Year: 2020

Letters to the Editor

Denise Krebs1 Comment

Today is Monday, Day 104 in Bahrain, day 69 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. Today’s prompt was written by Sara Lettes. The task is to write a letter to the editor.

That should be a piece of cake in these days, but what will I choose?

I’m going to think about that some more and write it another day. Today, I will reflect on my first two letters to the editor.

When I was young and trying to conceive my first child, I decided it would be important to deal with my co-dependency and other issues I had being a child of an alcoholic. I approached my oldest sister, and she gave me a lot of resources to read and listen to, plus she shared long letters about the pain she experienced. I read Co-Dependent No More by  Melodie Beatty. Another thing I needed to do was go to a therapist who specialized in addiction issues. I went to some individual and group sessions. All in preparation for becoming a parent. By God’s grace and with some of the help I received hopefully it helped me to become a better parent than I would have been otherwise.

Anyway, at one of the meetings I had with my counselor, I had to make a poster with things I wanted to do but didn’t feel able to or didn’t feel I had permission to. I was to make a poster so I could hang it up to remind me to do those things. One of the items on my poster was “Write a letter to the editor.”

Well, it took me three years to write that letter, but I did. It was in the Grand Rapids Press. I can’t remember the circumstances exactly, but it was a rebuttal on another LTE about a story in the news. The writer explained that a “mountain was being made out of molehill” and the girl’s parents should teach her the playground rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me.” It was easy to write an LTE rebuttal saying that this rhyme was a lie and I would not teach it to my daughter, but instead I would teach my daughter to dismantle that rhyme and learn that our words are powerful for building up and for tearing down. No one should have to be subject to other’s taunts. I said I hoped other parents would do the same. In 2008 I wrote another LTE about reading critically.

Both of these letters to the editor I could write again today.

The Unlearning

Denise Krebs2 Comments

My first time becoming aware of my race in a serious way was when my family and I went to the Sears store in Compton. It was close to home, but “over the bridge.” Kind of like being “on the other side of the tracks” in a similar metaphor.

Going was a welcome outing whenever we needed something at our favorite department store. As white people, we were in the minority among the shoppers, but I don’t remember that as much as I remember a conversation on one of our shopping trips.

It wasn’t a conversation I was privy to, but I knew it was important. One day, a friend of a friend of my mom’s stopped us. She was a white woman working at Sears at the jewelry or makeup counter, I think. She talked softly to my mom and that was our last time shopping at this Sears store. I don’t remember when my mom told me, but later she did say that she was told it wasn’t safe to shop there any more.

Most of us can imagine how that encounter shaped me and my beliefs about being afraid of Black people. The older generation passed it right along to me. By God’s grace and with lots of unlearning and re-education in antiracism work by Black women like Rachel, Layla, Danielle, Naomi and others. I am beginning to change, to speak up, and fight for change in how Black people are treated and how to dismantle white supremacy.

It’s not white people that are unsafe in America. It’s Black people who are more likely to die of Covid-19, be poisoned by the environment in their own homes and communities, die in childbirth, have less access to education and medical care, and so much more. Black people are harassed, threatened and killed by police. Vigilantes kill Black joggers. Fearmongers threaten Black bird watchers with death by police. Black women and men are killed in their homes by on- and off-duty police.

The fact that I have come to notice and admit that my white daughters and their white husbands are safe to jog, get pulled over for traffic violations, bird watch, and go to Sears, and the fact that many of our Black brothers and sisters are not–has been a painful, necessary, and important evolution in my life. May God use this evolution in many people to help make the changes needed for our country to get a fresh start. 

Today’s Isolation Journal prompt was created by Defne Egbo. “Reflect on the first time you became aware of race—either yours or someone else’s. What meaning did you make of it then? How has that meaning evolved?”

Today is Sunday, Day 103 in Bahrain, day 68 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.

Teardrops

Denise Krebs2 Comments

wet
release
sob and squall
so freedom flows
a cleansing fresh start
weep and wail, grieve and groan
lacrimal lamentation
bawl and blubber in sad mourning
howling in hilarity and joy
tears are mending lubricants of healing

Today’s prompt is by Jon Batiste. The song for today is “Teardrops” composed by Cory Wong and Jon. The prompt was about describing the purpose of crying. I wrote an Etheree about tears.

Today is Thursday, Day 100 in Bahrain, day 65 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.

