White Supremacy, Homelessness, and Ferguson

White Supremacy, Homelessness, and Ferguson

I awaited the Ferguson grand jury decision this afternoon after spending the morning at Manna House.  Most of our guests at Manna House are African American.  I’m guessing nobody who just read that sentence is surprised.     

Ta-Nehisi Coates in “The Case for Reparations,” (Atlantic Monthly, May 21, 2014) detailed both the historic and contemporary realities in the U.S. that hold African Americans back economically and politically.  It is the ugly and brutal story of the power of a system of white supremacy to choke off economic and political gains for African Americans. 

Related to this story is the story of homelessness among African Americans. African Americans make up almost 50% of the homeless population in this country.  In Memphis, 62% of those experiencing homelessness are African American, according to the Mayors’ Task Force on Homelessness.  Meanwhile the poverty rate in Memphis among African Americans is nearly 34%.  People are homeless because of poverty.  They don’t have the economic resources to rent an apartment or own a home.  And poverty among African Americans is interwoven with a white supremacist economic system.

Meanwhile, according to the FBI’s most recent accounts of “justifiable homicide,” in the seven years between 2005 and 2012, a white officer used deadly force against a black person almost two times every week.  A quick visit to 201 Poplar (the Shelby County courthouse and jail) will reveal the preponderance of black people under the control of the criminal justice system here in Memphis.  Michelle Alexander in her book, “The New Jim Crow” details how the U.S. criminal justice system has functioned and continues to function as a means of control over African Americans.  White supremacy is institutionalized in both policing and the courts.

No matter what the Grand Jury decides in Ferguson, these institutional and cultural realities will remain in place.  And that is why a social movement has emerged in Ferguson.   

What does this have to do with Manna House?  Just this morning a guest approached me to get on the shower list.  Since the shower list was full, he talked with me about why he desperately needed a shower.

“I’m heading down to 201 Poplar.  I’m probably going to jail.  But maybe if I look right, they’ll go easy.”  He didn’t seem very confident in making that statement, and I share his lack of confidence.

Meanwhile, a social worker came by looking for a man I’ll call “Mike.”  Mike just got out of jail last week after 18 months.  He came to Manna House and we gave him enough clothes to make it through the weekend.  The local DA’s office sought the maximum sentences for Mike for criminal trespass and panhandling.  Mike is black and mentally ill and has a long history of minor criminal offenses, all having to do with his being on the streets.  The criminal justice system just keeps sucking him up and spitting him out.  Those who work in the system keep their jobs thanks to Mike and others like him.

Another African American guest and I got into a conversation about the recent election.  “I didn’t vote,” he said, “I wanted to, but I have a felony conviction.”

This past Sunday, the Gospel reading many of us heard in our churches was Matthew 25:31-46.  There Jesus highlights his identification with those regarded with disdain, “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).  Jesus is not identifying with those wielding power in a white supremacist system. 

In the first reading this past Sunday, God spoke through the prophet Ezekial, “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice” (Ezekial 34:16).  God makes God’s judgment, and it doesn’t look good for the supporters of the white supremacy system.

Even the Holy Ghost Ain't White

Even the Holy Ghost Ain’t White

Occasionally some evangelistic type (usually white) will arrive unannounced and uninvited at Manna House.  The person will hand out tracts and then be on his way.  This morning I discovered a few such tracts discarded on the ground.  So I struck up a conversation with some of our guests about why they thought the tracts were thrown away.

“Look at the pictures!” suggested one guest.

I opened the tract, which was really more of a booklet complete with pictures of biblical characters.

“Do you see any Black people?” another guest asked.

I began looking at the pictures.

“Adam and Eve sure were a fine looking white couple” I said, and then I continued turning the pages.  “Moses has a good beard, but he’s pictured as a white.  Here’s a random picture of a king of Israel, also white.  There’s a prophet, he’s white too.  Here’s Jesus being baptized.  He’s not only white; he doesn’t have any chest hair.  He’s mighty white in all the other pictures too.  And here’s Paul, also white.”

“Now you know why this stuff is on the ground and in the trash,” said a guest.

“I don’t trust folks who bring this kind of thing around,” said another guest.

“Jesus was a dark-skinned Jew,” said yet another guest.

“Moses was dark, maybe even black,” offered another.

“None of them folks was white,” said a guest, “and I ain’t believing anyone who says they were.”

“Even the Holy Ghost ain’t white,” offered another guest.

