We Belong To Each Other

Romans 12:3-6: The Inclusive Bible

In light of the grace I have from God, I urge each of you not to exaggerate your own importance. Each of you must judge yourself soberly by the standard of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members – and these members don’t have the same function – so all of us, in union with Christ, form one body. And as members of that one body, we belong to each other. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to each of us.

Each February I have a particular practice to engage Black History Month. My intention is to understand on a deeper level how racism works, the systems in place to make sure racial justice is an uphill climb, and my role as a white person in that story. I don’t only read the words of Audre Lorde, Joseph Barndt and Dr. King, I try to take my understandings to a deeper place so that my intention to be an anti-racist white person has an impact. I’m sure I’m not alone in that effort. Part of my meditation this month is to reflect back on my life experiences that have shaped my views on racism, privilege and racial justice.

I learned about integration in elementary school. I learned about racial barriers in college. When I say “I learned”, I should say; I lived, felt, and experienced these things. I didn’t have a name for what I was going through, but I lived it.

I grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio. My small little world on Gridley Road was made up of Jewish families and a few of us who weren’t. I remember one day while playing catch with Ricky Curtis (a budding lesbian I was, to be sure) I yelled up to my mom who was poking her head out the window, “What am I?” “What do you mean?” she replied. “Am I Jewish?”  “No…” she said. I don’t even remember what she said after that. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t Jewish. I was crushed. I didn’t know what “Jewish” meant only that I wasn’t included.  I had no tribe. And yet, these were my people. Sue Schwartz and I used to sing show tunes at the top of our lungs (how many could a kid know at 7 years old?) while walking around the block smoking cigarettes. Eventually it almost didn’t matter that I wasn’t officially part of the Jewish Club. I sure liked Ricky and Sue.

And then Patty moved in to my little world and somehow, I sensed that Patty wasn’t Jewish either. Patty was Black and became my new best friend. Patty and I could be “not Jewish” together.

Not until decades later did I realize there was a much larger story at play. Evidently, I lived in a community that set out to be racially integrated. I learned this when I literally happened to see a documentary on PBS titled “The Reunion: The Integration of Shaker Heights”.  I began to watch the show and yelled to whoever could hear me – “this is about Shaker. When I was there! I know these people!” ABC News did a story about “The Reunion” that was written by Paul Mason. I went to school with Paul. NPR interviewed Paul on “In All Things Considered” which you can hear here.  Evidently, when some families of color began to move in, the predictable happened. White families moved out. “White Flight.” It was happening everywhere in the north. But in Shaker, “A small group of parents of both races forged a bold and controversial strategy: they recruited new white families to move in and create racial balance.” It was Paul’s family that hatched the strategy. In 1960! A time when Jim Crow laws were thriving in the South and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 wasn’t even on the radar.

I grew up in this progressive climate in Shaker. I learned to assume some things about people that were turned upside down in a very real and excruciating way in college.

My high school friend Carol and I decided we’d be roommates in college. We were excited to go away to school with someone we knew. We had every expectation that this was a wonderful plan for our success in navigating freshman year far from home. Our expectation could not have been further from what happened. Carol is Black and I’m White.  I can’t speak to what was going on for Carol because we never spoke about it. All I know is after a few weeks of school, we never spoke again. We lived together in a cubical the size of a large closet. I slept on the top bunk and she on the bottom. And we never spoke. Carol had new friends and was exploring a world she hadn’t known in Shaker. I had new friends and my world was playing sports and realizing I was gay. The tension was more than either of us evidently knew how to resolve. What I was learning about race was that Carol needed to be with “her people” and that “her people” no longer included me.

I believe the seeds for my passion to understand the intersections of oppression were planted in these early life experiences. My early confusion and realities around sexuality and race finally found grounding, meaning and a purpose all these many years later. My life cannot be experienced one “ism” at a time.

When I read this Roman’s passage, I look closely at these words, “And as members of that one body, we belong to each other.”  The word “belong” always catches my eye. My assumptions about belonging seem to go all the way back to Ricky and Sue. I didn’t belong to their tribe but we “belonged” to each other. We had our own experiences and stories that formed one body. We created our own tribe beyond a particular barrier. When Patty and I became friends, my “belonging” shifted and shifted yet again with Carol when I learned I was white. The lessons are there for the taking.

God has a plan that we belong to each other, to all be valued members of the body. That sounds like an arrangement based on equality.  I know how hard that reality is and I know it’s worth reaching for. Ricky, Sue, Patty and Carol are counting on this white girl to do her own work.