No Somos Iguales (We are not equal)
Ash Wednesday: 17 February 2021
Sitting shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm, the student and the young child turned to each other, and the lesson began, albeit unwittingly.
During my first year living in the Dominican Republic, I led a weekly reflection group for college students, as part of my job with Creighton University’s semester abroad program there. Most of the students were from Nebraska, and not only was this their first experience outside the U.S., it was their first time getting to know, in a genuine way, people who were not white, English-speaking, and middle-class.
At some point mid-semester, one student shared an encounter she’d had with a young girl in a batey— a Haitian-Dominican community systematically marginalized in the manner of a Brazilian favela or a South African township. The group’s purpose was spiritual, but I encouraged them to bring the real stuff of their everyday experience to our circle, as honestly and vulnerably they could, and let that guide all of us in our prayer and our community living experience that semester. Often, there were tears, and this particular student had that gift. But tonight she spoke with the hushed, flat tone of having had her wind knocked out.
As she related it, she was sitting with one of her favorite children, a girl of eight or nine. As other children had also done frequently to me, fascinated by my somewhat shaggy arm hair, the girl brushed her fingers back and forth over the student’s forearm. Her own hair was much less prominent than mine, but still felt smooth, the child said, as she continued back and forth.
As it happened, the student also had a cut on her arm, maybe her elbow, for some reason I can’t remember. Like almost every child I’d met in that community, this girl lacked adequate nutrition, housing, and sanitation. She was barefoot, and her feet bore several scabs in various stages of healing, or worsening, part of the price kids there pay just simply to run around and play.
The student sensed an opening, and admirably, tried to draw attention to the similarity of her scab, and the child’s. La sangre es la misma, she said, putting her Spanish to work. Somos iguales. The blood is the same, she said— meaning they both had red blood. We are equal.
No, the girl said, gently placing her arm diagonally atop the student’s, then pointing to each with the patience of a veteran teacher. In an instant, the student related to us, she got it, and felt herself redden, embarrassed at her own blindness. Her arm not only had hair; it was Midwest plump and pale white, especially compared to the girl’s, which was thin with very dark skin.
No, the girl repeated, this time shaking her head. No somos iguales.
Not at all.
That was more than twenty years ago. And I can’t think of another year since that time in which we’ve seen this scene play itself out, on a global scale, more so than in 2020. In no other year in recent memory have we had quite the same opportunity not only to see, but experience, these two arms, side by side, even entwined, similar in some basic ways yet radically different in many crucial particulars, because of accidents of birth and intentions of injustice. Those of us with the fatter, whiter arms, have too often been lying to ourselves the past eleven months, since the pandemic began its chokehold on our human family, denying that that little girl’s arm is any different than our own, content to sing platitudes about how “we’re all in this together” but in reality not doing a damn thing, or very little, to put that into practice in any significant, sacrificial way, and even undermining it, mocking it, by hoarding and hunkering and “taking care of me and my own.” Our sense of self, and of “my own,” speaks to the fundamental problem.
I’ve been following the news of the Covid-19 vaccines’ rollout rather compulsively, in spite of myself. I thought that, since a new and much more sane, administration entered the White House (the sensation of being taken on a joyride by a raging-drunk, myopic fool is finally fading), I’d quickly adopt a more contemplative relationship with the news. Alas, I find myself still pulled into the headlines first thing in the morning, as if I’d walked by a meat grinder and accidentally snagged the drawstring of my hoodie. (I’ve been meaning to remove the dang thing anyway.) Now, rather than trying to temper my outrage at the latest tweet or detonation of a progressive achievement— or, in the case of the Capitol insurrection, the latest victory of nihilism— I search for any hope of healing and transformation, while keenly aware that the damage, like an oil tanker that has cut its engines but still glides on momentum, will continue for some time.
In story after story, day after day, it’s the same: No, no somos iguales. Oh no, we are not equal.
