BLOG OF THE WEEK - A CHAT ON SOCIAL JUSTICE WITH SUSAN CHAST

My friends, I have admired Susan Chast's activism and her determined focus on social justice since I began reading her work. I have watched with interest, especially recently, as she has attended retreats, workshops and demonstrations aimed at Unlearning Racism, such a timely topic. I have been asking her if she would speak with us about it, as we all feel in need of some hope and direction, the "what-can-we-do" to address the mess we find ourselves in, both globally and at home. Susan kindly agreed, so pour yourself some iced tea, or some hot coffee, and pull your chairs in close. This is what living your beliefs looks like.

Sherry: Susan, I have, for as long as I’ve known you, been impressed by your lifelong journey in the quest for social justice and the cause of unlearning racism, to which you devote your time, energy, education, prayer and art. Would you tell us a bit about this journey, how it has evolved, and where it has taken you?

Susan:  It’s hard to see the beginning and end from the middle, but I’ll try.
During the late 60s and early 70s, I was touched by student movements for equality and free speech and how they intersected with anti-nuke and peace movements.  And then for 30 years I learned from my diverse students and from an increasing discomfort with all white-European spaces.  

My PhD dissertation in the late 1980s examined the signs of environments and how these signs--framed paintings, language, pathways and stories--limited or expanded the possibilities inside them.  The focus was staging places and performances. The immediate subject was the Black theatre producer and director Ellen Stewart of La MaMa ETC--may she rest in peace--and how her use of space and drama fostered international cooperation and diplomacy.

 Ellen Stewart at La MaMa.  Photo by Jonathan Slaff

As a professor, I applied what I learned from MaMa Ellen. My book wasn't published, and I "perished" -- but with a growing sense that my ministry to teach at the university level was at an end. I wanted to work with African-American and multicultural students. I began teaching English at the secondary level in the City of Philadelphia. What an all-consuming experience! Teaching and learning were ministry in the sense of answering a leading from God.

Since retiring in 2012, I’ve been yearning for that clarity.  What am I called to do? I'm drawn to the Black Lives Matter movement that aims to reveal and dismantle systems that maintain white privilege in the USA. I'm a member of SURJ (Showing up for Racial Justice), but haven't the stamina to stand in the street and walk in crowds. I'm fortunate that the Quaker meeting I'm part of prioritizes this work as well. I go to meetings and I write.

When you made me re-read these specific poems for Poets United, Sherry, you got me wondering if the reason I can’t stop writing also has to do with God.  Is it a new ministry?  And if so, should I be aiming for a wider audience?  The unified ideas you saw are still questions for me. Writing poetry is helping me get closer and closer to insights, Writing poetry adds more ingredients to the questions.  Just as in stage directing and teaching, I compose poems by getting out of the way of the voice that comes out of me.  Maybe this is the work God wants me to do.

Sherry: In fact, I believe you are already doing it, my friend. I learn much, and admire your journey, with every poem you write. How far do you think we have come as a society, in North America, in addressing social injustice?  Have we made progress in unlearning racism, in your opinion?

Susan:  Yes we make progress, little by little. I had a “eureka experience” this year. I had thought racist violence was increasing, but realized that the violence against African-American peoples and their lack of safety has continued non-stop since slave owners invented whiteness as a legally-privileged category.  New digital technology and instant internet social space simply make it visible.  I’d been aware for decades that I was enriched by African-American culture, especially in theatre, but I hadn’t understood enough about that culture to work directly on dismantling racist systems.  It is possible that these new technologies will help us grasp the problem.

Without the luxury of blindness and denial, we have a chance to unlearn racism. But we have a long way to go as a society. We have to reform criminal justice and reduce poverty at the same time.

Sherry: Racism seems to be at a tipping point, in these troubled days, when much of what lay under the surface in North America has been revealed. What might we do, individually and/or together, to help turn this around?

Susan:   First we need to become aware of racism, shift our focus.  That could take half a lifetime and could involve going to lectures and rallies and reading a lot by an assortment of writers. I used to see through a lens of "Does it include young, old, and women?" Now I add "Does it include Black and indigenous and other people of color?" Could be, when we make it so. Next we must become aware of how we each participate in the problem and begin to extricate ourselves.  That involves giving up silence and safety, changing our patronage to stores and events that empower those discriminated against, and being willing to intervene in racist moments. Part of this phase is working with others to change systems we've outgrown. I’m still in this phase of change and it could take the rest of my life.

Sherry: This is an important conversation we are having, my friend, and I hope that our readers will add their thoughts and feelings to the discussion in the comments section.

