According to the Jewish calendar, it is 5778 and what a year it has already been here in Saint Louis, MO. After 6 long years, Anthony Lamar Smith's family was let down yet again by the state issuing a not guilty verdict in the case which has led to daily/nightly protests. The mayor has largely been silent and the police have been incomprehensibly violent and inhumane in their response to the protest against continued state violence and white supremacy.
This Yom Kippur, September 30, 2017 coincided with the commemoration of the lives lost and families destroyed during the Elaine Massacre which was one in a long history of pogroms against Black people in the early 1900s. In fact, the violence of white mobs spread across the US in the summer of 1919 with no less than 33 incidents and was later coined Red Summer by James Weldon Johnson.
Now it is Sukkot. Our tradition says that after we have spent time in meditation, prayer, fasting and reflection we must remember the vulnerability, uncertainty and danger of living in the wilderness as our ancestors traveled to the promised land. During this fall festival, we gather, eat and sometimes sleep in these temporary booths. We wave the lulav and etrog in the six directions to symbolize unity of our people and surely to hearken back to the indigenous roots of our spiritual practice.
Another practice during sukkot is ushpizin, calling in the ancestors to the sukkah. Traditionally we call in the patriarchs. Recently, folx have added the practice of welcoming the matriarchs as well. This year, I challenge us to bring in yet another group of people. My friend and comrade, Dove Kent wrote an amazing article about allyship and solidarity. It got me thinking about the stories of solidarity that we don't hear often enough. I was reminded that white supremacy pushes the notion that we are all alone in manifesting our liberation. These stories of solidarity however are proof this isn't true.
So that is what we will do: we will remember the times when we were personally or collectively helped, saved and loved through solidarity. Or maybe your story is when you helped, saved and loved someone else through solidarity.
We will collect these stories.
We will retell them.
We will no longer believe the lies of white supremacy and we will manifest our liberation together. Because that is actually what we have always done.
What's your story?
Send it to me.
#wegotus
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