[Julie Helwege]

https://laceonrace.com/2021/09/10/september-ask-from-julie/

September Ask from Julie

Discussion

[Laura Berwick]

Having been part of the Board working to get our community launched as a formal entity at the beginning of this year, and as a white woman that is a member of our online community, I have two primary opinions on why revenues dropped when and how they did.

First, the fact that we received a deeply generous endowment was made public by a person with an axe to grind. This person’s disclosure contained factual inaccuracies, if I recall correctly, and it also violated the anonymity of the family endowing our new Center. Basically, the news was broached in a way that gave maximum cover to anyone who wanted to excuse themselves from the financial engagement part of their praxis in community here.

Second, one of the people involved in the murder of George Floyd was convicted. I feel that we white people in general took a collective victory lap, said “hey, the system works, my money did its job, and the rest is allll for meeeeee,” and stopped participating, stopped putting our skin in the game, here and likely elsewhere. These opinions of mine are not new or unique to me. Lace has pointed out these reasons and more. But I see the truth of these, and they weigh most centrally on my mind.

So. I can’t fix us all. But I can keep ME on a path of congruent praxis. I’ve engaged financially for September. I set myself a monthly alert to engage on the 1st of each month, and toward the end of each month I evaluate my ability to do more, and I do more when possible.

My ideas for how we can gather more and more of us to support the wellbeing of this community, which I find so valuable… are nebulous. Recruiting is not a wheelhouse I’ve ever made myself at home in. But I see that even here on the website we have Facebook and Twitter sharing options. I want to make a commitment to start using those habitually when I engage here on the website. I also am working toward bringing myself back to reliable participation. I do a lot of work back of house and that keeps me visible and in relationship with Lace and the Leadership Team, but… I am not as present here for our community as a whole, so I’m working on that. The more I’m here, the more I share, I hope that will be part of a path toward growth.

[Christin Spoolstra]

Thanks for sharing, Laura. Your final comment is one I’ve been working on myself. Just because I’m working on something for the board doesn’t mean I don’t need to be engaging in community. Quite the opposite.

[Julie Helwege]

Thank you, Laura. I always appreciate your comments and how you walk. We do such incredible work here because “skin in the game” is a requirement.

Your reflection on the white supremacy playbook as it relates to financial engagement is spot on. With George Floyd and now Elijah McCain, it’s very centering to think to myself – problem solved – and go back to an unaffected place referencing these outcomes – this is just perpetuates harm and is a “hold power” move. Police brutality, racial profiling and Black people dying at the hands of police is still the reality every day.

Calling a thing a thing, we need this space and Lace’s leadership now more than ever.

I also appreciate your commitment to engaging more, I’m right there with you. I am much safer and less harmful when I am in this practice space every day.

[Nicole Larson]

@laura-berwick, I appreciate that.

IT (etc.) people tend to stay behind the scenes: I have known at least several. The fact that you are making sure you are visible speaks to your commitment to this community.

Thank you for the work you do to keep us up and running online. Thank you also for walking alongside all of us! (And a personal thanks for helping me today!)

[Laura Berwick]

@cnicoleslarson you’re welcome, and thanks for your appreciation/encouragement!

[Rebecca McClinton]

The thing in your comment that stands out the most is the bit about the endowment. I hadn’t personalized that part before (probably because I was avoiding) but when I do, I think how easy it is to be flippant with words, to gossip, and to use that as a power move…how devastating a few words, a sentence even can be. It reinforces the practice I have yet to do with slowing down, with not being a microwave, holding each word to account.

[Laura Berwick]

Of the thousands that follow Lace on Race… I know in my heart the way so many of them will look for an excuse to say someone else is doing enough, so I don’t need to. I went through plenty of my own years telling myself that, no matter how uneasily I sat with it.

So now, for me, yeah, I want to be a slow-cooker, but I also have to take care I’m not the cover someone else can use to peace out. It’s… exhausting? But also, I’m a fragile-ish (and working on it) white woman. There are a lot of more exhausted humans without the luxury of escape. I really appreciate that you’re here, walking, with deliberation and dedication.

