Pride, Tulsa, Forrest, and Watchmen
Day 3 of Year 49.
It is the first day of June. That means it is the first day of Pride Month. Is that an international thing or an American thing? I really don’t know. (When I say American, I really mean the United States. How do we say that without being obtuse?) I’m waking up, but I wouldn’t say I’m “woke” yet.
It can be confusing because we celebrate PRIDE in June, but we observe LGBTQ+ history in October. Different cities have had celebrations at different times. I think it is an exciting time for the community because it seems that it is just now beginning to truly include the WHOLE community and unite in ways that are visible across the spectrum. In my own city there are a couple of Pride organizations because the original organization did not do a great job of including People of Color. From what I can tell on the socials, it is working to correct this, but there is still a ways to go. I can only imagine this is true in other cities as well.
Today marks the 100th anniversary since the attack on the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This may seem like a non-sequitur. It is not. The celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride and the revelation of how a white mob destroyed an entire industry, neighborhood, families, and took away so many lives are intricately connected — if we will have eyes to see. Black lives have not mattered to the ruling majority in this nation — ever. Black Trans lives continue to be murdered every single day on our streets. In 2020, there were at least 40 Transgender and Non-binary people who died by violence BECAUSE they were Transgender. Most of those were people of color. That number was higher than the year before. It is expected that this year it will grow again. As long as we collectively cover our ears and eyes to these truths, these lives will continue to be destroyed.
When I watched the opening of the HBO series, Watchmen, I Googled “Tulsa 1921” to find out if what I was watching was based on an actual event or a work of fiction (obviously fiction would still be based in reality). I imagine there were many folks doing the same thing, White and Black. This week someone on Facebook posted a meme saying, “How old were you when you learned about the Tulsa Massacre?” He is a Black man and he said he couldn’t remember exactly, but knew he was in his twenties. Well, I had never heard of it until Watchmen aired in 2019. I imagine I’m not alone in that.
It isn’t surprising to me that no one had ever taught me about such a horrific event in our history. I am almost 50 years old after all. I’m not dumb. I know the history taught has been meticulously curated to tell a particular story that maintains the status quo. It isn’t surprising, but it still brings on feelings that I don’t always know how to define, but includes a level of anger for my elders and embarrassment for myself.
For a short while I served a church in Memphis that was made up of small congregation, about half Black and half White. It seems important to name the city because we are the “city that killed Dr. King.” I was serving as pastor of this church while in my thirties. One of my friends, congregants, flock (though I hate that term), mentioned going to the annual Juneteenth celebration held in a nearby park. The word, “Juneteenth” sounded so strange and funny to me that I am certain I laughed. I can still see the look on her beautiful Black face when she said to her pastor, “You’ve never heard of Juneteenth?” There was no pretending I had. No time to Google it and act like some sort of expert in all things concerning our congregation. I was a disappointment. Nope. I had never even HEARD the word before. Or, if I had, it had slipped right by me as unimportant for my life. I was so completely oblivious that I didn’t even register the importance of that moment in my own education until much later. It is shocking how kind she was to me.
Today in Memphis the Sons of Confederate Veterans began the work of digging up the remains of Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife. They are buried smack dab in the middle of downtown in a park that until four years ago was named after him and had an enormous statue of him on a horse standing on the pedestal above their grave. It wasn’t the original resting place of the couple. Their bodies were moved from the cemetery where their families had buried them to the park in 1904, almost thirty years after he died. It was part of a concerted effort in the south to remind Black folks that Jim Crow laws ruled the day. Thanks to an organization called #takeemdown901, Commissioner Tami Sawyer, and other community organizers, not only has the statue been removed, but the park’s name is now Health Sciences Park (it is next door to The University of Tennessee Health Science Center), and, last, but not least, the couple’s remains will be moved outside Shelby County. (They will be housed in a museum that I’m not willing to name, but is the most appropriate resting place if they aren’t going to be left where their families buried them to begin with.)
There is something poetic about it all. First day of Pride Month, first widely known commemoration of the Tulsa Massacre, first day they are digging up the body of the first Grand Wizard of the KKK. There is a lot of talk these days about intersectionality. And, it is impossible to deny that it is all connected in some way. We celebrate Pride primarily in June because of the “Stonewall Riots” which started because of the mistreatment of LGBTQ people, but most of those people were Transgender People of Color. No one taught me about that growing up either.
If many legislators at work today succeed, school will continue to be a place where these things are systematically covered up. What are we afraid of? I tend to believe that education is a good thing — that means learning as much as one can about as much as one can. I trust others, including my own kids, to be able to handle an education without it destroying them. The Bible says, “The truth shall make you free.” Even with the white-washed education I did receive, I knew that education itself was used as a weapon. Or, at least as something to be withheld in order to maintain power over others. This is the only reason I can imagine a person has for not wanting to educate someone on any given thing. I think I’ll have to think on this and write more on this subject tomorrow. It is too big for one entry. Tomorrow I will write about how little trust it shows to limit learning.
Today, I celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, thank God for the ways in which God has shown us grace through that community. Today, I repent for the Tulsa massacre, ask God to forgive me for all the ways I continue to enable racism in my family, in the nation, and in the Church. Today, I remember Black and Hispanic Transgender people who have been beaten, abused, and killed for no reason other than being who they are.
May God forgive us. May God heal us. May God transform us.
