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Street Roots • June 19-25, 2015
News
'Born again in Ferguson’
Unrest lured the Rev. Osagyefo Sekou away from the p u lp it a n d into the streets ‘in the com m union o f protest’
BY LEONORA KO
systematic oppression of a people and the
roles we play in it.
It begins with the acknowledgement that
white folks have as much at stake spiritually
as black people do. You get up every day and
think the world’s built for you. And then the
bottom of the economy falls out. The
system’s working just fine, but it’s working
for just a few folks. In that sense, it puts
white people in jeopardy, and humanity as
well.
“We don’t need allies; we need freedom
fighters.” This is me quoting the great Ruby
Sales. She runs Spirithouse in Atlanta and is
an old SNCC (Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee) organizer. Allies
can check in and out. It’s not their struggle.
But freedom fighters put blood in the game.
We’re all morally culpable.
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R ITE R
A | i h e Rev. Osagyefo Sekou — organizer,
pastor, theologian and author — has
X . found a new calling on the front lines
of Ferguson and Baltimore.
Sekou was the Martin Luther King
Scholar in Residence at Stanford University
when he was sent to Ferguson, Mo., on
behalf of the Fellowship of Reconciliation,
the country’s oldest interfaith peace
organization. Inspired by his experiences,
he left the pulpit and has helped train 3,500
activists in civil disobedience, including
protesters of the police killings of Michael
Brown in Ferguson and Freddie Gray in
Baltimore,
He is the author of numerous writings,
“Gods, Gays and Guns: Essays on Religion
and the Future of Democracy” and the
forthcoming “Riot Music: British Hip Hop,
Race and the Politics of Meaning.”
We caught up with Sekou in advance of
his arrival in Portland. He will be the
keynote speaker at the free event “Race,
Faith and Justice in the Age of Ferguson and
Baltimore” from 7 to 9 p.m. June 29 at
Warner Pacific College, 2219 SE 68th Ave.
This interview has been edited for brevity
and clarity.
Leonora Ko: You’ve written about your
experiences with racism. How did they shape
you?
Osagyefo Sekou: I do remember the
first time I heard the word “n — .” I was
raised in the Arkansas delta. We were
washing clothes at this Laundromat, and
there was a pair that looked like me and my
grandmother, a white boy and his mama.
The boy goes, “Mommy, Mommy, look at
the n — I had never heard the word
before, but I knew by my grandmother’s
look that it was bad. So I started crying.
The lady says to my grandmother, “I’m so
sorry. You know how kids are.”
My grandmother said, “No, you taught ,
him that,” and then shook my arm and said,
“Hush up, boy. I didn’t run from them when
they were lynching us, and I’m not going to
start now.”
We were poor — but we were poor and
dignified. And the lady, she was poor and
undignified. She ran out of washing powder,
and you could tell she was distraught. My
grandmother walked over to her, gave her a
brand-new box of washing powder, didn’t say
a word, and we walked out.
My grandmother said, “Boy, you speak
truth with grace.”
That’s where I come from.
L.K.: How do those experiences shape a
person in general?
O.S: To be black in America is to be in a
racist experience.... You’re always a slave in
America. J t is a state of being that we have
never come to terms with. The
dehumanization of black bodies is at work
even-though there has been some progress.
PHOTO: K Y L f DEPEW
The Rev. Osagyefo Sekou went to Ferguson, Mo., on behalf o f the Fellowship of Reconciliation,
the country’s oldest interfaith peace organization.
The president of the United States is a black
man but still has to deal with racist assaults.
At the same time, I come from an
amazing community of poor, black, loving
proletarians who were dignified. My
grandma and community raised; me and
loved me; sometimes I feel like they loved
me too much. So I live in a perpetual state
of heartbreak because the world does not
compare to their love.
L.K.: You’ve said that the Ferguson unrest
is a new movement. How is it different?
O.S.: Ferguson is a new moment in the
long struggle of black resistance. Black
people have been resisting since we got off
the boat. What’s new is that it may be the
first time since slave insurrections that
poor, black proletariats are setting the
terms of the national debate.
