"Monuments yet to be torn down within me"

I didn't write that, my friend Reggie Weaver did.

“…. This is not the world we want to leave you. So I celebrate the successes of the past year. More and more people, it seems, have been moved to tear down the physical and metaphorical monuments to our oppression.  

“Still, as I think about what it would mean for me, in particular, to be a good ancestor, I am aware of the inner work this requires, as well. […] there are some monuments yet to be torn down within me. Monuments to patriarchy, sexism, and heteronormativity. Monuments, even, to my own pain and trauma. I am working to remove them—for myself, first—but also for you.”

— Reggie Weaver, “Monuments of the Heart,” March 19, 2022

Beautiful words from my wise and wonderful friend Reggie Weaver.

"This is my prayer, because there are some monuments yet to be torn down within me."

Aug 15, 2017. Days after clashes in Charlottesville, Va., protesters toppled a statue of a Confederate soldier that had stood in front of the old Durham County Courthouse in North Carolina for nearly a century. Photo: New York Times.

Powerful. Thank you, Reggie.

You can read his full piece here.

His piece, and the work we’ve been doing in my truly lit Spiritual Direction and Social Transformation program (which is accepting applications for its next cohort!) harkened me back to a time before COVID, when there was talk of confederate monuments coming down (and Durham had already torn its down), but doing so hadn't yet exploded into the national consciousness like it did in the summer of 2020.

Back in 2017, I was in a gathering of friends spanning multiple generations. All of us were in the racial “category” of white; simultaneously, all of us identified within other historically oppressed or marginalized groups.

Drinks were being drinked. :)

And at one point, the conversation touched upon confederate monuments. Should they come down?

An elder in the gathering said something to the effect of, "Eh. I don’t think they need to come down. The statues don't bother me."

I was like **record scratch** / **freeze frame** / "WHUT.”

The connections. The connections of oppression and LISTENING to oppressed folks. They weren't being made.

I think about that moment so often.

"Eh. [insert something that a marginalized group has said is oppressive and needs to change] doesn't bother me."

1. The thing is, that’s irrelevant.

Whether or not it bothers YOU is irrelevant.

It’s simple: if a group of historically marginalized / oppressed people says what is happening is harmful, and you keep doing it, or are silent about it continuing, you are being an asshat. You are being an asshat at an individual level and in the context of power at a systems level.

Systems shape us and we shape systems by our actions and caring about what we care about.

2. "It doesn't bother me" ignores the ways that power and oppression are interwoven.

Pull one thread and they are all connected.

Like the poem, “First they came,” by Pastor Martin Niemolloer:

FIRST THEY CAME

– BY PASTOR MARTIN NIEMÖLLER

Download a copy of First They Came by Pastor Martin Niemöller

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

3. "It doesn't bother me…" Ok. Granted, in this conversation, drinks were being had, but I do have to dig deeper here.

DOESN'T it actually bother you? I bet at some level, perhaps unconsciously, it DOES bother you, because I believe we are all connected ... not just in a woo-woo spiritual sense but also like, in the quarks and physics and particles of matter and such.

We're all a web of stardust.

So the hurt and harm someone else suffers hurts and harms you.

4. Annnndddd ... as much as I wanted to scream, "It doesn't matter if it doesn't bother you!"

Guess what?

I didn't. I was complicit. I was silent.

The speaker was an elder. And the convo quickly moved on to another subject.

I’m still not sure if my silence was okay in that situation.

The truth is, I often struggle with whether it’s my place to speak — especially in spaces of collective grief or trauma, or a roomful of elders, or if I am the only white woman in a group of Black folks, or the only cis gal in group of trans friends, and so on.

I often ask myself: in what ways is my silence a good practice, and in what ways is it complicity? And then I ask myself: Geez. Am I sitting there "ranking" oppressions?

Goodness. It sometimes bakes my noodle.

And, as another good friend and wise elder has said, “Never miss an opportunity to shut up and listen.”

BUT when is my shutting up and listening an act of complicity?

The ways I embody and am shaped by systems of oppression surely come into play when it comes to when to pipe up and when to zip it.

5. I am complicit *and* I am deviant and unruly.

As Reggie said so beautifully, there are, still, always, so many monuments within me. Within all of us.

I am in a constant push-pull between wanting to "do well" within structures of power (monuments), versus “why the heck am I wanting to sit at the tables we should all be flipping?” (tearing down monuments).

6. What does / would it mean to disrupt, uproot, abolish the whole system?

Won't those systems themselves kick back twice as hard in response?

Another friend, a wise labor organizer, often says: “A dying donkey kicks hardest.”

And he’s right.

And I see storms now, and storms on the horizon. Systems of oppression getting ready to kick back even harder.

And then I remember to breathe.

And I remember to be so so soooo grateful for the idea of creating pockets —just pockets— of resistance and agape.

That’s what our responsibility is. While we’re putting our shoulders against the boulders of history, and oppression, our job is to create pockets of community, mercy, grace, love, forgiveness, trust.

It may be entirely impossible to “achieve" abolition.

It may be that we can’t build everlasting beauty in our lifetimes.

But we can create beautiful pockets.

I’m glad to be in a lovely little pocket (the Great Cosmic Echidna’s pouch?) with you, friends.

And I trust and deeply, truly, madly appreciate the pockets you are creating, ever deepening and ever widening.

XOXO