{"id":30573,"date":"2023-01-30T18:00:59","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T02:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=30573"},"modified":"2023-01-30T19:10:45","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T03:10:45","slug":"who-is-the-hero-in-tyres-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/who-is-the-hero-in-tyres-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is the Hero in Tyre’s Story?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hero With A Thousand Faces is a book about discovering ourselves through myths and stories. It was my intention to complete the reading and the blog a week ahead to give myself time to pay greater attention to the posts of my cohort. I have discovered that writing on Thursday does not allow me enough bandwidth to also thoughtfully respond to my peers. I need time to digest it all, so that requires me to work a few days ahead. I did a fair amount of inspectional reading of the book, probably about \u00be of it and I also listened to the audio. I could not connect. I tried to find the perfect quote and find some connection to but honestly, I am incapable of doing that today and probably tomorrow and probably the day after that. The murder of 25-year-old Tyre Nichols by 5 Memphis Police Officers is so hard for my heart and head to hold. I looked at the title of the book and my eyes renamed it, I saw, The Devil Has a Thousand Faces. If you are not familiar with the events that precipitated his death, it won\u2019t be difficult for you to research them. But I will share with you that he was beaten to death, while restrained by 5 officers much larger than him, not given immediate medical attention and succumbed to the injuries two days later. There is a video- a police body cam that apparently captured the gruesome incident. My soul could not handle watching it, so I have relied on the numerous posts, texts and phone calls from Mother\u2019s that hold the same fears that I do. We all pray that we are never on the other end of a phone call telling us that our Black Son has been murdered because he was seen as a threat, because his life has been historically under-valued, and that racism runs so deep that he is hated by even those that share his skin color. Yes, the 5 officers were Black and broken in a way that further breaks my heart and challenges my Christian abilities to love and forgive even the lowest of us. I have been told that just as George Floyd did, Tyre called out for his Mama in the final moments before his loss of consciousness that he also pleaded with the officers asking, \u201cwhat did I do?\u201d! The outlets are reporting that it appears that he had broken no laws, but even if he had\u2026no one deserves the cruelty inflicted on him. His cry pierced the heart of all Mama\u2019s. I can\u2019t help but weep when I think of the fear and helplessness he must have felt. I pray that my son never has to reach for me, call out to me in a time such as that.
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I recently read a post about one of our classmate\u2019s 17-year-old son learning to drive. I am often riddled with fear when I think of Pierce (our 14-year-old) driving. Tonight, as I helped him get dressed for his first formal, I held back my emotions and did not share all the fears that were at the surface. I also held back tears as I saw the unstoppable emergence of a young man that will have to independently navigate the complexity of this world. I think about one of James Baldwin\u2019s famous quotes, \u201cTo Be Black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage\u201d. I understand that feeling well and I also know that it is not something that Pierce can carry in any healthy capacity at the young age of 14. He will have to manage the duality of how the world sees him. I recently watched the movie \u201cTill\u201d which is an account of the murder of Emmett Till with a focus on his mother, Mamie Till. There is a scene in the movie when Emmitt is preparing to go to Mississippi from his hometown of Philadelphia to visit relatives. His mother says, \u201cSon, make yourself small in Mississippi\u201d! She was trying to prepare him for a place that would see him as a lesser being, see him as subhuman as a threat. He was abducted, tortured, and lynched at the young of 14 during that trip to Mississippi for offending a white woman. He whistled at her. I struggle with whether to encourage Pierce to be the best version of himself, to live out his God given gifts boldly and out loud or to be safe and remain under the radar. I wonder have Larry and I taught him how to survive when faced with a threat. Does he know not to let fear cause him to run, or to be respectful even when he is disrespected? Can he remain composed and articulate when being asked a question about his right to be in a place or when being falsely accused? My concern for him driving while black runs deep and it is valid. What I will continue to tell him is that his goal is to make it home alive. \u201cDo not argue!\u201d \u201cDo not allow your ego lead!\u201d \u201cDo not forget that you are likely seen as a threat!\u201d \u201cDo not challenge!\u201d \u201cYour goal is to make it home alive!\u201d
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You may be wondering what relevance this has to the reading or to my NPO. Perhaps nothing, perhaps everything. Tonight, I am too sad to give you an academic answer to that question. But I do have a few questions for you and for the Church.
\n1.\tIs it possible to fix what you will not face?
\n2.\tDo you believe that silence means complicity?
\n3.\tHow do we hold people accountable for wrongdoings and still believe that transformation is possible?
\n4.\tCan hope and fear occupy the same space?<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to answer any of these, but it was on my heart to ask. What I do know is that if there is a chance to fix the brokenness that is in the hearts of people, it is the Church\u2019s role to do so. A soundbite in the sermon and a hashtag on the social media page is not a solution. I think about my NPO which is to examine the sociological factors impacting Black women leading in White religious spaces and I know that my work will focus on finding ways to make these spaces safe, creating tools to transform age old traditions and views. I want to believe that this can be done through my work, through our work. Perhaps we are the hero in this story. I am feeling pretty defeated tonight but the fighter in me will not allow me to stay in this emotional state for long. I am, by design, solution oriented. I am finding some promise in the words of Alice Walker, \u201cwe are the one we have been waiting for\u201d, transformation begins with us my dear Loved Ones. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hero With A Thousand Faces is a book about discovering ourselves through myths and stories. It was my intention to complete the reading and the blog a week ahead to give myself time to pay greater attention to the posts of my cohort. I have discovered that writing on Thursday does not allow me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[2530,2563,789],"class_list":["post-30573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dglp02","tag-tyrenichols","tag-campbell","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30576,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30573\/revisions\/30576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}