Unbossed and Unbought

Denise Krebs4 Comments
Strength in Shirley Chisholm. Her portrait in Congress, by Kadir Nelson, unveiled in 2009

Shirley Chisholm was the first in many ways in the United States–

  • first black woman in Congress
  • first freshman Congress member to ask for and get her committee assignment changed
  • first woman to run to be the Democratic party’s nominee for president
  • first black candidate for a major party’s presidential nomination
  • first woman to win a state in a presidential primary (New Jersey ’72)
  • first African American to win a state in a presidential primary (New Jersey ’72)

My guess is there are more firsts in her distinguished career.

Shirley was known as “Fighting Shirley” for her work fighting for justice for women and poor people. About her childhood, Shirley said this:

“Mother always said that even when I was 3, I used to get the 6- and 7-year-old kids on the block and punch them and say, ‘Listen to me.'”

Shirley’s first career was as a teacher. She earned an MA in elementary education from Teachers College at Columbia University. She married twice but she did not have any children of her own, so today I wondered what would have happened if I could have had Shirley Chisholm in my home when I was a young girl. What if I could have spent my young years with her, listening to her wisdom, allowing her words to scrub my ears and brain of the propaganda I had absorbed about white and black people while I was living in Los Angeles County before the Civil Rights Act? But she didn’t come to my house.

When I was a young teen she went on to run for president. Her candidacy was an anomaly to me. I very occasionally caught sight of one of her campaign buttons or posters and remember wondering who could be so brave to do what she was doing, needing Secret Service details to protect her from multiple assassination attempts. At the same time, I also remember knowing she was going to lose and thinking why bother.

“I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women’s movement of this country, although I am a woman and I am equally proud of that…I am the candidate of the people of America, and my presence before you now symbolizes a new era in American political history.”

Instead, had I grown up with Shirley, I would have become a different person–one who undoubtedly would have gone out on the campaign trail with her, not thinking about losing, but going for it, better understanding the fight before us. In Shirley’s words:

“I ran because somebody had to do it first. In this country, everybody is supposed to be able to run for president, but that has never really been true.”

I hope I would have embraced her message and tried to fight for the “new era in American political history” of which Ms. Chisholm spoke.

Later in life, Shirley Chisholm said she didn’t want to be remembered as a candidate for president or her Congressional service, but instead she said this:

“I’d like them to say that Shirley Chisholm had guts. That’s how I’d like to be remembered.”

Even as a teen, I noticed Shirley. Today I’m dreaming that I might have spent time with her and been able to get some of those guts to rub off on me.

Learn more about Shirley Chisholm here.

Today’s prompt is by Jon Batiste. His song for today is “Home” composed by Cory Wong and Jon. The prompt was to “identify someone…who, if you’d grown up with them, would have changed your worldview.” We were to write a letter to them, but instead I shared a little about one of my brave sheros. This post is also for the Slice of Life at Two Writing Teachers.

Today is Tuesday, Day 98 in Bahrain, day 63 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.

 

An Alien Prayer

Denise Krebs1 Comment

Oh, God,

Help these people. America is full of emotion and fire right now.

Emotions of despair, outrage, hurt, disappointment, shame, sorrow, hate, disgust, fear, hopelessness, sadness. So many emotions, but especially overwhelming sadness and anger.

Fire. Fire of anger. Fire of cleansing. Fire of Jesus in the temple. Fire. It burns up the old and lays down a bed of ash for a fresh start. This country needs a fresh start. Help them sustain their anger as the fires go out.

In all my travels, God, I have never visited a world at a time when there was so much focused energy on the same theme. They have a collective consciousness, but why so many different beliefs about the white supremacist foundation of their country? How can that be? It seems pretty simple to someone who has studied history. These people can’t seem to see clearly the obscene inequality that is staring them in the epidermis.

Who has bewitched them? Who wrote their history books? Does white skin affect reason? America needs some serious table upturning, Jesus.

Give joy to the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those persecuted for righteousness. Give anticipated joy to sustain them in their sadness and to keep up the fight. May justice barrel through this land.

Amen

Thank you to Jon Batiste for today’s prompt. His new song today is “Prayer” composed in collaboration with Cory Wong. The prompt was to write a prayer as if we were an alien visitor from another galaxy coming to America for the first time. Today is Monday, Day 97 in Bahrain, day 62 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.