On Privilege and Discomfort

This article first appeared in the GIA Quarterly 32.2

The whole nation is filled with protest. Peaceful protesters and violent rioters. Our nation is struggling to respond to the killing and shooting of so many Black brothers and sisters and the systematic racism we suffer from. As liturgical leaders, we also need to find a way to respond.

How do we respond to the death of Ahmaud Arbery? In February, the 25-year-old, unarmed, Black man was shot and killed while jogging through a Georgia neighborhood. Two white men hunted him with their truck and two guns and shot him, claiming he fit a profile of someone suspected of local break-ins and thefts. Arbery was a former high-school star athlete and had enrolled at a local technical college with dreams of becoming an electrician like his uncles.

How do we respond to the death of Breonna Taylor? In March, police punched in her door with a battering ram and fired bullets through nearly every room in her apartment. Taylor was struck at least five times and bled out on the floor. Police claimed that her home was a drug house. There were no drugs recovered from the house. In fact, the police had the wrong address. Taylor was 26, an EMT and aspiring nurse. She cared for people she never knew. She risked her own safety to save lives in the midst of this global pandemic.

How do we respond to the death of George Floyd Jr.? In May, Floyd was arrested for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill in Minneapolis. The world watched the last eight minutes of Floyd’s life as he gasped for air, for help, for water, begged and pleaded for the three officers to get off of him. A crowd interceded on his behalf, imploring the officer who was kneeling on Floyd’s neck to release him. But the officer didn’t move. Floyd moved from Houston to Minneapolis for a better life. He wanted to be a better father. He was known in his circles as being a protector. His friends knew they could count on his help if they were ever in need. Floyd was 46 when he was killed.

How do we respond to the shooting of Jacob Blake? In August, a Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer shot at the 29-year-old Black man seven times, hitting him in the back with four of those shots. His children were in the back seat of his SUV. Miraculously, he lived. He is paralyzed from the waist down.

It is easy to shirk responsibility for these deaths and shootings. But we cannot. We are part of a system of white privilege and the sin of racism that destroys the sacredness of human life. I’m angry that even in the midst of this crisis, when the world around us is burning down, begging us to listen, to see, to hear, to change our behavior, many people will not. Too uncomfortable, too unpleasant, too much work. Too much risk.

Even a seemingly low-risk response such as changing our music repertoire to reflect the world that is ablaze is too much to contemplate. Many will not even look to see if they have any music from the Black Catholic Church or from Black composers for the faithful to sing on Sunday. People might get upset.

What Can I Do?

I don’t mean to equate inadequate music planning and the killing and shooting of Black people. I do, however, intend to take accountability for even the small things that I can influence. We have to start evaluating every single platform that we have. For those of us who are white, many of those platforms are ones we take for granted, ones that have come to us with relative ease, in our own time, with safety and assurance.

God is always on the side of the victim. God is always with the oppressed. Those of us with privilege have platforms, and a responsibility to use them.

Here are some things that white music directors in a predominantly white community might do to elevate Black voices.

Listen

There are over 400 years of Black wisdom in our national history. Centuries of music that gave us spirituals, jazz, blues. Do we know where this music comes from? Do we study its origins, its performance practices, its backstory, the peoples who bore it? Have we allowed the story of the Black Catholic Church to be told in our community? Listen to, look for, and seek out this work that has already been done by the Black Body of Christ, too often overlooked or absent in our predominantly white communities. Lean into this wisdom, give it time, give it space.

Get comfortable with discomfort

For those of us who are white, choosing to decentralize whiteness is uncomfortable. We need to remember that our baptismal promises include denouncing evil and following in the footsteps of one who told us to leave our comforts, to take up our cross, to lose our lives for his sake. That might sound like singing a song that feels foreign on our lips. It might look like sharing the piano bench, moving over from our leadership position to let someone else take the lead. It might be in the critical dialogue needed to craft statements of anti-racism in our choir, in our parish.

Elevate Black voices

Take a look at whose music you are singing. Are all of the beloved songs of your community written by white people? Are the spirituals your community knows arranged by white arrangers? Does your repertoire list reflect a fullness of the image and likeness of God, or does it only reflect the God who looks like you? See M. Roger Holland II’s article in this issue on the tradition of the Negro Spiritual.

Say their names

Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. Jacob Blake. Pray for their families in your choir rehearsals. Pray for peace, for healing, for contrition for the sin of racism. Remember by name those whose lives have been stolen because of our hardness of heart.

Let yourself be changed

What if we reached deeper into the truth that Martin Luther King, Jr. so urgently reminded us: “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” As one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic peoples, we sink or swim together. We need each other. We need for that Magnificat call to live in and through us, to let the lowly be raised, to bring down the mighty. It requires change for all of us, especially those who are privileged.

As our nation struggles to respond to the killing and shooting of so many of our Black brothers and sisters and the systematic racism we suffer from, we can use the platforms we have to cause change. We can hold ourselves accountable for all the small things we can influence to end the sin of racism.