It looks different. It’s queer, it’s womanly
and it’s young. There are tattoos and former
gang members.
It doesn’t have much institutional support
and has emerged outside the nonprofit
industrial complex. Most of these
organizations are new and are operating
with limited resources. A new leadership
has emerged that’s effective.
L.K.: Do you think the media misconstrued
some of what happened (in Ferguson)?
O.S: I was there in the midst of it. Yes,
there was the breaking of windows. Yes,
there was some looting. But I also saw gang
members stop people from looting. It’s a
wonder that every other day there’s not a
riot in America. We should be celebrating
there’s been so little property damage. The
police are exacting violence on black
communities with impunity. We ought to be
celebrating these young people.
L.K.: Did Ferguson change you?
O.S.: I was born again in Ferguson. !
I saw the face of God, and God is an
angry, queer, black woman who’s a single
mother. It’s one reason I made the
transition out of the pulpit. So I’m in the .
streets where I’m trying to see what it
means to be part of the sanctuary of the
streets in the communion of protest.
L.K.: When you look at the big picture,
what role do the protests play?
O.S.: Protests are thermostats. They set
the political climate and create political
space. Public policy and legislation are the
thermometers that measure the political
climate depending on what kind of “turn-up”
has been in the streets.
In Ferguson, they specialize in the “turn
up” where they walk the street and shut it
down at the drop of a dime. They’re fearless.
Unfortunately, the state tends to only
respond to violence. So kids protest all day
nonviolently and then a few of them bust out
some windows and the world starts paying
attention. That’s an indictment not of the
young people; that’s an indictment of the
policymakers and the community. Martin
Luther King Jr. said, “Riots are the language
of the unheard.”
And again, the violence is primarily
targeted at property. People’s emphasis on
the destruction of property is deeply
problematic ... and speaks to a level of
spiritual depravity on the part of the nation.
“They broke windows. They broke
windows.” Like that’s more important than
leaving a baby (Michael Brown in Ferguson)
left in the streets for 4 1/2 hours.
L.K.: Some people are moved by “white
guilt” to do something. Is there a more
conscious way to be moved?
O.S.: Guilt is such an unhelpful emotion
... and there’s an obsession with “white
allies” and “white privilege.” I like to talk
about “white supremacy,” which is about a
systematic formation. Not simply about
individuals checking their privilege, but
about ways in which we acknowledge the s
L.K.: You’ve said that the queer and black
revolutions are similar.
O.S.: To be black is to be queer in
America. It is to be at odds with the
democracy. I wrote a piece called “Gays Are
the New N— s,” and I’m quoting Bayard
Rustin. He was an openly gay black man
who organized-the March on Washington.
What’s interesting about hegemony is that
it’s not terribly imaginative and uses four
things: legislative repression, hyper-
sexualized stereotypes, denial of access to
home — whether it be home demolition or
housing discrimination — and vigilante
violence sanctioned by the state. These
things were perfected on black bodies and
play out on other groups.... It happens to
homeless people.
The liberal forces in each one of these
communities share a sensibility that is about
integrating into a system and not
transforming it. To be a full citizen is to be
willing to kill for the empire. This is the way
African-Americans were integrated into the
system. Harriet Tubman led the Union
troops. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is about
integrating queer folks into a morally
bankrupt system. The first sector of society
to integrate is always the policé force which
is, “Are you willing to shed your blood for
the empire?”
L.K.: You’re talking about not integrating,
but rather transforming. How do you
transform society?
O.S.: Stay in the streets. We’re just going
to keep “turning up” until the level of
inconvenience for the powers becomes
unbearable and they have to do something
because we won’t go home.
L.K.: Any final words?
O.S.: There’s a poem by Drew Dellinger
where he talks about how he couldn’t sleep
because his great, great, great, great
grandchildren woke him up, saying: The
world was on fire, and what were you doing?
And soX don’t w antthem to. wake, me .up.