[Rebecca McClinton]

‘I have to take care I’m not the cover someone else can use to peace out,’ what a good point. I’m only doing half of the work if I’m not also simultaneously asking others to do the work with me. I recently revved up some union work at work. At first there were 8 ready to do it with me, now there are 3. I wonder how much of that was about, ‘ack, Rebecca will do it’. I let them all down easy, validating their choice, how it’s a crazy hard job with unrealistic expectations that we have already, being understanding. While all that’s true, what I probably should have done is ask better questions about their decision. I imagine I take those same tendencies into this work, tending to let others down easy, not question their decisions. I need to be watchful of that. Thanks for pointing that piece out!

[Rebecca McClinton]

whyte people are attracted to novelty and treated racial justice last spring like a shiny penny we wanted to get behind. We wanted to be ‘on the good side’ in those moments, but the moment we could, we did a slow intentional fade. I have seen some ongoing continual change from the Black spring in my community, and that gives me hope, but it’s still only a fraction of what was. Now it takes more intentionality, work, effort. So what am I going to do to increase our membership and financial contribution here? <font face=”inherit”>For one thing I’m going to go through my friends list on facebook and find some folks to reach out to directly to invite them to check out the LoR website. Also, a question, do we have addresses for folks who financially engage (is there a way of making that part of the step in </font>PayPal<font face=”inherit”>? I’d be happy to write some hand written thank you’s for intermittent engagers. A local racial justice organization I financially engage with does that for their new or occasional folks, adds kind of a personal touch. I’d be happy to help with something like that. </font>

[Christin Spoolstra]

That’s a wonderfully kind offer! I’ll mention it to the membership committee

[Julie Helwege]

Thank you, Rebecca. You’re novelty and shiny penny comments definitely stand out to me. The “but I’m a good person – see” analysis is also spot on. Skin in the game isn’t a “how Julie’s good” checklist. This work is just not about me. And if I’m focused on patting myself on the back for being a good person, I’ll never be relentlessly reliable or safe to BIPOC.

I love your ideas too – we are having a larger conversation about funding in the coming weeks and I’ve added handwritten notes to the list of ideas. I’m also going to add exploring a digital template of sorts that can be shared when engaging with others about LORCRE.

Appreciate you.

[Rebecca McClinton]

Sounds great! I look forward to hearing how I can be helpful/supportive to those ends 🙂

[Christin Spoolstra]

September engagement sent. I commit to expanding reach by sharing posts more regularly

[Nicole Larson]

I am just reading this.

While I am not able to make my next financial engagement until close to the end of the month, I understand and commit to the necessity of financial engagement as part of my overall praxis. In fact, I hope to at least double my portion within six months.

In addition, I am working with not only Lace on Race, but a few other groups, regarding white supremacy and racism. That said, I consider this space chief among them.

I am in the process of launching my coaching business. While that does take a lot of my time and effort, I consider this community and the issues we deal with here very important, and I make sure I participate regularly.

I am almost twins with Lace Watkins. I have absorbed much more of the racist white supremacy than I like. I hereby vow to work and walk alongside everyone here to combat and uproot it.

[Kelsi Watters]

This space cannot sustain itself with the current monthly revenue. I commit to doing whatever I can do to ensure that the doors of LoRCRE remain open. My financial engagement is a bit less than I would like it to be right now because I’m in an employment gap but I am still engaging. I commit to continue increasing my engagement in this space, sharing content from LoR on social media, and sustaining LoR, in back of house. I’d like to lend my hands for the chopping of vegetables! We do need each other.

[Emily Holzknecht]

The Black Spring came when white people’s lives had otherwise been disrupted by the pandemic. And recently too. Many were at home, others were still going to work, but were limited in options about how to spend their money as travel was not an option and children’s activities were limited and so on. Since January, things have been opening up. In addition to all the other reasons listed here by others, as things open up, white people are excited to get out and do a lot of things that were not options earlier in the pandemic. we are ready to spend money on ourselves and our own interests and our recreation again. And even if we still could afford to contribute AND also do these other things, our fear of scarcity is kicking in and the future possibilities for our money is leading us to close our wallets to people who need that money now just in case we want that money in the future.

I am continuing to meet my commitment that I made to financial contributions last new years and also to contribute additional funds monthly, contributing more since January this year than I did previously.

While my sharing and talking about the community has added a couple lurkers to the Facebook page and at least one person dropping in to check out the website. I have not been successful in recruiting any new community members who contribute either their thoughts or their money. It our society it is rare that funding matches what we say we value. I don’t know how to turn that around.