We know this, if we are honest, if we’re paying attention. We’ve been squandering, right from the get-go, one of the precious golden opportunities this pandemic, for all the heart-shuddering suffering it has created, has offered us. The chance to realize, in our very flesh and blood, that we are all One Body, that we all breathe the same air, and our hope of emerging from this pandemic—frankly, of surviving it— depends less upon vaccines or relief packages, than upon how well, human to human and country to country, we take care of each other, all of us.
The evidence so far is a gut-shot, and too few seem willing to scrutinize it, or to do much that might inconvenience them in order to help mop up the blood, and bandage the wounds. Rampant defiance of simple, unobtrusive, common sense public health mandates and recommendations, on individual, group, and corporate levels, fueled by greed (hello, NFL and NCAA) and conspiracy theories (the DdT-Limbaugh cabal). Unremitting selfishness masquerading as patriotic political martyrdom (“I’m going maskless to save my freedom— and yours! And if I get sick and die, that will show everyone how terrible Obamacare is!”). Unbridled capitalist dog fights between nations at the doors of the pharmaceutical giants, and then secret backroom deals giving sweetheart vaccine prices to the rich victors while poker-skewering the vanquished poor. Vaccine line jumping by the most privileged and savvy. Judgment with neither real understanding, nor significant and just action— of teachers and other, even lower-paid, essential workers who don’t “step up,” especially by the most privileged and least likely to themselves work high-risk jobs. Disproportionate infection and death rates among the most vulnerable populations— the very people who, in disproportionate numbers, stock the groceries, drive the buses, haul the garbage, and, in disproportionate numbers, fear going back to school or work, or even the grocery store or church, and fear the vaccines that might— if they had access to the damn things— might help, but who do not show up to offer their arms to the needles because, in disproportionate numbers, they’ve been told lies about such “helps” before (y’all remember Tuskegee?) by the very governments buying, and corporations getting obscenely rich selling, the message.
The Body, it’s heart-shatteringly clear, is very broken.
How can we— how will we— heal? I don’t know. What’s the path forward in our families, communities, and most importantly, our world? Not sure. But I suspect that if we reflect upon this one child, who so tenderly and unequivocally pointed out the obvious, we may find our first steps.
To se this child, to put our own arm— of whatever color, size, and degree of privilege— beside hers, we have to get close. Yes, physical proximity can be dangerous now for some of us, but not for all of us, especially if we’re willing to spend the extra time (and even money) to take the necessary precautions. In these encounters, when we get close enough to see, listen, and feel, we try to receive prayerfully what we experience, at whatever distance is safe for us, and in the times in between, to think creatively about how to close that distance more. And why it’s there in the first place. (A quick clue: it may have something, if not everything, to do with inequality.) In my case, I need to get back to volunteering at the food bank, where I meet those in my neighborhood who don’t have enough to eat, and see them bundled in frayed clothing as they endure the long line (with its own travails and risks) or hear them say hello when my son and I leave a bag at their door those weeks we make home deliveries. Or when I hear or see nothing during those drop-offs, the family behind the door either too busy to answer, or too embarrassed. I need to stop telling myself I don’t have time, and can’t take the risk, and simply schedule the time on my precious calendar, don a second mask, and show up with a spirit of gratitude and availability. I may not be hungry now, but many people are.
Second, like that student, we need to be humble and courageous enough to tell ourselves the truth about these encounters, or the lack thereof, and the truth about the widening separation happening (if we continue to do too little) in our communities, countries, and global family. Yes, we are all children of God, but we’ve done a pathetic job, as a whole, of treating each other as such. Not all these children have a seat at the table— hell, not all of them have a seat in the room, or are even being recognized as human. And not all of this happens overtly, either: the unrelenting US-centric coverage by the mainstream media right now— in which it’s simply assumed that any subject within a pandemic headline or story (e.g., infections, deaths, lives, jobs) is defined, were they to bother to attach the adjective, as “American,” (as if people in the other countries in the North, Central, and South Americas are not also Americans), and every mention of “our,” “us,” or “we,” comes with those same, implicit geographical parameters. I wish I was above it, but I have found myself, when reading about the latest infection or vaccination rates, skimming first to my local county, rather than looking at the global picture first.
