I’m challenging myself to keep my hands moving while writing the first draft of this. To keep the flow moving. To not stop. To not press backspace, to not edit myself. To rely on first thought and to trust that my intentions are good. Whatever comes can be shared, and whatever comes after can be received and mulled over, together. 

I’m sitting on my bed, in my chaos of a room, pushing back Peter’s paper, wondering if I should even be writing this right now. What if I am completely off base? I don’t fear what the responses will be—as a matter of fact, please do respond, to me, to each other. But I fear writing as if I know what’s going on inside of other people’s heads when, in reality, my own mind is still a mystery after 21 years. I have no true clue what’s actually going on inside of anyone’s head. I fear also of superimposing my recent desire to speak more boldly on what the desires of my peers and professors and administrators should be. Everyone is on their own path, and speaking isn’t always the answer; speaking without filter may be why the comments section on Facebook has, as of late, been majority toxic wasteland. I also am only focusing on race relations here, but this applies to all subjects where there is a lot emotionally at stake with choosing to speak. 

So I will share my observations, inevitably tainted by my limited lens, but also coming directly from who I am, from my experiences engaging with others, and from my deep care for EMU: 

What is not working at EMU right now is the act of white people not speaking. Not speaking feels like not advocating, and when you’re silent, your silence could be interpreted and perceived as anything. Your intentions are assumed by people of color, based on experiences with other white people, before you could clarify them aloud yourself. 

In the MLK Jr. Day student panel, I heard courageous energy coming from the front of the room, and that same energy coming in sparks throughout the audience. But I also felt stillness and pent up tension from the back and from the gaps between the sparks. These sparks of energy came from students of color, speaking about the conflicts within themselves, about what they perceive of what other people think of them and how they act in accordance or in reaction to it, speaking about where they come from and how that informs why they say what they’re saying and who they are and what they bring. Seniors Kiara Kiah and Earnest Kiah and juniors J.D. Richardson and Maya Dula, the initiators of the space, sitting up front, poured their hearts out, saying it’s about time we let what’s been boiling within us for so long boil over. Saying, with a detailed analogy, that being at EMU feels like stepping into someone else’s home. Being invited there, all smiles at the door as you walk in, but once you take a seat at the table, eye contact is averted. 

Eye contact averted I find very interesting. Because, yes, I’ve seen white Mennonites gravitate to each other, magnetize to who they feel at home with, to who is comfortable. I’ve heard people name this as feeling exclusive. I would’ve said this freshman year and sat bitter in that. Sometimes I still do. But maybe, just like for students of color and all other living beings, there exists a desire for belonging. And what I’ve heard from many Mennonites is that they came to EMU looking for a group of Mennonites who are on the same page as them, who understand their care for justice and open-mindedness, coming sometimes from towns or churches who do not get that or live that out. Or they grew up in an area where there weren’t many Mennonites at all. And so, feeling affinity, and finding their family away from family, they found a group that they want to invest time in while here, with which they feel like they belong. And so I think, maybe, there has been eye contact averted unintentionally. 

But I also have had a hunch lately that maybe eye contact averted could also be equated to shame, to speech squashed within one’s self by a personal editing of what is right versus what is harmful to say. A taking in of every diversity training’s loaded Powerpoint slides about all of what not to say to black people, to Latinos, to people of another color or culture who I colonized and enslaved and keep harming, I’m told. Classes, readings, and social media posts about our colonizing, enslaving history; pictures of white people smiling while a black man hangs from a tree; #blacklivesmatter and black people still marching, still enraged. 

A liberalized awareness of why white people should feel guilty, should stop taking up space, and should really just stop talking altogether. And, specific to white Mennonites at EMU, an awareness of the harm their exclusivity, language, and norms have caused to students of color, spoken by students of color. If I speak, who will I harm, even with the act of speaking itself? 

