After 18 months of racial equity training, of ministering outside of the Glynn County courthouse as the totality of the trial for the killing of Ahmaud Arbery unfolded, and of several hosted equity dinners, I found myself quite lost at Thanksgiving. I sat at a friend’s table, surrounded by only White people for the first time in a while. They wanted to celebrate the trial win. In the narrative-arc of racial justice, guilty in 24 out of 27 counts in the death of a Black man by three White men was a clear victory. This trial was a referendum on how much racism we tolerate.
Time and again outside the courtroom the response has been “not this much.” The verdict affirmed that.
But, in the narrative arc of the people here, people with whom I have spoken, prayed and cried, there is no vindication. A loving, young man is dead. Three more people will be imprisoned at length. The families of each are rent, never to be fully repaired or restored. We grieve for all of them. We pray for all of them, for all of us.
While we have seen these stories before, we are the first community to have maintained order, even peace, throughout the challenges of this ordeal. We are the first to have been prepared for any outcome. And we’re the first to face what is next, for there is much still to do.
When people ask, what’s next, they are really asking, is it possible to right the wrongs of hundreds of years of oppression? Will you be the ones? The simple question hides a courageous hope that perhaps we will say yes.
Jewishly, rituals help transverse the liminal space of next in our lives. Where there is death, we commune, share food and stories about the departed. It is called sitting shiva. My experience outside the courthouse was an extended version of this particular mourning ritual, full of beautiful moments of laughter as well as tears.
However, where there is damage in a relationship like there is here amongst so many, it is more complicated. We have tomes on t’shuvah, or repentance. The day of Yom Kippur and a daily prayer called tachanun are dedicated to mending mistakes. It’s a sentiment I have heard repeated in these few days since the trial: Now the healing can begin. I wonder, if we move too quickly to healing, will we miss the precious and essential work of change? T’shuvah literally means turning; steering the wheel of destiny in a new direction for a different future.
If we avoid the discomfort of this time, if we turn back to what was, we will not have made good on the prayer many have whispered repeatedly; please God, do not let this happen again.
We are all responsible for the death of Ahmaud Arbery. This community watched him bleed in the street without so much as comforting him or holding his hand as life left him. While you or I may not have stood idly by, we allowed this to be the world in which we live.
I knew. I knew Black people and white people are treated differently here, live differently here. And it was my privilege as a White-presenting person which allowed me the comfort of rest instead of standing in the streets calling for justice to save a life, many lives.
I have colleagues here whose anti-racism cost them their jobs. When we think about “next” there are risks people with privilege take when standing up. A visiting Black pastor friend pointed out, “People face losing their jobs, their livelihoods”. To which I replied, “Yes, and your people are dying. Shouldn’t that risk be worth taking?” There is no answer for him to offer. And as one whose privilege is tempered by being Jewish and female, I do not feel White enough to dare convince anyone of my own conclusions.
Whether change can come depends … on all of us. Not just us in Glynn County, but the national and global “us.” We have the tools to turn down a different path where skin color and zip code do not determine one’s future. We know from inclusion expert and Netflix VP Verna Myers to imagine successful, lauded members from a particular group as an antidote to the pull of bias. We know from Arthur Brooks to love our enemies, because indeed, we have become enemies in places between privilege and lack, by committing acts of love; to do nice things for people regardless of how you feel about them. We know from author Resmaa Menakem that it will take seven or eight generations and we best get going if we are to be excellent ancestors to not-yet-extant generations.
And we must know this: We will fail in ways big and small. While the dominant cultural norm says failure is bad, in our deepest places of knowing, we all live lives made better by the dignity, grit and grace with which we get back up time and again. The more we embrace falling down, the more adept we are at getting up. And now is a time for getting up.
Another Black pastor friend says, “we need to move beyond sweet tea and lemonade,” beyond nice into difficult, messy. Many have stood at this precipice. Successes depend on a willingness to know another’s pain. Attempts to heal without first acknowledging and holding the wounds we cause and the wounds we endure are destined to fail. As James Baldwin wrote, “You cannot lynch me and keep me in ghettos without becoming something monstrous yourselves ... . Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
As we are asked what’s next, the answer depends on the willingness of those with any privilege to be uncomfortable, to take responsibility. Will we be the ones to turn the tide?
We have the opportunity.
Presently, we seem to have the will. Because here, we know not only about the win in the long arc of justice, but also about the loss of life, of the shame of knowing our own inhumanity and the guilt of resting while our community’s children are dying.
Time will tell if we are willing to face who we are, what we have and have not done, as well as what we have become to get to what’s next.
Rachael M. Bregman is the Berman Family Rabbinate Rabbi of Temple Beth Tefilloh in Brunswick.
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