I was asked recently, "Why is continuing to do Anti-Racism work important for you?”
I grew up in a bubble - a white bubble in farm country in Michigan. A white bubble that gave me the illusion that the world was good, and fair, and kind, and loving - to everybody. Is that a good thing?, Some say yes, others say my parents did me a grave disservice. My understanding of racism in this country is something I wasn’t really aware of until I was about 24 years old when I moved to New York. It’s been a journey since then.
I was told 18 years ago, when I wanted to take educators to France to walk in the footsteps of St. Madeleine Sophie, rscj (the founding mother of the school I worked in), for the second time, after other formation trips to England, Ireland, and Italy, that it was time for me to go get my heart broken. “Organize a formation trip to Mexico. Walk in the footsteps of St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, rscj (another founding mother of the religious order). Go see these two nuns, they will help you.” I thought it was a crazy suggestion and an unkind directive from my head of school. Who tells someone it’s time to get your heart broken? But, it was exactly what I needed, and I did get my heart broken. My eyes were open to things I never knew. I understood poverty a little better, and I became aware of just how privileged a life I had always lived. I remember being at a meeting in Mexico in a rural town. The meeting was with our group and the women of the town (there were no men). I asked a woman a question as we were ending the meeting. “What do you want us to remember about this experience?” She responded, “Please respect my husband when you see him waiting on the corner for work.” That’s all she asked of me. My heart broke.
Formation trips for teachers that I organized changed after that, and the goals of these experiences were more than just understanding our founding mothers and their spirituality. We included goals about how we could apply what we were understanding of our spirituality to teaching, to what we saw of life today, and to how we personally lived. I’ve led trips to Mexico, Uganda, Kenya, and Haiti. I’ve taken students yearly to New Orleans after Katrina and sent them to South Dakota to work each summer at Pine Ridge Reservation. I wanted to learn, to love, and to make what little difference I could. My eyes were open to others in our world for the first time, really. And then, I became a principal of an inner-city school and my world changed.
Forty minutes away from my home in Westchester, NY, I came face to face with
racism. One of my families son’s was shot on the street corner hanging out with friends. I came face to face with immigration violence. One of my mom’s, who was put in an ankle bracelet and facing deportation, asked me to keep her child so she wouldn’t have to take her back to a dangerous country where she knew they would both be killed. I came face to face with poverty. One of my parents worked three jobs and was always exhausted. I came face to face with food insecurity, housing insecurity, medical insecurity, domestic violence, and devastating child abuse.
I was invited into the lives of my families when they were desperate and facing unimaginable pain. During my first year, I cried most days on my way home. I was overwhelmed and a bit unprepared for what I was encountering. I kept thinking, I went all over the world to serve others and struggled to reintegrate into my comfortable life upon return, but now I was confronting this very close to home. And then I realized, it wasn’t my experience, I was hearing about other people’s experiences, I could go home.
I think it was so hard because it was easier to think these issues weren’t really here in my area, my country. I now knew that people really did suffer from the injustice of our way of life. I knew the parents, I knew their children, I knew their stories. I was no longer dabbling, I was coming face to face with it each day. And, I knew it was race that was at the heart of it. I could not close my eyes. I could not say it was somewhere else. I could not say I’m going home to my life to forget about what I saw. I came face to face with the woundedness of our world and my heart broke.
The charism of the Society of the Sacred Heart as I am called to live it as an Associate is to make known God’s heart in our wounded world and to meet and recognize God in that woundedness. In order to live that, I have to understand racism in our country. I need to know how it is embedded in our history, our culture, our fabric of life, just how systemic it is. I have to understand it in order to change myself, try to change our systems, our policies.
My call is also to love God above all and my neighbor as myself. The fact is, I don’t love my neighbor as myself - not really. Racism is so deep-seated in who we are, that we don’t know it. We are blind to it. I know that I have to daily look at myself, examine my behavior and my thoughts. I have to check myself, retrain myself, and relearn so I can love more fully and root out my racist behavior. And as I grow in my love of neighbor, I grow in my love of God. I know this isn’t just a single semester project, this is a life-long journey.
I also take seriously my favorite scripture quote, Micah 6:8 - What does the LORD require of me? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with my God. I have to know how I don’t act justly to do the other two parts of this quote - to love mercy and to walk with God. Anti-racism work is essential to acting justly. It’s individual work and it’s corporate work that has to be done if I want to be a clearer reflection of God’s love in our world.
It’s not a choice to not know what I know, and to know is not enough. I have to act.
