[Lace Watkins]

One thing you’ve heard me say, and Leadership Team hears it daily, is that I wish we could bottle what goes on in Leadership Team chat and share it out to all of you. When we’re out on the boards walking with you, we are also in that chat, holding each other accountable, digging deep, digging DEEP to find those things in ourselves that we hope are what need to be said out loud. In a real way, this is my vision for Chef’s Table. To be a place of mentoring and communion, where you all can learn how to walk stronger, longer, deeper, faster, like we do in that chat.

So, this conversation, transcribed from our chat during some of our recent walking, is a glimpse, a taste of that. It is instructive, yes, but also this. Our conversation here is a gift to you, our community. You need to see how we cleave to each other and support each other while we walk. And you need to know that we think about you and your walking, every day. We are absolutely invested in your walk. We want you to know the kind of energy and love Leadership Team dedicates to this walk with you, the kind of energy and love we hope you dedicate to your walk, and we hope you will bring to Chef’s Table soon.

Discussion

[Jessie Lee]

I’m catching up on the walking with Lee right now and something that stuck out to me was her assertion that things got messy and more damage was caused by “too many cooks in the kitchen.” I disagree with that, but I admit that it did cross my mind after I saw the ugly aftermath of “following” Holly to her page.

I’m still sad and angry about the aftermath, how cruel and hurtful it was. I’ve been second guessing myself and somewhat blaming myself for lighting a fuse.

But that’s an oversimplification and reflection of toxic shame, I think. I could’ve and should’ve commented better, but I absolutely don’t think that commenting itself was a mistake. I hate what happened after. But also… I have to let go of wanting to control and take responsibility for other people’s behavior and outcomes of situation I’m part of. That’s where contempt enters for me- when I’m angry at people not just for their harmful behavior, but for not behaving in the way I was exhorting them to.

It seems like Lee wants to be a fly on the wall, detached enough to judge the situation and blame people more directly involved for the result. She wants to consider herself a member of community while actively severing her connection to community. I’m not sure if she understands her impact.

[Lace Watkins]

I’m thinking close to the same thing too. Although I think she’s more aware than she thinks she is or that she knows. She doesn’t feel community because she doesn’t know how to allow herself to feel community nor does she fully comprehend what the implications are of being in community, however deep, actually are.

[Jessie Lee]

Yeah I get that impression too. Which makes me wonder how to replicate what we have here to allow other people to experience community as deeply. But I get that making the thing and inviting people to it is only half the equation; people have to opt in and invest.

[Christina Sonas]

White supremacy is pretty anti-communitarian, even within whiteness. There are so very many paradigms of white thinking which, if we continue to think they’re right or true, will make it impossible to follow the North Star.

[Lace Watkins]

Especially within whiteness.

[Christina Sonas]

Agreed. Because what is within whiteness is pretty much always pseudo-community: you’re in until you’re out.

[Danielle Holcombe]

Exactly. I was trying to think about how to say something like this to her and you just said it.

[Jessie Lee]

I’m learning from this that if I’m worried about what people will do in response to what I do, my head isn’t in the right place. I will probably waffle and react not at all, not fast enough, and/or too conservatively (trying to manipulate and control outcome) which obviously isn’t in the spirit of Hesed or centered on North Star. It’s a cue that I’m centering on myself and my self image, comfort, etc.

[Marlise Flores]

I had a situation today that actually had me reflecting on that very thing.

That quite often when I notice a problem/harm and any initial question is returned w hard pushback and commentary on *my* self, that I usually feel I should just retreat.

So today, I finally through a very professional fit about us still not having the check from selling our previous home last Friday.

The immediate responses were that I needed to be understanding, calm, and patient. All of which were things i was doing….I was simply pointing out where there was a breakdown in communication on their part that would have prevented the whole thing. When I stood my ground, I was told there was no other solution, that I just needed to wait, etc.

I once more reiterated that I was calm. That I was not concerned so much about my own situation but preventing it for others.

And I realized how often I would not keep pushing. How often I see resistance and think that because I stood slightly stronger than a hot noodle, that I did my “best.”

