[Lace Watkins]

https://laceonrace.com/2021/07/12/july-earlyish-ask/

July Early(ish) Ask

Discussion

[Jessie Lee]

This was a beautiful reminder of who we are as a community and who we are not. As individuals, we all think we want “community,” but it’s the romanticized, knock-off version that’s alluring but without substance. Especially where the rubber meets the road when members aren’t being who we say we want to be. In artificial “community,” we aren’t motivated to change and don’t actually want to be held responsible for being who we’ve said we want to be and for fulfilling our stated commitments. In this Diet version of “community” I am enabled to stay the same, to flex and slosh all over each other, to one-up, to take and transact, all while appearing, at least to some who don’t know us better, as a “good person” That is so different from what Lace has cultivated here… where we are actually being held to the standard of our best selves– in Hesed, always, and being extended grace and support when we inevitably fall short. Without this community, I know that I would not have the tools necessary to break these patterns of white supremacist behavior that I’ve participated in all my life. I’m proud to invest each month in this small-batch community of ours.

[Clare Steward]

I definitely revert to toxic behaviors of WS…competition, judgement, measuring others to a standard that I feel entitled to set….when I am not actively working on utilizing the tools that I have learned here. The patterns are very engrained and easy to fall back in to. This is lifelong work and I am so happy to be doing it in community with you!

[Robin Van Haste]

You are so right about “romanticized, artificial” community. It sounds so good, but it never works out, because I and others don’t actually want to change. We want the warmth without the work.

[Clare Steward]

True Community is reciprocal and not about what I can get out of the deal- it’s not transactional where I hand over some money and I am handed a product to use. It is not taking what I need from others without thought of giving back. It is not “me” focused. It is not about what I have to gain or what I can get from others.

I have learned to be a better friend and be a better community member though LoR and I have learned to apply Hesed love to others in my life. And yet….and yet….I see myself relapse towards the transactional and away from the relational when there is a lot going on in my life. The auto-pilot turns on and I quickly fall back into individualistic behaviors. I withdraw, I take without giving and I hoard my energy, time and resources when I feel like I am being stretched thin.

True community is holding others while being held. It is the infinite table that Lace has talked about where there are no limits, only an endless supply of chairs and space for others. Community shouldn’t over-taxing and hard. It is not an uphill climb. It is supporting and being supported while climbing whatever hill looms before us…climbing it together. All I have to do is open my eyes and look around to see that I am not walking alone. All I have to do is acknowledge those that walk besides me.

The story of community and Hesed love continues to be told and with every relapse, I have a the ability to hear it again and do better and be better. To stop withdrawing and lurking and isolating.

I am grateful for this community, for Lace and the leadership team. This community is enduring and has taught me that I can be too. That I can live differently and love differently than I ever thought possible.

[Jessie Lee]

This. It’s not about what I can get out of the deal. I’ve been thinking about the differences between transactional and reciprocal. In the former there’s entitlement to getting something in return for whatever I feel I’ve contributed. It’s always keeping a ledger (reminds me of the Good Place). Pivoting to race, as a ww I’m prone to overstating my contributions to relationships with Black women, which breeds entitlement to being held in a way I’ve not held the other person (makes me think of how ww demand Black women to mammy).

Reciprocating though, reminds me of what Lace talked about in the Vox article– no one changes durably without being loved. I’ve absolutely experienced that love here, and it’s prompted me to learn how I keep score and leverage different things to get something from the other person. Like you said in another comment, it’s all too easy to revert back to those patterns of competition when I’m not actively practicing the relational ethics tools Lace has taught me. Marlise wrote a poem about this idea that I think was called Hold Another Well. I think it’s time for a re-read 🙂

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

What a terrific metaphor. I am very happy to be able to engage with the community and am glad for the reminder of such. “Community” truly has become a buzzword and branding that has lost much of its meaning, both its ability to change people for the better as well as the responsibility that comes with it. Real community requires trust, time, energy, and hard work.

[Rebecca McClinton]

Shannon, your speaking to how community has become a buzzword makes me think about how so much of whyte supremacy is face value. By that I mean we use cliche words or phrasing to call and thing something, to say we are apart of something or doing something important and meaningful when really it’s a far cry from that thing. Community is certainly one of those words. whyte people like me haven’t the foggiest clue what true community even means and looks like. I know before coming here my definitely of community was more along the lines of a group of people with shared values who believe, think, and support/respect each other as they are, clearly lacking the accountability part of hesed love we practice here.

