40 Days of Change

It’s safe to say that this Lent was the most impactful Lent of my life.  For many Christians, Lent is a time for feasting and fasting as a remembrance of the forty day fast Jesus did in the desert when he was tempted by Satan. Often, people will give up (fast from) sweets, cursing, social media or fast food or feast on things like patience, prayer, acts of kindness, or compassion through different acts in the Lenten season as preparation for Easter.  Many, many times I have given up candy, or Easter candy specifically (because it’s my favorite) or I would take on an extra something - an extra prayer or meditation or act of kindness each day. This year, I decided to fast from reading my standard fare and feast on reading books by and about people of color - specifically African Americans.

I must admit, when it comes to Lent, I’m on-again-off-again.  As a young person, I took it very seriously. Then, in the days when I kept church at an arm's length, Lent passed without acknowledgment.  When I was a mother of infants and babies, I ignored taking on further sacrifice. Now that I’ve recovered from being the mother of babies, I still approach Lent with hesitation.  The fasting didn’t always seem to do much to change me in the ways that I had hoped. It often felt very surface. But not this year.

Typically, I would not write about Lent and what I gave up and how it felt because it’s very personal. Religion is personal. Anything having to do with race is personal.  It’s all personal and there is a LOT of judgment around all of it. But this Lent REALLY changed me: it had opened my eyes and made me so much more humble, so I felt it was worth sharing.

This year, I took an idea from this blog post that I found through one of my favorite bloggers. The Episcopal priest who wrote the post gave a list of suggestions of things “to observe Black History month with the same seriousness as we do Lent.”  What I found was that doing this during Lent definitely increased my accountability.  Had I not made the decision with a couple of friends and had my own mental accountability, I might have read a bit, then moved on to something else and come back when I felt more comfortable.  The psychological accountability of doing this during Lent kept me from walking away when things got uncomfortable or sad and it created a real dive into a topic that I was already interested in understanding better.

I have the privilege to choose when to engage in race discussion and when not to.  That is afforded to me by my whiteness (while not 100% white, I am most often perceived as white). I realize now that that in itself is a privilege. I also realize that I am no expert. I’m not here to tell you that I know things or that I’m “good” for doing this.  I just know that these things changed me and maybe you’re in a position to be changed too.

As I read, I realized that there were certain types of books that impacted me in different ways.  Fiction is always my go-to stress reliever and self-care. In these last forty days, it continued to serve that purpose.  When the reading to got too intense or I needed to read for stress relief, I turned to fictional books. While the events in fiction books were still disturbing, it was somewhat easier to read when I knew the characters and story were made up (even though it very likely happened in real life).  Also, because of how stories are crafted, they often fiction ends with some resolution - either happy or sad - but a resolution nonetheless. I found memoir to be the most difficult to read. Often, the same types of events from fiction would happen in the memoirs, but as you were reading you KNEW that it happened to this particular person (or their friends or family) and it really drives home the pain that people feel as the result of systemic racism. Non-fiction was the easiest to read and was the most jaw-dropping.  Because it is filled with facts and the author’s synopsis of the meaning of those facts, it can be quite startling - but definitely not as intimate. In fact, the non-fiction book that I spent the most time reading (The New Jim Crow) was the one that changed me the most.

Here’s what I read (or viewed or listened to) -

• 13th (documentary) - This was a Netflix documentary that I found out about through someone I follow on Instagram.  This was a very eye-opening documentary about how the 13th amendment created somewhat of a loophole that allowed for our current system of mass incarceration that is not based on race, but on criminality - and how that has been utilized by our country since the ending of slavery.

• When They Call you a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors - This memoir was about her upbringing and how it eventually led to her participation in the Black Lives Matter movement.  All of the things she experiences are personal and direct examples of what Michelle Alexander describes in her book The New Jim Crow.