Third, we need to cleanse the temple, as Jesus famously did. This story, recounted in all four Gospels, seems largely misunderstood, either manipulated by violent egoists seeking “holy” justification for their very unholy ends, dismissed as an aberration by pedantic ivory-cathedral dwellers, or assiduously avoided by just about everyone else, because the paradox— seeing this destructive rage burst forth from history’s most merciful human— is simply too much for us to handle.
It feels important to notice why and how Jesus did this— for what purposes, and with what spirit. He did use blunt instruments— biting words and (as related in John 2) a multi-corded whip he braided on the spot— but only because he sought to cleanse, to clear out, and thus make room for something else, namely God’s love and God’s justice. Such sharpness and force were needed because of the sheer size of the market for sacrificial animals, the strength of its monetary leverage, the deep and embedded nature of the corruption that created and sustained such a system, which in one fell plunge of the knife, simultaneously killed innocent animals, gouged the common man (and his family), and enriched and deified the religious elite. Jesus’ teachings always took dual form, words and actions, and these always danced with each other, to teach us to do the same. Some dances were very tender, or joyful; this one was a frenzy, a slam, a Russian kazotsky or Bronx break dance. But in every case, the dances outraged the most privileged and comfortable, and they were always filled with, practically bursting with, love.
For me, if not for all of us in the reflection circle that night years ago, the young girl tenderly danced her way into our hearts through this student’s story, and cleaned them out. None of us could continue to believe, if we had before, that lovely little white lie that white people tell ourselves and each other, “I don’t see color.” Wake up. No somos iguales, that girl told us. I see color, and don’t tell me you don’t, or that there’s anyone who doesn’t. If we don’t see color, then why are things the way they are? Why am I in this god-forsaken slum, practically naked and starving, and you have all the food and clothing and education you could ever want? Tell me, do you see color now— and do you see how our powers and principalities see it? And… what are you going to do about it?
The world is most certainly seeing color right now, and continuing to make choices that perpetuate and deepen inequality. So, as the girl asks us: What is our response? How might we enter into this Lent as a way to start creating a new story— a new way of seeing, and responding? How might we see the ashes of all that has been destroyed— from jobs and health and lives lost, to forests burned and oceans polluted— as compost for growing something new, watered with humility, shined upon by compassion?
What if we could imagine that our capacity to survive this pandemic, individually and collectively, depended less upon vaccines and government relief packages, and more upon treating each other and our planet as if we were all part of One Body? And what if we could put that into practice, individually and collectively?
At this point, based upon what I know, I would sign up for a Covid-19 vaccination. I’m not suggesting otherwise. But it would be a mistake to think that being inoculated against Covid-19 can restore me, or any of us, back to “normal.” That “normal” was destructive in some fundamental ways for the majority of our planet’s people, and for Mother Earth herself. The most privileged are finally getting a clue about this, finally hearing the music of the dance.
Will we join the dance, take each others’ hands, link arms of all colors? Will we take the small, courageous actions that can lead to changed hearts and just systems, the kind Jesus and the prophets constantly challenged us to imagine and create, and gave their lives struggling for? How highly will we prioritize the most vulnerable, and those caring for, feeding, and educating them, as the virus is teaching us to do, beyond the vaccination queues, in the new “normal” we have the opportunity to create together? And how deep of a commitment will we make, each of us, now that we’re crystal-clear that we all breathe the same air, to living as if we are actually one Body, one Family?
Time will tell. I pray to do my little part, and to get back into the dance whenever I inevitably stumble. I have faith that, when I find myself down-on-the-ground discouraged or despondent, I’ll look up and see that girl, see her arm and her opened hand reaching down to mine with as much forgiving freedom as Jesus had for Peter. I pray that I’ll lift my own hand to seek hers.