Boldness
It’s a characteristic that I find myself in need of all the time. It’s one of the things I feel like I am constantly lacking since coming to this place. That might come as a shock considering I moved all the way across the country but I never feel like I have enough boldness.
In the shadow of the work I am doing with Housing Long Beach I have a new appreciation for doing work that is not always seen in the best light by all people. I know I’m a bit late for this post but I have been thinking more about Martin Luther King Jr. this year than I have ever before. MLK had to face people unwilling to change with courage and most importantly boldness. It’s true that some people don’t want change at all, but a lot more people don’t want change that feels uncomfortable. I have heard more times than I wish that Housing Long Beach needs to ask for what they want in a better way. In a lighter, more gentler, more “kumbaya”way, which is all well and good until…it doesn’t work. Of course you take the path of least resistance but what happens when that doesn’t work, you what?, stop trying?! When people don’t want to work with you, when you don’t get what you know you need as a community, is it then that you politely shut up and go back to the place of injustice you just left? For me, on lots of days, that’s where I find myself. Tucking my tail between my legs and subconsciously apologizing for even suggesting such an idea. I find myself cringing at the thought of speaking up because these are church people, these are professionals, these are intelligent and thoughtful people, and if they are waving the white flag and saying we have gone too far then how can I disagree with them on that?
This is the time my boldness fails me. And this is the time I find myself looking to people in history and to community members around me who constantly push back and no longer politely ask for what they want but demand something that should have already been given to them. MLK demanded racial equality when it was unheard of to do so. Even people who believed in equality were asking him to wait and be patient, but to do so would have been wrong.
As he puts it….
“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
This is my year to learn boldness. Even if I never work another day of community organizing ever again I pray that my view social justice is forever contextualized within this frame. Fighting for social justice doesn’t always feel good and it might not be the popular opinion but it doesn’t make it less right. And it certainly doesn’t make those who demand it bad or impatient either, they are just bolder and, in my opinion, braver than the rest.
Allison Bost, Episcopal Urban Intern, 2011-12
Housing Long Beach