by Jenny L. Young
March 14, 2017
I have never paid attention to politics. I didn’t need to. My status quo wasn’t changing drastically with each new president. My life continued largely untouched by election periods. Social activism was something other people did. I didn’t see activism in my white, christian world and never felt pulled to look deeper into the sociology of my city, state, or nation.
I remember hearing that anyone could pull themselves up by the boot straps and make a better life for themselves. At the church I grew up in, being gay was a sin, the husband was the head of the wife, loyalty to God and the church came before everything else (including social activism), and it was wrong to come against “God’s anointed” leadership, which were all men.
I unknowingly swallowed the shame of being abused by the “boys club” and of being a female in a male dominated world. I ignored the inequality amongst class and race and the suffering of those who were classified as less than. As a teenager, I began to silently question the generalizations that kept out and judged others based on skin color and sexual orientation, but continued to enjoy the comforts of my middle class existence at home and in the church.
In 2004, I had a spiritual awakening where I literally sat up in bed and said, “Is this all there is?” This started a difficult period of exiting the fundamentalist church I grew up in, erasing beliefs from my mind that swamped me with religious guilt and shame, and entering a space of grace and freedom. I started college at the age of 34, insecure and intimidated, yet determined to enlarge my understanding outside of the church doors. My world religions class was my favorite and cemented an idea that rang quietly inside of me for most of my life, truth was everywhere!
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My whole world changed with that 2004 question. I eventually left my very complicated marriage of 20 years, received my masters degree in counseling psychology, remarried a man who was willing to see me completely, and started a home group that focuses on inclusion and love. Politics were unavoidable as I watched young black men be killed, LGBTQ+ fight for the right to marry, and women bravely reveal abuse from men in power. With the election of Trump, and the recognition of the privilege I have lived my life in, the need to hear marginalized voices became clear.
The Importance of Marginalized Voices
The reason we need to make room to listen is simple: Because for too long marginalized people have had their rights ripped away and have been treated as second-class citizens.
The truth is God speaks and works from the margins. When we listen, we allow ourselves to learn from these powerful perspectives. We honor christian values and the example of Jesus himself. We live out the two most important commandments: Love God and love others.
Story after story, Jesus reaches out to the people no one else would: the harshly judged woman at the well, the hated tax collector, the scorned and avoided people with leprosy, the woman religious men wanted to stone, the people of Nineveh (this one is old testament God), and the list goes on and on. Jesus himself was a man on the outside, persecuted for being different and offering a new message.
People on the margins have deep wisdom to offer. They have experiences that mirror Jesus’ experiences of prejudice and persecution. They understand and can teach a perspective that many have missed out on, coming from a place of privilege.
Our home group includes members of the LGBTQ community and last week they taught us about Jesus’ parables in Matthew 13 and 18. The first story was about the man who found the pearl of great price and sold all he had to purchase it. My friends looked at these verses from fresh eyes and began to share how much they have had to give up (family, jobs, security, personal safety, friends, churches, communities…) in order to simply be themselves.
The second story was about how Jesus, when discovering that one out of one hundred sheep had gone missing, leaves the ninety-nine to attend the one. This is how Jesus responds to the outskirts! He leaves the ninety-nine who are safe and fed and comfortable to witness and care for the one who doesn’t fit, who isn’t the same as everyone else, who feels alone and scared. He puts his energy, time, and attention on making sure the one knows that they are worthy!
The most important aspect of listening is that the narratives of those who have been abused, labelled, taunted, and undervalued can experience change. “The very act of bearing witness to these voices is radical and transformative” (Utt, 2013). To be seen, known, isn’t that what we all desire? Leave the comfortable and step out into the margins where Jesus is, where education lies, where love reigns. The truth is, the opportunity to hear these stories will radically change our lives too.
Why So Much Negativity Towards the Church?
The movie Spotlight highlighted the stories of sexual abuse by priests in the catholic church. It was a bitter and dangerous battle to expose what had been masked for years and to hold accountable the perpetrators and the institution. And yet looking back now, we can see that “it is possible to begin turning even an organization as large and as old as the church toward primary concern for victims” (Zimmerman, 2017). This devastation transformed the system into one intent on learning what went wrong and how to listen to victims.
