White Privilege Among Friends and Facebook

In the midst of Zimmerman trial, a few 'friends' approached me. Apparently I talked too much about race. It wasn't appreciated. It made them uncomfortable. I thought about this for a while and resisted the urge to explain the sociological and historical terms of why Trayvon Martin is indicative of a larger problem. I became aware that I was dealing with White privilege and then I did something I should not have done: I stayed silent. I censored myself because the issue that endangered my actual ability to live...made them squirm. They would rather not talk about it. Some of these friends were spiritual, others were atheist, but I did notice one common trait: they were all White men.

I noticed that other people of color were experiencing the same thing in person or on social media sites. I would look at the Facebook newsfeed and notice the occasional comment of weariness: did we have to always make this about race? Once again, these were almost always White men. In one incident there was a questioning of why the news was only showing the young picture of Trayvon. Why was the news not showing the much larger and I guess scary, threatening Black man who was still gunned down for walking back home. When I explained the protocol of how the news media defers to the family to ask for pictures, his suspicion remained. Why was the media still running this picture, as if there was some conspiracy involved to show a murdered Black teenage boy as innocent victim of an overzealous neighbor with documented past incidents of racism, rather than acknowledging that the only conspiracy involved was one of facts aligning with our previous experiences of racism in America.

It's a blessing to have so many friends of different colors, ethnicities, and religions. But the issue of White privilege has to be addressed. For people of color to be told by their White 'friends' that they talk about race too much, the scenario should be flipped. In the midst of inequality, how can their counterpart be so silent?

Willful blindness and silence doesn't make one more Christian or Buddhist or spiritual. Quite the opposite. To allow systematic injustice to go on and to not even speak of it because it's messy or not your family, is a sign of weakness and privilege. It makes you a part of the problem.

The concepts of karma and emptiness do not mean we ignore the world and injustice. But we use the world to work through our own stuff. Activism on and off the cushion is a must. But there can be no work done when the inequalities of the day are ignored. Having a friend of color doesn't mean you've escaped the matrix of White privilege or have 'figured it out.'

This morning I saw a story about a Black man in Florida who was beaten up by a cop, arrested, thrown in jail for a night, and brought to court for walking on the wrong side of the road (the story can be read here). This is something that all people should be aware of; not because it highlights an isolated incident. The reason why this is news is because it's symbolic of systemic inequality. Although these societal problem appears to flares up every once in a while in outrageous crimes, they exists on a subtle level in the lives of millions every day.

When I walked down the street yesterday and hear the car doors lock, I am aware of the small, everyday things. I can't knock on the car window and explain to this person that I just came from a workshop at Juilliard. I can't explain to the cop who wants to frisk me that I'm actually an award-winning writer on a fellowship to the best arts school in the country. I can't explain to the women on the Upper West Side who scrunch up their faces in anguish/anger/contempt when I walk into a subway car, that I would no sooner ask them for money, than I would own a gun, or smoke crack, or do any of those things they may associate with someone who looks like me. None of these things can be said. Instead, people of color walk around with those everyday slights, with a feeling of anxiety and low-level paranoia.  It's not helpful to be told to bottle this up until the next riot or crisis, at which point people of color will be forced into another artificial dialogue, contrived to assuage the immediate fears of violence but not to address the actual problem of racism.

As a nation, we have to do better. As friends, we have to talk about what concerns us. There is no such thing as 'talking too much' about an issue if it's in the news and directly affects the your friends. Instead of willfully creating a wall of ignorance, we can use social media to actually break down those old barriers and listen to each other.

That is all. Namaste. 

From Ernest Gideon Green to Trayvon Martin: The Struggle Continues

Last night I was involved in a moment where history met with artistic re-enactment and vice versa. I was involved in the "The Little Rock Nine Project" and Ernest Gideon Green was in the front row. Mr. Green was the first Black citizen to graduate from a desegregated high school in America as a part of the Little Rock 9. Since he was the first of the 9 to graduate he is the Rosa Parks of schools and has gone on to be a civil rights icon, successful businessman, and winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton. I was helping out with the dramaturgy of the piece which premiered at Nuyorican Poets Cafe last night. As the piece concluded with his graduation and Green's decision to walk across the stage to receive his diploma despite death threats and attempts at his life, the actors began to sing a song about how the events unfolded that day and how he made a decision to stand. From the first row of the audience Mr. Green stood up. He stood alongside the actors as they began singing directly to him about the day. And as each series of actors spoke to him, he became an actor in a piece about his life. You could hear the collective gasp and weeping in the audience.

