More than thirty years ago I read Donald Wood’s Biko, retelling the story of the life and death of the young South African freedom campaigner who was killed in detention on September 12, 1977. One quotation from Biko in that book has stayed with me.
“We are aware that the white man is sitting at our table. We know that he has no right to be there; we want to remove him from our table, strip the table of all the trappings put on it by him, decorate it in true African terms, settle down and then ask him to join us on our terms if he wishes.”
In the context of South Africa and in most of the colonized world this makes sense. The colonizers have come in, have taken control of the land and the resources, have enslaved the people or forced them into hard labor with little pay, and more. Also, as Robert Ellsberg, in All Saints, so insightfully notes about apartheid:
“Apartheid was based on an ideology of white racial superiority and black inferiority. It functioned not only through over repression but through the colonialization of consciousness—training black people to see themselves through white eyes and thus to accept their own helplessness and sense of inferiority.”
Facing this, Steve Biko and many others developed a movement of Black Consciousness that upset many in South Africa (and the world). It was, as described by Robert Ellsberg, a “movement to foster a sort of price, self-reliance, and resistance among the oppressed.”
If we would let oppressed people be the protagonists of their lives, what would this mean for the future of a nation, or – even more importantly – of a community?
But this is not only about the racist oppressors who come to subjugate people and to steal their land and their wealth. It is about the “white liberal” who comes to “save” the people from their poverty and “backwardness.” It is also about us well-meaning missionaries and church folk.
Will we let the table we set up in another people’s house be dismantled? Will we let them take charge? Will be walk alongside them when they seem to be undermining us?
I don’t know if I can do this, but I see this as a path to redemption, because it begins with a call to conversion. Will I let myself be stripped of my preconceptions and prejudices? Will I let go of my expectations? Will I let the others take control?
This is a question of spirituality – and it’s something I need to let happen in me. It’s a very difficult form of the holy “indifference” of Ignatius, where we let go of our willfulness and open ourselves to the ways of God, often revealed in the most disturbing ways?
And so I give thanks to Steven BIko for upsetting me and helping me. It’s a long journey that I want to keep pursuing.
But it might be helpful for us to contemplate this in the light of Black Lives Matter. I am, of course, talking about the concept that has mobilized thousands in the US and not about any organization.
In the face of violence against black men and women by police and others, in the face of structures of blatant and subtle racism, people have come out into the streets reaffirming that “black lives matter,” because the structures of society are saying that black people are expendable.
We whites need to remember this, but I wonder if we need something more. Are we willing to leave aside our leadership and accept the leadership of the poor?
If we do this, might we let them set the table and then accept their invitation to sit down with them?
I don’t have any answers to this and I need a lot more time of prayer and reflection as well as time to interact with those experiencing oppression, racism, repression, and violence.
The first thing I need to do is LISTEN, leaving my agenda to the side. That’s not easy, but without this first step we can become another kind of oppressor, treating people as children or, worse, as our inferiors. That is not the way to the peace God wants. That is not the way to be ready for an invitation to sit down at the table of the other – as a guest.
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Photo from the Steve Biko Foundation, Facebook
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