Black theology is alive and well among many of the guests at Manna House.  In his book “God of the Oppressed,” James Cone wrote, “Christ’s blackness is both literal and symbolic...The least in America are literally and symbolically present in black people.”  Cone further points to “the appalling silence of white theologians on racism in the United States and the modern world.” 

The guests I spoke with this morning at Manna House pointed to the appalling depiction of every biblical character as white.  The silence Cone identified and the white biblical depictions are closely related.  And both likely have something to do with the abject failure of so many churches in Memphis to see Christ in the homeless poor of this city.  The theologians on the front porch at Manna House are great teachers.  Churches in Memphis should open their doors and offer them a meal and a place to stay for the night.  If they would, they would invite in Christ, the black one, not the sanitized spiritualized sentimentalized white one.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).

Pray for Ralph Dukes

Pray for Ralph Dukes

In the early days of Manna House, when our finances were at their most vulnerable, I received a note from the Open Door Community, and a check enclosed from Ralph Dukes.  Ralph was a member of the Open Door, and he had reached the age when he would begin receiving a social security check.  But as a member of the Open Door, he could not keep that money; he had to designate it for another place.  Ralph chose Manna House.

For over five years Ralph’s check would arrive each month, always with a little note from Dick Rustay.  Ralph was easily the most consistent and largest donor to Manna House for those years.  Without his giving, Manna House might not have made it.  

Ralph came to the Open Door from the streets.  His street name was “Dead Eye” because he had a bad eye, barely open.  He was an incorrigible alcoholic.  A new resident volunteer at the Open Door who did not know Ralph’s history very well invited Ralph in to live there.  The judgment of the seasoned members of the community was that Ralph would last maybe a day or two before he returned to the streets.  Ralph lived at the Open Door for well over 30 years. He remained at the community until just over a year ago when his failing health meant he had to live at a place that had nursing care.  He told me once, “The Open Door saved my life.”

When I first came to the Open Door in the Spring of 1987, I became a “grits cook” for the Butler Street Breakfast that the community served for homeless folks.  Ralph made the coffee.  I’d arrive at the Open Door around 6:00am and Ralph would already be up making the coffee.  We’d talk, about baseball (Ralph was a huge fan of the Atlanta Braves), about the blues (Ralph became my teacher, introducing me to a wide variety of blues musicians), and sometimes about politics (Ralph never thought too highly of mainstream politicians), and whatever was happening in our lives.  His encouragement kept me going through my graduate studies at Emory.  Ralph was a big reason I was able to get a PhD.  He’d tell me, “You’re smart enough.”

Ralph had been a shop teacher before alcohol had disrupted his life.  In his physical build and in his curmudgeonly good humor, Ralph reminded me of my Dad.  Whenever I asked Ralph how he was doing he’d respond, “Same old, same old” (my Dad’s response to the same question was always “Mean as ever”).

One Spring, after I had moved to Memphis, Ralph came here for his vacation.  He stayed with me, and we took in the Beale Street Music Festival.  We spent the entire festival in the “Blues Tent.”  He also insisted that we eat at McDonalds at least once a day.  I was able to pry him away for some BBQ and catfish a couple of times.

This afternoon, I received word from Ed Loring at the Open Door Community that Ralph Dukes is in ICU and is dying.  Please keep Ralph in your prayers.  

The Power of the Erotic

The Power of the Erotic

“God’s always been there for me, even in the worst of times,” a Manna House guest said to me this morning.  The temperature was 28 degrees with a strong wind already blowing out of the North.  Holding the hands of guests to pray as we opened, I could feel their numbed cold fingers.  As one guest took my hand she said, “You’re a living hand warmer.”

            Today is the Feast of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who died on this date in 1231.  She was noted for her work with the poor, which she undertook while married to the Landgrave of Thurgia (basically a king).  She caused scandal for being personally involved serving poor people, including lepers.  In fact, she caused so much scandal that when her husband died, she was thrown out of the castle, and had to take refuge in a nearby cottage.  She died at the ripe old age of twenty-four.  “We must give to God what we have,” she said, “gladly and with joy.”

            In giving comes joy.  But it is also true that giving to others comes out of a deep sense of the goodness of life, the graciousness that we have experienced in God, in others, and in God’s creation. 

In her famous essay, “Uses of The Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” Audre Lorde wrote, “once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of.”  In an interview she shared, “I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way. And when I say living I mean it as that force which moves us toward what will accomplish real positive change.”

            So it is not simply giving that emerges from the erotic, it is giving in resistance to the powers that oppress, that dehumanize, that deny the dignity of those who are suffering.  This is giving that is not self-emptying, but rather giving that is firmly rooted in the shared power of living, and with a desire for that power of living to be extended against the powers of death.