I was reminded of the power of art to reflect and interact with history. Afterward, Mr. Green spoke about the work that was done and the work that has yet to be done. As the audience filed out of the theatre, the news of the Trayvon Martin trial was echoing through people's phones and social media. George Zimmerman was found not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin. Despite the fact Zimmerman admitted to pulling the trigger and that he pursued Martin, who was a non-violent pedestrian moving down the public space of the road, the court of US law saw that George's fear of a Black youth walking past him was sufficient enough to warrant murder. Zimmerman now gets to go home, resume his life, retrieve the murder weapon from police evidence, and possibly make millions of dollars off the homicide in endorsements and book deals from the conservative media.

I have been absorbed into the collective outrage on social media and amongst my friends. The anger is justified due the historical context of the murder more so than the individual perpetrator. Zimmerman just happens to be the latest killer in a long-line of American patriarchy who violently act out against disadvantaged groups and then claim themselves to be the victims. I was reminded of this line of defense when looking at the Little Rock 9 and the outrage from the Southern governors at the time who were both instigating violence against Blacks while claiming to be the victims who have lost their freedom.

And yet there stood Ernest Green. 50 years later after all the assaults, threats, and attempts at his life. Many of his colleagues did not make it. But there he stood on stage. Still standing after all these years. Many others will continue to stand because it's needed. It's not an act of willpower but a gesture of grace under assault. Now more than ever we need to stand, but not against Zimmerman. The stand must be taken against the system which allows someone like Zimmerman to psychologically justify murder based on racial fear.


WHITE SUPREMACY

White Supremacy is not only the promotion of racial superiority, but of the inferiority of others as it pertains to their body, mind, and basic humanity. It's woven into the fabric of this nation and has been an underpinning psychological motivation for civil wars, lynching, and hundreds of years of hatred. It's obvious to see how White Supremacy plays out in a case like Zimmerman. What's not as obvious is how it plays out within the Black community.

Right now in Chicago, hundreds of Black youths are being murdered. They are being murdered by other Black people. These killings are happening mostly on the South Side of Chicago. The deeper question is how the same White Supremacy that can give the world the Zimmerman acquittal can produce the steady onslaught of death amongst Black populations mostly at the hands of its own people. The insidious nature of White Supremacy is that it's an unspoken belief which is often taken up by others regardless of their racial background. When I see life disrespected in such a systematic way it cuts to the matter of the system in place.

It's a very real feeling among Black people that their lives are worth less than others because of White Supremacy. It's a feeling promoted by the society at large and pass down to the next generation. In the past, it would be the job of the church and parents to inoculate Black children against this crippling virus. Now it appears as if the next generation is not only unprotected but picking up this disease both outside and inside our communities.

The devaluation of Black life is something that's been well-documented. Hip hop culture promotes it, Viacom streams it, and both Black and White audiences pay for it. There is a collusion going on and yet no one wants to speak of this obvious perilous choice both sides have made. It is too profitable and shameful. Furthermore the tasks of overturning this White Supremacist collaboration appears to be too costly and complicated.

In order to begin undoing the system of White Supremacy it's going to take a lot of serious, continued, aggressive efforts by all races. It's not about letting Zimmerman off the hook or explaining it all away by saying 'Black people need to get their families together.' It is about keeping it on the psychology which drives the system and influences people. It's very cold work that removes weekly faces of outrage that distract us from the larger issue. Zimmerman and Paula Deen aren't the larger issue. The thinking which ties them together as much as Jay-Z is the larger and more provocative issue.

BLACK COMMODIFICATION

Personally, I'm a fan of Jay-Z. I love many of his songs. But I can't deny that there's a strange tone of White Supremacy in hip hop culture by devaluing Blackness. Even more complex is how Blackness is only validated within the context of consumerism for many of us. Buying stuff makes up for the lack of life worth.

On the same night of meeting civil rights leader Ernest Green and hearing about the Zimmerman acquittal, I was walking back from a restaurant in the Flat Iron district. I passed by the 40/40 club. I was hit with another level of awareness by all the men and women in flashy suits. I asked my friend -who happens to be Black- what the 40/40 club is about and he said 'everyone pretends like they're in a rap video.' I began wondering why all these things were blending together in my mind on this day: Mr. Green, Trayvon, Jay-Z. On a deeper level it feels intermixed.

