Ferguson, Racism, and Advent

Calvin Sodestrom

I feel very unqualified to even write on Ferguson and racism and yet I think to remain silent would be even worse. As I wrote in an earlier post, I do not have the best track record when it comes to awareness about issues of race and privilege. And in that blog, I noted that I wanted to change.  And I think I have made small improvements – but I still have a long way to go.

My heart has been broken the past few days, hearing of the failure to indict Darren Wilson, driving past the protests here in Oakland, and watching videos of the protests in Ferguson.  I’ve been convicted in reading many articles explaining what it means to be privileged. articles that have pinpointed thoughts I’ve had, but was never aware of – “I’ve got a burden as well, why are they complaining?”, “I’m not privileged, I just worked hard,” or “I didn’t ask to be privileged.” And I’ve been angry, reading many insensitive, hurtful, and racist things posted by my white friends.  It makes me more angry to know that if I pointed out that their comments were racist, they would protest and deny it, another tragic result of privilege.

One of the many articles I read really jumped at me.  It was titled “So You Call Yourself an Ally: 10 Things All ‘Allies’ Need to Know” and it shared some really helpful thoughts for white people who want to ally with people of color or others who have been marginalized.  I was particularly struck by the point that being an ally is an action, not an identity.  It is something you do – not something you are.  And if it something you do, then sometimes you are not an ally, but rather growing into one.  Being an ally is not a simple switch, it is the process of striving to be in solidarity with those who have been marginalized.

I realized as I’ve become more aware of my privilege and participation in a system that marginalizes others, I want to instantly switch from being ignorant to being well-informed.  And since I’m well informed, I assume that I am then an ally.  But I’m not.  I long to be, but I stand in a place of hoping and longing.  But my hope and longing to be an ally compares nothing at all to the hope and longing of people of color who are daily reminded of the many obstacles they face to justice and equality.

I think the protests in Ferguson and around the United States have taught me about Advent.  Advent is the beginning of the church calendar, a season of waiting, hoping, and expectation in which we look forward to Christ coming to us.  When Christ comes, we celebrate.  For now, we pine for God to make all things right.  We rejoice that in Christ, new creation is breaking forth.  But we have to journey through the waiting to truly rejoice.

I thought I knew what it meant to long, to hope, to pine, and to wait. But I’m privileged – my longing is rarely for injustices that I’ve suffered.   I theoretically long for justice in the world, but I am unfamiliar with a longing for justice for myself, my family, my friends.  I know that the world is broken, but I rarely am the victim of the world’s brokenness.  In the riots and protests in Ferguson, I see people who have, again and again, felt the sting of injustice.  I’ve always known that Israel was a marginalized people longing for God to rescue them when Jesus entered into the world, but I sometimes had a hard time imagining what that looked like.  In whats happened since the grand jury’s announcement, I can better imagine what Israel felt.

This Advent, I long to become one who acts in ways that show myself to be an ally of people of color and others who are marginalized.  And this Advent, we have a vivid depiction of the brokenness of this world and how deeply others yearn for it to be made right.  And as we long, we wait for Christ to come, to reconcile us to God and to one another.  Come quickly Lord Jesus!

Calvin Sodestrom
Calvin is a former regular contributor to The Two Cities.

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6 responses to “Ferguson, Racism, and Advent”

  1. Imperfect

    Like you, I have white skin, and have over the last few years tried to grapple with what “white privilege” means. I know that there is truth to it, but often I see the term used to warrant the justification of what I see as judgement. The kind of judgement that claims to know a person’s heart/motivation or a situation that it cannot fully know.

    I sympathize with the protestors and the black community in that I know racism happens. But–and I want to avoid this conclusion if the evidence can be shown to me–I can’t help also feeling disrespected/prejudiced-against because a light skinned person is being charged with having acted on racial motivations. But then that’s where I get back to the judgement. Is it not exactly what Jesus said not to do. Perhaps the officer did act with those racial motivations, but from the evidence I’ve read, I haven’t seen something that could bring one to that conclusion with anything like confidence. Only the color of his skin.

    So when you say that your heart is broken “hearing of the failure to indict Darren Wilson” I can’t help but feel you are unwarranted in sitting in that kind of judgement. Unless you know more about police affairs than I do, and feel that if it were a white skinned person who had been shot, he would have been indicted.

    I know I am imperfect, and blind in many ways, and that the wisdom you’ve attained on your journey to understand this topic may open up my journey more. I look forward to your thoughts in response to my thoughts.

    Reply
    1. Calvin Sodestrom

      Imperfect – thanks for the comment. I appreciate your thoughts. I’ll do my best to respond to them.

      I don’t intend to say that I know better than the Grand Jury or that Darren Wilson’s actions were racially motivated. But from what I’ve read about grand jury’s and indictments, the prosecutor has a lot of power to sway the grand jury in one direction or another. And to indict Darren Wilson is not to say that he is guilty, only that there is enough evidence to suggest two stories, and that it’s worth going to trial. My understanding of that process may be wrong, but it has influenced some of my thoughts.

      In regards to white privilege, I have felt the same as you, feeling disrespected or prejudiced against when it didn’t seem I had intended anything wrong. And what I’ve come to learn is that for many people of color, that is something they experience daily. Now it doesn’t follow that we should be made to feel the same things as they do – but I sometimes wonder if my instinct to feel disrespected is really a failure to search my own heart.

      Reply
  2. shannon

    Failure to indict?

    I too want to cry, but for a different reason. It seems you have not actually read or even attempted to read the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of pages of testimony and physical evidence (autopsy reports, ballistics and toxicology results, etc.) from innumerable sources that the good citizens of that Grand Jury poured over for months and months of their lives.