How often do I see a harm occur, and, when assured there is no other solution than this long drawn out process, decide to not carry on with my comfortable life? How often do I push back, pointing out that certain steps could have been implemented to prevent or mitigate the harm? And when I receive a response that is not proportionate with my holding missteps to account, how often do I insist that I am willing to persist in holding these actions to account….even when demonized, even when told there are no solutions, even when I’ve been marked as impatient/irrational/not understanding?

Not often. Because if it were often, I would have discovered that standing firm, kind but candid, disregarding any character maligning thrown my way actually results in a “newly discovered” solution. My whiteness, my privilege, means that if I stand firmer than a hot spaghetti noodle, the system will be more likely to shift around me. My going along with the initial proposed solution is part of the system. It is designed to never correct, shift, or tangibly change the process.

I certainly know this when it comes to getting the discount with my expired coupon. So, when do I use that instead to help others?

I suspect I do not precisely when it means that *I* have to shift myself to mitigate harm.

[Jessie Lee]

Yes exactly. I’ve become aware that I conflate level of initial whoosh with “my best” which just isn’t accurate. I might have to regroup after first whoosh, but how hard saying something is or isn’t for me shouldn’t be a thing that matters when I’m deciding whether to back down or stand firm.

[Christina Sonas]

I see a powerful avenue to reduce harm, too, with what you said about using your experience to change the pathway for others. Even when there is not a Black or brown person in immediate view, I can leverage my social capital to effect change in all the places I go, by recognizing that my ability to let something slide isn’t available to so many others.

[Marlise Flores]

This. This is holding community in mind always.

[Laura Berwick]

This is also reminding me of something that happened to me on Jan 6, when I went out for my walk, that I’ve been wanting to write a more thorough reflection on. I walked by a bunch of police vehicles down my block, and saw the cops surrounding and talking to a guy who looked really anxious.

That he was white mitigated my worry… some. But he was also… so agitated that it seemed possible he was mentally impaired, or maybe high, but he wasn’t being violent or anything. His clothes were really dirty.

I was worried, so I stood on the sidewalk across the street, with my phone ready. Lots of people were out walking. No one else stopped. Some asked me if I knew what was going on, which I didn’t.

But what got me was this one woman, who it turns out was from Texas (I was wearing a mask with a Rice emblem on it, and she recognized it). She stopped and told me that she had seen that guy hanging around, and looking at porches from across the street (how dare he). She walked a ways from me, and I didn’t move. She turned back and said, “I’m sure he did something pretty bad to have all those cops talking to him.”

And I replied that she could be sure, and I would be right here, watching.

Eventually a guy came who was some sort of witness, and confirmed that it was NOT the guy, whatever the actual guy had been doing. And the cops let him go. One of them gave him a card for a shelter, and wrote his own name and number on it. And one of the cops turned and asked me if I had any questions. And I said no, I didn’t, and I walked home.

But it’s that woman I’m still turning over in the back of my mind, who was SO SURE that he was a BAD GUY(TM), because why else would the cops be there? Like… where had she been for all of 2020?

And… it really seemed to bother her that I was still going to stand there. She went on her walk, and came back and tried to talk with me about it some more when she was done, like, fifteen minutes later. Of course she was gone by the time they confirmed he was not a Bad Guy and let him go. And the discussion we’re having now is reminding me of her.

[Marlise Flores]

Assumption that the system is there for a reason and is working just fine. And when one even mildly pushes back on that…..Lace what you’ve said about white supremacy having similar responses to borderline/narcissistic behaviors. That’s really sticking out to me right now.

[Lace Watkins]

That’s compelling. Justification. Anything is justifiable once it’s deemed it’s deserved. I’ve been thinking about that for the last few weeks myself.

[Lace Watkins]

I think I just might make the covert overt and pose this to Lee. Very directly. Lee, do you feel what happened to me was justified?

[Vicki van den Eikhof]

Sitting by, doing nothing, isn’t doing nothing. It’s still something.

Deciding to just watch/observe is still a choice I make. It can be the wrong one.

[Laura Berwick]

And it’s tied to what M said. For questioning by my presence what the police were doing was right, even by standing still and silent, ready and watching, *I* was the unreasonable one, and the woman spreading rumors about the dude saw herself as in the right.

[Vicki van den Eikhof]

She made a choice, too. She choose to accept a certain narrative about that guy. You chose to witness.

