Change is not sufficient, we need a Metamorphosis!

I think that if we really want to heal the racial divide in this country, we need to stop with all of the buzzwords and slogans. I am pretty sure you have used some of these in conversations with each other, right?

They really sound nice and we can all have nice warm and wonderful conversations and it gives the media pundits slogans to use to show they are on the right side , but we are not really dealing with the REAL stuff. We need to deal with who we really are. If we see this, then we can take action. Until we can deal honestly with ourselves, things will stay the same.

• We do not need CHANGE, which is defined as: “replace (something) with something else, especially something of the same kind that is newer or better; substitute one thing for (another)” Change got us this.
• Transformation is closer, but not sufficient, this is defined as: “make a thorough or dramatic change in the form, appearance, or character of.”
• We need a metamorphosis, which is defined as: “a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means.”

The video below shows what actually happens when a caterpillar metamorphizes into a butterfly. It’s kind if gross, isn’t it?

If you don’t feel like clicking the link: Essentially a caterpillar has to dissolve itself completely before it can even begin the process of forming itself into a butterfly. Without doing that, it cannot become the beautiful creature it is supposed to be.

And the process must be allowed to complete, it needs to do more than LOOK like a butterfly, it must go all the way to become one.

This brings me to the U.S.A. and our feeble efforts to stop racism or White Supremacy or…whatever we decide to call it today.

Personally, I do not believe that we, as we are constructed are capable of it. We like to live in fantasy and call it change.

In my opinion, we need to dissolve ourselves and our patriarchy (and our reliance on it) if we want this truly color blind society we keep playing lip service about, but never really get close to.

Since we all have likely listened to this speech in reverence 100 times this month, lets start with the I have a dream speech.

The most famous and quoted part of Martin Luther Kings I Have a Dream speech is when he said this: “I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. “

Forgetting that the VERY next line he said this: “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

What we seem to want to do is to go directly to the fantasy described in the paragraph of holding hands, going to the same schools, restaurants and engage in every form of “togtherness” and say that somehow we are post- racial.

What we really don’t want to deal with is that we seem to have no interest in the next paragraph where he speaks (IMO) of metamorphosis.

We MUST do that work or we will be holding hands and laughing together on high mountains, hills with lots of rough and crooked places in between pretending that we see each other as brothers and sisters and as equals. When actually we don’t. Because if we TRULY did, then the patriarchy would be threatened and it will and has just react violently. And in case you think this is new, I think you need to study history a bit better.

Which gets to my point.

We talk of ending White Supremacy, but we are failing to deal with the source of it: The history lessons we grow up learning which shape and poison our view.

BTW, you don’t have to be White to believe in White supremacy, blacks and whites go to school together now, they read the same books and learn from the same teachers, right? So consider that is why they have that shared view. Which is great for some, but for others, not so good because some people in the class get to learn that all the heroes looked like them and others in the same class get to learn that almost none of the heroes look like them.

This supremacy is so imbedded in our culture, it is even part of our faith and what we pray to. So maybe even how we view our faith and how we view god himself may play a part as well.

We just want to paint a pretty picture and call it progress because we included everyone in the picture. But is everyone equal in the picture?

The first thing we need to do is to dismantle that teaching and replacing it with a more honest version because that version as taught does not deal with who we were so that we never become that again.

• That version of history suggests that Black history began with slavery
• That version of history would have us believe that all of our heroes are White and Male
• That version of history whitewashes slavery as a genteel time where the male slaves were singing in the fields picking cotton and the pretty female slaves gladly served the masters tea on the front porch.
• That version of history does not explain that Black families were literally together at the pleasure of the “Master” and if he got upset or had financial difficulties he could sell them off and they would never see their child/wife/husband/sibling again.
• That version of history does not talk about the literally hundreds of years that a married male slave endured having his wife called up to “the house” to “entertain” visitors who found her attractive.
• That version of history does not tell that this country was literally built on the backs of enslaved Africans and sold out under the feet of Native Americans
• That version of history does not tell us that the Emancipation Proclamation was NOT the noble thing that Lincoln did to free the slaves, it was actually a war measure designed to keep the British out of the war on the side of the South. What freed the slaves was the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which required a 2/3 majority and that was a close vote.
• That version of history allows people to deny the Civil War was about slavery and instead say it was about States Right(s) and other Freedoms for (some) Americans. Answer: It was about Slavery and maintaining that one group of people were permanently superior to another. (And you thought Slavery was just an economic system, didn’t you?)
• That version of history does not teach that January 6th 2021 was not the first time in US History that armed white men attempted to overthrow an elected government. Only before it actually worked!
• That version of history does not show the level of violence that happened in Tulsa Oklahoma, Rosewood, Florida and countless other times when black towns were burned to the ground when Black residents actually established and built communities that were self-reliant, prosperous and needed nothing from no one else.
• That version of history does not deal with the fact that former slaves were not given anything to start their new freedom with while incoming European settlers were given land and loans and government support to establish themselves here and at the same time black people were told (and are still told) they just need to work hard to get ahead.

All of this really happened and the patriarchy wants to teach our children of American Exceptionalism which would make our children believe that this country has always been that for EVERYONE. It has not and it has only really started to try (half-heartedly) and with powerful resistance in the last 70 to 80 years.

So what people want to do now is to put some wings on the caterpillar and call it a butterfly.

That’s why when school systems were thinking of including the 1619 project as part of its curriculum, we had a President call for setting up to teach our kids a “Patriotic Education” and a US senator threaten to cut federal funding to schools who thought of doing this and even calling slavery a “necessary evil” in the development of this country.

Want more proof it is the school system: That same US Senator defended his opposition to the curriculum change by saying he was merely rehashing a historical perspective, rather than stating his own.

Because to the patriarchy it threatens his status and ability to have as his “God Given” right to rule everyone. Which he still does, but gentler and kinder now, but still it is just normal painted over.

This is why when thousands of people can storm the US Capitol calling themselves Patriots and screaming we are “taking our country back” no one calls them on the carpet and demand they answer this question: “Take it back from who?”

Your Country?

• Maybe you didn’t read about how Black soldiers fought in the revolutionary war.
• How about the Civil War?
• Hear about the Buffalo Soldiers?
• How about Black soldiers in World War 1?
• How about Black soldiers in World War 2?

I could do on, but every one of these wars listed above Black soldiers fought in (in large numbers too) happened before our civil and voting rights were recognized, and there are those today who still want to limit them.

So if defending freedom makes this your country, then how do you consider men who fought and died for freedoms they never had themselves?

Be careful who you call a Patriot, you are not the only ones who have that right. The problem is that this country is unwilling to do the relatively simple thing: Teach ALL of our children that American heroes came in all colors and they all are not melanin deficient and male. Until we have a generation of kids who grow up understanding that, the the talk of eradicating White Supremacy cannot be taken seriously.

Also, I introduce some of you to one of (and some say the FIRST) American who gave his life for this country!

So this was likely painful for some to read and it was for me to write, but these are the conversations we need to have and the actions we need to take to achieve the metamorphosis required to end White Supremacy once and for all.

Becoming a butterfly requires a fundamental shift, to deconstruct the infrastructure that as a collective has defined who we are being and blocking who we might become.

But most of us, when we get to our core, just want to stay caterpillars and “live our life in peace”. Which is fine, we just need to admit it to ourselves.

But as MLK also once said: “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”

Which leaves these questions:

• Are we willing to go through that tension and reshaping to secure a true and lasting peace that benefits us all? Or….
• Are we choosing to keep the constant cycle of struggle going indefinitely and eat at the fabric of our nation?

I leave you another couple of videos to watch that are relevant to this discussion