an apology from NJ State Troopers and the Mercer County Sheriff's Office

For Radazz Hearn, age 14.  Shot seven times on Friday, August 7, 2015, by New Jersey state troopers and Mercer County Sheriff's officer for running away. In stable condition in hospital.

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we just want to say

You went off at a run
in your sweatpants
red as blood
and reached for a ?

our instinct said gun
we shot seven times
to protect the neighbourhood
from thugs like you

Forgive us
for not liking you black and red fashion
it clashes with white folks'
sense of decorum

poem by rob g

---

Read an apology from the Waller County Sheriff's Office.

This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.
Read an explanation of false apology poems.

august field trip to a church in London

I arrived about ten minutes late to find the door locked, not a great surprise considering the east-end-of-downtown location of the church and that it was evening, and rang the bell. A moment later, a friendly black woman wearing a colourful tie-dye shirt opened the door, introduced herself as Veronica, and welcomed me in.

She led me into the sanctuary - the rented space seats at least 400 just on the main floor, and there were only about fifty people present. I took a seat and discovered I had arrived just in time for the start of the sermon. Bruce, the pastor, was articulate, friendly and engaging. The service went on from there, not that different from what I experienced growing up Baptist and then attending Anglican churches as an adult. Prayer, Bible readings, hymns and contemporary songs (all familiar to me), sermon, communion, announcements. Across the board, the content was as evangelical as it gets.

In fact, if someone showed you a videotape of the service, leaving out announcements and a few identifying details, you might reasonably think this was any one of the many evangelical churches across our country. In reality, it's the London congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church,  a denomination that had its "origins serving gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people" and which has now "become an inclusive and affirming congregation that actively welcomes all people".

Dare I suggest that this church is more evangelical - more full of good news - than evangelical usually gets?

In many churches, there are limits as to who is embraced, barriers keeping some out, conditions one has to meet, beliefs people have to agree with to take part. Here, everyone is welcome, all are embraced, the doors are flung wide open. That's good news! And here, in line with Jesus' model of going to those at the margins of his society, this church is about those at the margin of society - and everyone else - being welcomed and embraced.

The service itself was anti-climactic. It didn't have the showiness of seeker churches, the cool of hipster services, or the fervor of an old-fashioned tent revival. Sorry to break it to you, but it wasn't fabulously gay either. Embrace of all of God's creation with a focus on Jesus doesn't make for an exciting church; it makes for a local body of Christ where "come as you are" is real rather than a trite saying, where "just as I am" applies to everyone, where our common need for Jesus' love and God's mercy levels the ground beneath us, where we meet together to praise God and together learn what it means to be apprentices of Jesus.

One thing did stand out about the service, something that in my years of church life I've not seen before. During communion, after the priest or helper gave the bread and wine to the parishioner, they also gave a blessing. Not a simple "Lord bless you and keep you" or similar phrase and then on to the next person. Instead, they put their arms around each and every parishioner and said a prayer of blessing, different for each person.

Seeing this, and as it came closer to my turn to receive communion, I wondered if I as an outsider would also be given a blessing. I was, and part of it included these words: "May the love you experience here travel with you wherever you go."

Amen.

an apology from St. Louis Police Department Officer Darren Wilson

In memory of Michael Brown, killed August 9, 2014 by SLPD Officer Darren Wilson.

(Photo by AP)

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i just want to say

Newly graduated from high school
you stole from a convenience store
walked down the street
with your friend

I shot you twelve times in the front
now you are dead and I am hated
how inconvenient for me
that I came by and did my duty

Forgive me
those cigarillos
would have killed you in the end
anyway

poem by rob g

---

Read more.

This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.

[asexuality]

Eliel Cruz, a speaker and columnist, has started a series with The Advocate called, #21AceStories. It's intended to amplify the voices of asexual individuals and increase understanding and acceptance about a little known sexual orientation. 21 asexual people around the world were asked, "What's the biggest misconception about asexuality?" Their answers fell into different categories, for which visual graphics were created and are being released in a series of four installments (1) (2) (3). Cruz also previously curated #27Bistories, which similarly addressed misconceptions about bisexuality.

(source)

an apology from the Waller County Sheriff's Office

For Sandra Bland.  Pulled over July 10, 2015 for a standard traffic violation (failure to signal). Dead in a cell July 13, 2015 at the Waller County Jail, Texas.

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we just want to say

You were angry
dangerously black angry
to the point of
not signalling

we dragged you out of the car
face down
you were angry so angry
you killed yourself in jail

Forgive us
for interrupting your dream
of driving yourself
off a bridge

poem by rob g

---

Read more about On #SandraBland And The Life-Threatening ‘Angry Black Woman’ Myth

This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.

an apology from NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo

In memory of Eric Garner, suspected of selling single cigarettes. Put in an illegal chokehold by NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo in the process of being arrested on July 17, 2014 and died an hour later.

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i just want to say

I heard you say "I can't leave"
and thought
of course you can't leave
I have you in a choke hold

and so you died
alone
surrounded by courtesy
professionalism and respect

Forgive me
I'm sure someone out there
somewhere
is crying for you

poem by rob g

---

Read more.

This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.

[jeff chu: come to jesus, by whatever route you can]

From the beginnings of Jesus' life on earth, he has subverted our norms. From infancy, he welcomed outsiders, gentiles, the uncircumcised. As NT Wright puts it, the take away of the epiphany story, which he says is not the kind of cosy picture book story which we created for ourselves, is this: come to Jesus, by whatever route you can, and with the best gifts you can find. Come to Jesus, by whatever route you can, and with the best gifts you can find.