[Marlise Flores]

This. And because I kept making it overt, I even used your “quietly” Lace, they both came back apologizing for their tone etc., because they clearly were responding with hostility to violence perceived but not real. And that’s whiteness that I even got the apology.

But I couldn’t help but see how that dynamic was absolutely present with this whole mess. The assumption of violence from the individual who is pointing out that actual harm.

The realtor didn’t even have a stake in this. She could have easily sided with me. But she didn’t initially. And that stood out to me.

[Jessie Lee]

I wonder if deep down in our guts we all have this niggling awareness or calling to do better, to abide in community, but we learn to suppress it. And people like this woman react so defensively because they see you not suppressing it, and it’s convicting. But when we dont have the tools to manage that dissonance and the courage to act on that conviction in favor of community, we get resentful and self loathing, and reject the other person from our pseudo community by seeing THEM as the wrong and unreasonable one.

[Marlise Flores]

Yes. Just. Yes. We’ve trained ourselves to respond to trauma with inaction and when we see anyone doing the opposite we claw at them to drag them to our “side.”

[Jessie Lee]

Right, which makes me think about yours and Christina’s point that this is why I need to use my privilege and stand up stronger than a wet noodle. It’s doing my part to change the paradigm.

[Danielle Holcombe]

Exactly this. But our suppression skills I think have been really successful. Because we cannot even recognize community. You can absolutely tell when people start to see what community is and how everything hinges on the relational. I know it because I remember it in me, and I’ve recognized it in others. Right now Lee is being so very…. these aren’t the words, but almost dry and transactional with us. And it’s because she doesn’t really recognize or understand what she’s been invited in to. It doesn’t look like anything to her.

[Lace Watkins]

Yes. Or, but she absolutely knows what she’s being invited into, and hence the resistance.

[Danielle Holcombe]

Interesting. I’ll have to look at myself a little harder then huh?

[Lace Watkins]

No. I think you got it. But with Lee, as with so very many, there is such a gulf between the world they say they want, and the world they’re willing to risk for.

[Danielle Holcombe]

I absolutely I agree with you. I also absolutely remember a time when I *felt* confused, as opposed to resistant. But I’m reflecting now that we lie to ourselves too and perhaps it was a bit (maybe quite a bit) more resistance than I wanted to admit.

[Lace Watkins]

This is what is sort of chapping my hide about Lee. And about everyone else who keeps on talking about back and forth and two sides and all the rest.

Holly didn’t come out of the kitchen smashing things she came in the front door because her relationship with the cafe had already been severed. She’s the one that took it public, she’s the one that made it ugly. But there is this false assertion of equivalency on everyone else. Both that I did indeed respond to her and kind, and also that whatever it was she did to break through the front door there was indeed a justification for it. Whatever she did I, in some way or another, deserved. And without telling the full backstory I can’t defend that. It is maddening. It goes back to them thinking the best of Holly, a woman that they really don’t know, oh, she was MIA all of late fall and early winter a full three months. And their quickness to assume the worst of me, someone that they have been extensively walking with. Whatever she did had a good reason, and you have to really really really think badly of my character to even go there. I feel that hard.

[Marlise Flores]

Why is it always two sides? Today, the realtor and settlement individual both tried to say it was my fault for not having a joint account, for having a PO Box etc….I was literally just asking them to evaluate their process that led to the miscommunication.

There aren’t actually two sides. But the insistence is actually a way to lay blame on the one being victimized by the system, by white supremacy.

[Jessie Lee]

I think this is tied to our obsession with scarcity. Which isn’t… actually real. It’s like a ginormous, scary shadow made by something tiny and unthreatening.

[Danielle Holcombe]

I think all of that needs to be said.

[Lace Watkins]

This whole conversation needs to be heard.

[Christin Spoolstra]

So, I’m reading now the Lee thread. My comment may be premature as I’m not finished yet. But I’ve been grateful to be digesting her comments with the conversation happening here. And I’m thinking mostly about Lee’s comment about how she can’t pick sides based on who is darker and how that pulled her into inaction. And how on the surface that feels so true. But that it misses community. And it misses the trust she has said she has in Lace. And it has me thinking of Laura and her walk and that woman. Like… we can be there for the community without knowing the full story. We can be a presence and a support the way Laura was for that man. The lanes and lines line that keeps resonating for me: permission and imperative. We had an imperative to bear witness and be a supportive presence when all that went down.

