BUILD First Impressions

Today was the first meeting of a group of Christians interested in social justice issues and committed to reading about and discussing them openly for the next two months. First impressions? Not bad. My main concern was that I'd be the only African-American in the group and, therefore, would be seen as the object of pity and/or as the authority on all things inner city. Pleased to find the group pretty diverse (I did the racial/ethnic & gender count -- wish it wasn't so instinctive!), and for a first meeting, I thought some folks were appropriately vulnerable. Interesting (though not shocking) that some African-Americans in the group honestly voiced frustrations with members of our race in the neighborhood who display stereotypical behaviors... One guy knows quite a few folks I know -- the Wests, the Bergs -- which is kewl. Good people. Main take-away from today's time: Michael's comments. Specifically, his admonition that the next two months will be worthless if we don't put into practice whatever it is we learn. Kinda jolting. Sobering. His words really resonated with me because they are true, yet they scared me a bit because truth revealed must be followed out by truth applied and, as Tae said, I don't know what that looks like or even if I want to. Though the inner city has been my life from birth almost, that does not necessarily translate into my doing all I can to share in God's love for folks in the city and that love translating into action....

First impressions of the reading? Well, I'm about halfway thru Hilfiker's article on poverty in urban America, but I'm struck by how much of it I didn't know (I knew a good deal of it, but not some major points). Wasn't familiar with the origin of public housing; just assumed projects were started by some altruistic motive. Was aware that domestic workers didn't qualify for social security or unemployment compensation. My grandmother was a day worker for Jewish folks her whole life and, though she worked hard, never had social security, a pension, etc. But I wasn't aware that the federal programs during the depression specifically excluded these folks, which translated into lack of relief during a very rough time in America that other groups were afforded.

Since my time in seminary, my views on the causes of poverty and the inner city problems have slowly changed from almost totally blaming the victim (the whole family breakdown / single-parent homes thing) to seeing both personal and structural/institutional causes. Lupton's article further reinforced my moderate position. Yet, I still grapple with how to move people out of poverty if too much emphasis is placed on external causes. My fear is that while work is done to alleviate the effects of external conditions, folks in poverty will perpetuate their condition if a heavy dose of personal responsibility is not given as well. My mind goes back to Black leaders even who were clear about structural causes for poverty and other problems and who spoke out against them vehemently, yet who were just as passionate when they stressed personal responsibility to folks in their own community. Yet today, any Black person who brings up personal responsibility is seen as a sell out (like Bill Cosby). Folks would do well to read some speeches and writings of our leaders of the past who said the same things. I'm interested in what next week's discussion will be like and whether or not people will be honest and risk airing differences of viewpoints. Actually, I think it would be a good idea to set up some group norms before more controversial discussions begin.

One final thing: We're supposed to note anything of interest regarding race and class. Well, I have two things. One is the fact that this season on "Survivor", the tribes will be divided by race as they compete against each other. I'm curious as to what people think about that. Second, in the laundromat today washing clothes, I did the usual: read the newspapers. In the Wednesday Journal (a local newspaper for Oak Park and other west suburbs), there was a commentary on the achievement gap at Oak Park-River Forest High School. The writer acknowledged multiple causes of the fact that Blacks consistently underperform whites and others, even in an affluent and diverse community like O.P. However, the writer was concerned about the persistent refusal of O.P.-R.F. H.S. staff to even consider the possibility of teacher and faculty bias (intentional or not) as one of the many causes of this gap. Again, I'd like to know folks' thoughts on this matter.

Well, that's all for now. I'm tired.