Quakers & The New Yorker EDITED!

There have been two instances recently when Quakers were mentioned in The New Yorker.

First there was an article about Carrie Fisher in The Talk of the Town where it mentioned she dated one of the producers of Star Wars, a Quaker named Gary Kurtz. I've wondered for a long time about whether my attraction to Quakerism is connected to my love of Star Wars and its "theology", so I did a little research. Turns out Kurtz had some influence on the series. In an interview here, the author implies as such:

"Mark had said to me that there was a lot of agonizing going on between Gary Kurtz and Lucas over the amount of violence that was in the film. And I think, as I remember correctly, what Hamill was saying was that there was a lot of Quaker influence. Now I don't know whether Lucas was a Quaker or whether it was Gary Kurtz , but there was a spiritual basis for this film and they were concerned that the non-violence message that they were trying to get across was going to be compromised by a lot of the shoot 'em ups that were going on. The reason why I mention this was I think these guys were really very unusual in what they were trying to do with their motion picture making. I think they really had a vision of the world which was pure. They wanted to present some kind of legend looking ahead into the future. It really was some reflection of good vs. evil, not seeing it very simply as good being interior and evil being exterior. We all as human beings are wrestling with it inside ourselves. Like the relationship between Skywalker and Vader. The thing that I really did feel was that there was, going back to what I said earlier, the way in which they handled people in that production, they looked after their people very, very well. To me that's the essence of great leadership and creative ability. I give them full credit. Definitely they were talking about a spiritual dimension and trying to come up with a non-violent message."

I don't think it was the non-violence message that came across to me, but the sense that there's something that connects us all, and if we only quiet our minds and hearts, we can hear it...

Yeah, I know. What does that have to do with social class?

It doesn't. But the next mention does.

In the September 28th issue, Briefly Noted mentions a biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton by Penn State professor Lori D. Ginzberg. The book apparently makes connections between Cady Stanton, and modern feminism's problems with social class and race.

An abolitionist more out of political convenience than conviction, she not only abandoned the movement for black male suffrage after the Civil War to focus on white women’s suffrage but increasingly made vitriolic attacks on immigrants, the working class, and African-Americans in her writing and speeches. The consequences of Stanton’s racism and élitism were “deep and hurtful,” Ginzberg says, and she attributes the continuing difficulty of incorporating race and class differences into gender politics, in large part, to Stanton’s mixed legacy.

Ginzberg writes about two issues that impact me personally, sexism and classism, and therefore I am most passionate about. I can't wait to read this one. I just hope it's not too heady for me. I found the last New Yorker Briefly Noted book about Quakers too academic and inaccessible

EDIT NOTE: This was a big mistake--Cady Stanton wasn't Quaker!!! Why didn't any of you tell me this? I'd assumed that she was. Mistakenly. Sorry for that.

Social Class Rule #2, and an Apology of Sorts

I've said I'd talk about making social class rules explicit. Here's the second one.

Middle and owning class people make the rules, and when working class or poor people don't follow the rules, there are dire consequences

I'll give you a secular example first. Take the connection between teen pregnancy and poverty.

This statement is accepted as true by most people, rich and poor alike:

"Teen motherhood is a great way into poverty."

It's not a rule, but a statement of fact. Friends from high school and cousins who were themselves teen mothers have admitted this fact to me, and described how hard it is to be barely out of childhood and raising a child.

This statement is an example of a rule made by middle and owning class people:

"You must wait to have children until and unless you and the proposed other parent are truly, emotionally, socially, and financially ready to care for them."

It can take a lot of privilege to wait until you're deemed ready to have kids according to this rule, stated to me recently by a middle class Quaker. And the consequences of breaking the rule are dire, even though they don't have to be (if we had true economic justice). But this blog isn't about social policy, per se.

What does any of this have to do with Quakers?

We like our rules, and the consequences can lead people to leave meeting thinking Quakerism isn't right for them (at best) or make people feel bad about who they are or where they come from (at worst). As I see that on the page, it doesn't seem so dire. But it is to me.

