Living in coronavirusworld 176: A day with no relief

 9/26

Make America Care Again: Live and let live

An over six hour Presbytery meeting on ZOOM can leave you feeling drained and exhausted .  I got to deliver my report on being a commissioner, a representative of New York City Presbytery to the first virtual assembly last June. I spoke of the good, the bad and the ugly. The good being how the grass roots had fought and organized to open up what was to have been an hermetically sealed Assembly dealing only with necessary and essential institutional issues.  Thanks to many of hours of hard work, we were able to produce a decent statement in support of Black Lives Matter and repenting of systemic racism,  and a statement on Covid 19 as well. The bad was the Assembly’s refusal to listen to the voices from the Black Women and Girls Task Force on the unique disparities of their experience. And the ugly was the commissioner who held up a preborn lives matter sign during an 8:40  memorial fro George Floyd.  My colleagues also reported. One spoke of learning the need to listen. Another of the possibility of reconvening Assembly and how she had already spoken to represntatiess of Eastern Korean Presbytery for their support. 

The moderator of that Task Force,  the Rev. Keri Allen, gave us an in depth overview of the report. Speaking of both the invisibility and hypervisibility of Black women and girls. (As per Brionna Taylor.) Adultification and sexualization of young Black girls. The experience of institutional and interpersonal violence. Rooted in toxic theology. The need for gender equity, to move from pro-choice to reproductive justice. And how the Assembly could not bring itself to explicitly name this exploitation. Rev. Allen also named the Presbyterian Church as having been the “most prolific” of slave holding churches, its colleges, universities and seminaries built on the backs of exploited  Black women and girls. Capital stolen from Back girls’ wombs. The highest murder rate of Black trans women. The overpolicing of Black bodies. Once again I was reminded of the breadth and power of that devastating report. 

The meeting itself descended into polity chaos as approving the minutes provided the opening for a two hour fight. At root were institutional issues clearly impacted by systemic racism. It was painful to see members of the Black community attacking  each other.  It becomes increasingly clear to me that an institution that is historically and intrinsically white in culture and structure, even when bringing BIPOC persons into leadership positions, will remain captive to white domination until there is a conscious an intentional project of deconstruction of the whiteness of that culture and structure. In fact, white privilege and power will be strengthened because now it will be legitimated by the presence of BIPOC persons. Still worse, these representatives will have been made accomplices in  their own oppression. I say that with  people I care for and respect in both sides of very emotional arguments. Some of would be  very upset to read this. But that’s how insidious white privilege is. 

Happy birthday

When it’s over, I need a walk to clear my head. I see its someone’s birthday. 

Ready for the vigil

I go to the Lucerne where the One Heart Upper West Side has decorated the scaffolding pipes in preparation for a vigil to protest the mayor’s removal of the residents. 

I finish at the Gate with two musician friends. The conversation is filled  with anxiety over continued lack of work and income and the upcoming election. 

It's a day with no relief.