[Lace Watkins]

https://laceonrace.com/2022/02/05/to-bomb-or-to-balm/

To Bomb Or To Balm?

Discussion

[Kelsi Watters]

As I read this, I am reminded ofa few things. First, most of us are standing on someone’s weary shoulders. As a white woman, I have stood on the shoulders of Black and brown people. It takes a great deal of internal work, consistent praxis, and resilience, to get to the place where I can walk shoulder to shoulder, rather than simply standing on weary shoulders. It is a choice I have to make every day – who do I say I want to be? How am I living that out? Also, crucially, I choose what I carry with me from the crucible. I choose not to shy away from the crucible as I have in the past, but to stand with you, shoulder to shoulder, to take some of the heat and lightning. To use the crucible as a learning experience, carrying from it a renewed sense of endurance and commitment to the work we do here – this is not something I could have done well before entering this space, and I still have a great deal of work to do. Still walking.

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

Yes! It is so important to recognize when we are standing on someone’s shoulders and move off to stand with them in solidarity instead. Black women want respect, not being climbed on or put on a pedestal or being used as a sacrifice.

[Lace Watkins]

You know, y’all, we placed this here for a few reasons.

First and foremost, it deserves to be here; in fact, something akin to this should have been here in washing up last year when everything went down.

Not for the reasons you might first think, though.

This is an apology time for me.

Lace is in Washing Up, because *Lace* needs to mend relationships with all of you. Lace needs to name and then turn away from the fear that gripped for the last 12 months, and also to name and turn away from the anger and resentment that slowed my steps and served, in many ways, to mute my voice.

This is not about self flagellation. In many ways, I do feel that I have comported myself well in this past year. And yes, I was indeed broadsided, so I was definitely not prepared. And yes, the violence cut deep, so recovery was slow.

Still, even after acknowledging all of this, I do feel I could have served you better.

There is more to say, but I want to stop here, and hear from all of you.

Ask me anything!!

[Christin Spoolstra]

One thing I’ve been learning/growing in LoR is collective as well as individual responsibility. So there are many things over the past year for which I need to apologize as well. How could I as part of the community better supported you in your time of need? I could have better stepped in to counsel members who lost their way to mitigate the harm that they ended up inflicting upon you. How could I as an individual better supported you? I could have increased my voice even more on our platforms to support the community in growth.

And, yes, I do think I showed up (though you would be the better judge of that). That said, as you were (are) in pain, I doubt I showed up enough.

I also respect the fact that you feel an apology is owed and I won’t disrespect you by arguing that fact. So, in the spirit of Ask Lace Anything, how do you envision us walking through/out this crucible together?

[Christina Sonas]

One of the things that strikes me in your apology, Lace, is your need for it. Apologies are something that women feel compelled to all the time, and black women have an additional, racialized urgency toward deferential behaviors, so I’m looking at that. Also, I’m looking at how for black people, the imperative not to fail in front of white people is so heavy. You have been present with me/us throughout, with a cadre of unreliable white women. The struggle for you to be with me/us has to be always intense: to trust us, to rely on us, to ask us. So the crucible is doubled: first for the pain, then for the white women.

As a white woman with almost no previous experience being in (any) relationship with a black woman, I know that I have navigated this year with you clumsily and imperfectly. Like a child, I have burdened you for guidance instead of maturely guiding myself by the principles I have strengthened in this community. With my privilege I have carried insecurities instead of putting them down.

My ask would be a request rather than a question: let me continue to abide and grow with you.

[Kelsi Watters]

I hear your apology, Lace, and I respect your transparency and courage. This resonated with me because I feel there are areas where I have held back or need bolstering. That being said, even though your fear and the wounds from the violence committed against you may have impacted the ways you were able to show up this past year, one thing you continue to model to us is steadfast, unwavering commitment to your ethos. I never saw you stray from your ethos even in the midst of the crucible. Now, you are showing us by example to hold even more firmly towho we say we want to be when the storm comes. Maybe together we can, as a community, learn to dance in the rain instead of hunkering down. With that, I want to offer my own apology. I know I

[Rebecca McClinton]

<font color=”#000000″ face=”Helvetica” size=”3″>my first impulse upon reading your apology is some confusion as I feel you’ve served me deeper and closer (not less) in many ways this last year. I guess I’m curious in what ways you feel you could have served us better because from my standpoint it really felt like you were still all in and more. I remember feeling amazed that you had the emotional energy to walk with us through lines and lanes after all you’d already experienced, felt like it was my fear getting in the way, not yours. </font>I feel torn, though, because I also want to respect the <font color=”#000000″ face=”Helvetica”>fact that obviously you know you and your capacities best, and hear in your words that you had more to give but fear got in the way. What do you feel it got in the way of you doing?</font>

[Rhonda Freeman]

I am smiling at your apology. It is different, somehow, than the typical white woman ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ I hear coming out of my mouth meant to manipulate and generally get the person who is mad at me to shut up for a minute. Another form of white woman tears really. But I digress. Your apology comes across differently to me. Stronger, clearer. It draws me in to see the ways that I have not engaged as much as I had planned or on as regular a basis as I had planned over the last year. I hear it almost as a calling song – a grief followed by turning towards a new tomorrow and an ask, a hope, an expectation that we go with you.

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

I think this is such a testament both to you as a person and to the community you have cultivated. The best communities – whether a group of friends, a church, a volunteer group, etc. – fundamentally challenge us to be better people and give us the opportunity to practice being better people. That includes accepting apologies and recognizing that mistakes make room for growth. I love that this “washing up” room exists – it’s so important.

Thinking to your wok/slow cooker metaphor – wok people who want to go, go, go often don’t realize how much practice it takes to have resilience. How hard the work really is and how we need to build up that strength over time. I remember when I read about the Civil Rights marches as a teenager, I thought, “Well, of course I would be out there.” I didn’t realize that it wasn’t just a matter of values or what you believed in, but also the mental and emotional resilience to choose to be there over and over again. And to maintain your conviction, your call, and your kindness without becoming cynical or cold or watered down. That’s what the Hesed is – the values and the skills in action together. That’s really beautiful when you see it and I always see it here.

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