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Growth is often painful, and can come from conflict or devastation such as this scandal. But it is change that most religious institutions need. In every row of people attending Sunday morning services, there are victims of sexual assault or abuse, there are people affected by prejudice, and there are people who have suffered in isolation and shame.
Silence and inaction mean we are complicit. Love without action is meaningless. Instead, let us acknowledge wrongdoing, declare that women are valuable within the community and that sexual abuse or harassment is unacceptable, stand in solidarity with victims advocating for justice and healing, establish plans for dealing with sexual crimes, and declare no tolerance for abuse in our churches. Let us create leadership positions for those on the outskirts, to teach us how to open our eyes and love the way Jesus loves, to lead us in broadening our privileged perspectives into more inclusive ones. May we give power away and move the marginalized to a welcoming center, speak and act for justice, standing up for the rights and wellbeing of others. May we address contemporary and historical injustices, making marginalized people our partners
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Why So Much Anger Towards Trump?
Why, for the first time in my 45 years, am I vocal about our president? Why now, am I choosing to read, to watch, and to write about politics? As I said already, time is up for silence. Staying quiet means being complicit to the abuse happening in our nation against the marginalized.
My guess is that every president has done good things, including Trump. And that every president has created policies or acted in ways that are disliked. Standing here, in 2018, it isn’t about comparisons of past presidents for me. It’s about the state of our nation, where prejudice, divisiveness, and abuse is everywhere, and the fact that we have a president who perpetuates and encourages this behavior.
For example:
- Made effort to ban all transgender individuals from the military
- Encouragement of police brutality, “joking” that officers should rough up suspects as they shove them into the back of police cars
- Executive Order 13769, banning Muslim-majority nations
- Mocking disabled reporter during campaign
- Immigration promises to deport all undocumented immigrants, criminals or not
- Insults hurled at women: on weight, looks, sexuality, menstruation, ethnicity
- Using ignorant and degrading language such as calling Haiti and other African nations, "shithole countries," saying immigrants from Haiti "all have AIDS," and Nigerian immigrants, once seeing the US, would never "go back to their huts" (Leonhardt & Philbrick, 2018).
If I am to stand beside the marginalized, if I am to advocate to right the wrongs of discrimination and prejudice, how can I not protest Trump’s degrading and disgusting behavior? If I am to emulate Jesus and step into relationship with those on the outskirts, how can I support a man who has encouraged hate with his own words and actions? If I am to promote leadership from the margins, to learn from their wisdom, and to give up my power to empower them, how can I stay silent watching the man in the most powerful role in the US spew insults and ugliness towards the marginalized?
I cannot. And so I will walk in women’s marches and pride parades, and I will bristle when I watch the state of the union address. I will try to show respect and offer validation to my friends who challenge my disapproval of our president, and I will continue to hope that they can do the same. I will not be silent or ignore politics that degrade others, but will hope that our innate need for connection will lead to relationships with the marginalized and the creation of open minds.
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So What Does Marginalized Look Like?
Marginalized looks like black people, who after years of slavery and atrocious abuse see the 15th amendment passed in 1870 giving black individuals the right to vote, only to face the fight that continued into the late 1960’s to see this come to fruition because states made it impossible to register. It was only 51 years ago, in 1967 that the ban against interracial marriage was struck down by the Supreme Court. People who are 50 years old today, saw the Civil Rights Act of 1968 passed, outlawing discrimination in the sale and rental of housing and lived through this period where separate but equal was preached and lynchings still occurred.
Being a minority for the LGBTQ meant being labeled as a sociopath by the American Psychiatric Association (a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscious). In 1952, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an executive order that banned homosexuals from working for the federal government, saying they were a security risk. Only 25 years ago, President Bill Clinton signed a military policy directive that prohibited openly gay and lesbian Americans from serving in the military, but also prohibited the harassment of "closeted" homosexuals. The policy was known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell.” And three years later, Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, banning federal recognition of same-sex marriage and defining marriage as "a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.”
