CATHOLIC VOICES

“I’m tired of hearing Black Lives Matter. It’s as if being white doesn’t matter anymore.”

Those were the words Wilhelmina Murray-Davis, who is Black, overheard from two white volunteers during a diocesan-sponsored event this summer. Murray-Davis, the director of Disaster and Community Services for Catholic Charities in Albany, said talking about that experience could be used “to enlighten and teach” as people of all races and creeds have protested and marched for racial justice and equality since the death of George Floyd in June. Murray-Davis talked with The Evangelist’s Mike Matvey about the social-justice movement, what Catholics can do to fight racism and much more for this latest installment of Catholic Voices.

TE: When you experience racism how do you respond?

WMD: Usually, I do say something but since George Floyd’s death and watching that, I have become very emotional about it. His death was the stick that broke the camel’s back. When I overheard the conversation, I didn’t want to start a discussion that would have been disrupted because (of my work).  If it happened at a different time I would have said that the biggest problem with all of this is people are taking things personally. People run from the term racism or racist behavior; they don’t want any part of that. Racism is taught; it is not something that you are born with. And speaking to a Catholic, what I would have said is, “God made the human race; people created racism.” Racism built this country. It is ingrained in the fabric of this society. The mind-set being that Black people are not equal to whites. We were slaves so we should be satisfied with what little bit we get. No one looks at why we suffer the way we do. No one looks at the systemic racism in housing, education and opportunities. This is the way it has been for hundreds of years. And it will continue unless people start having real conversations. 

TE: Talk about the fight for social justice?

WMD: When people hear Black Lives Matter, right off the bat they think we are anti-white and anti-police. We are not that at all. You can’t say All Lives Matter, because our lives don’t matter. To say “ALL” it would mean that all are treated fairly across the board. We can’t say that, can we? We are not anti-anyone. We are saying that there is an exponentially higher percentage for us, with any police interaction, we end up dead. We are saying we don’t have the same opportunities that others have. Every day I walk out of my house, I walk out in fear. I am fearing that something will happen to me where I would have an interaction with a police officer and that may be my day to die. I am at a particular mind-set right now that I know if I were to witness something like what happened to Mr. Floyd, I would be either dead or in jail, because I would not have just stood there and cried out. I would have physically tried to push (the officer) off. We have been going through this for 400 years and no one wants to recognize what that is for us as a people. We are all human beings. The only thing that separates us is a chemical in our body. If you shave off all of our skin color, we have the same inside workings as white people. My tears taste just like white people’s tears. I have the same hopes and dreams for my children like every other mother. I should have the same opportunities for my child to live to adulthood. That is not a reality for us. I should not feel fearful when I walk outside. The fight for social justice is about having the same opportunities as everyone else. The system is fixed to keep us in dilapidated buildings run by slumlords. You drive in Black neighborhoods and you see code enforcement doesn’t have anything to do with that area. These landlords don’t care and the laws protect them. We don’t see street cleaners or people cleaning the parks in our neighborhoods. The system is set up to show us as being dirty and not caring about where we live. If you only give a person dirt, they learn to live in it. Look at the schools. They are overcrowded and the schools don’t have enough funding for extracurricular activities. There are no community centers, nowhere for children to thrive. All they see is dirt and crime. You have bodegas on every corner selling cigarettes and alcohol to our children. The foods they sell are unhealthy. …. People have lost their jobs and what jobs we manage to get are low income jobs where we still have to rely on social services. People are hungry and you wonder why crime is up?  We are killing each other to survive. These are illnesses that come from a racist system that keep us held down.

TE: Talk about experiences you have had with police officers upstate.

WMD: I was in a conversation with a police officer recently and it was the best conversation because I prefaced everything with ‘What you need to do right now, is listen without taking it personally.’ So he said, ‘I am not racist, people I work with on the Albany Police force are not racist, and we feel this is unfair that there is one bad apple and everybody is carrying that burden.’ He said not one of his colleagues speaks racist things to him; he has never seen it. I was able to give him insight and school him on some things.  I used the example of two incidents that I personally saw. Two young men were fighting out on Judson Street and the police happened to come by and they came in hot. When I say hot, they just got out of the car, they went over and grabbed both of the boys and threw them on the ground, knelt on them, without even knowing what took place. One of the boys was pulled up, and because he was slammed on the ground so hard, his lip was bleeding. Now this would be met with ‘Oh, well, if they weren’t fighting,’ ‘If they didn’t resist.’ ’ Well I say, if they were not Black, they would not be dead, or jailed, tased, maced or in handcuffs over a fight.

I was in Colonie and two white men got into a fight. The police came in and broke them up and had a discussion with each man separately and each man left without anything happening.  No one was slammed to the ground or handcuffed. And I said to the officer “those two incidents are not something you would see and even if you did, would you note the difference in response?”  I said that is not something that is spoken. It is an inherent reaction to black and brown people versus white people. And to my surprise (the officer) really understood what I was saying.