Susan: Yes, readers, add your thoughts! I’ve learned from experience that we need each other to help us understand, to hold us when we cry, to forgive our mistakes, to encourage us to take risks in word and deed, and to hold us accountable.  And we need to stand up for racial justice every chance we get, moving beyond our comfort zones. I'd like to be a better witness.  I rarely protest in the street, but quite often go to meetings, take classes and workshops, support youthful movements, sign petitions and write to elected officials and to newspapers.  Now I’m working on defeating “he who is unmentionable,” as his business approach sounds a lot like how Hitler started improving the economy in Germany.

Sherry: I see many similarities and am very concerned. There is an answer, of sorts, as to our place in the scheme of things, in your poem “The Ides of August”.  

THE IDES OF AUGUST

Heat waves up north; flood waves down south; we wave

and fall apart and not neatly. 

All is chaos.  Tempers flare in nature

and rescues are few.  Though protests

abound, they are also angry.  You say

stopping to pray does nothing, but

what then can slow the turbulence?  Prayer,

          is part of tactical cocktails  

Allowing "What Is" to spin from control

          while strengthening Resolve and Roots

in hand to hand comm-unity.  Thus trees

have roots which don’t stop them waving

leaves and joining branches.  Come unity

          however dangerous the storm.

Sherry: Releasing certainty takes trust and faith. I love “Prayer is part of tactical cocktails”, and the roots and hands of community coming together.

Your poem “So Much Silence” fits into this conversation perfectly right here. Let’s take a look:

SO MUCH SILENCE

So much silence!

My twin cats also barely squeak.

There has never been such quiet as now

in night time, despite the traffic and its pauses for cicada refrains,

despite the low TV resounding from next door.  Silence.

So much silence that I expect to hear from God, to hear

what's infinite through human channels of word and image.

So much silence that I expect to overhear, to glimpse the ways

Mother Earth speaks in buds or lack of them, running water and dry springs.

And yet even as I enjoy the richness of silence, I recall

poet Adrienne Rich’s pamphlet “Lies, Secrets and Silence”

in which silence is lying by omission and secrecy,

in which silence leaves faithfulness behind.

And I recall conspiracy whispers about the violence

of bullets killing JFK and MLK, of planes destroying thousands,

of corporations planning unsustainable development, and

of international diplomacy ignoring civilian casualties.

Oh!

Even as I enjoy the richness of silence, I recognize

how it can be part of “white fragility”—a new term signifying

a lack of stamina* for the practice of undoing racism--

white fragility which acts out in tears, running away and silence.

So much silence!  Silence my friend and Silence waiting to pounce 
opportunistically like a stalking cat, such an excellent hunter.  

Silence offering up simple gifts and holding them back;

Silence both authentic and a Great Pretender, a violator.

I’ve been taking Silence for walks lately—on city sidewalks and forest paths,

on yellow brick roads of prepared gardens and museum tours,

on late night trips to the bathroom and down the back deck stairs

to take out the garbage.  I take Silence for walks with friends.

I do, still.

I take Silence to meetings and to bed.  I am busy with Silence,

dissecting how it serves me and how I serve it, as if it were spirit itself

and not merely one manifestation of it.  I listen with Silence and speak 

as prompted by it, finding a big voice in Silence's small one.

Only truthful, non-secretive Silence lives within Beloved Community.

[*Robin DiAngelo's "White Fragility" and Adrienne Rich's "Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying" (1975).]

Sherry: I so resonate with your lines, the references to tragedies my generation and yours has lived through and mourned. Tell us a bit about this poem. And a little about ‘Beloved Community’?

Susan:  In “White Fragility” Robin DiAngelo gives this definition:

White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium.

In the responses to triggers she lists, I identified some of my own behaviors, including silence.  This troubled me because, as a Quaker, I enjoy the power of silent worship and prayer.  I knew from experience that some silences actively harm, but had to learn that silent prayer can be--or can be perceived as--an escape.  This poem helped me draw these past and present experiences together and express hope for the future.

Sherry: The silence of prayer and contemplation is a good thing. We just need to learn to speak up against injustice when the opportunity presents itself, which is often. In your poem “Rising Hand in Hand With Anger and Love,” you acknowledge the anger that comes from the reality of injustice in the world, and you companion it with love. Let’s take a look:

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RISING HAND IN HAND WITH ANGER AND LOVE

The Anger that led me upward still lives

but at my side, not running out in front.

She lets me know I am alive, there’s fire

inside I need not share with all the world.

I love and hoard her presence as my guide—not

goad—now that I approach the mountain top

where I’m surprised to find the path is wide

enough for Anger and Love’s company.

Yes, both!  They’re attracted to each other

and me in the manner of friends who would

rather gather than walk alone. I’ve seen

this, but feeling it myself is new, welcome.