Native Americans suffered the loss of millions at the hands of Europeans, the theft of their land and vitality, and the degradation and destruction of their religion, language, and culture. In 1890, The Indian Naturalization Act granted citizenship to Native Americans whose applications were approved. And in 1924, The Indian Citizenship Act granted citizenship to Native Americans, but many states made laws and policies which prohibited Native Americans from voting.
Marginalized looks like ads from the past where women are turned over the man’s knee for buying the wrong coffee and young girls are wearing makeup while the ad declares “innocence is sexier than you think.” On the outskirts for women means having no recourse when men groped, ogled, or made snide remarks about their bodies. It means unequal pay, unequal opportunities, and unequal representation. Sexism includes childhood abuse that is ignored or excused to protect a man, being told that girls are not allowed to hold certain roles in certain religions, and being told to submit to the authority of male leaders.
Has our nation made strides to move away from these behaviors that boxed people into suffocating places? Yes! Thank God, we have heard the cries and enacted laws and policies that protect the underprivileged. But please do not believe that this abuse is all in the past and that the long-term effects of marginalization are now dormant! Discrimination and prejudice can still be seen in financial, emotional, spiritual, and physical oppression.
What Now?
Do you think it’s possible to avoid the division of left and right, black and white, straight and gay? Do you think there is hope of moving away from the dichotomy of two sides and finding balance in the middle? I don’t know either. I still believe deep down that sharing our stories over coffee, looking into each other’s eyes and exploring what journey brought us to this place could build relationship, understanding, and the possibility for balance.
Foundational to balance is the recognition of our commonality in human experience. How can we be reminded of our connection first and foremost? We all breathe the same air and stare at the same moon. We all distract from bigger issues, we all go about our business and turn our heads away from suffering. We all experience awe and wonder at the world around us. Other common desires are to be heard, to be known, and to be accepted. We all want safety: financially, physically and relationally.
There is a study from Yale that proposes that safety is the motivator to what we believe. People on the left, when threatened and fearful, move into more conservative ways of thinking, while people on the right, when told to imagine themselves as invincible, move into more liberal ways of thinking. The researcher, John Bargh from Yale, gives other examples of this fundamental drive for safety including holding a warm cup of coffee can make one friendlier because of the unconscious lesson learned as infants about physical and social warmth, and washing hands can lessen hostility towards people who are different because it calms the fear of “unknown, foreign threats, like disease” (Bruek, 2017).
If safety is an underlying motivator of beliefs and choices, let me pose some questions:
How is feeling unsafe exhibited in young, black men?
How is it heard in the loud and aggressive feminist voice?
How could a lack of safety explain an exit from the church?
Why are people criticizing Trump louder than they have with other past presidents?
How does stubbornness show up with a lack of safety and why?
How can we create more safety in our churches and communities?
What actions or words promote a sense of safety for the marginalized?
Can an increase in safety bring balance to a nation that is experiencing division?
Conclusion
I do believe in the possibility of balance: the right and the left coming together through care and attentiveness for humanity, the christian and the muslim respectfully recognizing the value of faith and humility, the LGBTQ and the cisgender, straight individuals seeing love is the orientation we all claim, the young, black man and the white officer knowing that safety is a basic need we all have a right to. The question is, how will we move ourselves and our communities towards this middle ground? And I believe the answer includes hearing the voices of the marginalized.
"NO ONE IS BORN HATING ANOTHER PERSON BECAUSE OF THE COLOR OF HIS SKIN, OR HIS BACKGROUND, OR HIS RELIGION. PEOPLE MUST LEARN TO HATE, AND IF THEY CAN LEARN TO HATE, THEY CAN BE TAUGHT TO LOVE, FOR LOVE COMES MORE NATURALLY TO THE HUMAN HEART THAN ITS OPPOSITE." — NELSON MANDELA, LONG WALK TO FREEDOM
References
Brueck, H. (2017). A Yale psychologist’s simple thought experiment temporarily turned conservatives into liberals. Business Insider.
Leohardt, D. and Philbrick, I. P. (2018). Donald Trump’s racism: The definitive list. The New York Times.
Utt, J. (2013). The importance of listening as a privileged person fighting for justice. Everyday Feminism.
Zimmermann, C. (2017). Experts say church’s experience with abuse can aid #MeToo movement. Crux: Taking the Catholic Pulse.
