Race Literacy Lunch and Learn

NOTE: What follows is Part II of my conversation with Milagros Phillips. 1 You can watch the entire conversation on Milagros’ YouTube channel. I urge you to subscribe to “Race Healer TV” on YouTube. Milagros is wonderful. … And to my shock – I did not go into this writing process of that conversation expecting this – He [Charley] ends up apologizing to me. Now, what that apology exactly meant is a little bit hard for me to get my brain around even now, even though I’m the one that experienced it and wrote it. And, I didn’t expect to say back to him, “I forgive you,” but I did. And, I think I was forgiving him for the trauma he had contributed for me. That is how I interpret that. I don’t think I have the power or right to forgive him for anything he did in terms of harm to People of Color. But I do think that the harms from the story that I carry in my body to this day – that I’m still trying to sort through and heal from – is a story that I have the power to forgive him for his part in that. So that’s what I think happened. Yeah. MILAGROS: Yeah. Yeah. No, that really powerful. And I want to bring up some things because this is “Race Literacy Lunch and Learn,” is about the things we learn as we go through the process. And I want us to talk a little bit about what we’ve heard so far and look at it from the perspective of what we know because there were some things that Steve just shared that I think are so crucial to what we’ve been talking about in this group for quite a while. And one of the things that he mentioned was the Knights of the Golden Circle and their thing was to maintain perpetual slavery. Where does that come from? From the things we’ve learned. Remember, we’ve learned all this stuff, right? [MICHELLE]: Doctrine of discovery? MILAGROS: Yeah. Doctrine of discovery. Absolutely. That’s the doctrine of discovery. And in fact I’m working on a piece that takes people through the arc from before the doctrine – that brought about the doctrine – right through to how the various laws are coded and culminates in the withering or “wuthering” as some people call it of Black women in their bodies. And so that’s great. Thank you for remembering that. So the other thing that that really stood out for me, as someone who hasn’t had a lot of access to my own history, was Steve’s access to his history. How much access he had to his own history. And also Steve, I want to commend you for your openness about having that history in your body, because I keep saying that to people – that history lives in our bodies, regardless of where we are in our journey. And it’s not just the bigger history of our collective history. There’s also the family history that lives within our bodies. So, having an awareness of that and the need to heal that I think is really powerful. What else stood out to you? And we’re gonna go back to continue the conversation with Steve, but I just want to acknowledge where the group is and what you’re hearing and what’s coming up for you as you listen. ELLEN: What I notice is not as much the details, but some of this sounds so familiar from stuff I’ve been hearing in the last couple years in political rhetoric. This, “we belong, we’re in charge, we want it to always be that way. These are the right people.” And it’s I think several presidents ago I would have thought that we had made progress. No, no, it’s so much there. MILAGROS: Yeah. So, one of the things, as I went back into some of that history and I was looking at the history prior to the doctrine, which was the same stuff that you’re seeing today, except it was being done specifically to Europeans. And then that traumatized group of people – remember, traumatized people traumatize others – went around the world traumatizing the rest of the world. And, our white family members need to own that piece of the history because you can’t heal what you won’t acknowledge. And so part of it is understanding that that history lives in your body. That’s why you can still be manipulated the way that you’re being manipulated right now. Because the history is still there. It hasn’t been dealt with. It hasn’t been looked at. It hasn’t even been acknowledged. The other piece, along with the perpetual slavery, was the awareness of and the facing of white violence upon the world. When Steve said he talked to his third great-grandfather about his behavior being the same as the KKK and him going “yeah, I guess so.” It’s that domestic terrorism and calling it by its proper name. Not giving it these Hollywoodized romanticized stuff that keeps people stuck in the dysfunction. Like you need to call it for what it is. Because when you call it for what it is, then you’re really looking at the truth. I’m going tell you right now, I’ve said this a hundred or maybe a million times. You can’t heal on a lie. That’s just not going to happen. You need the truth if you’re going to heal. Because when you’re lied to, and you accept that as your reality, eventually you find out the truth. Well, now you got two things to heal. You got the lie and the original problem which is still there, right? Does that make sense? And so being able to give people truth to heal with is so compassionate. It is so compassionate because we can’t heal without it. Other comments, questions? Anybody have questions for Steve before we continue the conversation? ANNA: Hi. First of all, Steve, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. STEVE: Oh, thank you for having me. ANNA: And