[Nicole Larson]

I am in the same boat Emily. You have probably seen a few people making emoji or very short responses to my comments a few times on the Lace on Race page. Both Lace and I have tried to get these people to engage. No success yet.

[Rebecca McClinton]

@emily @cnicoleslarson Your conversation here has me asking, what was it that made you not be a lurker? I’d love to know what your experiences were with that. Maybe there’s something in that, which might help us help others engage. For me it was (a) realizing that if I was going to be able to keep learning as I was from this space (a veracious amount in the first couple days I was scrolling and rolling!), I had to do it in the manner prescribed out of respect for Lace or not be here at all. I remember Lace talking about how white people don’t want to take leadership from a Black woman and feeling convicted that if I remained to engage I must do it in the manner prescribed. (b) I didn’t want to wound her by leaving either, didn’t want to be in the scores who fled, so engage it was. (c) The other walkers like you two, the depth of their character, level of disclosure and openness with what they needed to learn. And through Lace walking with walkers watching relational ethics unfold before my eyes.

[Nicole Larson]

@rebecca, I came in after Lace and another Black woman called me out on a comment I made in another group that bolstered white fragility. I am only a lurker when I either don’t have enough experience to respond, or am not sure how to respond. Since I recognize the expectation to learn by participating here and on the Facebook page, that option is not open here. I respect and appreciate that.

I freely admit that I often pray before responding. I know that I have *at least* occasionally caused the type of damage Lace on Race is working to alleviate and mitigate.

[Rebecca McClinton]

that’s really cool that it was that call to account that has made you a committed walker here. Reinforces the accountability part of hesed and it’s importance, and I can find myself in that, too. I was attracted to that in Lace, though I know that also has cost her dearly along the way. I want to respect that price she’s dearly paid by staying, engaging, and doing the work.

[Nicole Larson]

Same here!

[Emily Holzknecht]

What made me not be a lurker? I started lurking when an acquaintance of mine who I admire locally (she was one of the women who organized our first local women’s march) listed women of color who she follows on Facebook and Lace on Race was on that list. So I *liked* the Facebook page for each of the people on that list and didn’t do anything else at that time. Other people on that list showed up on my feed more regularly. They don’t have “race” in their name. And so I read those others more regularly and mostly forgot about Lace on Race, I think. At one point I commented on a Lace on Race post that caught my eye. I gave on little piece of an answer to the provocation Lace had provided and figured I’d be “generous” and let others answer part of the question too rather than me taking away that opportunity from others by answering more fully. (Listen to the arrogance!) And then Lace prompted me to go deeper and so I answered all the parts I had thought of originally that I had been saving for others to answer. The answers I gave included no personalization. I thought I was “playing the game” the way others expected me to and I was so so wrong. That was that for a while. Then Lace on Race was in my feed because there was such an overwhelming number of responses to the post on which Jim Golden showed up that Facebook thought maybe I should see this since it has SO MANY comments. And I read it and I read the comments and I kept coming back to read more comments because what I was seeing was like nothing I had ever seen before, the way patterns of white behavior were being analyzed and the expectations that were presented for community participation. So I kept reading and orienting myself to the way this community functions and I wanted to participate until I had financially contributed and then after that I wasn’t a lurker anymore.

[Rebecca McClinton]

Great detail! I could find myself in many spots you wrote of. I arrived shortly after “the list” (found it off that list and similarly went and checked them all out, but not in depth) and too remember just veraciously reading and reading and reading, thinking to myself how different this was than anything I’d ever seen or experienced before.

[Rhonda Freeman]

@Rebecca this is what happened for m, too. I started reading and then it became clear that I was not mitigating harm to brown and black people if I was not financially engaging – simple as that.

[Christina Sonas]

I sent in my engagement on September 1, and I am contemplating the many facets of membership. What draws us here, sparks our engagement, sustains our engagement? What characteristics do committed walkers have in common? How can we seek more of those people, and how might we adapt what we offer to bring other types of people in?

This walking we do together isn’t always traipsing through a meadow of wildflowers; in fact, that doesn’t happen very often. I need to maintain a commitment to the swamps, the peat bogs, the switchbacks, the rain, the heat…

[Christin Spoolstra]

These are important questions, Christina; I just got to work, but I promise to return here. Do you have answers for yourself for some of these questions?