            The cold hands this morning on the porch at Manna House were cold because of the powers of death; powers that isolate us from one another and so drive the despised and vulnerable to the streets.  Those powers of death deny our connection with each other and assert a radical competitive individualism.  Those powers assert a game of the survival of the fittest in which some already have a head start and make the rules that ensure their ongoing domination.

            It was those powers that St. Elizabeth stood against, and so did Audre Lorde.  And so, in our little way at Manna House, we also seek to stand.  Sharing hot coffee, showers and clothes, socks and hygiene, and a warm place to be for a few hours on a brutally cold day, are little acts of resistance to a system that denies our connection with each other.  And we join those little acts with other acts, speaking and acting with others for a just society, for housing, for health care, for jobs that pay a living wage.

            In the New Testament, Paul developed the image of the Body of Christ to help us envision our close relationship with each other.  He wrote, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13).   We are not isolated individuals in a “war of all against all” (Thomas Hobbes); we are members of the Body of Christ.

            Audre Lorde wrote of this bodily connection as “the power of the erotic.”  St. Elizabeth of Hungary saw this connection when she embodied her joy by risking her life to share life with the poor.  When we joined hands this morning we affirmed our connection with each other as we shared our human warmth.  And in all this connection there is God’s graciousness, even on a hard cold morning.  “God’s always been there for me, even in the worst of times.”

Counting Human Misery

Counting Human Misery

How to count human misery? Yesterday, a local TV station broadcast that there are only 150 homeless people in Memphis.  Apparently the reporter had gotten that number from the “point in time” count done under the auspices of the Community Alliance for the Homeless.  That count is done every January as a federal government requirement for local governments to receive federal funds to address homelessness.  If the numbers go down for this “point in time” count, then local government can claim it is successfully reducing homelessness, and urge that they get more money to continue their good work. 

I’m not sure what is more ridiculous, the whole “point in time” count business, or the way the federal government and local government use it to assess their efforts to reduce homelessness.  It functions like the “poverty level” or “unemployment level,” both of which hide the extent of poverty and unemployment in this country.  Still, I guess the “point in time” and “poverty level” and “unemployment level” are ways to count (or under count) misery.   

            Meanwhile there are a number of shelters, all privately run, that offer a place to stay for people on the streets.  One could tally up the number of people in such shelters each night and that would be another way to count misery.

            But there are some who are not welcome at those shelters.  Maybe they got in a fight or maybe they were gay or trans-gendered, or maybe they showed disrespect somehow during a mandatory religious service.  Or maybe they just don’t have the money to pay, since most of the shelters in Memphis require payment.  For whatever reason they are not welcome, but they probably need to be included in this misery count.  

            Others just do not want to stay at shelters.  They prefer to create a “cat-hole,” a hiding place where they can rest.  They don’t like the noise or the crowding or potential for violence or the type of religion required at a shelter.  If this kind of misery count is to be accurate, those too need to be counted.

            And then, of course, there are those folks who find temporary shelter with a friend or family member or put together enough money to get a room for a few nights now and again.  They are on the streets on some days and off the streets on others.  These folks also need to be included in this misery count.

            Of course, there are also those who got picked up by the police and will spend some time at 201 Poplar, the county jail.  They do regular counts there, and that count seems appropriate to add to this type of misery count.

            I could also include in this misery count those who were at Manna House this morning.  There were the 25 men who needed showers.  There were the nearly 80 people who needed “socks and hygiene” which included hats and gloves and scarves and blankets.  And there were some 500 cups of hot coffee needed to warm people up.  And 48 people signed up for shelter at Room in the Inn, and more wanted to but there wasn’t room.

Meanwhile a former director of a homeless services organization here in Memphis (who now has a book out touting all of her good work to reduce homelessness in the city) recently told Kathleen, “I’m not interested in making the lives of people on the streets more comfortable.  To do that only encourages them to stay homeless.”  

As I think about a misery count, it seems that instead of counting the people in shelters and on the streets, we should begin with this person.  Her attitude reflects a miserable failure to see the systemic causes of homelessness.  And what could be more miserable than to blame homeless people for being homeless?

So my modest suggestion is that this is how misery ought to be truly counted.  Instead of trying to count the number of people in shelters and on the streets, we really need to count of all of those who grieve rather than relieve the poor.  Those are the most miserable people of all.

