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The premise of the movie is that Howell's character is a college student who pretends to be black by taking tanning pills and wearing a wig in order to access a Harvard law school scholarship meant for black applicants only. He wins the scholarship and much silliness occurs. He meets and consequentially falls in love with Chong's character who was SUPPOSED to get the scholarship money. Long story short, he gets caught and the dean of Harvard law (James Earl Jones), after much grilling, allows him to stay in school.
"You've learned", he says. "You've learned what it feels like to be black."
"With all due respect you're wrong, sir" Howell's character answered. "If I couldn't take it, I could always get out."
"You've learned a great deal more than I thought."
This is how I felt today. I have a SILENCE IS BETRAYAL t-shirt that I was wearing for the 1st time today. Doesn't even explicitly say BLACK LIVES MATTER or address the movement as a whole. But that is the reason I bought it; my silence in the matter of race relations - particularly in this bright red dot in a blue state - IS a betrayal. Not only my own beliefs and what I know to be right and just, but to millions of my fellow citizens who are treated as 2nd class; in the economy, in the criminal justice system, the penal system, politics, culture, by the race of which I am a part.
I FELT That privilege, maybe consciously for the first time, wearing that shirt out and about today. I got some looks, got some mumbled comments about it (my paranoid mind may have imagined this, but I don't think so). After running a couple of errands, the urge to stop home and change my shirt was almost overwhelming.
I can ALWAYS get out...
And that thought changed everything. I wore it for the rest of my errands and made sure my bandanna did not block the message. Bottom line; POC cannot go changing their skin any time they feel put upon for the shade of it. The ABSOLUTE least I can do is offer a few brief moments of discomfort, some tiny shred of solidarity. To remind myself that is unjust that "I can always get out" while a huge segment of our country's population deal with immoral consequences because they cannot.
So I'm learning. Maybe not a great deal yet, and certainly not as quickly as I would like. But learning all the same. And I refuse to stop.
Black Lives Matter.
Solemnity of St. Thomas the Apostle
Daily Mass Readings
Ephesians 2:19-22
Psalms 117:1bc, 2
John 20:24-29