[Vicki van den Eikhof]

These chats are sometimes hard for me to keep up with. ? I’m thinking about Laura’s experience where she chose to stand by as a witness to what was happening. She had her phone ready, and wasn’t buying any kind of narrative about the guy the police were questioning. How does this compare to what I sometimes want to do? To claim that I just watched two people I didn’t know have it out with each other? I think it’s about the story I tell myself.

[Lace Watkins]

What I want to say to Lee is, ‘You’re acting from an old, and supremacist, paradigm. Here we are New People doing New Things in New Ways, and you’re right, those two ways conflict. That’s at least one reason for your dissonance, and the reason why, yes, a few people left (but only a few). By coming to the Bistro, you affirmed that you at least superficially agree with the New Ways. Why the pushback when it’s time to actually live it out?’

[Jessie Lee]

I think about in terms of head, heart, and gut. My gut was first to buy in, then my heart through developing mutual relationships. My head is always the last to get it, and sometimes I let it override what I know from the other two. (Not sure if that makes sense or I sound high. I’m not lol, just getting sleepy).

Lee is suuuuuper in her head it seems. She’s overcomplicating, which maybe is a defense mechanism? Defending against dipping more than a toe in helping to make the world we say we want?

[Danielle Holcombe]

Yeah, that’s me too.

[Marlise Flores]

There are only too many cooks in a kitchen when control over a specific recipe (hello checklist need?) is expected. Forced scarcity also plays into thinking our kitchen is smaller than it actually is.

How hard am I clenching onto that family recipe that is outdated and lacking some serious seasoning and technique?

[Jessie Lee]

Yes! It reminds me of the woman on Laura’s walk again. Like now I feel super squirmy because I’m convicted by the choices of multiple people, so the justification begins.

But it’s sneakier…. because when it’s multiple people and you’re the odd one out it’s not as easy to be as outwardly judgy as Laura’s woman was.

Weird way to say that ??‍♀️

[Marlise Flores]

This whole right vs wrong, good vs bad is part of the system that whiteness thrives on. Justification is never analyzed but assumed. That is integral to whiteness and the myth of white benevolence.

[Jessie Lee]

Never analyzed but assumed… yes. Definitely getting that from Lee’s response. White benevolence… is not real. Like @Vicki van den Eikhof said, it’s a choice to stand by, and it’s not an inherently justified one. Which becomes clear pretty quickly, and when it does, I think that’s when we see the blowing up, shutting down, and running away. Or, if there’s a grounding in some type of commitment to community, an alternative is getting curious and learning the justification against my position.

[Vicki van den Eikhof]

Laura’s standing by was different than Lee’s. The underlying motivations were different.

[Lace Watkins]

Indeed. And there was an internal commitment to act if warranted.

[Jessie Lee]

Oh totally. I’m not comparing Laura to Lee in that way- Laura’s standing by was a proactive choice to be there and speak up in case of harm.

In this case I meant standing by like Lee’s lurking in the situation with Holly because she said it wasn’t her place to get involved.

[Marlise Flores]

“wasn’t her place to get involved”

Wow. This is. Yeah. How often am I looking outside myself enough to see where I need to get involved and decided before I do that that I *will* get involved when necessary?

I think I often get stuck on deciding which tools are good or bad and not recognizing it is how I hold them that matters. Obviously, some tools are bad no matter what…..but my grounding and how I am positioned matters.

Speaking to Holly was marked as a bad tool no matter what….but that is ignoring the community aspect. That’s the grounding/positioning.

There are so many phrases that we as white people have grabbed onto and twisted to remain safe. Staying in ones lane gets conflated with minding ones own business which was always used, in my experience, to ignore harm occurring in personal spheres while standing in the collective. That’s *not* serving, loving, or seeing each other.

[Danielle Holcombe]

100% this. I agree. Speaking with Holly was in fact something that needed to happen. But I still need to be mindful, like you said M, about HOW I wield the tools. And I am just struggling. I am so quick to be top down, condescending, instructing the other as though I have it down. I tried a new way with Lee just now. I’m not sure I caught the right tone but damn, if I’m not seeing anyone I’m feeling at odds with eye to eye then I should not be on this team.