If Black devaluation isn't an American way of life, then how we treat each other so poorly? How can I walk by on the night of Zimmerman's release and see dozens of Black women in tight skirts and skyscraper heels teetering their way past the velvet ropes with the ambition of someone buying them a $500 bottle of champagne. There were no riots or protests here. Trayvon's death was a blip on the consciousness of these men and women. It appeared that Black death and White Supremacy were well-accepted by this group and their escape was to the club.

On that historic night, what would happen if Jay-Z shut down the club and demanded that people pay attention to something other than his marketing brand. As a Black man from the Marcy Projects, does he owe anything to young men and women who look like him and are getting gunned down by policeman, their own brothers, and random vigilantes? Does this debate even register in this world and why not?

It's going to take a lot more than yelling at Zimmerman or castigating Paula Deen. The troubling issue is that it's much easier to expiate our fears on to a few individuals rather than address the larger system we are working in. There are no forums to consider these questions, much less to pursue answers to the insidious nature of White Supremacy, Black Devaluation, and Commodification. Only shouting and rage at figureheads. I suspect that all our noise is merely a rehearsal for the next Trayvon incident, the next Fruitvale Station shooting, the next brief register of race consciousness that will be subsumed beneath blind, calcifying outrage.

This problem is deeper than a man and more complicated than a case. But if we -as a nation- cared for Trayvon then as much as we hate Zimmerman now, we might be able to stop the cycle of White Supremacist violence in the near future. 

"A Course In Miracles" and Buddhism

In Buddhism we get very technical and specific about how to move the winds and channels in the body to achieve certain results. The past year I've been reading these quantum physics books, and A Course In Miracle, as well as Gary Rennard's The Disappearance of the Universe.  In reading these texts I find that they were perfectly describing the results that Buddhism says comes at a certain state. Exactly the same reporting from masters who have 'gone to that place' of enlightenment. 

A Course in Miracles approaches it slightly differently with the words of Christ. It's all about forgiveness on a pure non dualistic level (which is very Buddhist in some ways). It is forgiving the illusion. Forgiving the difficult boss who I created and is teaching me a lesson, forgiving this trouble, and that issue. Not condescending forgiveness which is poisonous. But true forgiveness and realizing we are all brothers of Christ and children of God. What is here isn't real and therefore is just an illusion. All there is, is God. 

And this isn't a God that created the world. Course states that karma created the world and that's that. God is formless, shapeless and sounds a lot like a codeword for dharmakaya or some sort of essence. And this God/emptiness is the only constant and therefore nothing else is real, so it must be forgiven. Or as one quantum physicists would say: it's the void that's full. The universe is empty. 

Forgive the mistaken belief that I am separated from God, b/c in fact I am not and never have been. This karma and constant reincarnation is a trick of the mind (Buddhist totally believe in this). And reincarnation was in the Bible for most of its history until Catholic Church took it out hundreds of years later. And so this cyclic thing is happening b/c of my own guilt, the constant shifts in my life are little guilt trips that trigger separation and division to appear on all levels. 

I separated from God (Big Bang) and set off a chain of events that occurred and arose the universe. In separating all time and space was created at once. My mind organizes it into a linear fashion to make sense of the universe. It is my guilt of separation and fear (God's gonna get me) that keeps me cycling around. It's what runs this world of the 20,000 illusions, shifting relationships, and separation. Fear from this guilt is what creates up and down feelings, something pleasant that must always change. So the big forgiveness lesson is with myself. I am not guilty. I am innocent. When the voices comes, when the illness comes, when mishaps come that trigger that voice of doubt/guilt which is my ego, I remember that I am innocent. 

God is...

And everything else IS NOT. So I forgive that which IS NOT, b/c it's not real. 

They say my guilt plays itself out with sickness and every dilemma. Anything that troubles or disturbs my peace is coming from that guilt/fear from the initial separation. And all of eternity is waiting. Eternity is right here waiting, for me to strip away my 'illusory guilt' which causes cancers and death, and all forms of separation. This, of course, isn't happening on a conscious level. The mind is massive and sets into motion events that will happen in this life based on that guilt. And my purpose here is to forgive. Forgive and remember: I am innocent. 

I find this works REALLY well with Buddhist studies. This is a Jesus I like and completely know. Not the condemning one, but one who is saying "I am Christ. And so are you." Then what could worry me in a long-term way if I am Christ? Would Christ care about sexual orientation, what nation I come from, what I eat if I'm talking about pure non-dualistic love? All that stuff is dualistic, set to confuse and separate, intended on perpetually re-enacting the initial separation that set everything into motion. The world is filled with outrage, scandal, war, and separation. And it must be forgiven on the purest level.

