Threads connect

 

In the wake of George Floyd's murder and #yousilenceweamplify in our Cape Town former model C and private schools, a group of us embarked on this deep dive into racism in our context and how to be people who fight against it both within ourselves and systemically too. 

The popular word for this is antiracist. 

We called ourselves The Meeting Room. 

For the last 5 years , we have been meeting together to talk, share, read, visit and be a community of women who love Jesus and love justice. 

For the first 2 years or so , we read Sharlene Swartz's , Another Country. This book was pivotal in setting the context of South Africa today within the history of our country too.  My friend Hayley and I facilitated this group and for these few years we ran monthly workshops linked to themes that the book sparked. We visited museums and restaurant's as well as invited guest speakers to run workshops too. This was designed to be a safe and precious brave space and has landed up being a community f women who encourage one another to keep going.  

There are many things I love about this group. One of them is their commitment to the process. This was NO small thing. We had some very difficult unlearnings to have and then we need ed to build a new way of seeing . In the beginning this was incredibly delicate and painful. I am in awe of these women. They kept showing up and kept  reading. They sat through the difficult truths and realisations. They kept on coming back. And slowly, change happened. We all grew in the understanding of our racist thinking and we all continued to unpick and unpack. It was rich and beautiful and reflected something of the work that could have been in many church spaces. We did it. I am super proud of this work and of these wonderful women. They are each a true hero. 

The space has changed and grown and we continue to meet and are reading some new books together. Conversations keep us going and challenged and include, often times the wider white supremacist framing world wide.  Looking back at some of the ideas we all held and how we have changed our minds n so many of these, I am really left feeling deeply privileged at this journey together. 

The difficult parts and times included some of the push back we received from christians. Go figure? If you spend any time with black people both in and out the church and listen with openness you will quickly see that this antiracist work is essential. It is fundamental. It is necessary. Claiming unity that does not exist and diversity that is full of token representation while whiteness lives on is blind, dishonest and dangerous. Rainbowism and "Christian unity" are cut from the same cloth. These are hopeful ideals for a future. I long for these too but they are simply NOT the present reality. They just are not. 

The Meeting Room recorded two or three seasons of a podcast by the same name. Check these out for some honest reflections in the post apartheid SA context.