I love you. I loved you. I will love you. Which do you prefer? Obviously.
As humans, we divide time into three common spheres: present, past, and future. Some believe that there is, at least, an additional one: eternal time, which runs parallel to our common, mortal time spheres, but is not part of them. And then, there is universal time in space that keeps expanding, but for our purposes, let’s limit time to the practical, earthly realm and application of the present, past, and future. For reasons related to this discussion, that is, for the purpose of racial healing of Blacks and whites in this country through the proposed protocol described in this series, we will spend a few paragraphs on the consequential relevance of each of these time spheres.
I have alluded several times to the limitation placed on the past, a limitation that should be noticed by individuals in the context of the present in order to gain the breadth and flexibility to make necessary changes that impact positively on racial healing. Notwithstanding a normally-held view that the present consists of an aggregation of previous experiences and moments refined through some remarkable, filtering process that delivers the present to us, what the past can’t do for those in the present is limit us to past options that generations have received, unless we allow the past to take control as it has done so often.
A multitude of alternatives has been faced by the past in a variety of fields. Unfortunately, the past chose for race relations, Black and white, to repeat in attitude much that had previously existed. In other fields, considerable advancements materialized: medicine, mechanics, economic production, electronics, computerization, etc. But for race relations, especially in furtherance of Black-white racial healing, the past delivered much of the same. We saw a diminution of violence, yes, but much violence still remained. There was a diminution of racism, yes, but much racism remained, so much so that we of this generation were left with much more stasis in Black-white relations than the very many of us, Black and white, desired.
It is important to keep in mind that the past is seen more conventionally as complete, although the work of historians in all fields keeps revising that past so that such work continues to keep revising the present as well. In turn, we build on that past in ways we often don’t even observe or acknowledge, for the present is forever in flux, which, of course, gives us – we occupants of the present – the opportunity to accomplish broad change to the world we inherit.
Unlike the past, which is effectively immovable, but for revisionist work, the present is full of action, and we therefore have the chance to let authentic passion be a function within that movement. As a consequence, we don’t have to rely on the past for purpose or guidance; rather, we’re allowed to let authentic passion and its understanding, empathy, healing, love, and co-inherence be our guide. Authentic passion has not been purposed to honor the past, which reduces the power and uniqueness of the present and which can terrorize and obviate the glories, wonders, and possibilities of the moment.
Equally pertinent, the personal relations we accomplish in the present should largely be free of past limitations, but unfortunately, a very significant portion of whites do not see the present in light of that freedom. In Black-white relationships, the past will, if we let it, constrain the present with commanding demands, and yet, this present is free to alter that which we received; we are not obliged to continue any manner or matter, and we are not obliged to suffer any part of the delivered past from the filiopietism-damaged heritage axis that has so meaningfully affected Black-white relations. History intrudes as it attempts to provide a nondebatable reason and message, and it also intrudes when it substitutes its often, thoughtless impulse.
That is the beauty of authentic passion: the absence of limitation, as I hope readers will view the relationship that developed between Sheila Walker and me. The past had no legitimate claim on us. Indeed, we meant to be in juxtaposition to that past we received. We made a concerted effort to stand against history, and we told everyone who would listen: not just that we were no longer limited by expectation, but that we in the present would utilize authentic passion extensively to understand, empathize, heal, love, and co-inhere.
Love is not overwhelmed by the past or ancestors or tradition. Love does not hear the distant, familial lessons, which draw the present away from the powerful context in which love is expressed. Love does not rely on contents that have solidified history waiting to be brought forward. Love is its own self, separate and apart from any ancient murmurs that wish to be heard above all else. There is no love without courage, and that is a lesson taught by authentic passion, so that racial healing can occur. We can then find ourselves moved into a new, less limited world, such as authentic passion that sets us beyond what we have known as true, certain, and traditional. For prejudice lacks the source of integrity and vision where authentic passion can lead us to a place without racism, where racial healing resides unimpeded by that power of filiopietism, which can turn aside the present tense and continue the damage of our heritage.
I’m speaking of the interpersonal in the present, which, with its authentic passion and love, can save and extricate us from the institutional flaws that have retained the remnants of slavery and its aftermaths. Race has always been very personal; one only has to look around at how many light-skinned Blacks there are in this country to grasp how truly personal race relations have been between these two races. Even today, this close, personal connection is all too clear, but the discussion about it is not commensurate with its reality – certainly not in those small towns where the closeness has arguably been quite silent.
But it is the interpersonal that can save us if we let it, if we whites stop acting as though institutions will solve the race problem for us while those institutions are not equipped to do so. Still, with the right mindset, institutions can aid the cause, but they, themselves, cannot do it without the interpersonal healing process having begun among multiple, Black-white relationships that successfully reflect authentic passion, one-to-one, Black-white protocol, as the protocol dares in “For Racial Healing”. The present tense must rely on the interpersonal, Black-white, one-to-one arrangement to put into place the necessary present tense behavior that I have described. I have realized – and others could acknowledge it as well – that when Sheila and I let the past history, especially that her great uncles were shot and left for dead and that my grandfather, Lonnie, had participated in the white onslaughts, melt away into our present tense conversations, commitments, and behavior, it made all the difference. Complex and multi-tiered organizations, private and non-profit, simply cannot provide the environment conducive to spontaneity and unrestrained promise which permit present tense behavior to thrive, dominate, and expand to racial healing.
So, with respect to the most speculative and conditional when it comes to time spheres – that is, the future, we know only what we individually will be able to transmit to the next generation, to the next phase of Black-white relationships. How conditional will it be? In the absence of a major adjustment in those relationships, the default condition could easily become what it has been for generations, either a different form of subjugation drawn out of various prospects, or possibly only a little better than the inherited kind that the present knows too well. Or we can leave the future with a considerably less conditional state through the establishment of new relationships, through the use of racial healing in our time, in our present, so that we shall also be manifest and consequential into the future.
Where else can the present tense be employed? Wherever goodwill and good passage are sought. Where individuals are open to change from the circumstances that drove them into stricture and espousal of beliefs and opinions that they suspect are not truly their own, but are from some other time, some other place, and some other person that have deposited those representations into the recipients. When it is apparent that one is not one’s own person but trapped in a world unmade by her or him, then it becomes time to shake off the melodrama and develop a new voice and new beliefs that are facilitated by the present tense, empowered to speak with a language of one’s own making, shaped with spontaneity and by new constants, cohorts, and consciousness, and without the restraint that has been occasioned by too little honesty, too little freedom. This is the time that the present tense needs to be engaged and employed for access and for charting another world.
Next time: New Voices and Older Venues