    You have instead, it seems, naively and, I might add, self-righteously concluded that they made a mistake and that the whole tragic incident has caused you to reflect on your “white privilege.”
    Oh. I see. Some phrase academics have come up with to make YOU feel guilty about the fact that others live differently than you do or have values different from yours or behave differently than you do has led you to this conclusion. How neat and tidy that is.

    I suggest you do some real digging into the matter. You might start with some extensive reading of the transcripts that the prosecutor promised he’d make available to the public. It’s all there for you. Maybe then you can actually come up with something other than a trite phrase conceived by people in Ivory Towers, people who wish to keep their nice little tenured positions from which they can spout inane memes meant to stifle the minds of the young they reach.

    You might also consider what it is that makes some people, some youth, actually buy into those memes while others don’t. What is it about this one in particular, that makes you feel so good about yourself.

    Now, I’ll leave you to read those many pages.

    Reply
    1. Calvin Sodestrom

      Shannon – thanks for the comment. I appreciate your thoughts on the matter even though I disagree with you.

      First off, I don’t think white privilege is just some term that I inherited from professors to sound smart. Rather, my understanding of it was birthed out of listening to people of color share their experiences and realize how they’ve had to face things I’ve never imagined. And that is a privilege.

      As to the failure to indict Darren Wilson, my understanding of the grand jury process is not that it declares Darren Wilson not guilty, but that he ought not to be tried. And without a defense attorney, a lot of it is up to how the prosecutor presents the evidence. Facts do not always speak for themselves, interpretation must always be used. It may very well be that Darren Wilson acted well within his rights, but I think it would have been better for a jury to decide that, with two interpreters/lawyers presenting the facts, not just one.

      It must also be noted that this case is not just about Michael Brown and Darren Wilson. It taps into a much deeper issue of racial inequality and violence. And that is more what I am responding to.

      Reply
  3. Clayton Milano

    Hey Calvin,

    Fellow blogger here… Just a couple of thoughts/questions that come to mind as I read your article.

    1. Everyone writing on this topic, including yourself, has a very definitive position whether the police office should have been indicted or not indicted. At the same time, I have strong suspicions that most with a strong conviction on the matter have hardly taken the time to read through any of the actual evidence. Call me naive but doesn’t it seem like the path of humility here would be to conclude that the GJ, who listened to countless hours of testimony is far more qualified to make a determination than those of us who have read a few articles on the internet about the situation?

    2. You say that you are convicted of your “participation in a system that marginalizes others.” I’m curious exactly what this means. What are you participating in? What does the word system mean? And what do you mean by marginalizes? The reason I ask is because that is a statement that sounds compelling but it’s hard to me to understand exactly what you mean. And I’m not trying to bait you into something, I just don’t know how to proceed in analyzing your comments.

    For the record, I certainly agree that people of color, particularly black people, have been put in a difficult social position as a result of sins by the white race against them in generations past. I especially have these sentiments when it comes to their lack of capital or ability to accumulate capital seeing as this consequence is something is established in the bedrock of the social order and cannot be changed in the span of a few generations.

    3. You say, “It makes me more angry to know that if I pointed out that their comments were racist, they would protest and deny it, another tragic result of privilege.”

    I’m not exactly sure what to call this comment seeing as the most apt monikers for it would be words like “absurd” or “extreme.” You are saying that if you tell someone they have said something racist and they don’t agree with your assessment, that this is because they are privileged. What if what they said really isn’t racist? Could it be possible that that is why they disagreed with you? Why not debate the merit of someone’s comments being racist than just saying the reason they disagree with you is because they are privileged? Even if they are privileged–which is a presupposition that for one should not be assumed and for two needs to be demonstrable–that doesn’t mean that their comments are invalid or inaccurate.

    4. I really liked your part about Advent. I had never thought about it that way before but I thought what you did their was really excellent. It’s hard to imagine what truly longing for a hope feels like for people suffering from injustice. Your comparison of marginalized people now to Jesus was awesome and helpful.

    Those are my thoughts.

    Reply
    1. Calvin Sodestrom

      Clayton,

      Thanks for the comment – I’ll do my best to respond them in turn. Hopefully it helps clarify some of my thoughts.

      1. I mentioned this a bit in response to the other comments, but I’ll state it again. I do not mean to say that I know better than the Grand Jury – they did indeed hear all the evidence. But from what I’ve read on grand jury’s, the prosecutor can sway the jury one way or another depending on the evidence they present. And it indict Darren Wilson would not declare him guilty, only that the evidence can tell two different stories. And I think the lack of indictment speaks to a deeper issue of racial inequality. And that is where part of my sadness comes from.

      2. Thanks for asking for more clarity – helps me think a bit more deeply about the pictures and images that are influencing my writing. I think the main “system” is daily American life. Much of my time is spent in homogeneous communities, primarily composed of white people. The lack of interaction with other cultures can lend itself to insensitive thinking at the expense of people of color. I think about the fact that I was raised in a suburban neighborhood, and from what I’ve read, many suburban neighborhoods were created due to a “white flight” in response to a increase in people of color in cities. In short, the system is American culture, which has unfortunately made people of color to feel as if they are lesser citizens. Does that help? I understand if you may disagree with me on that point.

      3. I was thinking about specific people and comments I had heard/read, saying things like, “he deserved to be shot,” “black people need to stop being so sensitive,” and things of that matter. Not helpful comments and, I think, given from the very content of those statements, is evidence of white privilege. Hopefully that helps!

      Reply

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