I preached a sermon on February 16th titled “Blackness” that feels like a turning point for me professionally.  While I’ve preached on race before, I feel as if my studies being combined with the incredibly generous community I’ve been working with for the past few months has allowed me to tap into language and intention that I think may be useful for a wider audience than just Unitarian Universalists.  My goal is to be able to speak to people across the spectrum who want to engage seriously in understanding the race question that keeps rearing its head, complicating justice and messing with people, even when they don’t realize it.

After returning home, I was scrolling through my various feeds and came across this brilliant piece by Garrison Hayes.  He takes this conversation about race, and language to a whole new level and gets much more specific about the way the language around DEI is being weaponized as a modern substitute for the more traditional slurs.  I am INCREDIBLY grateful to his perspective this is a MUST watch.

Below is an original poem that I close the sermon with.  I’m including a link to audio of the full piece as well as the text below.  Once the video is live, I will link it as well.

My biggest gratitude is to the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Shenandoah Valley for encouraging me, loving me and letting me speak freely from this pulpit.  Not every black, gay preacher gets that freedom.  I’m a lucky guy.  Amen.

In the message, I share two slides.  The first slide is an overview of the US Census race categories since the Census began.  The second slide is just the categories for “blackness” compared with the categories for “whiteness” from that same list.  That slide is the cover image for this blog post:

How Does Your Whiteness Work?

How does your whiteness work?
Does it fill you with pride
Does it make you ashamed
Does whiteness call you to action
Or does it allow you to hide?
Does whiteness give you a pass
Is it just a pain in the ass
How does your whiteness work?

How does my blackness work?
My blackness is a portal
It gives me a place from which to see the world
My world
Your world
It gives me perspective
It would have to.
My blackness stands upon innumerable bodies sacrificed
To the nonconsensual concept of race
Applied, and reapplied
And applied again
Like layers of makeup on Baby Jane Hudson.

My blackness swims in the blood of too many ancestors
Never repaid for their gifts
And dives daily into the pool from an impossible height
Not the sparkling Esther Williams spectacle
As she plunges into the blue water dotted with identical white faces
But the thick, dark crimson of effort an unknowability
That comes from a history erased.
My blackness is knowledge
I hold it carefully
And share it sparingly
Because too much would bring the end of the world.
That’s how my blackness works.

How does your whiteness work?
Are you willing to find out?
Do you even want to know?
If not…why is that so.

 

Full Text: “Blackness”

Full Recording: