kneeling for justice
by Elouise
hot sun focuses
with laser-beam precision
on one fallen leaf
illuminating darkness
barely hidden beneath rot
I’m a white woman with a history of being beaten and humiliated. A history I can pretend to ignore if I so choose. In fact, many people I’ve met in my adult life would prefer it that way. It’s easier for everyone if I’m an exception to the rule.
The rule, of course, would be that good girls are rewarded. I don’t buy it. In my experience, good girls rarely find their voices or their strength. They’re too busy trying to please or appease whoever is just above them on the food chain. Or the love chain. Or the work chain. Or the social chain. Need I go on?
Fallen leaves. We love to sing their praises, especially in autumn.
Yesterday evening I went out for my evening walk. The air was exceedingly hot, dry and heavy. Not a cool downdraft anywhere. Walking my favorite paths was like pushing through desert heat. Beautiful in its way, yet almost unbearable.
The search for justice is like slogging through a wasteland of dry leaves falling prematurely from still-green trees. They’re just dead leaves. No problem. A dime a dozen. There must be something wrong with them.
The analogy isn’t perfect. Yet my hat goes off to brothers and sisters who dare kneel for justice denied.
Kneeling wasn’t a safe action in my girlhood, unless it was to pray alone before God who never abandoned me. As an adult white woman I choose to kneel today with those who focus light yet again on what has long been barely hidden beneath rot. Wherever it resides.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 September 2017
Daily Prompt: Focused
writing it, brings light, and forgiveness heals, amen
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Thanks for your comment. I’m not sure what you mean by ‘it.’ I would, however, agree that that writing about racial injustice can bring light, and that healing is possible, though it’s complicated because we’re talking about years of racial injustice in the USA.
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thanks Elouise, our thoughts make up the world, what we imagine what we dream, when we write it, we make a mark, and from there, it flows into our collective consciousness, in a nutshell, the more good thoughts the better the world around us, amen
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Thanks for this! We never know where our written (good) thoughts will go–reason enough to let them go like seeds floating on the wind and finding fertile ground.
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amen
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Amen. I kneel beside you.
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Thanks, Nancy.
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Thank you, Elouise! You are helping me realize how the kneeling stand as it is being used right now by sport players becomes a counter intuitive and nonviolent response to injustice. I admire players willingness to put themselves on the line and use their fame and power to denounce injustice.
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I appreciate that as well. Even more, I appreciate the engagement many of the players have in our (Phila) community to work against injustice. They have a unique platform and, when combined with willingness to act as well as speak, they become both prophets and priests.
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Thanks for this comment, Meg. You’re correct about Philadelphia, which I hope is one of many large cities so gifted. I’m reading Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” A gripping description of a life I’ve never experienced. Sobering, since it’s forcing me to reexamine myself yet again as a white woman in the USA. Not rich and famous, but white.
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You’re welcome, Mayra. Yes, I see it as an unexpectedly vulnerable move. The kind of submissive posture that’s often accompanied by unfair and unjust kickback, as we know from the days of Martin Luther King, Jr. It takes calm, fierce courage and vision to endure the consequences and stay with the ‘program.’
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your words resonate with light
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Thank you kindly.
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Another thought provoking post E, you’re rolling ’em out like cookie dough these days but you shine a light on a point of view that most lately aren’t seeing, it’s like opinions, every one has one and is entitled to one, but sometimes they come alive and morph into something they were never meant to be in the first place. Its all in the way you perceive something and these days, in reality, so many are all over. I still kneel and enjoy other’s perceptions, as long as they are kind, good and just. The rest I just walk away from if I can’t understand or feel I’m being forced to. Kudos my friend, kudos ❤
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Hi Kim. Thanks so much for this kind comment. We seem to have a lot of static in the air these days–often about things that really matter, yet get crowded out or turned (as you say) into something else entirely. We don’t seem to know how to listen or get at the heart of things that matter. Or maybe they’re too threatening? I don’t know. A little late getting back to you on this. Hoping you had a good day of breathing deep and enjoying your new status! 🙂
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New status starts Sunday. Woohoo…excitement indeed. It will be Sunday FunDay to say the least. Five o’clock freedom rings, yay. Never any hurries getting back to me, I’m often on a day lag lately so no fears😊 communication has become a lost art form for sure…..to look someone in the eyes and connect….an experience that still makes me feel human 💜😊
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I don’t like kneeling or the idea of it.
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No problem. You can stand and lock arms! 🙂
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