[Christin Spoolstra]

So. There’s this fail moment in my life that I’ve been thinking about a lot during this. as a middle school student, I was on a missions trip in Nashville where we spent a week at a boys and girls club in a housing project (yeah, we can analyze all the problems involved in that whole statement as well). And as I was sitting at a table with some kids (only a couple years younger than I was), a girl came up and started wailing on a girl at my table. And I froze. I didn’t understand what was going on, who had done what or whatever, and the utter violence of it shocked me and I chose inaction. I chose that it wasn’t my place to do anything. And that was 100% wrong. Because that girl had no one to defend her. And it doesn’t matter what provoked the attack. It was disproportionate. And stopping someone from being harmed in the moment was the immediate need. And I failed. And it has me thinking about how I froze with Holly. How I worried that intervening would increase the fervor of her attack and cause more harm to lace and LOR. I failed again to stand with that girl. And I’ve been feeling that viscerally. I am truly sorry, Lace.

[Laura Berwick]

I find myself struggling to separate hindsight out of what I wish I’d done on this. Because the opening salvos were completely passive aggressive vague-booking, to which there was no good, appropriate response. If you stick your foot in it to prove the shoe doesn’t fit, they’re gunna cut your toe off and shove that shoe on.

Then, when things first became overt, I’d been blocked.

So, where and how was it right to insert myself? Was there a point earlier than I did? Did I miss it? Was I blind to it? I honestly don’t know, and my thoughts on this are still cluttered and tangled.

[Danielle Holcombe]

That is where I thought, that responding to Holly when she tagged us in was absolutely the right move. Because before that, I was very much were you were.

[Laura Berwick]

Nod. That made it much clearer that a response was both needed and appropriate. And maybe I second guess too much. Or over analyze.

I think that… I thought the statement from the board was the appropriate response, and I do think it was AN appropriate response, and maybe I’m feeling disappointment over the aftermath because I’m tying my value of it too much too outcome, instead of recognizing how it was a right thing to do?

Even though, smoothed out as we tried to make it while being truthful, it still went over like a steel balloon.

[Danielle Holcombe]

I think that could be part of it. I’m outcome driven too, so I get that. But I do think it was the right thing to do. And I’m having a hard time understanding how it went over so poorly.

[Laura Berwick]

Because, if you’re like me, you assumed better of Holly.

[Leonie Cesvette]

I should confess that even as I spoke TRUTH I was aware that there was surely going to be repercussions from those who want to “gatekeep harm”. It’s a bit chilly on the internet streets but duck it! At the very least we had a conversation and got folks to identify where we failed, what we should do more and what we ought to throw out the window.

[Laura Berwick]

I think the concrete lessons like this do deepen the walking for at least some of our walkers. but the concrete examples always come at someone’s cost.

AND THAT PISSES ME THE HELL OFF

Sigh.

[Leonie Cesvette]

And recognizing that there is ALWAYS a price and how do we mitigate that. I chatted with Lace into early more and I don’t think she’ll ever be the same. The loss to the organization cannot be adequately calculated. And so we bind up wounds and walk and talk as we hold each other.

[Marlise Flores]

This. My seeking a solution with no price is protecting whiteness.

[Leonie Cesvette]

Sometimes it may exist. I.e. solution without a price. We lose valuable time and energies looking for those. Solutions WITH repercussions are the ones that stretch us and make us grow.

Who are we really??? What are we learning and what are we teaching??

[Laura Berwick]

That’s the question for all of us. Lee brings it to the fore. Are we here to learn new ideas with only our minds, passively, or are we here to learn ways of being that require action and practice?

I think a lot of people are here for the first part, and not so here for the second part. I feel like I went through my period where that was where I sat.

[Danielle Holcombe]

That’s very much what I was talking about above. For me, I felt like I didn’t get it (the deeper relationship piece) but I’m understanding that it just wasn’t really what I was here for. Until it was….

[Laura Berwick]

I thought that might link up with what you were saying.

[Leonie Cesvette]

And every time we face ourselves and each other we build those muscles, we trust the little voices, we step out on that ledge and lay in bed asking self “Did I really do that?”