(But also, maybe) if I spoke, who would hate me? What other white people will I group myself with in a person of color’s mind, simply by the ignorance of the words that could come out of my mouth? I’m not like the other white people, I am conscious. I am critical. I know what could trigger and I know why. So maybe I should just keep embodying listening mode, and keep taking the heat. That’s what I deserve. That’s what’s best. And that’s how I’ll keep at least the chance of making and keeping friends who are of color. 

I (actually speaking as I here) recognize the privilege of my skin color, and I speak as a person who can blend into white society. Whiteness generally sickens me, for its terrorizing history, expectations of conformity and individual success, exclusivity, and suppression of expression. But, on the human level, I have blood family and have found new family in many people whose skin color is white. I deeply respect this family, and admire intellectually the ones I call family at EMU. I hear in one-on-one conversations their awareness, their intentions, what they envision for the world, their necessary caution, their justice-centered criticisms of history as shaped by colonialism and racism and the ugliest of humanity. I hear them speak and act out of their love for humanity too, preparing for careers and living out lives of justice. I know their hearts to be good and loving and their minds to be deeply intentional. And so, seeing my white professors and white administrators sitting in the back of the room at the student panel and my white friends interspersed throughout the audience, I see that 1) they showed up and 2) all of the above most likely applies. 

I’m also a woman of color, a mix and a blend, with one foot planted in the US and another dipping toes in Brazil, finding her way but becoming more and more proud of her curl pattern and rap music and comfort felt with other people of color. I’m hearing from my friends of color on this campus something similar to what I heard Kiara and Earnest ask a few times at the panel: “Do any white people in the room have anything to say in response to what you’ve heard?” That was being asked. Students of color have said what they needed to say. They are now turning the microphone over to the rest of the people in the room. And yes, that panel and the space it created was a sacred space. We all felt that, the black people in the room, the mixed raced, the Asian, and the white (as I heard later, from one-on-one conversations). But I was pulled in many directions, like I usually feel like I am on this campus, and I could feel the tension. The tension of those speaking asking those not speaking to speak; and from those not speaking, the need to speak yet not knowing the perfect way to voice it. 

What if? What if you spoke and told us why you are here. Why you care to be in this multicultural space right now. What if, verbally, publicly, you received the effort of those who vulnerably shared with a “thank you for speaking, you needed that and I needed that.” What if you told us who you are, where you come from and what your culture is, your experiences with race relations, and what values you carry with you. What if then… you also took a vulnerable step into the rest of the storm that swarms your mind, as you’re trying to figure out what your place is in all of this as a mere (?) white person. 

As you’re wondering what action steps there are, if any, openly surrendering to our community the “I don’t know” of that question. Putting words to what words you try not to say and why, a questioning out loud if the action steps or words that you think might be helpful are actually helpful. A decision in favor of dialogue, in favor of trial-and-error, of uncertainty, of working it out together… and a releasing of your storm, which is probably a storm shared by at least one other person in the room, into the spirit of the space. And then an openness to the response, to being humbled and challenged, to being relieved and appreciated for your honesty and bravery and effort, and to receiving whatever else comes of it, maybe even the surprise of who else your act of speaking liberated too, someone of shared race or of a different one.

Tonight (Feb. 20) is the annual Town Hall, at 7 p.m. in Common Grounds, hosted by the Black Student Alliance. Focused on “authentic sharing and conversation,” a “safe (brave), vulnerable space where respect and listening are honored and vital to the process of change,” with “small group discussions, question and answer, and an all-white student/faculty panel.” In BSA co-president Maya Dula’s words: “those on the panel and many students of color on this campus… are used to stepping into spaces, saying vulnerable truths or verbally responding to racial dialogue because it is necessary for change. Students of color are consistently speaking into the chaos and we need white people to do the same.” 

Dula continued: “On this campus, white skin usually allows you comfort and ease; yet you’re still silent. Students of color do not have that comfort on this campus and yet they speak up… I am speaking to myself as well.” 

This is an invitation. Trust yourself, spit out what’s on your mind, and we’ll figure this all out together. Grace will be present, courage will be received, and your efforts appreciated.