I believe that God speaks to us in the best way we can hear God's message. For some that's through Catholicism, some that's through Wicca, some that's through the Quaker practice. If we're even unintentionally turning away a whole class of people because they're not like us, I believe we're acting directly against what God would have us do not just for our meetings ("diversity" and all) but for each lost soul searching for a spiritual home who might find one with us.

I admit, having grown up working class, I liked all the rules at first. Don't watch TV. Don't drink unfiltered water. Don't dress up for meeting. Now though, I see not boundaries but brick walls, impenetrable but through a narrow door that fits only a certain kind of person. It breaks my heart every time I get an email, which I do about once a month, from someone who says they left because they felt so much the class outsider. I struggle mightily with staying.

But I do because God said so and still says so every time I sit in the silence.

Stay.

***

The apology, of sorts:

I'm sorry I can't say things the way you can or want to hear it. But I don't know how. Really. And I can promise you it's a social class thing. I've tried over the last couple of years to learn how to say things so you can hear them, but to little if any avail. The only place where I seem to have the grace (most of the time) to be clear and understood is when I'm running a group. But I'm beginning to accept this about myself, and I'm stopping trying to have you hear me. You will or you won't. You'll get it or not. You'll be offended or not. It's okay. I'll still publish your comments, even when you disagree with me, if you're respectful and reasonable and not anonymous. Conflict is just fine as long as you're not calling me names or belittling me (or anyone else for that matter). I'll say what I'm led to say and hopefully learn from what you have to offer, even if it's to sharpen my own understanding.

Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell

My friend Michael Bischoff recommended I read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and I did.

I'm a very slow reader--it usually takes me weeks to get through a 250 page book. It takes me a whole week (reading an hour or sometimes two a day) to get through most of The New Yorker.

But I devoured Outliers in under five days.

Michael said that Gladwell was saying some things I've been saying on this here blog, so I gave it a chance. Michael was right.

In a chapter called "Marita's Bargain," he writes:

We are so caught up in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think outliers spring naturally from the earth. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur. But that's the wrong lesson. Our world allowed only one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time-sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today? To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success--the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history--with a society that provides opportunity for all.

One seemingly disparate chapter at a time, Gladwell debunks the myth of the self-made person, and exposes all of the ways the most successful people have had advantages of one sort or another, including himself (in the last chapter) and lays bare the ways the least successful people have had disadvantages. It's a hopeful letter to us all.

Read this well-written book. When you get a chance, chime in here with your thoughts.

What implications does this book have for Quaker education? What new Light can this add to our Meetings?

Quakers and Alcohol

A F/friend recently posted on facebook that she'd seen another Quaker at a liquor store and thought it'd been a scandal. When I asked who it was, she said she didn't want to tell tales out of school.

Then I thought I didn't want to be a part of a faith community where it was a scandal to be seen in a liquor store. So I thought I'd ask you all what you think about it.

Is this issue one of social class?

At the entrance to the neighborhood were I grew up, there was a liquor store (we called it a "beer garden") where if you did well in school, you could get a free soda by showing them your report card. It stood right next to a deli and a soft serve ice cream spot. You could get free stuff at those other two places too with good grades.

Not My Job. Yours Either.

College teaches people to manage others.

I know, you thought you learned about organic chemistry or Dante or building a homemade hookah when you went to college (if you did; if you didn't, you might have, like I did, thought it taught people to be smarter than you).

At a regional Quaker event, one Friend told of a story about her nephew who'd recently graduated from Macalester College, an elite (though not Ivy League) liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota. (My meeting, located within a block of this fine institution, gets a lot of visitors from this school, and more than a few stick around long enough to call themselves Friends). While this Friend's nephew was in college, he earned spending money by working for the buildings and grounds department. After he graduated, the head of that department passed away unexpectedly, and this fresh-faced young man, a newly printed and signed and notarized college degree in hand, was asked to apply for the dead man's job supervising sixty full-time-equivalent employees.

Unsure of himself, he protested to his mother. Without missing a beat his mother reassured him.

"If any of those sixty people were qualified for the job, they would have been asked to apply for the job. They asked you instead."

I'm not going to go into all the lies involved in that sentence (and won't post comments about that either, because this blog post isn't about that sentence...this story is meant to point out that indeed, college graduates are most qualified to manage others according to a social class rule I have yet to clearly articulate but this story demonstrates).

