Tomorrow and tomorrows

Tomorrow is the last day of class in Family Therapy I for my first year students. They've spent the semester reading and writing about various models and theories of family therapy: structural, strategic, cognitive behavioral, and internal family systems. We'll gather at my house to eat my wife's world renowned breakfast casserole, fruit salad, blueberry muffins, and some brand of gourmet coffee.

Then, after breakfast, we'll gather in the living room and watch some videos that capture the themes that we've worked on this semester. We've done enough serious work, and now I want us to watch a view clips and think out loud with them about these important matters that can impact how we help people move out of their pain into some healthy way of living. It's a time of consolidating and integrating and making sense once more of important ideas for those who want to do family therapy.

Somewhere in the midst of the morning's conversation I'll show a clip from "Soul of the Game," one of my favorite baseball movies. Why baseball? Why a movie about Satchel, Josh, and Jackie? Good questions. A part of the passion that turns my crank about working with students is that we get to apply these curious marriage and family theories to larger systems. By "larger systems" we mean institutions of power and privilege, those that make or break folks, those that need not just reforming but transforming. Major league baseball was one of those powerful institutions.

This particular movie describes life in the Negro Leagues in 1945 when only one, yes, only one, Black baseball player will make the move to the major leagues. Satchel, Josh, and Jackie are three of the most popular of the massive number of gifted athletes stymied by Jim Crow and the will of powerful baseball owners. The movie shows the relationships between these men as each is convinced that he needs to get the call up to the bigs.

The scene I'll show is at the end of the movie. Josh has just gotten out of the hospital, an all-star game is about to be played against white players, and everyone knows that this is the one last chance to impress the scouts. Then the skies open, rain pours down, thunder cracks, and lightening dances across the sky.

There will be no game. As the rain pelts against his agonizing face, Josh Gibson screams a scream from the bottom of his soul, unleashing upon the viewer the agony of being so close to his dream, and knowing that the dream was now gone forever. His dream was ripped from his heart. He would never play baseball in the major leagues.

That brutal moment speaks volumes. It is the rageful, anguished cry of a man who had been put in his place by institutions of power and privilege. He knew how good he was. He also knew how powerless he was in the face of the powerful institution of white major league baseball.

There were no more tomorrows for Josh Gibson. He wouldn't live much longer.

Tomorrow morning I hope my students get it, that they live in a world where people, politics, and institutions of power still hold sway over people's lives. My prayer is that they get it, that there's much to be done, and so little time to do it in, and that one can make a difference in that one, small corner of the universe to which she or he is called.

My prayer is that they'll work to bring about tomorrows that Josh Gibson didn't have.

Color blind?

It was an interesting class. We were putting the finishing touches on "structural family therapy" when it occurred to me that stepping back a bit and considering "structure" as a notion against the larger landscape of institutions and power would be an interesting thing to do.

With marker in hand, I drew a family of five, complete with structural symbols and all. Then, alongside the family was "the farm" and the family's attachment to it. Towering over them was the USDA/FSA in DC, the state, and the county, all institutions of power and influence. We explored possibilities of power given the current context of things around Black farmers.

Then, I loosely quoted J. L. Chestnut, attorney for the plaintiffs in the Pigford Class Action case, "The rules and the law may be colorblind, but people are not." Then, one of our students suggested something to the effect that we need to see the world as "colorful" rather than through "colorblind" eyes. I think he's right on target. To be blind to color would be to deny something that is formative in our sense of self. God is a God of diversity. After all, look at His children, "every color dark or light," words we sing in church. That is the godly, respectful thing to do.

However, in our courts and in our policy-making, it's not always that way.

I've never talked to Mr. Chestnut, but it seems to me that his point is simple, "The rules and the law should be fair and equitable to all people," pure and simple, although you and I know that that's not the way it is many times. His point, "but people are not," goes a long way to say that too often, people in positions of power and influence make decisions because of color of skin, and people of color are left on the fringes. Cassandra Jones Havard's article as linked above speaks volumes to this issue. I'd encourage all of us to read it.

So, Mathis, you and Mr. Chestnut are both correct. Let's see people "colorfully" and God as a God of diversity. Let's also recognize that the law and policies while intended to be fair and equitable are in the hands of people who too often are thinking otherwise.