Christ of the Shelter Line

Christ of the Shelter Line

About thirty men and women were lined up on the sidewalk along the fence at Manna House this morning, waiting to sign up for twenty-four slots for shelter at Room in the Inn, the only free shelter in the city of Memphis.  The line brought to my mind an old woodcut by Fritz Eichenberg.  In the “Christ of the Breadlines” woodcut, men and women stand in a breadline.  In the same line stands Christ. 

The line at Manna House wasn’t for bread; it was for shelter.  The breadline came later in the morning at the St. Vincent de Paul Food Mission a few blocks away.  The line at Manna House was also for showers, clothing, and hygiene items.  The line for coffee formed when Manna House opened.

            No one likes waiting in a line.  People are restless in a line, tired of standing, shifting from one foot to the other.  People are anxious, fearing of scarcity.  In the lines this morning, people wondered, “Will there still be room for me on the list for shelter?”  “Will there be room for me on the list for showers?”

            There’s also humiliation in waiting in a line for shelter, or for showers, or for soup.  Our society is a harsh judge of those who wait for such necessities, calling them “lazy,” “parasites,” “failures,” “losers.”  Presidential candidates chastise the poor for being “takers.”  A “Christian” financial guru blames the poor for being poor, saying their poverty is a result of bad habits.  And our guests in the line know those judgments, and carry that wound within them as they wait.  They stand with the crucified Christ, rejected and despised.

            In the line this morning was Joseph, mentally ill, standing there without shoes in ill-fitting pants.  He was shaking.  One eye was swollen shut, and there were still flecks of dried blood in his hair.  Someone had beaten him up. 

Standing with Michael (and Christ) were others in the shelter line.  Some are physically disabled from years of back breaking manual labor.  Others have been shunted aside because of struggles with mental illness. Some have addictions to alcohol or other drugs and can never find a treatment center that will take them. Some have criminal convictions and so no one will hire them.  Some work at minimum wage jobs and never can get enough to get a place to live.  Some are physically disabled from brain injuries and have seizures.  All of them are made in the image of God.  All of them are God’s beloved.  All of them are Christ, suffering under the sin of the world.

            Today was the Feast of St. Gertrude, a mystic from the Middle Ages.  She saw visions of Christ in her convent.  There’s a mysticism necessary for offering hospitality and seeking justice for the people waiting in line.  It is the mysticism of seeing Christ in the shelter line, the shower line, the soup line.  It is also the mysticism that hears Christ in the psalms crying out with those in line, “Be pleased, O God to deliver me.  O Lord, make haste to help me!  Let those be put to shame and confusion who seek my life.  Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who desire to hurt me.  … I am poor and needy, God!  You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay!” (Psalm 70:1-2, 5).

An Ode to Joy

An Ode to Joy

“Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee, God of glory, Lord of love; Hearts unfold like flow’rs before Thee, Op’ning to the sun above.”

The morning at Manna House started warm and sunny.  But since it has been so chilly most mornings, the backyard was closed.  The front yard and house filled quickly with the hundred or so guests who were present when we opened.  To ease the wait for coffee, we opened a second “coffee line” so there were two volunteers serving guests from two different coffee pots.
            “Melt the clouds of sin and sadness; Drive the dark of doubt away; Giver of immortal gladness, Fill us with the light of day!”

Our prayer at opening was short and to the point.  We thanked God for the warmer weather, for the sun, and for the gift of being alive.  We asked God to help us all to be patient with each other in the crowded space.  And then the great call and response of Manna House took place to end our prayer as it does every morning:

“God please bless the coffee”

            “Make it hot.”

            “God please bless the sugar.”

            “Make it sweet.”

            “And God please bless the creamer.”

            “May it take all life’s bitterness away.”

“All Thy works with joy surround Thee, Earth and heav’n reflect Thy rays, Stars and angels sing around Thee, Center of unbroken praise.”

Seventy-five guests were on the socks and hygiene list before 8:30a.m.  We usually take only fifty-one names, but we guarantee a spot for all who show up before 8:30a.m.  The shower list was full with twenty-five names taken on Tuesday.  Kathleen squeezed in a few alternates.  Before we opened we took names for Room in the Inn.  All the slots available on each night were taken.  No one complained.  No one argued.  The angels who were visiting us this morning (see Genesis 18 and Hebrews 13:2) know that we’re doing the best we can.
“Field and forest, vale and mountain, Flow’ry meadow, flashing sea, Singing bird and flowing fountain, Call us to rejoice in Thee.”

There was a lot of talk about the weather.  Cold weather is supposed to return this weekend.  But we were all living in the morning’s weather in which the sun was warm, and the sky was blue.  We saw a rocket launched from the charter school parking lot next door.  It flashed and sang and then crashed.  “Birds sure fly better” said one guest.

