Fatigue in the Beloved Community

Nationally and globally, so many are living with fatigue - an extreme tiredness resulting from mental or physical exertion. COVID-19 creates unique experiences of fatigue, including the fatigue of isolation. The repetitive, ongoing nature of racial injustice in the United States layers on top of it all. Together, it seems like fatigue has defined the modus operandi of many of our daily lives.

Unfortunately, fatigue is real and it’s not going away. A while ago, in a conversation with a white friend, he underscored that the extent of white fatigue probably depends on how long they’ve been engaging with racial justice.

As he spoke, it became clearer to me that I’m in the thick of chronic fatigue as a brown man. Right after the death of George Floyd, white Christians spoke out against anti-blackness and violence more loudly than ever. But even then, I realized that I was bracing for the Whitelash -- that moment when white Christians tire of talking about race. I noticed it happening shortly thereafter - that exasperated tone of “Why are we still talking about this?” among some members of white circles. I realized that this massive white body was going to retreat right back out of facing the realities of injustice. 

In some ways, it’s another cycle of white flight and on some level I get it. These white people are fatigued. And fatigue means you need a respite. Everyone should have a chance to rest for the purposes of continuing on in the journey.

Brown people need respite too, but we don’t get to take our brown skin off when we’re tired. We are committed to the long haul of pursuing justice. We have to be. Our very bodies are deeply connected to that long haul. Our lives hang on the line.

The doubts always come. They’re punctuated with fatigue -- the fatigue that comes from seeing white people just now reckoning with reality start to give up. In this moment, where I see white Christians growing tired of this journey, I have to sit for a moment and talk with myself. “How do I fit into this?” I wonder. Am I actively pursuing the change that is necessary, and do I keep pushing harder in this moment? Or do I do the easy thing and assimilate into white culture again? Do I say to myself, “Well, white people are going back to normal so I guess the moment is over. Maybe I should just go back to normal, too.”?

Then I remember: the fact that these ideas come to my mind so readily point to the deadly systemic structures that have been in place for so long. The ideas that the fight is over when white people say it’s over demonstrates just how badly we need change. It’s up to me to push these thoughts aside. So I rest. And then I exert my influence throughout my circle to manifest a different way. 

I have seen a glimpse of a different way before. In my years as a campus pastor at the University of Virginia, we intentionally worshiped together with different languages and cultural expressions of worship. As a group, we honed what it felt like to culturally displace ourselves together. It was awkward sometimes. We lived into the tension of it. It was uncomfortable for all of us at one point or another. But through the discipline of de-centering whiteness or white ideals of “normal” worship, I watched the student body evolve and begin to think more creatively about what worship meant. 

What it meant for me is that I found these moments where I didn’t have to shrink or lessen myself to make my white counterparts more comfortable. When I led, especially when I led a worship experience that was authentic to my culture, I found a way to be fully myself in public. I put my entire self on display in a space where any person could come in and experience it in a raw state. It was risky. It was vulnerable. Nine times out of ten, the students who displaced themselves experienced a genuine glimpse of another person’s Imago Dei. And nine times out of ten, they were inspired to make change far more than I could have imagined. 

This example of hope gives me respite. I admonish us to create opportunities for groups of people to authentically be themselves and show themselves. I encourage those of us to create those spaces to cast aside our inhibitions. Let’s not make ourselves smaller for fear of creating discomfort. We are radiant. When it shines, that radiance blows people away. 

The reality for now is this: we are stuck living in this current tension. In its midst, I’m looking for ways to create moments where I can live as my best self. I’m giving others the chance to experience the fullness of who God created me to be. And yes, I’m asking later what they think or feel about it in case some clarification and correction needs to occur.

Alongside the pursuit of structural change, we need these moments. We need these moments of freely demonstrating the glory embedded within us. Often, these moments can offer respite. Over time, they are the moments that foster the Beloved Community.  

-Donell Woodson

Welcome to the Good City

We started this blog to examine the intersection of people, place, and the environment. We want to understand how design decisions like the width of sidewalks and presence of street trees, zoning decisions like the types of uses buildings can have, and policy decisions like whether or not money is allocated to public transit all affect human thriving and the health of the environment. 

68% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas by 2050, a figure that will likely increase to 85% by the 2100. Since humanity is flooding into the world’s cities, this blog asks “Are we building cities that will promote human flourishing? Are we building places that care for the natural environment? Will the cities of the future be ones that learn from the missteps of the past and instead promote equity and justice for our children and grandchildren? We’re building cities, but are we building good cities?”

Building good cities, cities that foster human and environmental well-being, is the result of choice. How you and I live our lives now (where we live, who we hang out with, how we get around) is largely the outcome of countless choices that people made in the past. This should encouraging news, because it means that we get to make decisions too - decisions about how we want our cities to look from now on. And we can make these decisions based on the vast amount of information out there on how to build good places.

For example, what factor would you say has the single strongest impact on one’s ability to escape poverty in America? Well, a study conducted by Harvard found that commuting time has a larger impact on social mobility than crime, elementary school test scores, or even the percentage of two-parent families in a community. The longer the commute, the worse the chances of a low-income family moving up the ladder. Long commute times are the result of building patterns that prioritize low-density housing and car-oriented development. Good cities help families rise out of poverty.

We also know that more “eyes on the street” translates to less crime; and the number of eyes on the street is determined by architectural design and city codes. And we know that the more social connections people have, the happier they are with their life and that the physical characteristics of one’s neighborhood help determine the number of friends makes. And we know that urban environments contribute far less CO2 to the atmosphere than suburban ones, and that thousands of towns across the country would be financially healthier if they adopted certain policies regarding growth.

This blog is about how the decisions we make about the places we build change the trajectory of human lives. It’s about choosing to build beautiful places that honor culture and history; it’s about building affordable, inclusive, and empowering systems; its about using the built environment to be better stewards of the natural environment. Join us as we discover how we can build good cities.

-Trey Cason