Hidden Things

 

Dad 

Since Father's Day, I have had my dad, Thomas Jackson Draper, aka "Jack" on my mind. I was an unabashed "Daddy's Girl" and  loved spending time with him anywhere and for any reason. Many is the time I crawled up in his Chevy pickup and rode with him  - to the farm, to the gin, to  the shop - everywhere. The cab of his truck was peppered with tools, and a distinct oily smell. It was heaven. 

By training, Dad was an NCSU mechanicall engineer. Lifewise, he ultimately chose to be a farmer. He loved being his own boss and tending to my mom's fields of corn, cotton, soybeans, and peanuts. He was a wicked mechanic and had a true aptitude for fixing anything with a motor. He was happiest when he was elbow deep a motor. I credit my mini-bike to his desire to built one himself! 

His hands were quick and sure and remembering him put me in mind of a the strange little bump  he had on the side of his index finger. As a very young girl I can remember holding his hand and examining it closely. (He probably allowed me this to keep me quiet in church.) The knot was small and hard and jutted out oddly. It didn't hurt my Dad and he didn't often give it a thought. 

In his later years (which I realize means when he was about the age I am now) the knot got bigger - it remained hard, but not discolored like other skin abberations. Finally, at the urging of my RN sister, he went it to his family doctor to have it removed. 

After the mystery knot's removal, and it's accompanying stitch Dad had quite a tale to tell. The doctor was as surprised as he was when an incision into my dad's finger revealed to the astonishment of all - - a tooth! Indeed, the small knot was a specific type of tooth - that of a baracuda! 

Dad reached into his memories and dusted off a story from his teenaged years. While visiting family in Florida he went fishing - caught a barracuda - and received a bloody bite for his trouble. His folks took him to the local doc, who cleaned off the wound and stitched it up. The working, and likely theory, is that a tooth broke off deeply in the wound. It took years, but it finally worked its way out. 

It occured to me that sin can be just like that tooth. Buried deep inside where we can go about our day to day business, completely ignoring it. Some sins are visible - overeating, overdrinking, overspending, but many, many are hidden away: pride, hatred, resentment, selfishness, greed, cruelty, classism to name a few. Only by taking a moment to actually identify and acknowledge these "invisible sins" can we begin to be free of them. 

And this year - of all years - I invite you to call into the light the little sin known as racism. Because it is embedded deeply in the American psyche and desperately needs to be called into the light. 

I was one of those people - those people who said "I don't see color!" and with one santimonious comment denied the deep roots of racism that are as much a part of life in the South as the sandy soil that raised me. I was blessed to have parents who did have black friends, and was raised to extend every kindness and courtesy to people both black and white. But despite how enlightened I thought I was,  I completely ignored the fact that systemic racism exists. Which - and here all caps are necessarry - MEANS NOT THAT I HAD A LEG  UP SO MUCH AS I WAS NOT BESET WITH BARRIERS THAT KEPT ME FROM SUCCEEEDING.  

The death of George Floyd made a giant impact on our country and I will tell you it made a giant impact on my heart. Because I saw, and you saw, a white police officer kill a black man in front of our very eyes. This absolute horror drove me into books, into studies in my church, community, and with friends. It drove me to listen to my black friends (with my own mouth closed) to hear how race has affected their lives and the lives of their forebears. How things I have never even considered affect their lives daily. 

Not only have I reached for religous books (most noteably our church study The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone) and contemporary titles (How to Be Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and White Fragility:Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo) but I am now just beginning to dig into different historical tones. My complete lack of knowledge of so many of the struggles of Black Americans has left me ashamed and astonished. I have just started reading Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremecy by David Zucchino, This book won the Pulitzer Prize and rightly so. The fact that I heard so much about the Nat Turner Insurrection but never ONE WORD about Wilmington, is a telling observation of what it means to grow up white in the South. 

Yes, this is painful to admit, especially in a public forum. But as Maya Angelou so wisely said "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." I'm taking that quote seriously and inviting you to inventory your preconceptions and biases honestly, to read and most importantly listen.  Work at incising the racism that hides deep inside and dedicate yourself to making this a country where equality is a reality.