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

I think community requires a level of both trust and friendship. I think a friend – and fellow community member – wants you to be the best person you can be and to live up to your own values. I think it’s also possible to simultaneously love someone for who they are and do that. My church says something like that we love people for who they are on their way to where they want to be. I think that’s what community does – love you for who you are now, but know that you and they aren’t content with that either.

[Rebecca McClinton]

I especially love “community is who we are AS we toast,” for some reason the word choice “AS” especially stands out to me; it speaks to who I am and how I show up. If I would have written that sentence I likely would have written “when” we toast which immediately off the cuff implies “I may or I may not”. Whether I want to think I am or not, I am always in the act of toasting…either I’m being anti-racist or I’m not. Either I’m engaging in community, or I’m not.

I love the descriptive details the craftsmen went into in the process of creating their final product. It reminds me how in this work it’s those same “granular details…sweat, learning, missteps, and back-story” that matter the most. It’s why each guideline here has been so thoughtfully crafted and each source shared carefully vetted and considered. I can’t just try to broad-brush-stroke this work to make it marrow deep. I’m also recalling when Lace told us about the thoughtfulness Chief Watkins put into each and every vote on his ballet…not considering just how his vote would impact this generation but generations to come. Same with this work here.

I have financially engaged for the month and relish this small, hand-written (;) typed) North Star First Batch that’s changing hearts and making our community safer one relationship at a time.

[Jessie Lee]

I’m glad you pulled out the “AS,” Rebecca. I hadn’t thought much of it, nor how the meaning changes when you replace it with “when.” It took me a while to understand what Lace means when she asks “Who are you/we going to be?” rather than “What are you/we going to do?” I think it’s because my brain is so conditioned to separate what I do from who I am, which now that I think about it, makes it really, really easy to brush off the dissonance I felt when I engaged in supremacist behavior before I learned to label it correctly. It allowed me to engage in supremacist behavior and justify myself as a good white person/ally/etc.

[Rebecca McClinton]

It’s so easy for me to look for and find excuses and exclusions when it comes to focusing on when’s and what’s instead of who I am and am going to be. When I know and am fully committed to the who the what’s and when’s become more natural (just the next natural step, so to speak).

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

Yes, that “who are you?” and “what are you doing?” being connected is so essential to living out your values. When we say that we’re “good people” as a role, it allows us to justify bad actions because only “bad people” do bad actions – and we’re “good people.”

[Rebecca McClinton]

I’d like to think of myself as good, but that only serves me. It’s safer for Black and Brown people around me (and more eye to eye with myself) to hold closely the awareness that in one moment I can be anti-racist and the next racist, that it’s a moment by moment thing.

[Jessie Lee]

That’s a necessary reframing— focusing on the other person’s safety and how I can either help cultivate it or compromise it from one moment to the next. I also like the idea of “more eye to eye with myself.”

[Robin Van Haste]

This! I like to think of myself as a certain kind of person. If my actions don’t reflect that, I’m not really that person.

[Rhonda Freeman]

I like the ‘as’, too. For me, it implies that we are toasting and then we will get back to relational ethics and all the work we need to do.

[Shara Cody]

This community of Lace on Race that Lace has created out of her love and the crucial need to lessen and mitigate harm to BIPOC perpetuated by white people and white supremacy is unique and “small batch” instead of mass production. I see and appreciate the enormous amount of work that Lace and leadership team put into every post and the background work and the financial engagement that LoR does with other BIPOC organizations and people. I financially engage to make sure that continues because that’s part of my contribution to being in community here and sustaining the space so the small batch work can continue. I have financially engaged for July.

[Christin Spoolstra]

Our sweat and passion have gone in to this community and I’m proud that we’re serving the good stuff. Let’s toast to the North Star on which we keep one another centered.
I have engaged for July and am completing the dimes exercise to be able to do more at the end of the month.

[Robin Van Haste]

Lace’s writing about community always inspires and challenges me! Not just in regard to improving my engagement here, but also in my local community and church community. I long for “community”, but I won’t have that if I continue to be protective of my time and energy.

I engaged financially at the beginning of July. I will look for ways to support this community and others.

[Christina Sonas]

Community has been on my mind a lot lately, because I have begun engaging my local community. I was going to say, “in a new way” — but I really haven’t been within my locale in the way this piece describes, the way that sustains community rather than depleting it, and that means I wasn’t engaging at all. I was lurking, consuming. Community doesn’t exist without being nourished by all its members. Lace on Race is teaching me that, strengthening me in that, guiding me to overcome the parasitic white capitalist supremacy concept of “community” that is consumptive and exploitative and which is my heritage and my inheritance. I’m putting myself into it now — I’m engaging.

[Christin Spoolstra]

wonderful that you’re taking the lessons of community and broadening them!

[Author]

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