There’s a story every child can tell you and it goes something like this: Manhattan was an island with Native people on it and then the Dutch bought the land for $60, or some other laughable amount. The point of the story, depending on the kid, is to say, “Go, colonists. What a deal.” Or it might be to say, “Bad colonists, taking advantage of those unsuspecting people.” Either way, the story is part of the American landscape.
A year ago today, I preached a sermon about the land on which we stand, the land Americans think we purchased/stole some 450 years ago. It was something of a history lesson, recounting the stories of the Lenape People, a people we’ve systematically forgotten but whose legacy lives on this shared land. You might remember that whichever side you take on the story, you’re wrong. The Lenape never ceded this land at all. They thought they were entering a treaty for peaceful co-existence. They had no language or understanding of owning land and it never occurred to them that anyone would think they could purchase pieces of the planet.
The Lenape were here 15,000 years ago. For 15,000 years – and maybe longer – they built homes, had babies, educated themselves, grew and caught and collected food. They developed a sophisticated language, religious traditions, and cultural practices. There were wars and treaties and harvests and famines and generations of people who lived and died here. Lenape structures were matriarchal and the people had a reputation for generosity. They lived on Long Island and north as far as Albany and west into New Jersey, sticking close to the river.
Our focus is on the people who lived here, right here, on the island they called Mahatta. This land was rich in fruit and nuts and had very fertile soil. There were many birds and animals including beavers, otters, seals, whales and dolphins; shellfish was abundant. There were huge orchards filled with apple, pear and cherry trees and the water, aside from being beautiful, let them establish themselves as fishers, ensuring there would always be food, even in winter.
Eventually, the Dutch, and then the English, pushed the Lenape off their land through unapologetic building and the intentional establishment of European culture. The Lenape today are scattered across the country with most living in the Midwest.
It’s natural to hear this story and want to do – or undo – something. Here we are, benefitting from an injustice. We are moral people. We want to bring healing. I say it at the end of every worship service: “May we bring healing and hope to all the places it’s needed.” Well, healing is needed, so let’s go.
In that spirit, a member of this church reached out to a Lenape group in Delaware and, after some conversation, asked if he’d like us to send him some money. He thought that idea was great, it was brought to the Board to incorporate into the new budget which they chose not to do, so it was brought before the congregation where we voted $500 into our annual budget. Some people voted for it because, in the scheme of things, $500 isn’t a lot of money. Some did it in the spirit of generosity. Some liked the idea of doing something rather than nothing. Some did it because it was “the least we could do”.
You all know I love you. I hope you know that. In some ways, we haven’t had a lot of time together, so maybe you don’t feel so sure. I arrived here just over 2 years ago into a seriously turbulent time in the life of this church. I was just getting to know your names when we shut down. We spent a year and a half trying to connect across distance through little boxes on computer screens. We finally get together again and we’re in the middle of a massive transition of our physical space.
For these reasons, I didn’t want to say anything about that original request for $500. And, after the vote, I haven’t wanted to say anything about it again. Send the check and let’s get on with it.
But, my heart hurts. We haven’t sent the check yet because I can’t figure out how to do it without causing more damage. Everyone’s intentions might have been good, but the impact of that vote and that process perpetuate the exact system we’re looking to dismantle. So, I love you. But, we need to talk about this.
White Supremacy Culture isn’t a popular subject. The words themselves are off-putting and potentially misleading. This isn’t about white supremacists. This is about a culture. It’s the air we breathe. It normalizes behaviors that were defined by white people and are now perpetuated by dominant culture. Some of us are able to step outside this culture long enough to see it in action. Most of us are too close to it to see it objectively with great consistency.
Here are some of the things that define this culture. Maybe in hearing this list, you can see how these traits of White Supremacy Culture play out right here in our justice-loving church. I’m naming 6.
Perfectionism. We tend to notice all the things that are wrong with ourselves and others. We talk about them. We point out how someone could be doing better and we do it often, although not necessarily to them directly. We complain, we point fingers, we are sure whatever “it” is, it should be better than it is.
Urgency. There’s no time to wait. It has to happen and it has to happen now. We skip over people, skip over process, skip over relationships to get to the end, the result. The faster the better.
Defensiveness. On the one hand, this is about people being afraid of letting go of whatever power they have by justifying actions rather than learning from mistakes. It’s also about institutions that set themselves up as if they are going to be attacked, will lose their position, their money, their place in some way.