What does any of this have to do with Quakerism?

We have a disproportionate representation of college graduates at our Meetings (as compared to the general population where 25% of American adults have college degrees), and therefore, a disproportionate number of managers: people who believe they are the most qualified to manager others.

The first problem we run into is that there aren't enough people in Meeting who don't mind being managed, people who either by disposition or education prefer to take direction. This can look like distrust of committees.

I'm not writing about that.

The second problem we run into is that this model of the managed and the managers is that it is supposed to run counter to our testimony of equality.

I'm not writing about that either.

I am, on the other hand, writing about God.

Tonight, I had an IM conversation with a F/friend about her First Day School class (at an anonymous Meeting). Someone I'll call B (not her real initial). B approached my friend and said she had a leading to work with her FDS group. My friend felt uncomfortable for a number of reasons, mostly personal, but brought up issues about flexibility, appropriateness, and a good fit with the teaching team.

These are all good questions to ask if you're hiring a teacher or teacher's aid. I bet many of you ask these same questions when talking about First Day School issues.

But I know B to be well-led, and very good at discerning her leadings. I'm sometimes uncomfortable around B too, but if she came to me saying she felt led to do something with me, I would take it at face value.

Even if I didn't know anything about B, though, she said the word "leading," and that says to me that it's not my job to consider questions of appropriateness or flexibility or compatibility just yet. It's first time for me to listen, to her and to God. Maybe even it's time for me to gather with a few Friends for some discernment so that my heart may also be open to this Friend's leading, or at least my part in it. (Yes, there are times when those -ability questions should come first, especially when working with children, but I would argue that those instances are rarer than we think).

I think that because we are, in the aggregate, so very well educated, we default to relying on well-made, sound arguments and reasoning. We want to be seen as good managers, so we consider the well-being of everyone around us. And we forget about obedience to God.

Perhaps because of my working class upbringing, I find great comfort in hearing from the ultimate Manager about my life's work (when I can let go of the message I heard when I was in college recently). I can really say, "It's not my job to figure out what the big picture is." Just like my elementary and middle school and high school teachers told me.

Despite what your mother might have told you, you're not qualified to manage God's will for you or for your Meeting, either.

Quakers & Education: The Few, The Proud, The Quakers

Have you heard enough about Quaker education from me yet? If so, I promise, this is new light. And when I say "light" I don't mean the domesticated lovely light that most Quakers talk about where everything is happy and good and peaceful. I'm talking about the light that might compel us to change, might show us the errors of our ways, light that might sting a little or a lot.

I've written about education before here and here and here. Then, I just had a general sense that the way Quakers do private school education is wrong. Now I see the truth so clearly it hurts, and it's bursting to get out.

We are sinners. Not in the fire & brimstone way, or the hell in a hand basket way, but in the Julian of Norwich way, where our sin is not a condemnation or reason for shame, but an opportunity for redemption.

Quaker K-12 education supports and reinforces racism and classism in the U.S.

Please keep in mind that I'm not talking about individual teachers or schools or students, but structures and systems. As I said in this post, individuals can do lots of things breaking the rules of society, but little of that, if any, actually changes the rules.

Our class society depends on a few assumptions about the world, and a few rules that we need to follow in order to support those assumptions.

1. There's a natural hierarchy to our class structure, and only the most deserving are on top (or near the top) of that structure.
2. There must always be a class of poor people in order to keep wages low for the working class.
3. The working class must do the majority of the physical labor, and their wages must be low.
4. The middle class must manage and educate the working class and poor, and keep them in their place.
5. The owning class gets to set the rules and/or live outside the rules.
6. Only the hardest working and naturally brightest of the poor and working classes deserve to move up in the class structure.
7. Dark-skinned people are at the bottom of the ladder because they are the least hard working and the least naturally bright people in the U.S.

Quaker K-12 schools in particular are supposed to help people climb those ladders, are supposed to break those myths down because of our testimony of equality. And they do, for some people.

