But What if I Say the Wrong Thing?

Photo by Mahdi Mahmoodi on Unsplash

This week's newsletter is a personal reflection. There are two things that came home to me strongly this week: Bridge building is risky. And it's vital that we do it anyway.

Despite the Danger, Build the Bridge

Last week, I sent out a newsletter about a musical I wished existed. It’s a great story about an act of kindness by a black woman toward a white supremacist that helped set the white supremacist on the path to change and forgiveness. And I waded in with both feet, outlining how such a story could be turned into a musical, complete with some ideas for songs.

Of all the feedback I got, the comment that struck me the hardest was “make sure you get some sensitivity readers”. It's a valid warning, and I got worried. I reread my brief outline and saw a number of things that could come across in a way I didn’t intend them, and I had already sent it out. I reached out to a black reader and asked him to please tell me what needed to change. He gave me some great ideas for treating the story more effectively (I hope to update my blogpost on it soon) advised me that songs like “We Shall Overcome” have a very specific context and should not be overused, and reassured me that I hadn’t stepped onto any landmines. Phew!

All of this got me thinking about the messiness of efforts to bridge racial divides, both in the arts and elsewhere. Then, on Monday, I went to a presentation by Jerry First Charger about our upcoming National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which is a new statutory holiday here in Canada. It’s supposed to put the need for reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and the descendants of white settlers onto our radar. But we need a whole lot more than a stat holiday to reconcile our peoples. And from where I sit, it looks like most people of good will are so daunted by what they don’t know about cross-cultural dialogue, and so anxious to avoid giving offense, that they stand back and observe. This leaves people who are angry (and probably afraid) to dominate the conversation.

My big takeaway from Jerry’s presentation was that we need to refuse to be divided into factions. It's when we forget to see others as ourselves that pernicious doers manage to get away with evil. So, that means that we need to brave the messiness of those conversations that don’t have a roadmap, because it’s the only way to the Beloved Community. And the alternative is division, social fragmentation, and the eventual destruction of freedoms and our ideals.

So, if you’re one of those people who stand on the edge, wanting to build peace and afraid to step into that space because what if you wind up doing more harm than good, this week’s newsletter is for you. I just want to tell a couple stories that I’m hoping will give you courage.

The first one has nothing to do with the arts. It’s about Freddy’s Drop-In, for people who are homeless and/or hungry around Cardston, Alberta. Local demographics are such that our patrons are mostly Indigenous. Thanks to some beautiful friends who gave me courage to step outside my comfort zone, I’ve been volunteering there on a weekly basis for about two years.

One of our most faithful volunteers is a 20ish young man on a service mission for his church. He accepted an assignment to help out at Freddy’s and had been serving meals there with a warm smile every Monday for several months. I was taken aback when he asked if he was doing any good. We assured him that he was, but he felt disconnected. Our director invited him to get out from behind the serving table, sit with our patrons and talk with them or play a card game.

His politics were conservative, he was a farm boy, and he was afraid he might burn bridges by saying the wrong thing.

She told him to forget about that. Our patrons are very forgiving and they are a lot more concerned about what’s in our hearts than the words that are coming out of our mouths.

So, the next week, he got out from behind the table and started talking with the people. And everything changed. Our patrons became his friends. Now, he comes back every week for the people, not the assignment. He went to a powow on the Kainai Reserve and loved it. He wants to figure out how to get his family to come and see.

Now, for a more personal story. The first time I wrote songs for a musical about Peter Pan, I was intent on telling a tale that gave my kids courage to grow up and that gave people like me power to rise above codependency. I was also completely clued out about the plight of my Indigenous neighbours, and the song I wrote to introduce our “Indians” was so deeply entrenched in racial distortions that I still blush to think of it. I cringe to admit it, but I actually told myself at the time that there wasn’t any harm in those lyrics; they were “in good fun,“ just not “politically correct.”

A couple years later, I was asked to restage the production. But I’d gotten involved in some cultural bridge-building in the meantime and I’d learned enough that it changed my entire perspective. Now, I wanted our depiction of Neverland’s Indigenous people to be sensitive. I worked hard on new lyrics for that introductory song:

“We’re the people of the forest and we sing the river’s song

And if you really saw us, there’s a chance we’d get along.

But all you see are savages that haunt you dusk till dawn.

So we’ll continue fighting till the last of us is gone.”

I asked an Indigenous associate to be my sensitivity reader. He was very gracious and carefully suggested to me that “the people of the forest” gave the impression that Indigenous people have a designated place: the forest. But the Blackfoot are of the plain and there are Indigenous peoples of every type of land.

It took me awhile before I was really able to hear him. I told myself that my play was about Neverland, and the Indigenous people of Neverland lived in the forest, so there was no sense in which I was saying that Indigenous people generally belonged to the forest.. But his concern kept working on me until I found myself playing with new wording. It was when I ran that by a white friend that I realized the lyrics really were conveying something about lands outside of Neverland. She said, “People of the land? But, what about us?”​

It was a few years after that second production that my daughter and I got serious about using theatre to build community with our Indigenous neighbours. For that, we didn’t just need a sensitivity reader; we needed collaborators. The first key person we were introduced to was educator and playwright Ramona Bighead, who brought composer Olivia Tailfeathers and playwright Carl Brave Rock on board.

Ramona went through every lyric, every line of the script, and all of our music and let us know what needed to change. I still remember her reaction to my lyrics introducing the Indigenous characters. “Savages that haunt you dusk till dawn?” Her eyebrows went way up.

I tried to explain that the song wasn’t calling them that. It was saying that other people saw them that way.

She said, “I’m really tired of that word.”

Then the part about “till the last of us is gone” hit a really raw nerve. She talked to me about the “vanishing Indian” trope that portrays Indigenous people as disappearing, either by death or by assimilation.

Yikes! And I’d thought I was being sensitive!

The beautiful thing is that Ramona saw past my awkwardness, my unconscious biases and my ignorance. She saw my intentions and she was willing to step into messy space, share her wisdom, and work with me where I was. The final lyric for that introduction wound up like this:​

“We are of the sacred circle and we’re rising with the dawn.

We dance across the seasons and we sing the river’s song.

Our men are fearsome warriors; do not treat our people wrong.

But Harmony is medicine and that’s what makes us strong.”​

That production was life-changing for many people. Especially me.

So, the point of my stories: I don’t think there is a smooth, offence-free or face-saving way to get from where we are to Beloved Community. It’s messy work that demands honesty, patience (with ourselves and each other), courage and a ton of humility. But oh, it’s worth it! And when love is our intention, the people we are trying to reach out to know it, and they reach back.

Also, sensitivity consultants are helpful. Collaboration can be life changing. And we need to start where we are.

I am deeply grateful for the people who loved me where I was enough to help me get to where I am, and who love me where I am enough to help me rise to where I want to be. Thanks for being on this journey with me!

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See you next week!