Goal Driven. We value what we can assess. Process is irrelevant because it can’t be measured and critiqued. We like action, devoid of emotion, that we can discern.
Paternalism. People do things because they are sure they know best for someone else. They don’t work in groups, they don’t engage the whole, they simply decide they know how to address or fix a problem and they move forward with their plan.
Individualistism. People work on their own. They venture out, without accountability, and they expect credit for their work.
There are other traits, but these are particularly important at the moment. The act of a single person deciding to fix a problem on their own, at least partially as a critique of the process in place, and outside of conversation or partnership with the intention of helping someone who hasn’t asked for help, and doing it quickly, defensively and without accountability is a very good example of white supremacy culture in action. And we all participated and everyone who voted to write that check leaned into a familiar, comfortable pattern.
The antidote to white supremacy culture is the breaking of the pattern. Instead of perfectionism, we could allow things to be messy. We could stop criticizing everyone and everything and instead, lead with generosity and kindness. Instead of urgency, we could let things take time, living slower and more patiently. Instead of defensiveness, we can take the stance of being teachable. We can say we’re sorry when we’re wrong. We can be open to learning. Instead of being goal driven, we can lean into process, not outcomes, understanding that relationships are more valuable than measurable results. Instead of paternalism, we can enter partnerships with people being affected by the problem we want to fix, and instead of fixing it, we offer ourselves in service to someone else’s vision. And instead of being individualistic, we can reach out to each other to ask for help, we can be honest with our peers when they need to be called back into covenant, and we can value community above all else.
If we were to let go of this culture we’ve grown so comfortable in, what might it look like? What would happen if we tried to do things a little differently? Since it was this same White Supremacy Culture that pushed people off their land, that ultimately starved them and did all we could to eliminate them all together, how does our culture need to change so that we aren’t those people any more?
When I added the land acknowledgement to our worship, my thought was that we heard about the Lenape, so let’s start to get used to what our history means. Let’s say these words together every week. I figured it would be about 6 months of saying those things together. No urgency. Lean into it. When we are in person, we’ll continue to say it, together. After a few weeks, it was my hope to spend this service asking what we, as a congregation, might want to think about doing together to respond to our own acknowledgement. Who might our partners be? How do we learn what’s needed? How do we live in right relationship with the Lenape?
The very process itself was meant to be a healing, an example of a new way of living. Interconnected, generous with each other, patient, kind, relational.
We couldn’t wait. One person rushed on her own to take action and many others jumped quickly to paternalism and solutions.
Maybe this is a second chance. We can’t ignore the vote to send that check, but I’m hoping to send it in a way that doesn’t do more damage. After the service today, I’d like us to start talking with each other about White Supremacy Culture and how to bring healing to this situation. We won’t have an answer today. This is a conversation we’ll have all year. That check doesn’t have to be sent until June, so we have time to learn. If you’re in person with us, maybe you can ask others while you’re outside drinking lemonade. If you’re online, maybe you can start the conversation in zoom after the service. I’m hoping over the course of this year, these conversations will continue, maybe with some leadership by our 8th Principle Team. We might find a way to let this be a restorative moment for us.
At the core of our theology, we believe in the capacity of love to change the world. We believe love is afoot, that it has been set loose in each of us, that we are her hands and her eyes and her lips. We are the very bodies of that love, the love that will ultimately set us all free if only we allow ourselves to be claimed by it.
But anyone who’s ever been in a loving relationship knows that love isn’t all we need to get where we’re going. There’s also skill. Commitment. Ambition. We have to want it and we have to be willing to do the work. We’re not alone. We have each other. We are in a spiritual community, and a justice-building, activist community, but this is also a learning community. There was a misstep, but that’s a great way to learn. If that hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t have this opportunity to look at our patterns. I admit I was angry at first. And sad. And a little befuddled. The whole thing was sort of this great manifestation of American White Supremacy Culture all wrapped up in a single congregation-wide event. In some ways, we lucked out. It’s a perfect case study and now we can learn from it.
Which is my prayer for us today. Let’s learn from this. Let’s become ambitious for the internal healing that comes from racial equity. Let’s become skillful, let’s learn what we need to know so that we become bodies of love bringing healing and hope to all the places it’s needed, even if one of those places is our history. More than acknowledgment, lets become, let’s embody, let’s commit ourselves to being the change we want to see in the world.