Like Andre Robert Lee, an African American man who grew up in a poor neighborhood in Philadelphia. He got a "golden ticket" in the form of a scholarship to Germantown Friends School. His film, The Prep School Negro, explores issues of race and class in his life and in the lives of other African Americans today in Quaker prep schools. He talks about his painful cultural separation from his family when attended GFS. He also talks about how hard it was for him to be at in the same class with the son of the man who owned the factory that employed his mother. The tuition was more than his classmate's father paid Andre's mother to work in the factory. Andre lied to his classmates about his mother's work. "Peace worker," he'd say when she was paid by the piece of clothing she produced. In the film, I saw his pain but I also saw his sister's pain of being left behind. Why wasn't Robin given a golden ticket too?

We workshopped (a movie term to view and give feedback for) the film at the Gathering this year at the film's first public workshop. The next day, George Lakey made some connections in the social class workshop between the movie and the social class structure in the U.S. that made it clear to me that some of the arguments people have made for private Quaker education, and Quaker education itself, support racism and classism.

When I've tried to have conversations with people before (and I also tried to do so at Gathering), they've given me several reasons why Quaker K-12 education should stay the same (but perhaps be more diverse).

[Aside: I'll address other arguments for Quaker K-12 education to stay the same in subsequent posts, and I won't publish on this post comments that address other arguments.]

One primary argument is that Quaker schools give out a lot of scholarship money. I've always countered this argument with the fact that tuitions in the tens of thousands gives lots of middle class families access to scholarships, and not just poor people. But my argument was missing the main reason for social class and racial oppression: the concept that only certain people are worthy of this kind of elite education. Only the best and brightest get plucked from the ghetto to attend our elite schools. Quaker schools require applications and essays, from which they choose only the best and brightest. The GFS website says that they give "no distinction made in the admissions process between applicants who apply for financial aid and those who do not." That seems to indicate a sense of equality.

But as one Friend pointed out at a listening session hosted by FGC's committee on racism, that equality isn't the same for everyone. She was in a group where each person was given the same amount of time to speak, but one Friend, who spoke very slowly because of a disability, pointed out that for her equality would mean the same number of words rather than the same amount of time.

By choosing Andre and not his sister Robin, GFS unwittingly supported the classist assumption that there's a group of people who "deserve" for one reason or another, an elite education, and a group who don't. Equality in education would not mean that we educate rich people in order to give 25% of our students some scholarship (or loans). It would mean that Andre Lee would have been educated alongside his sister.

It would look like the Seed Schools in Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD.

Some say that only the smartest and most motivated kids could survive such a rigorous education (another group also thinks that only the best belong with them: The U.S. Marines), but the Seed Schools, both public residential schools, disprove this racist and classist assumption. If they can send nearly every graduate to college (including schools like Princeton), then why can't we? Or, a better question, why aren't we? The Seed Academy schools don't pick and choose, they don't require an application or essay or financial aid disclosure--they use a lottery to choose from all the people who want to attend. Then they educate everyone, mostly poor African American 6-12th graders. And just in case you think that only the most motivated parents put their children into the Seed Academy lottery, Thomas Friedman proves you wrong when he talks of crack-addicted mothers begging the school to take her kids. Everyone wants better for their children, but only some have access to "better." If you yourself didn't go to college, how will you know how to coach your kid on writing an entrance essay?

The video on the Baltimore Seed School web page says of the school kids about to enter, “It’s their turn for them to become all that God meant them to be.” Isn't that what Quaker schools are hoping to do?

Remember that list above, the hierarchy of our class society? At the heart of the social class structure is this belief that the system works to bring the deserving to the top and keep those who don't deserve status at the bottom. We all know in our heart of hearts that this isn't true, don't we? We all know that our human resources are wasted when people of one class go to the top just because of their class, and people in another class stay at the bottom because of their class or their race.

Now, for the redemption part I promised.

At Gathering, I talked with Irene McHenry from Friends Council on Education and she says that Quaker schools do more for each dollar than most schools. If that's the case, we could be educating K-12 students differently. Maybe we could even improve on Seed.

But this requires a serious change.

What if Quaker schools educated anyone who wanted an education, not just a few, and not just those deemed by society as "worthy?"