Another big dust up is the term “defunding the police.” Now that term to me is muddying the waters, because it promotes fear. It is being stated that we want the police gone and that is not what we are saying at all. It’s as if treating black people with dignity and respect creates an unsafe environment for everyone else. I don’t understand that at all. It is as if the police killing black people in America is so American that to want anything different, makes you tagged as anti-America. 

WMD: You have to scale it way back, all the way to school. What they teach in history does nothing to promote equality. They gloss over slavery and the civil rights movement as something that was done and is gone. You don’t tackle what really happens. It does not delve into the continued genocide of my people. That is the shame of America and people want those skeletons kept securely in the closet. They don’t want to look at the systemic racism; they don’t want to look at the fact that racism has never gone anywhere. If anything, it’s gone inside. It’s very personal and secret. But the fact that a person can see the way we are treated and think, “Why are we complaining?” baffles my sensibilities.

TE: Where does this anger come from?

WMD: This is just my opinion, but if you acknowledge the fact that there is racism, then you have to own some of that responsibility and people don’t want to own that at all. And they don’t understand that racism is at its core. Because (society) doesn’t want to own up to history. They want to push it under the covers and they don’t want … as my mom would say, “Nobody wants to sweep up dust, because all it does is go and settle somewhere else.” The anger comes from that question: “Why are you angry?” If you could choose to be Black would you? (Noted educator and diversity trainer) Jane Elliott asked a group of white people that question and said to raise your hand if you would.  No one raised their hands and she asked it again. Again no one raised their hands.  Then she said, “You don’t raise your hands because you know how Black people are treated and you’re OK with it.” No one wants to feel our pain or see what is happening to us as a people. Why is that?

TE: tell us about the conversations you’ve had with your children about race?

WMD: I have two sons and every day I tell them you must be careful when you walk outside. You cannot show anger, keep your calm, make sure you are very aware of where your hands are. Answer questions. Don’t run. Do not run because you will be shot. Can anyone tell me that is normal? Should that be normal for any parent to have to tell their child? What do you tell your child when they witness a brutal beating by the police of someone that looks like them and there is nothing they can do? I had to teach my sons, and now my grandsons, that the color of their skin is criminalized in a society that doesn’t want to acknowledge their right to live. That they won’t have the same opportunities as white children. That they can be somebody who achieved great things but if they are riding in a nice car they can be pulled over just because. This is not a life lived freely.

TE: How can the church take a bigger role educating people?

 WMD: To me if you are a good Catholic, racism has been deemed a sin. It has been denounced by the pope. Yet, you can have a conversation, and you will hear everybody say, “Oh, racism is not acceptable.” So if it is not acceptable, why is it continuing to happen? I think churches need to take very strong positions on this; they should teach it. I am a Bridges out of Poverty facilitator. It is a workshop that helps bridge the misunderstandings between people serving people in poverty and persons of color. It helps decode behavior and brings out the biases that we, as workers, bring into our dealings with clients. The training helps to identify and get rid of those biases. It is very personal and very rewarding to see the difference the training makes. It is quite remarkable. Jesus loved everyone and helped everyone. He treated everyone fairly because we are all the same race, the human race.

TE: Do you think we are finally ready for real change?

WMD: It is my hope. I pray for that every day, but until people are willing to start looking at different ways to accept each other equally, the division will spread. It is possible to have real conversations to teach and inform. It would have to be done in a way where getting angry and shouting “I am not coming to church” – isn’t an option. Racism is a sin and should be viewed as such. We need those people to sit there and have teachable moments. Racism is also found in different religions as well. I have already started to do my research, and I want to create a Bridges Out of Poverty that is basically geared toward racism and shows how it affects us all negatively. Everyone knows racism exists, but they think that is the way it is supposed to be because of history.

If you don’t change teaching children (about slavery), just like they teach the Holocaust, then the next generation is crippled out the gate. There would be no full nitty-gritty of what happened which would create empathy and understanding and give our children a chance at a better life. Right now, if you talk about slavery, people roll their eyes and say, “You need to stop blaming the white man.” If you don’t look at the history and look at the devastation my people are still carrying, how do you expect to change anything? James Baldwin said, “Anything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

TE: Any last words?

WMD: There is one analogy I would like to share with you. It was in an article by Robert Glazer and the title of it was, “There is more than one way to speak out against racial injustice.” And this is what he wrote, “Over the past few months as COVID-19 has spread, I have experienced frequent fear and anxiety. I have been scared for my health and the health of those I love, concerned for my family and worried about my company and employees. I’ve experienced sleepless and restless nights and a moment of panic that sent my heart racing. Like many, I feared going into public, scared of an unknown virus that often spreads unseen. This is probably the closest I can come to understanding what it feels like to be a person of color in America.”

That was to me ... powerful. Because all of what he describes about COVID-19 is exactly what we experience every day and you see how just a few months of it has turned sane people into crazy people. So why can’t you understand our anger?