(For other essays, see <www.brightworks.com/quaker/midpas.html> and for general information about the Pilgrimage, see <www.interfaithpilgrimage.com> To reach me by email: skipschiel@gmail.com. Or by snail-mail: 9 Sacramento St, Cambridge MA 02138. Comments appreciated.)
We pilgrims and sojourners of the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage strive--or I do--to create a model community, inter-racially, inter-culturally. We are a microcosm of the greater United States society. Our mixed black, Asian, European-American, Native peripatetic band suffers tensions; they could be termed "dynamisms."
For instance, at times we've been meeting in caucuses, defined by race. Now that we're south of the Mason-Dixon Line, eating black-eyed peas and collard greens, fielding racial epithets occasionally hurled at us, perhaps we foster divisiveness when we form racially-based discussion groups to talk to one another about our internal dynamics. Maybe our discussions should all be in the large circle.
Black people lead our line, occasionally joined by a local non-black clergy member or other local organizer not with dark skin that we'd like to honor. As an African-American pilgrim said recently, "Someone hating blacks could wipe us all out by swerving their car into the front of our line." Coming into Baltimore I noticed Tim, a young black man in the front, harassed by a white man in a car, the man laughing as he roared his loud mufflered 1957 customized Chevrolet. Should I stand side by side with Tim to help to diffuse that white man's apparent anger, or would I inflame the moment? More generally should we have people of all our races in the leading contingent?
And the matter of our flags. We carry two Pan-African flags of red, green, and black. Along with two flags given us by organizers in Newark, New Jersey that are based on the American Stars and Stripes but substitute the African colors for the red, white and blue. And the blue and white Japanese flag or Gondaiki follows this with the red sun and the Chinese characters for our chant, Namu Myoho Renge Kyo. Not an instantly recognizable iconography, and, for some, this could be deeply provocative. In New Jersey a white man shouted at us, "Where's the American flag?" Then he sped by singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. In our Community Council, a small group serving as a steering committee, we've begun discerning about the flag set-which to omit, which keep?
Even hairstyles play a role in determining how we act and appear as community. Along with the usual styles some wear their hair in dreadlocks, some have shaved their heads. Some of the bald people are monks and nuns, some are not. Observers might ask, "Who are they? And why have they shaved their heads." So possibly to some bystanders we appear to embrace a politics opposed to our call for racial justice.
A major factor in defining our community is privilege. Some in the front of the food line ignore the presence of others, eat more than their share. Some arrive at the overnight site before the walkers--maybe they've not walked, have instead handled baggage or are too weak or sick to walk-and select the best sleep spots. Some more easily than others decide not to walk. They ride, vent their hot feet, rest their blisters.
White skin brings privilege: first in line for the best jobs, priority housing, good education. But now, by an odd reversal of that paradigm, some black people among us claim, "All my life I've been without privilege, it's my turn. I'll eat what I desire, as much or as little."
Adding to our mirroring of the larger society, we have an environmental awareness fault line in our community. Imagine the garbage fifty of us generate each time we eat and drink. Styrofoam, paper, plastic, aluminum...into the trash, then the earth, many fold. At our orientation the word went out: "Bring your own utensils and water bottles. Some do, some do not. Many continue to use the plates, bowls, cups, forks and spoons provided by our kind but inadvertently enabling hosts. They might also buy for us individual bottles of water, rather than refilling our water bottles from large containers. I notice a parallel between the wildly-popular sports utility vehicle and the one-time-only water container: convenience and fashion. Both make life easier; both are cool to use. And both continue the ruination of earth. How address the seemingly lowly water bottle and eating utensil question while on Pilgrimage?
Members of all our community's subpopulations--descendants of Africans, Europeans, Asians, Natives--might equally abuse or conserve the earth. The matter becomes of even graver import to me, a white male, when I feel the call to correct or teach a black person. How do I approach Martha or Oscar when I notice them not carrying a personal water bottle? Do I invite a friend of their color to speak with them, do I make a general announcement, do I take the matter to the Community Council for a group decision? I need to be tender here, careful and thoughtful, sensitive to the color line, that line that divides, that line that can bring together.
In another essay I'd like to treat the question, how can the color line foster reconciliation? But for now I give you my view of our unusual minuscule community, almost invisible on the great globe, barely noticed as we plod along, sweating, angered, joyful, singing, weeping-a stew of emotions. We've been on the road now for six weeks, some 600 miles of the 2,100 that I calculate span our beginning and ending points in the US, Leverett Massachusetts and New Orleans. Are we growing more cohesive or fragmenting as we walk the hot highways into the South?
By walking together, sharing food and shelter, bearing the risk jointly-and the suffering-I believe and pray we are of the Beloved Community. We are woven together by some as yet undeciphered thread. By the simple fact of deciding to be a pilgrim retracing the transatlantic slave trade journey, we are stepping along to the beat of the same drum, the same drummer. Hear the beat? In your own manner, care to join?