sharing your life and which is obviously you’re highly vulnerable and and willing to do that. And it’s extraordinary. I mean you’re living proof of what Milagros has been teaching us. But you feel it in your body. And I’m beginning to, and learning about it. But you’re so much more ahead of me. And it’s extraordinary to witness you. And so I thank you for your presentation, and I thank you for being you. And for being able to face the truth and to be able to spread the truth. So thank you. MILAGROS: Thank you Anna. Indeed. Second. The other thing that is is so powerful for me as I listen to Steve is his willingness to acknowledge that the history is written within himself. That the history is living there. And then going in and retrieving that history. And we talk about that in our women’s group on Tuesday nights all the time. It’s like, yeah, it’s all there. Just go in. Go in and get it, right? Including the ability to heal and to transform. And so, I want us to go back. I want to go back. Steve, so how did you end that conversation? How did that come to an end? And then tell us more about some of the other conversations that you’ve had. STEVE: Yeah, that particular conversation essentially ended with the forgiveness statement and then goodbyes to everybody. And then I was left feeling very strongly in my body, what did all that mean and what’s happening here? That was something that I continue to sort through today. But I spent a couple of weeks, I think, where that was really at the front of my mind – how to process all that. But I continued and wrote, like I said, I wrote six different conversations in the manuscript. MILAGROS: Yeah. Tell us about another conversation that you had that might be either linked to this conversation or a little bit different. STEVE: Chronologically the next one – and I think I wrote it next too – was with both Lyman Russell, who is the son of Charley and Emeline, and Lyman’s niece – it all gets confusing and on a family tree basis – but she was she was my grandmother’s aunt. So, she was my great great aunt and he was my third great uncle or my great great grand uncle. And I met them at at Lyman’s home in Comanche, Texas which is sort of the middle of central Texas. It was 1932 and at that point Lyman was an old man. He was 82 years old. And I believe that Alice, my great great aunt, was like 42 or something like that. And she was a school teacher in San Antonio and he was a lawyer, and a newspaper publisher, and a genealogist, among lots of other things. But he was 82 years old at the time I spoke with him. And the thing that hit me about that one was that I ended up asking Lyman, who was a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which was a heritage organization was the brother organization of the United Daughters of the Confederacy which still is a powerful organization today. MILAGROS: They have a beautiful building in downtown DC. STEVE: Yeah. And, still responsible for spreading Confederate heritage. And he was proud of his father. He was proud of his father’s involvement in the Confederacy. And he even had a piece of masthead, a letterhead that had his picture in the middle, and he was a lifetime adult member of the – my brain’s not functioning – a big brotherhood organization the the Knights of the … [Note: I forgot the name of the Freemasons]. He had all these social clubs and affiliations on his letterhead. And one of them was “son of a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle,” and Sons of Confederate Veterans, and all these different orders of [Freemasons]. And I asked him whether he could imagine himself today in the position of a Black person – and I called them “Negro,” because that’s what he would have called them if he was being nice. And he said, “My imagination’s better than you can imagine.” And so I asked him, “Well, how would you feel as a Black person, as a Negro, if you were at a dedication ceremony for a Confederate statue?” And he thought for a long time. And he sort of bowed his head, and he took a long time thinking about it. And he finally said “I would not feel good about that.” And so I pressed him. And I said, “why?” And he thought again. Well he complained, first of all, about me asking a follow-up question. And then he thought again for a long time. And he dug deep. And he ended up saying, “if I were a Negro, then the Confederacy would stand for slavery. And putting up a Confederate statue would mean to me that people who were putting that statue up and honoring that statue and celebrating that statue and that symbolism would be essentially telling me that they wished slavery was still around. And that they wished that I was still a slave.” I’m paraphrasing now, but that’s basically what he said. And again, I didn’t know he was going to say that. It came out of my fingertips at the keyboard, but I didn’t know he was going to say that. And I thought it was extraordinary. I didn’t expect him to come that far. And his niece, who was right there, and was a prominent or a very dedicated and passionate member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in her own life, was not anywhere close to getting to where he was in terms of recognizing the truth. But he did it. And that was a powerful emotional experience as well. MILAGROS: Yeah, I would imagine so. Wow. Yeah. Thank you. I’m going back to our gallery view so that we can open it up and spend the rest of the time asking questions and making comments. I want to thank you so