The Irony of Respectability
A Lesson Learned through a Story of Self-Urination
Growing up my teachers would always tell me that if I had something on my mind all I had to do was raise my hand to be called on.
The problem was—in my experience—this wasn’t always true. Of course, my teachers’ reasons for ignoring my raised hand abound. Perhaps they wanted to complete a lecture before opening the floor for questions. Or maybe I’d already asked thirteen questions in two minutes (what can I say? I’m curious!) and my teachers wanted to give my classmates a chance to ask or share. But, many times, I was effectively ignored by way of having my concerns disregarded.
I want to share a personal anecdote to illustrate and connect my experience as a black person in a predominantly white educational institution to what occurred to two black men at a predominantly white governmental institution at the Tennessee General Assembly on April 6th, 2023:
I was in kindergarten and my teacher was mid-lesson, but your boy really needed to go to a urinal. So, I raised my hand and timidly requested a hall pass to go about my business. To my surprise, my teacher said, No, Zeru, you went to the bathroom an hour ago. An hour ago. In Kindergarten, my critical thinking skills weren’t highly developed, but I knew then that an hour was plenty of time for my bladder to weaken.
No matter, my teacher was resolute, and I was five years old and vulnerable, so I didn’t dare persist. I’d already been to visit the principal many times at this point because of my talkative personality, and I didn’t want to keep returning home with reports of disruptive behavior (in all actuality, these were moments of vibrant excitement—like, for real, what’s the harm in saying “EW, that Caterpillar looks kinda nasty” in the classroom? Am I truly disrupting or cultivating my observational senses?).
The story goes as you might imagine. Five minutes after being shut down my friend Noah raises his hand, and before being called on, blurts, “Teacher, why is Zeru’s chair leaking?!”
I was humiliated and helpless. No one cared. And… my teacher was frustrated I hadn’t spoken up for myself when I already had. If you had just raised your hand and shown me how serious you were, Zeru… What’d she expect me to do? I’m quite sure demonstrating how serious I was, considering what I was serious about, would’ve been frowned upon and gotten me expelled.
When powerful people are caught disbelieving vulnerable people, they often spin the story to make it look like they were actually concerned the whole time, and it’s all hooey. They can’t accept that their initial disapproval and inhibitions to progress have shaped the humiliating conditions many have undergone. They have promised that things would be alright if the due process were obeyed. Yet, the due process often deepened my disappointment in the care of those who had promised it, and it disillusioned me to myself because now I was in the middle of people I trusted who are pointing at my soiled pants instead of covering me up or supplying me with new clothes.
Empathy doesn’t exist in spaces that can’t get comfortable with confronting their biases. My teacher thought I was a liar, so she made a decision based on the assumption that she could curb whatever rebellion I had in order. And when she was met with the promised urine she showed skepticism toward, she realized she didn’t have my best interest in mind…. and instead of apologizing… she drew up a narrative about my past unreliability and distanced herself from my embarrassment.
Unbelief and distance are exactly what came to surface in the expulsions of Justin Jones and Justin Pearson during the gathering of the Tennesse State House of Representatives in Nashville.
These two Black men refused to do what my Kindergarten self had to do… acquiesce. They resisted the reframing tactics of the strongest voices in that room and did what they felt needed to be done to bring attention to one of the most pressing issues of our day: gun violence, which is one of the greatest causes of the death of our children.
It’s true. They broke decorum1 and admitted it, and the backlash to their truth-telling method was vitriol and shame. I've been accustomed to suppressing the prophetic voice within because I'd been taught that love is catering to the comfort of my neighbor's creations of chaos and nicely persuading them away from it. And the message underneath this expectation is that, for unprivileged folks, the proper response to grace is respectability.
But… what if grace looked like prophetic resistance? This question shouldn’t come across as uncouth to Christians. Jesus’ grace was in direct opposition to the burdens placed on the trampled. Jesus’ grace is, and always has been, an invitation to transformation. To be transformed then, is to resist the unpeaceful and chaotic situations that consumed us before grace met us. Yes, grace is able to absolve our past personal offenses, but it never grants us contentment with hellish establishments.
I don’t presume I’m here without the supernatural act of God deeming me acceptable in spite of my sin. But why must this reality often serve as a muzzle to issues that shout to be unearthed?
Honestly, I don’t think decorum (respectability) is what will help our neighbors feel honored when we take issue with their policies, whether in the classroom or in rooms of legislation. I think kindness does, of course, but only when it rings with truth. Otherwise, respect and honor are synonymous with dishonesty that looks sincere.
Grace confronts and transforms. Respectability upholds the status quo and leaves people with “a tranquilizing Thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration.”2 Respect lets power remain unchecked in abusive spaces and gets disappointed when those in power bail on their promise to purify the toxic waters.
The irony of respectability is that it gullibly believes in the intervention of those comfortable with chaos as long as it doesn’t affect them.
Forgive me if I sound cynical, but it’s because I am.
I’m reminded of the story of the blind beggar who asked Jesus for mercy:
As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind beggar was sitting beside the road. When he heard the noise of a crowd going past, he asked what was happening. They told him that Jesus the Nazarene was going by. So he began shouting, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
“Be quiet!” the people in front yelled at him.
But he only shouted louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
When Jesus heard him, he stopped and ordered that the man be brought to him. As the man came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”
Luke 18:35-40
The crowd had tipped off the man about Jesus’ nearness but then got mad at his insistence. He was reprimanded and silenced for breaking decorum and not being respectable.
But the Savior wasn’t flustered by the blind man’s grief and desire. In fact, Jesus asked what all empaths ask, a question seeking understanding and clarity: “What do you want me to do for you?” Wow. Jesus wasn’t turned off by how the suffering man showed up, and he asks him what he wants.
I could cry. Because I now ponder the many times I chastised a hungry, unhoused person or a dysregulated person who didn’t sin but was tossed to the side and expected to thrive on scraps.
I think about the world we live in and wonder how certain groups today would answer Jesus’ curiosity:
The parents and classmates of children victims of gun violence: “We want our kids and friends back, as well as justice and a safer world.”
The descendants of indigenous and enslaved peoples: “We want our families’ stories, the land that belongs to us, and compensation for what our ancestors and we have built.”
Disabled people: “We want access to what shouldn’t be too hard to reach but society has deemed us unworthy of opportunity and fellowship.”
The unhoused: “We want to be believed and not treated like termites as we look for help and try to cope with our plight.”
I recently learned that there is a tourist town that’s thirty minutes away from the city I live in and it buses unhoused people into the heart of my city. No curiosity. Just capitalism.
The assumption may be that the alternative to respectability is an immature temper tantrum that makes things worse. But what if the alternative was creating safe spaces for us to speak honestly about our experiences in the same way Jesus did for the blind man? He didn’t tone check him and he didn’t chastise the urgency and grief with which he called out to him.
And healing came.
I don’t know if we’ll ever get to this type of empathy, but I sure hope we do.
socially incorrect behavior, particularly in a place of “law and order.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Letter from a Birmingham Jail