Written on My Body
Written on My Body
“My politics are written on my body, and I don’t have the luxury of choosing whether or not to talk about them,” one of my friends is fond of saying. It is her challenge to the white folks in her life (particularly cishet white men) to jump into the fire, instead of avoiding the hard conversations. My politics are written on my body. Will you be there to stand beside me, and fight with me?
In my professional life as a minister, I have consistently been “the first.” In all of my ministry settings, I have in some way been a trailblazer. I have been the first woman, the first queer person, both of those things, and/or created a role entirely from scratch that did not previously exist. My body does not look like folks sometimes think a minister should look. It is fat, queer, and feminine. I do not love how people sometimes think a minister should love (particularly with a genderqueer partner). But at the end of the day, I am also profoundly protected by my whiteness. I am not running uphill every, single time I get into the pulpit just to be heard in the same way my BIPOC colleagues have to do.
I wonder what it is like for my cisgender, heterosexual, white male colleagues sometimes. What is it like to step into a pulpit with inherent authority, and street cred? I wonder what it is like to be able to fully choose “yes, I will engage this topic” or “no, I think this is ‘too political.’” I wonder what it is like to move through the world without markers of your identity and politics being written on your body?
I particularly wonder when my cishet, white, male colleagues remain silent in the pulpit on life or death issues, because they are ‘too risky’ or ‘too hard.’ Do they not know that I, and many of my colleagues in ministry have been threatened with sexual violence, death, and more? Do they not know that my friend who works for a non-partisan organization was threatened with rape at a Trump rally last week (that she was required to attend to do her job)? Do they not know that my Black colleague up the street has had to hire security, because the threats got so bad? They must not know, because otherwise, why would they remain silent? Right?
White, male, colleagues in ministry, welcome to the world of having your politics written on your body. Welcome to the world where your identity does not infer inherent pastoral authority, and political capital. What have you done to do the heavy lifting for a Black woman in ministry lately?
When y’all make the choice to let the church stay complacent in a place of comfort versus challenging them out of that comfort, you are making a choice to actively participate in generations of white supremacy. My colleague, the Rev. Hannah Adair Bonner says it like this: “Your risk will always be smaller, because it is a choice formed by words, not a reality formed by identity.” You are part of a legacy of silence that has allowed the church to remain stuck while the world around it has moved forward. What will you do to disrupt that legacy? Those of us whose politics are written on our bodies cannot carry that work alone. We are risking our marriages, families, jobs, and yes, even our lives to do so. Will you take the small step of risking your own comfort?
Surely at least one man will read this and write to me about how I don’t understand their ministry setting. They will tell me about their politically divided congregation, and how I don’t understand the intricacies of that work. They will say it with a tinge of condescension that implies ‘when I grow up’ I’ll be a real minister. They won’t know that I too have served politically purple, or conservative congregations. They won’t know that I have literally been pushed out of ministry settings for refusing to back down on issues of race, queerness, and more, because the Gospel required it of me. They don’t understand that it wouldn’t matter if I tried to ‘play nice’ with power structures, because my politics are written on my body. I live and practice my values rather than simply professing them.
Cishet, white, male colleagues in ministry, the choice is yours. Will you do the heavy lifting that can actually help move the church out of its complacency and active violence against BIPOC folks, queer and trans bodies, and women? Or will you stay in your place of privilege? Will you take a small, public hit, so your colleagues who are facing death threats, violence, and more can have a small reprieve? Or will you decide that’s not your job, because it doesn’t directly impact you? Will you seek to understand our trauma, and do all you can to prevent it? Or will you remain complicity, comfortably silent, because your politics are not written on your body? Will you allow the church to die to protect your own privilege, or will you join us on the front lines of the fight? The choice is yours.