much, Steve, for your courage and your willingness to come and share this with us. So, thoughts, feelings, emotions, where are you feeling this in your body? If you’re feeling it in your body, what’s coming up for you as you’re thinking about this? [STUDENT]: I’m curious what kind of techniques did you use to tap into those imagined conversations? Was it meditation or like how did you kind of go about facilitating that? STEVE: Right. Thank you for that. It’s a great question. I did a lot of research first. I wanted to feel like – to the extent I could, and I had a lot more information about some of these individuals and was able to find additional information beyond what this treasure trove of wealth in the form of family documents that our family had. I was also able to find some more information researching about some of them. And then others I had far less. But I would research about the individual. Then I would go ahead and do more research to try and identify what was going on in their time and their place, generally speaking, and more specifically in relation to how folks culturally were relating to People of Color. How white folks were relating to People of Color at that time and place. And what were they learning in church? What kinds of jobs did they have? And what was – how did a lawyer in a courtroom interact with People of Color, if at all? Those kinds of things in 1932 in Texas, for example. And so I do a lot of cultural research. I have some guilt about admitting this. But it’s true, and I believe it was a powerful tool for me in the research process. Not in the writing process, but in the research process. I use generative AI a lot to ask questions like “What would a home – a Victorian home in 1932 in Comanche Texas look like? What would a small family home in St. Mary’s, Texas in 1872 look like? What would they eat? What would they wear? These kinds of things to give me texture. So that I could write it in a way that the reader could feel it, but perhaps more importantly write it in a way that I could feel it like I was there. And so the details became important for that reason. And AI helped me both with those sort of daily life details and I would also ask generative AI questions like “If you were a Southern Baptist churchgoing deacon in 1872, at St. Mary’s on the Bay in southeast Texas, what would your church have been teaching you about Black folks?” And I’d see what generative AI would say, and then I’d ask it for sources, and I’d go to the original sources. I’d read from the original sources and it would ground me in the cultural history. And once I felt like I had a grounding in both that cultural history and, to the extent possible, in who that person was as a person, I felt ready to go back and talk to them. And so I’d write a set of questions down and some of the questions I would know in advance what the answer would be. But most of the questions I didn’t know what the answer would be. I certainly didn’t know what the follow-up would be. I didn’t expect to go up on the roof and get terrified that I was going to fall. And have my great great great-grandfather steady me. And say to me, it was his understanding, that’s what grandparents were supposed to do. None of that was pre-planned. But the questions I wrote out and then I just started writing. And I started feeling like I was in the place and in the time, and developing a relationship with these folks. ANNA: Thank you for that question because we had the same one here but didn’t know how to phrase it. [laughter] So, I appreciate it. But Steve, I don’t know when you started your book or you started your research, but I’m just wondering if your son and his relationship to this Black boy since he was in seventh grade and then became – are they married? I don’t recall. I think you said yes, STEVE: I have a daughter-in-law, but yes. Yes, they’re married and they have children. ANNA: Okay. So, did that influence this journey? STEVE: Number one, I’m certain that it did. It’s an important part of who we are as a family. But I also like to hope and think that, even if that had not happened, that I could have gotten there. I bet I wouldn’t have gotten there the same way or at the same time. And it would have been a different journey. But, I certainly believe that white folks don’t have to have Black family members to go through this healing process. But did it have an impact on me? Sure it did. Sure it did. MILAGROS: Great, great question. Thank you so much, Anna. CHRIS: I just wanted to say thank you for the courage I know that it took to go on this journey. As a genealogist, I’ve done some pieces of what you’re talking about. I’m realizing listening to you talk, I didn’t take my work nearly far enough. And I need to go back and be revisiting some things. But I am impressed that you took that journey as far as you did because not many people would. So, thank you. AMY: I have a comment which is, many years ago now – maybe eight years ago – I did an African ancestral healing course with a friend, who is a sangoma, which is a Zulu healer in South Africa. And she brought a whole bunch of other sangomas and healers, and one of them took us through a process of communicating with our ancestors which is very similar to what you did. So I just wanted to comment that there is like an African base to this process of connecting to your ancestors through writing through connecting with them and writing and have their voices come through. STEVE: Yeah. I’m gonna track down a