I'd love it if every Quaker school administrator read my post and saw the light. That's not going to happen, so I'm going to ask you to help shed light where you can.

How is what I've said sitting with you? What speaks to you? What gives you new light? What new light do you have to offer?

If you're convinced and want to know how you can help, here are a few things I'd suggest:

1. When your K-12 Quaker school asks you for money, make a donation to the Seed Foundation. Let your school know why you're doing so.

2. Write a piece for your blog (or a guest piece for this blog) on your understanding about this issue of racism and classism in Quaker schools.

3. Talk with your friends about this issue.

4. Host a discussion group.

5. Ask your Meeting to consider the issues I've raised.

6. Print out this blog post for others to read. Forward it to your friends. Post it on your facebook page.

7. Start a Quaker charter school that educates everyone who needs an education.

Finally:

8. Hold me in the Light as I continue to write on this subject. There is more to be said.

The Rules of the Game

In George Lakey's workshop on Quakers & Social Class we play a game that very roughly estimates the social class structure in the United States. There, the rules and goals are set out before the participants at the beginning. I've participated in this game once, led it twice, and observed it once, and I've noticed this one thing about it the game:

Lots of Quakers do things that break the rules, but no one (save me) wanted to change the rules.

Yes, my sample size is small. But I was surprised that starting a coop or creating a collective, or trying individually to play by different rules didn't change anything at all about the game or its rules.

When I played, at the point at which the power rested in the hands of a few, I blocked the door to keep them from going out to make the decisions on how the game ends. I didn't understand why their Quaker value of equality wasn't kicking in, didn't understand why they just accepted the rules as they'd been given to us.

At the time, I was immersed in the experience and couldn't be this articulate about it. I just had strong feelings of anger and hurt and confusion because I couldn't square what we say we believe in as a people of faith, and our obedience to a random set of rules.

I still can't square my experience of the game with our stated testimony of equality.

It's a poker chip trading game called Star Power with three simple rules.

1. The goal is to get as many points as possible.
2. You must be shaking hands until you've agreed on a trade.
3. All trades must be unequal.

At the end of three rounds, the sub-group with the most points gets to go outside the room to decide what happens next, how the game should end. When I played the game, I tried to convince people to change the rules, but few if any seemed to want the same.

My observations about how I've seen Quakers engage with this game matters to me because the game is an approximation of the social class structure in the U.S. If our instincts don't lead us to try to change the rules in this game, we won't be led to change the rules in our society that support and perpetuate an oppressive classist system.

I still want to change social class rules because as Quakers, if we believe in equality, we not only should break the rules in our own lives, we should be trying to change the rules. We like to think of ourselves as rule changers. Unfortunately, we're only upsetting the power structure sometimes. I can't honestly think of any rule changing behavior right now (though I can think of social class rule breaking folks).

I'm not changing the rules either. But I thought I could start here, in this little blog, by making social class rules explicit, especially among Friends. I'll start with this rule, which I am breaking among Friends:

Do not try to inhabit a role outside of your social class

I went to college in 2004, at 37 years old, at a four-year school that is primarily for working class people. There, both instructors and other students saw my leadership capacity; they and I nurtured my gifts. In the years I spent among Friends though, this capacity of me was never seen, acknowledged or nurtured. This is because people like me, who grew up working class, and people who grew up poor, are not supposed to act like managers, to be leaders.

The acts of writing this blog and giving workshops on social class is breaking this rule.

Being an expert, a teacher, is hard to do at times. I hear in my head, "Who do you think you are? What do you know? They're the ones with the fancy degrees. They're the ones whose parents read to them. They're the ones who were groomed to be standing up here, telling you some truth about the world. You're supposed to be sitting, learning from them."

Early in the week at Gathering, our suite-mate who also grew up working class described reaching for something more than she was expected to do feels like reaching through a heavy, wet blanket. This feels true to me.

Every time a person living in poverty (not situational poverty, or chosen poverty) strives for a union job, every time a working class person reaches for the middle class by going to college, we're breaking this rule.

So how are you breaking social class rules? How are you trying to change the rules of the game? What is your meeting doing to change the rules as well as break them? Does God want Quakers to support this classist system?