• I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown - This book was really eye-opening as far as what it’s like to be an African American woman in real life; like what it’s like to be black in a “diverse” workplace, what it’s like growing up as an African American person in schools, and what it’s like being black in everyday life in America.  There were so many things that I just didn’t understand or even know about until I read this book. Her writing is so beautiful that you don’t even realize how much she is teaching you because the words alone are a gift - it almost felt like a blend of prose and poetry.

• Taste of Honey by Jabari Asim - This piece of historical fiction strings together stories from different characters living in the same Midwestern town.  The book explores all of the things you might expect in fiction - friendship, romance, family relationships - but also, gives a very real and personal view of police brutality, racism and community in the late 60s leading up to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Waking Up White by Debby Irving - This is actually a departure from what my Lenten promise was as it is written by a white woman, but it was a great introductory read for these forty days.  I actually read it right before Lent started and finished it in the first days of Lent. It is the memoir of a white woman “waking up” to her beliefs about race and how it’s reinforced in our society.  It was interesting to watch another person’s path and their unfolding understanding about the role race plays in our decisions and what creates that understanding about people who are not white.

• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander - This was the centerpiece of my Lenten reading.  It is a piece of non-fiction that is full of jaw-dropping facts and research written by a civil rights advocate and lawyer.  There was SO much information here and it really caused me to pause and re-examine everything I thought I understood about our country.  Her writing style is perfect for this topic because she lays out the facts and examples and then when things are difficult to understand, she follows up with another explanation of the idea.  She tells you what the book will contain and then leaves you with some ideas about where she thinks we should head next as a country. This was a longer read, but was SO essential for this reading list.
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas - This is a book about the experience of a girl who is with her friend, an unarmed black teenager, when he is shot and killed by police after being pulled over for a broken tail light. The author takes you through the experience not only of that night but also of the experience of the aftermath and the reverberations of it in the community that the teenagers are from. As a piece of fiction, it really sheds light and understanding on the reasoning for the Black Lives Matter movement, especially given that real events similar to this fictional one have happened over and over again across the United States. This piece of young adult fiction was recently adopted by our district's board to be taught at one of the high schools, so I really wanted to read it. As most young adult fiction, it was engaging and fast-paced and really took a complicated matter and laid it out in an understandable and relatable way.

• A presentation by Josephine Bolling McCall about her book called The Penalty for Success - we were lucky to hear about this presentation done in the Santa Clara University Law School.  I was nervous going in, but was amazed by the story told by Ms. Bolling McCall. Her story echoed many of the ideas, themes and actions of the books in this list and was, of course, very personal.  She explores the death of her father and does research to uncover that he is one of many African American men who have been lynched without their death being acknowledged as a lynching. In her research she found she was not alone.  Her presentation was a very personal account of her research and what she discovered along the way. I haven’t read her book yet, but it’s on my list for continued reading.

• The Good Ancestor Podcast by Layla Saad - I also steered clear of podcasts by my usual people and as kind of a back door way to hear from one of my favorites (Glennon Doyle).  I listened to Layla Saad’s interview of Glennon Doyle and then her interviews of Rachel Cargle and Lachrista Greco. She explores what it means to be a good ancestor and what our ancestors have inspired in people.  No matter who her guest is, the podcasts are always engaging and have such a calm and personal feel to them.

I definitely plan to continue on this feasting.  There is a whole new world of reading that has opened up to me and the list of books I want to read is getting VERY long.  Because of my privilege, race has not been something that I thought too much about. Now, I see how it has influenced my reading, my job and my perspective.  These 40 days changed what I thought I knew. It challenged my beliefs about myself, our country and racism in general. Most tend to avoid the topic of race both socially and in their free time, but my experience during Lent makes me think that an approach like that won’t really work if we want peace and justice in our country.

There’s no real reason to continue on my old narrow path of authors, genres and topics.  I see the world differently now. And these books give me a different way to experience our world.  I leave the Lenten season humbled by the skills of these makers and am floored by my new understanding of the African American experience in America.