Love has been here all along, but we walked

single file with Anger leading and Love

trailing behind.  This works better.  Anger

still signals, but Love and I make choices.

And we three help each other as the peak—

the blind corner known as the peak—comes near.

I feared the top, but it promises views

I couldn’t dream before, new paths and change.

This mystery gives me energy

I haven’t felt in years, and I shake off

the certainty of Sisyphus.  We move forward—

upward—hand in hand, partners at last.

Sherry: I love “they promise me views I couldn’t dream before”. Anger and Love, twinned, must translate into energy for change, for certain. Would you speak to this, for us? The anger and the love, in doing this work?

Susan: Sometimes the religious idea that Quakers express as “Let us see what Love can do” and “Love thy enemy” seem to me to deny a natural anger.  But anger alone hasn’t worked. So here I accept the paradox of needing both anger and love.  

The image of the mountain comes from an “arts and spirituality” workshop in which we made collage mountains and inked in our path upward.  When the leader asked us to see ourselves at the top of the mountain, I had to force myself to complete the line. I'm not done climbing, I said. But then she told us to look back and see our accomplishments and to look over the peak to see what lies ahead. I think physically creating that mountain and path helped me to link body with mind and spirit.  I think my collage looks more like a house than a mountain, LOL.  

And I refer to Sisyphus who, in Greek myth, is condemned to roll a rock to the top of a mountain over and over.  It always rolls back so it is an impossible task. According to the existentialist Camus, Sisyphus enjoys the certainty.  He knows that as long as this repeats all is right in the world.  I'd like to break that certainty.

Sisyphus Lego Kinetic Sculpture by JK Brickworks

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Sherry: I love your mountain. And I have had my Sisyphean moments! (Years?) You have written so many fantastically powerful poems on these issues that it is very hard to limit myself to a few. In closing,  I think we need the strength, inspiration and power in your wonderful poem “At the Mall”. Let’s read:

AT THE MALL

Racism. I rarely write that word.  Race-

ism.  Even tonight, while huddling and

writing in the back seat of a Toy-o-

ta, waiting as friends attend the Black Lives

Matter Die-In at the mall, I avoid

the word.  We stopped at the protest after

our Undoing-Racism meeting at

Chestnut Hill Quaker Meeting House.

I’m excited but too tired to move, and

my legs tell me to volunteer for back

ground work at phones and in print, no longer

on the front line.  We want this movement to

last until it works and last until it’s

no longer needed and last beyond that

until we enjoy standing up to see

each other, to be counted, to be kind.

Kindred, finally, have a chance at peace.

Kindred-justice stops racial profiling,

plans economic and political

equality and prevents racist de-

filing of zones meant for living and not

dumping.  Racism scars my planet though

I, reared in white privilege, know only

a portion of what white did to prevail.

Here in the back seat in the parking lot

I’m getting cold despite down coat and

clothes of many layers.  My bladder is

full.  I wish I had asked  How long do these

Die-Ins last?  How long do die-ins last?  How

long did Mike Brown’s body lie in the street?

How long does life last when you cannot breathe? 

How long before we learn not to give up?

Later, in the glare of headlights and the

neon Dick’s sign, I see first a mirage, 

then silhouettes and my friends fleshed-out selves

return from dying, resurrect from Death

in the Mall with stories and images

of young black leaders, three staging areas,

friends seen and strangers touched during this brief

engagement.  Excitement reigns on the drive home.

We're not buying racism anymore.
We're not ignoring white privilege, black
profiling, power pushed and internal
racism.  Instead we're buying new books
to read about how we got here and how
we might begin to undo negatives.
We're listening beyond our comfort zones,
and building stamina for the long haul.

Sherry: Well, that about sums it up. This poem is so inspiring, it makes me want to join the demonstrations and the conversations. I love “we’re building stamina for the long haul.” As all kind people must, who abhor how far from balanced this old world has gotten on our watch. Bravo, my friend, for being one who does this important work, both in the world, and through the expression of your art.

What would you like to say to us in closing? We are all ears!

Susan:  Thank you for bringing these poems together.  By asking me to explain, you held up a mirror.  You and all of Poets United are a support group who encourages and holds me accountable.  No wonder I resisted at first!  This is a hint of what Beloved Community can be. I am so grateful that I can not thank you enough.  I feel a poem coming on.  

Sherry: I love the words (and idea) of Beloved Community, and am very drawn to the Quakers' silent prayer. Thank you, Susan, for talking about this important topic. In all corners of the country - and the globe - we need conversations about The Other, most of whom are really just human beings exactly like us, who simply want to live in peace.

I hope you enjoyed this discussion, my friends, and encourage you to weigh in with your thoughts and feelings in the comments section. And do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!