“Thou art giving and forgiving, Ever blessing, ever blest, Wellspring of the joy of living, Ocean depth of happy rest! Thou our Father, Christ our Brother, All who live in love are Thine; Teach us how to love each other, Lift us to the joy divine.”

            A man came into the yard and threatened a guest with violence.  I wedged myself between them and told the man to leave.  Eventually he did after repeated threats of violence made to me and the guest.  After he left, another guest told me, “I had your back” and then he tapped on his chest pocket, “I have some dog mace in here.  If he had touched you he was gonna get a face full of mace.”  Our guests aren’t quite as committed to nonviolence as we try to be, but I still appreciated what Lewis said.

“Mortals, join the happy chorus, Which the morning stars began; Father love is reigning o’er us, Brother love binds man to man.”

             A guest who is rarely coherent arrived with torn and ill fitting pants, and his shoes were in tatters.  We got him pants and shoes, even though he wasn’t on the shower list, and even though we were all feeling overwhelmed with the amount of need we were trying to meet this morning.  As he walked away happy with his clean pants and shoes that didn’t hurt his feet, his smile of thanks was of God.

“Ever singing, march we onward, Victors in the midst of strife, Joyful music leads us Sunward, In the triumph song of life.”

            It was a typical joyous morning at Manna House.  

Power is Made Perfect in Weakness

Power is Made Perfect in Weakness

The “word of the day” at Manna House this morning was, “but God said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).  This was a day of power in the midst of grief, and in the midst of fear.

            Tom is a regular at Manna House.  He comes every day.  He showers once a week.  He always gets “socks and hygiene” on the day he doesn’t shower, and he gets “socks and soap” on women’s shower day.  He is not on the streets, but he is poor, despite working two jobs.  He stretches his earnings by coming to Manna House.  This past summer, he called me aside one morning when I arrived early to open the gate and then go in to start the coffee.   

            “Pete,” he said, “I’ve got problems.  I need you to pray for me when we pray.”

            “What kind of problems?”

            “I’ve got three problems,” and then he proceeded to list them.  They weren’t big problems; just things he needed make his life a bit more comfortable.  So, when we prayed at opening, I shared Tom’s problems, and asked God to solve those problems. And a few days later he told me his problems were all solved.

            “Pete, I got no problems today.”

            This morning, Tom didn’t tell me he had any problems.  But he did pull me aside about mid-morning to tell me that his sister had suddenly died on Sunday.  He would be going to the funeral in Mississippi. 

            “I haven’t been there for forty years.  I never wanted to go back.  But I have to go now.”

            As he said this, his eyes began to tear, and he had difficulty speaking, “I don’t know.  It’s just hard. I need to spend some time with my family.”

            I stood with him in silence for a while, then touched him lightly on the shoulder and said I’d keep him in prayer.  I learned later he had shared his grief with a few other volunteers as well.  Tom, I hope, felt some power, some strength to hold him up in his grief.

            Not much after Tom told me about the death of his sister, I saw Antonio arrive.  “Liberation for the captive!” I shouted.  I had known that Antonio was in prison.  He came up with a big smile and we embraced. 

            “Welcome back!  Delighted to see you out!”

            Antonio smiled and said he was happy to be out, but then shared some of his grief, “Did you hear that when I was in prison my Mom died?  I missed her funeral.”

            “How are you now?”

            “I’m doing ok.  You know, I just try to go on. I had to come today just to tell you and Kathleen.”  There’s a power to carry on in sharing grief.

            Near the end of the morning Nakumah arrived riding his decorated and heavy laden bike.  He went to his usual spot in the far corner of the front yard.  And from there he gestured to another guest, Lionel, with whom I was talking.  Lionel and Nakumah do not get along.  On many occasions Lionel has told me that Nakumah is of the devil, and that he is dangerous and shouldn’t be allowed at Manna House.  I’ve tried to reassure Lionel that Nakumah struggles with mental illness.  But, I didn’t know what to make of Nakumah signaling Lionel to come over to him.  I feared the worst.  A fight might be coming.

            But Lionel went over, and then power appeared in the midst of weakness, in the midst of fear.  He and Nakumah had a brief conversation before Lionel walked away from Nakumah, and got a cup of coffee.  He carefully mixed in some sugar and creamer, and brought the coffee back to Nakumah.

            When Lionel returned to the porch where I stood, I asked him why he had done that.  “He told me he couldn’t get his own coffee because he needed to watch his bike.  I had to love him and not fear him and serve him.  I follow Jesus after all.”