quote that I ran across. A friend of mine said, “Have you ever read a writer named Malidoma Patrice Somé?” And I said, “I’ve never heard of him.” He said you need to read him. And look at this book, Of Water and the Spirit.” And there’s a quote from that book that when I read it, I was like numb with how powerful it was in relation to what I had been doing. And it says, “When a person from my culture looks at the descendants of the Westerners who invaded their culture, they see a people who are ashamed of their ancestors because they were killers and marauders masquerading as artisans of progress. The fact that these people have a sick culture comes as no surprise to them. The Dagara believe that if such an imbalance exists, it is the duty of the living to heal their ancestors. If these ancestors are not healed, their sick energy will haunt the souls and psyches of those who are responsible for helping them. Not all people in the West have such an unhealthy relationship with their ancestors. But for those who do, the Dagara can offer a model for healing the ancestors and by doing so healing oneself.” And that really powerfully resonated with me when I read it. And the story – it’s a memoir of how Malidoma Patrice Somé was a young boy, who had this wonderful relationship with his village and community and especially with his grandfather. And at age four, I think it was – age four or five – he gets what from his standpoint, he was kidnapped by Jesuit missionaries in Burkina Faso, I think. And he grows up in these western missionaries. He forgets his language, he learns western culture, he learns western religion, and all this rage and trauma gets built up inside of him, for losing his connection to his people. And he ends up attacking – at age 20, he ends up attacking a priest at the seminary. He finds his way somehow, hundreds of miles back home to his village, where he can no longer talk in the language. He can no longer communicate, but his family recognizes him. They don’t know what to do with him. But he goes through – he ends up finally going, through the grace of some of his family and the village community, going through the initiation process that 13-year-old boys do – how they become men in the Dagaran culture. And through going through that process, he starts to get back who he is – his own identity. And then they end up afterward sending him out to the world as an ambassador essentially. So it was a lovely story. And it’s true, and it’s powerful. And so, that quote in particular resonated so strongly with me. I felt like, “Wow. This is really happening here. And that’s not how I’ve spent my – I’ve spent my life in my head, not my body. I am very conditioned as a white man. A straight white man. A straight, rich white man. But on top of all of that – and that’s how I’ve operated my whole life. But these things still resonate with me very powerfully, MILAGROS: One human family, same lineage. Yeah, I love Malidoma’s books. I read a few of them. He passed away a few years ago, but he used to come here to Virginia to do workshops and he was really quite something. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. I love that book. I should probably read it again now, years later, from a different perspective. Because I just loved it. Yeah. Other comments and thoughts about today? JAMAL: This might be like a deep question. STEVE: Maybe there’s a lot of depth that comes with the answer. JAMAL: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe there’s [laughter] a lot of depth with the answer. But, forgive me if I misunderstood some of the things that were discussed earlier in the conversation. But you had some triggers going on that led to you leaving your job. And then there was also a time that you were discussing about how you necessarily hadn’t done any equity work, but somebody asked you to come and join some of the equity work. Were there multiple times, or is there this one big moment that kind of stands out for you that kind of made you feel like you were supposed to do this work? STEVE: Yeah, that is a great question. And, looking back on it, and when I tell the story as I’ve done with you guys this afternoon, I feel like it was a lot of different points that demonstrate, what I do really regard as a calling now. But I will say that the process of writing was the single most visceral, body-intensive part of that calling. I think I was being tugged along the way by many forces, and in many ways in my life. And I did a lot of work before I wrote those conversations. And I probably had to, to get to them. But writing them intensified it in a way that I had not felt before. JAMAL: Gotcha. Thank you. MILAGROS: Thank you Jamal for that question. Steve thank you so so much. I hope that you will continue to join the lunch and learn. We have some wonderful conversations and discussions and we’re always learning new things here and I want to thank you ever so much. I want everyone to give kudos to our guest because that was an amazing conversation and I’m super excited to let other people in on this conversation. Because what you did is the work that we’ve been doing for a long time. It’s internalized, and it’s one of the five levels of racial conditioning is institutional, systemic, internalized, personal and interpersonal. I trust that you’ll come back and visit with us again. But thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it. Please subscribe to follow the arc: truth → healing → transformation & repair. 1