covered in bright table cloths. It was a racially diverse group of people. Colorful posters covered the walls. Several languages popped in conversations. Vibrant. Dynamic. In motion.
Yes, These are my people!
And it made me see that there is something suffocating for me about static spaces.
I think it goes to the community where I was raised. Trees were everywhere. The ocean was ten minutes away. The air was fresh. The people were mostly white. The connections were usually shallow. Expectations were narrow and economic opportunity was limited.
I come from a split home. I grew-up living in two communities. My mother, my primary parent, raised three of us. Taught us to love by loving us fully and unconditionally. Addiction grabbed my older brother for 20 years and he sank into the bottle. Losing his personality, his job, his home and much of his community to addiction. While he suffered my mother loved him. When he was in jail she took herself there weekly, redesigning their relationship while he was sober.
My weekends were with my father. Often he’d pick us up in an 18 wheeler, on his way back from a week on the road, we’d travel with him to return the truck to the company. Working class, white American. Struggling to pay basic bills. My dad taught me acceptance and appreciation for people in all walks of life. Depression. Addition. Gambling. All limiting his ability to raise us, but never interfering in his love for us. Often several hours late to pick us up because he’d stop and help someone broken down on the side of the road. Never having much, but happiest when he could lend a hand. My father holds no judgement.
My grandfather, son of a UCC minister, tried the ministry but discarded it in exchange for social justice as a driving faith. He bestowed on me that we all can and must do more to make this a better world.
My people both lived to bring about justice and moved to a majority white community that suffocated it’s people. That left me without room to expand or a sense of possibility.
My high school vice principal literally told my brother to drop out of school. Your only welcome if and when you fit the mold.
Although I could pass, I did not fit the mold.
I’ve walked to the edge, ready to follow my big-brother into trouble. Luckily my road veered toward community, support and meaning, but not before isolation, despair and meaningless suffering rubbed me raw. Two roads that run parallel at all times. The world is no less harsh when we come together, but we are able to resist the blows in a different way. When working to change the unjust systems, when organizing, activating and collaborating, the spark inside me offers a light to follow.
I remember the day that high school vice principal stopped me and treated me like a human. Disgust filled me. It was in direct contrast to how he treated me before I was making good grades. I needed to be seen when the world was failing me. I needed him to embrace my brother and our friends who struggled. I will always tend to those who feel like they don’t fit. Who struggle. Because I know what it feels like to be invisible in a community and a system that only values people who look, act, and perform a certain way.
My people offer radical welcome. In hard times we open-up, lean in and hold one another.
Who are your people?