the weight of patience

When I was younger, I went through a phase where I was obsessed with clouds. I read up on the different kinds and studied what made them different. I’d proudly display my knowledge and point up to the sky as I noted the presence of a cumulus cloud or stratus cloud. Cumulonimbus clouds were my favorite. It’s a fun word for a nine-year-old to say, spell, and understand and it was a reflection of the times in my young life where I had agency over what I learned and how I applied it.

My obsession with clouds has cooled, as many obsessions from our youth do as we mature, but just a couple of months ago I was sitting in the backyard and looked up for what felt like the first time in ages. I noticed how quickly the clouds were moving and mused about cloud speed for a few minutes as I watched them dance, twist, stretch, and grow across the sky. Then, I picked up my phone and looked up their speed. (Average cloud speed is 30-40 mph, by the way). 

Curiosity. 

I have been thinking of the power of curiosity, lately. What are we curious about? What do we ponder quickly and just as quickly dismiss before taking a moment to dig in with intentionality? What do we never wonder about and just accept as ‘the way things are’?

There is a mighty power in open-minded curiosity and even more power in intentional knowledge seeking and learning. It is the very (seemingly) lack of curiosity I’ve observed from friends, churches, and organizations over the last seven or so years that has started to chafe away at my insides in recent weeks. It is the newfound engagement, coupled immediately with calls for patience, that has begun to bubble out of my skin and contribute to my skyrocketing anxiety. While many people feel emboldened and buoyed by the renewed and growing solidarity around the country and globe from nonblack people with regards to social justice and against police brutality, my mood has seemed as dark as the cumulonimbus clouds I used to love so much as a child.

Let me first say this: I believe that we all arrive at knowledge at different times (sometimes out of willful ignorance and disengagement and sometimes through lack of access and opportunity) and I can extend a good measure of grace and patience towards anyone embarking on a new journey of learning. In fact, I have extended this grace and patience for a good many years and in a good many conversations with friends, family, and church leadership. I, and many black people that I know, have extended this grace and patience each and every time one of our friends said something that was casually racist or prejudicial. I certainly haven’t called out each and every instance and have built up enough trust currency to give people the benefit of the doubt that they will grow. I have had gently informative and corrective conversations, I have shared my personal experience and fears for myself, my cousins, and my future children, I have shared resources and I have often been firm in my rebuke of willful ignorance. 

I have been patient.

Justice; however, has never seemed even close enough to be within reach. With every new name, every person we have watched murdered (before George Floyd, we watched Eric Garner get murdered and also proclaim that he could not breathe--to say nothing of unfilmed encounters in the rich history of racism in this country), and every acquittal or harassment of witnesses, justice has remained a shimmery mirage. 

So, it is with that feeling of despair, frustration, and fear that I have tried to swallow, but have choked on, calls for Black people to be ‘patient!’ Yes, the exclamation point is necessary because that’s how I’ve seen these thoughts expressed. As if we are just waiting for a barista at the local coffee shop to correct our order. “I’ll have this right up, thank you for being patient!”

For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. 

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Letter from a Birmingham Jail 

Have I been given a choice in patience or is this another tool to resist the urgency of the moment? Is this a way to assert power and resist accountability?

From what I have observed, yes.

Let me be very clear (and yes, this is my proverbial side-eye at the favorite phrasing of wish-washy posts from influencers on social media lately), your Black friends, colleagues, and neighbors have been patient. We understand that you cannot decide to commit to anti-racism on Monday and have it mostly figured out by Friday. For any kind of justice-oriented work and knowledge, there is no arriving. There is no parade or medal or gold star. The reward is that you get to be part of designing a better global community. You don’t take up the work for your friend, your neighbor or your Black partner, you take it up because justice is integral to you and integral to a healthy and functional society. It takes time, your entire life, in fact.

The weight of patience has often felt like another unduly burden heaped atop of the weight of racial injustice, and even more so when it is demanded as if there is no need to rush. Injustice is urgent business and the weight of injustice dictates the pace of the necessary response.

So, the next time you feel the kneejerk defensive desire to call for ‘patience!’ as you draft a social media post explaining that you have just now arrived at the beginning of the trail in the woods called ‘anti-racism’, ask yourself--why is this so closely coupled with my proclamation? Am I afraid to start? Afraid to get things wrong? Paralyzed by the fear of saying or doing the wrong thing in case someone calls me out? If I am committed to learning, why am I not as committed to correction? Are there other areas in my life where I start new things that I announce and immediately insist (not ask, but insist) for patience, or do I just get started, fumble, assume personal accountability, get corrected, and learn?

And when will I be real with myself about how I’m really approaching justice?

in solidarity,