Supplementary book "The Disappearance of the Universe" is very powerful and goes through Course in Miracles at a more digestible level. The Course is very thick and big and takes a year or so to work through it. I have been feeling lighter. 

When I see scandal I forgive it. Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman: forgive it. Republicans wanting to cut taxes for rich and end programs for the poor? Forgive, forgive forgive. Truly forgive and realize that I will still vote, voice my opinion, but there isn't condemnation or rage. I am aware of the illusion and can't get enraged at it mirroring back my guilt. But when I forgive it, this illusion is released. Instead of getting sick 100 times, maybe I can get sick only 98 times and forgive it, remind myself of innocence and be released from the last 2?

At the very least, it makes reading the news and talking to people a lot easier. Anger is a call for love, so I give love. Love is a call for love so I give love. Everything negative is coming from a place of fear and guilt. So there is nothing to do but release it with forgiveness and then embrace it as Christ/Buddhamind/zero-pt field physics. God is formless, tasteless, colorless. All form comes out of duality so when I get to the level of ultimate forgiveness that is the 'disappearance of the universe' or 'clear light direct perception of emptiness' in Buddhism. The universe dissolves away b/c all duality has been released and with that there is only one thing: God. 

God is.

Trayvon Martin and Walking While Black

Keep moving. 

Don't stop. 

Don't make eye contact. 

I have felt like Trayvon Martin. Many many times while walking at night, being pulled over by police, being told that I'm not supposed to 'be.' My 'being' in a space has caused questions, concerns, suspicions. In the back of my mind I always wondered if there would be a reckoning. If my 'being' would become so intolerable to someone that they would try to end my existence, rather than engage in a conversation.  The only difference between me and Trayvon is that I am still here and he is not.  Still, the question lurks around the subconscious when I walk home every night from the subway and a police car slows down alongside me. The squad car slows down. Eyeballs examine my 'being' noticing any signs of anger, insanity, guilt. I continue walking, pretending to be oblivious. In most cases this is the best sign of innocence: by pretending to not notice.

Unlike myself, Trayvon physically noticed the accusation. He noticed the suspicion and dared to walk toward it. Stare at it, as he spoke with his girlfriend over the phone. Curious, as to who could be staring at him so intently he took a step in Zimmerman's direction. Staring directly at George Zimmerman before quickly walking away.

When I am walking in strange or dark surroundings I try to keep it moving. No time to stop. I hear my parents' voice of survival.

You don't know where this person is coming from.

You don't know what they want or what they're trying to get.

They could be trying to get into a fight. They could be trying to rob you. It could be a trap.

Keep it moving. 

 A few years ago I was headed home from the library. Two figures came out of a building and began pursuing me. From the corner of my eye, I saw that they were two tall football-muscular men in their 20s. They happened to be White. I keep my eyes on the path. They seemed to be trying to catch me.

I flipped up my collar and continued walking briskly. One of the men came alongside me.



Dude, do you have a lighter?



No, I don't smoke.


Stupid nigger.


I continued walking very quickly. This felt like a trap of some sort. I was supposed to react to it. Turn around and get in a fight with two bigger stronger men who seemed worked up about something. I was supposed to turn and scream 'murder' or swing at one of them. I was supposed to react and give them something. I picked up my pace and kept walking. I made sure not to run, but I never made eye contact. The goal was to get home. I was not going to be swayed by a 'word' that was intended to arouse my rage. 

The two men eventually trailed off, seeing that I was unwilling to take the bait. Perhaps they found a Mexican, Asian, or another Black man that night. I wasn't going to be 'their one.'

On another occasion a cab driver seemed to go out of his way just so he could spit on my path and give me a murderous look. I was walking down the street carrying my airport luggage.

I could name other incidents of walking while Black: the police slow-downs, pull-overs, suspicious looks. It's all the same because my reaction has to be measured and numb. I pretend not to notice and keep eyes fixed straight ahead.  Hands out of pockets and swinging along my side. Maybe I'll start singing. A guilty man wouldn't sing, would he?

More and more the last few years when I find myself WWB, a sad smile comes across my face.After all these years, you're still looking for that sign of suspicion. It's not here. I'm innocent. There is nothing wrong with me. I'm just a Black man out for a walk.