Can we offer each other that same generosity, that same welcome? Can we walk alongside each other by whatever routes we can, without you judging the gift I picked out, or me criticizing the route you chose?

From Jeff Chu's keynote address

at the GCN Conference,

Portland, Oregon. January 8, 2015

More from this talk (page includes

video and link to complete text of talk)

an apology from a white supremacist arsonist

I just want to say


Seven churches burning
within a month
black churches getting blacker
by the moment

give me matches
a can of gasoline
and transportation
I'll make it seventy times seven

Forgive me
I didn't think to bring
enough marshmallows
to share

poem by rob g

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This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.

[black is...]

Black is...

<

Link to YouTube video

[final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission]

Honouring the Truth,
Reconciling for the Future
Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

From the Introduction:

For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada. The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described as “cultural genocide.”

Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group, and biological genocide is the destruction of the group’s reproductive capacity. Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group. States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next.

In its dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things.

(emphasis added)

Link to full PDF online.

an apology from the Charleston shooter

For Pastor Clementa Pinckney, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, Rev DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Rev Daniel Simmons Snr, Rev Sharonda Singleton, and Myra Thompson. Murdered June 17, 2015 during a prayer service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Charleston, S.C.

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i just want to say

You welcomed me in
to your prayer time
let me sit
were very kind

an hour of that
was all I could take
I shot nine of you
in little time

Forgive me
I shouldn't have pretended
that prayer
mattered to me

poem by rob g

---

Read more.

This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.

[traumatizing]

All these news reports on racial injustice (and the absurd reactions) are not just disheartening, they can be traumatizing. This is a lot.

— Austin Channing (@austinchanning) March 11, 2015

#racialtraumaisreal #racialtraumaisreal #racialtraumaisreal #racialtraumaisreal

— Zakiya Naema Jackson (@ZakiyaNaemaJack) April 30, 2015

I'm just at point where I don't want to further traumatize myself by watching them, so I don't. https://t.co/6lBa72ALAJ

— Question Everything (@SankofaBrown) May 14, 2015

This is a common theme on my Twitter feed these days -- black people mentioning that they are feeling traumatized by the continuous news reports, looping videos, etc. depicting police violence against black people.

This might be difficult for those of us who are white to relate to. We've grown accustomed to watching news of wars in far off places involving people whose skin is a different colour than ours, and this seems like a variation of that. Our senses have become dulled.

But for black Americans watching what is happening to their brothers and sisters in their own neighbourhood or in a city across a few state lines, this is real. Not just because real people are being killed -- in many cases, murdered -- by the police. But because they know it could happen to them just as easily. Just for walking down the street or looking at someone the wrong way.

The result is trauma, perhaps similar to being in a war zone. The world is not safe.

Related article.

white privilege is like...

[god is black]

Daniel José Camacho writes:

Cone’s statement that “God is black” has always been grounded in Jesus’ Jewishness and the biblical narrative which presents God as being in solidarity with the oppressed. As he has clarified on numerous occasions, it is a symbolic statement and not a statement of biology or literal skin color. At the same time Christianity has said “God is white”—in deeds if not in exact words—for the past 500 years. That some hear God’s blackness as a zero-sum statement is a mistake.

In an interview this past January, Cone told HuffPo’s Paul Rauschenbush:
“God is red. God is brown. God is yellow. God is gay…I don’t use blackness as a way to exclude anyone.”

Source:

"Why James H. Cone's Liberation Theology Matters More Than Ever"

by Daniel José Camacho, including a quote by James Cone.

Listen to James Cone say more about this in an interview with Paul Raushenbush.

strip jesus of whiteness

There was a time when I would have been offended by tweets like these by @FaithInFerguson:

This is why we must present a Queer, Female, Christ of color.

— Theology of Ferguson (@FaithInFerguson) May 11, 2015

But when these came through my twitter feed a few weeks ago, I stopped for a moment and then said, "Oh. That makes sense. I get it now."

What made the difference? I'm not sure about all of it, but certainly a lot of the difference was informed by the many black people I've been following on Twitter, and the many tweets over the past year about #BlackLivesMatter and about #MikeBrown, #NatashaMckenna, #FreddieGray, #RekiaBoyd and many more black people who have been murdered by American police.

Without their perspective, I would be more entrenched in the white privilege that I've grown up with and in. Their words, their emotions, their wisdom has been opening my eyes to see the world in new ways and from where they stand, which is really where I should also stand if I follow the way of Jesus.

So it's making sense to me now. White Christians own Jesus. The white western Jesus. He's become one of the establishment, along with his father, the God who loves war and corporations, hates fags and the homeless, is in favour of the death penalty, and is so many more things that are completely opposite to what the Jesus of the Bible looks like.

So just as Jesus when he walked on the earth was the opposite of what the Jewish people expected the Messiah to be (though very much what the people at the edges loved), it's time to "strip Jesus of his whiteness and center Him in his otherness".

And what better way to do that than having to choose whether we would follow a queer, female Christ of colour... or if that's just too high a cost of discipleship.

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For more on this, see the brief article The Black Christ by Kelly Brown Douglas, particularly the quote from her book of the same name that makes up the second half.

Link to article referred to in tweet.