[Laura Berwick]

I’ve made it past that… internal road block, imperfect as my practice may still be. And maybe I’m frustrated in part because I’m retroactively frustrated with myself, that it was probably harm to someone else that bumped me over.

[Danielle Holcombe]

I hadn’t even made that connection.

[Leonie Cesvette]

And we must remember that PERFECTION is not a goal. We could perfect ourselves out of existence. We want to journey deeper and connect the parts of ourselves that are resisting.

[Laura Berwick]

Just when I think I’ve accepted that and gotten used to it… it catches me up short.

[Leonie Cesvette]

Internal roadblocks are telling us we are not strong enough. We don’t have the tools, we cannot fix it, it’s painful, somebody is going to stomp on us and leave us bleeding.

[Christin Spoolstra]

I think, as Laura has also pointed out and Lace has been speaking on in her recent posts, that it’s about our action, not anyone’s reaction. Divorcing ourselves from outcomes. Acting in right ethos. Which circles back to what Jessie was saying earlier: when I temper my response by what I perceive the response to my action will be, I’m acting in white supremacy.

[Marlise Flores]

I am also thinking about how my action needs to be tied with follow up relationship.

If I am going to be candid, and push back hard, I can’t just abandon after that exchange as if that was all that was needed. There are repercussions for pushing back and if I leave, those repercussions will fall to someone else.

[Danielle Holcombe]

Ouch.

Very much yes to that M. Obviously true relationship would require that.

[Laura Berwick]

This is something I need to think about hard. The bigger motivation for me to come back and not abandon has more frequently been the need to be seen as right than the need to be in right community.

Or right relationship, I mean.

On the one hand, I’m letting go of the need to be right more and more, but… does that mean I’m also letting go of the responsibility to come back? Errrrrrr…… less here than in other places. But who we are is who we are.

[Julie Helwege]

Great conversation! Lots to digest.

What I’ve been noodling on (spaghetti on the brain – hey-O, thanks M!) about Lee is all she’s focused on is her position and disagreement.

She’s fixated on one thing and missing all of the harm around her and inside of her. And oozing out of her.

How often do I get fixated on my “principle” and miss the entire point – the work – the racism and supremacy.

I miss the tools, the perspective, the reflection; I miss it entirely. Blind spots are harmful – they cause accidents and even worse.

There are consequences for just observing, for just being a fly on the wall, for just being a consumer. Like Vicki said, silence is a choice and an action. You just can’t operate “halfway” or tepidly in this community. You can’t operate this way if you want to be less harmful and much safer.

She can’t and actually won’t see the forest from the proverbial trees because she is so blinded in her principle that is based on what exactly?

She also had a lot of “principle” that she wasn’t going to spend money in certain black and brown businesses because what was offered for purchase was cultural appropriation.

All of the benefit, with no skin in the game. And judge, jury, sideline parent and referee… yup. Player in the game… nope.

And speaking up and engaging in conflict is always messy – it never plays out in a kumbaya sorta way (I’ve never had that experience, anyway). And there are always takeaways and lessons. Muscles strengthening and flexing differently.

But like Leonie and Marlise said, you don’t see the patterns and build the tools, if you don’t speak up. You don’t uncover covert to make overt. And drive important change in yourself and others.

And as Jessie indicated, you don’t even know your style and where you pander or soften or where you come in hot and sloppy until you take the step and try.

And rarely is there not “egg on the face” in conflict on all sides because Hesed requires learning and growing and accountability. It takes introspection and mindfulness.

But the more you flex that muscle and embrace imperfection and model Hesed and lean in… the more reflexive and healthier it becomes.

So I’m thinking about my blind spots and principles and disagreements… and the work and leaning in I miss accordingly.

[Lace Watkins]

I’m still reading, but I have to interject here. It didn’t go over that poorly. We lost 40 people out of this mishegoss. That is forking good. Most people have stayed with us. And the hordes of people that Lee was talking about actually turned out to be exactly one person. That’s really not much fallout. We’re going to lose some revenue, because these nice white ladies are going to use it as an excuse, but we can absolutely rebuild.

[Lace on Race Admin Staff]

To return to the Bistro discussion post that links here, go to https://laceonrace.com/groups/the-bistro/forum/discussion/conversation-on-community-2/

[Author]

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