An answer to the current administration
One of the keenest observations I made as a homeowner back in the mid-2000s was how relentless the fight to get rid of weeds became. There had been a small patch of dirt in the front of my house left over from when a utility pole had to be taken down. Immediately, weeds took over that little patch and it seemed to me that nothing I did to get rid of them worked; they kept returning. One day I came home from work and saw a really tall weed was growing straight up in the middle of the patch of dirt, taller than me. I got out of my car and stepped on it, with all my might attempting to break it at the bottom to keep it from growing back. To my complete dismay, that weed showed back up in what seemed like the next day…even taller.
I tried planting flowers and putting some plastic in that area, but the weeds continued to push through, making their presence known. I had the same problem in my small backyard. And every year I would hire someone to come and help me in the backyard. We used fancy rocks, more plastic covering, and more planting of flowers.
The weeds still came—”The Way of the Weeds” was to keep showing up and not give in. And get taller and taller. “The Way of the Weeds” was to stand fast in the face of the adversity—the plastic covering, the fancy rocks, and other flowers, all intended to end them, but still they stayed on their mission of growing anyway. Their very existence was dependent upon that “Way” —continuing to show up.
I think about that experience of fighting those weeds, and how no matter what, they kept coming back, sometimes stronger than before, and I look at the seemingly perilous situation we as people find ourselves facing at this moment, mired in a climate that threatens to upend the progress we’ve made over the years. Add to this the executive orders imposed by this current administration designed to strip away rights that protect African Americans, attempts to delete our history and ban any book that contains historical information relevant to our past. I cannot help but recall my fight against the weeds around my house, and how they fought me back for their freedom to just be.
I’m reminded of a few things, as senior men and women, we’ve seen this kind of trouble before, we have lived through repeated attempts to destroy us before. The work of this current environment has a familiar odor to it. And we know firsthand how important it is to STAND FAST. To continue the course. As did our foremothers and forefathers before us. There is a long trail of perilous times behind us. As it was with those “Weeds,” now is the time for us to stand fast—and come back stronger. We have a track record of coming back strong.
In 1955, there was a little protest we may remember. It was in Montgomery, Alabama—where for 381 days our folks STOOD FAST. They faced so many adversaries in that year and 16 days, from Dec. 5, 1955, to Dec. 20, 1956, including loss of work, getting arrested, extreme harassment—and though it is an unlikely comparison, like the weeds that kept coming back around my house no matter what I did to stop their growth, they—those boycotters–held on to their mission and were not daunted by the forces against them. And in the end, the bus company had to acquiesce to the demands of its African American ridership as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional.
In 1900, when James Weldon Johnson wrote the lyrics to the poem that would go on to become the Negro National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the state of Black America was abysmal at best. It was post-reconstruction—Blacks in the south were facing a Jim Crow system, an anvil around the necks of citizens designed to bury them under the weight of flaming segregation, entire Black communities were being decimated by bombings and fires, land belonging to Black families was being stolen and lynchings were still prevalent.
Ultimately set to music by Weldon’s brother, the anthem was a truthful look at where we stood as a race in this country. It was a clarion call to our people that, “stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod…” “…Felt in the days when hope unborn had died,” we were to “Lift every voice and sing, ’til earth and heaven ring; ring with the harmonies of liberty. Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies…let it resound, loud as the rolling sea.”
I would offer that we must adopt the posture of the “Weeds” if we are to navigate through this current season of chaos and what appears to be one setback after another—we’ve seen these waters before and worse. “The Way of the Weeds” will help us cross the finish line.
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