[Christina Sonas]

These are my thoughts: We are drawn here by an interest in racial justice – not necessarily a commitment or even an action, though some arrive here more strongly primed to walk. Many are sparked to stay and participate when we realize that there are immediate and discrete things we can do, and sustainability is reinforced when we see antiracist growth in ourselves.

The paradox of racism needing to be dismantled within white people and being strongest in white people means, I think, that in order to serve the North Star of reducing and mitigating harm endured by Black and brown people and perpetuated by white people (me) and white supremacy, we walk a tightrope between catering for white people and catering to white people. Between meeting white people where they are to guide them toward justice, or meeting them because their heels are dug in and they refuse to grow.

One thing I think I see in our most dedicated walkers is that we came to this place already understanding that what we had been doing for racial justice was insufficient (in one or more ways). I also think we came here with a lot of the relational ethics sown and growing within ourselves; we hadn’t realized that relational ethics are necessary for antiracism praxis, for the relationship between a white person and a BIPOC person. I can’t count very many people I know who have both of those things rooting inside. White supremacy has them/us considering that what we do for racial justice and what we do for relationships is top grade, because white people are always top grade in anything we set out to do around BIPOC.

Since white people hold onto immaturity via white supremacy, we can’t be counted on to self-mature; we remain in functional racist stasis. In order to get more people walking with the North Star, that stasis has to be disrupted. George Floyd, in death, did that for many – some durably, but in most it was fleeting – and in a horrible, voyeuristic way. How can we find and/or create disruptions in white supremacy that don’t come at such a terrible cost?

[Shara Cody]

Good questions, Christina. I know for me it was the requirement for engagement that drew me in because just reading alone wasn’t going to allow me to learn. Wanting to learn, to grow, to CHANGE are things we probably all have in common despite our fears (that we also have in common).

[Christin Spoolstra]

What draws us here, sparks our engagement, sustains our engagement? What characteristics do committed walkers have in common? How can we seek more of those people, and how might we adapt what we offer to bring other types of people in?

For me, I was drawn in after seeing Lace walk with people on a problematic post in another group. The group is a professional one for me, so not only was I being confronted with racism that I had never bothered to notice before but racism in my work sector that once I considered I couldn’t not do anything about it. I stayed because there were pinned posts that I could work through while also being required to engage in the rehearsal lab. I stayed because I was confronted in hesed.

In terms of characteristics… we do as a community seem to be white women. We know why BIPOC aren’t here. Because we as ww haven’t made the space safe enough for them. We’ve had men pop in and out but not stay. I’d love to try to examine that from a membership perspective. Most of us seem to have a close relationship with a person of color, typically a spouse. I think the dining rooms are a good way to examine and go further on these shared connections.

[Shara Cody]

Financial engagement has definitely been affected since the Holly incident. Looking for excuses and outs are part of white supremacy and it seems that many community members sided with supremacy (both in the incident and their ultimate withdrawal of engagement while many are still taking in the content). I have and will remain committed to the space and I have financially engaged for September. What can we do to grow the community in order to sustain it, to ensure Lace is compensated for her work, and to live out lessening and mitigating harm to Black and brown people perpetuated by white people and white supremacy? I do share posts on FB and will continue to do so but I don’t get any engagement from people on them and some of that is my fault for not being more present on FB. When I’m not on FB being in relationship with others, they’re even more unlikely than supremacy already makes them to engage with LoR posts or me about LoR posts. I know 3 women that I think would be great walkers with LoR but all have young children so I’ve never directly asked them if they’d be interested; that’s the supremacy in me sabotaging this work and I’m pulling that weed and will invite them directly. I’m going to re-evaluate my financial engagement for ways to increase it.

[Rhonda Freeman]

I have some shame around not being able to bring others to the table durably. I promote the posts on instagram and talk about Lace quite a bit. I even was able to get a donation from my church family, but I don’t really think any of them joined us or financially engaged. One friend engaged for a short while and then jumped right out of the car! But as a white woman, it is my responsibility to continue to follow the North Star and invite others. It is part of the praxis to continue to mitigate harm in every way I can including continuing to invite – over and over again.

[Author]

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