Becoming Rev. Rolle

“You so no manners”.

I can clearly hear the cadence of my mother’s voice in that declaration. She would say that to myself and my sisters whenever we did something that was particularly disrespectful, unbecoming, unladylike or at odds with the appropriate behavior of a southern woman raised well by good parents in a good home. This accusation wasn’t just about Emily Post style manners. It was a cautionary statement, that we were on the edge of appropriate society and could soon face the consequences of being outsiders. There was much attention paid to how we were to speak, dress, and even walk. Almost all of it had to do with acceptance and imagery. Very little of it was for vanity. These expectations of being mannered were about survival. To be “No Manners” was intentional disrespect that rejected socially acceptable behavior. It is to know “better” and not do “better”.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) has intentionally and strategically chosen to be no manners in ways that the African American church has not yet subscribed to. The church is still holding onto the idealism of respectability and respectability politics, the antithesis of being “no manners”. As the goals of today’s liberation movements shift and expand and the Black Lives Matter movement leads the charge for racial justice in America, so must the approach and the theoretical grounding for movement building.

In the Jim Crow south, respectability was a tenuous safety net. Being seen as the right kind of person, one who caused no problems and garnered social approval could mean that one’s life or physical safety might be maintained another day, avoiding physical harassment and even death based on how a person was viewed by white citizens and the local power structure. However, that also lead to a public image that the African American community, and by extension the African American church cultivated which signaled who the right kind of person is; what they look like, sound like, and how they might act.

To take on an anti-respectability ideology and approach to life defies black survival. Being “no manners” on purpose is a decision to survive on your own terms; to push the world to bend its edges such that social conformity, public approval and respectability are no longer the only ways in which Black lives are allowed to exist or gain affirmation. It challenges the idea of worthiness, in general. Who is deserving of life and whose life can be snuffed out has too often been socially decided based on who is deemed acceptable and respectable. The African American Church in America found itself on both sides of this line, operating both as liberating entity in the era of the Civil Rights Movement and at other times as an oppressive or problematic institution, as it holds onto fading concepts of worthiness and appropriateness that are linked to respectable idealism.

Strategic respectability politics was a powerful tool used in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s to gain national and international support of policy initiatives aimed at gaining voting rights and other civil rights for African Americans. However, this theology of respectability conflicts with the liberal goals of new freedom movements like Black Lives Matter. BLM works to expand the understanding and reality of Black liberation, and in its expansion, has included people and issues in their mission that eclipse the narrow focus of the Civil Rights Movement that the Black church was so involved in. On its website BLM states “We are guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location.” Thus, conflicts arise within the Black church about BLM’s theological soundness in public policy and social justice.

The rejection of respectability is both a strategy and a value of the Black Lives Matter. This value does not coincide with the overwhelming trend of the present-day Black church. Young ministers and pastors are often able to ascend in professional ministry through the established channels controlled by the African American church of visible respectability. When youth are able to look the part of a polished preacher, and sound like the new Martin Luther King, Jr. or one of his ilk it is that much easier to be embraced and groomed for church and communal leadership. However, it is the very opposite image that we so often find in the leadership of the grassroots movement that is Black Lives Matter. Instead of trading on the imagery of the upstanding citizen and devout Christian, the movement has intentionally crafted a space that amplifies the voices and visibility of those who do not appeal to the sensibilities of White society or to the valorized symbolism of the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement.

The Black Lives Matter movement has let go of respectability and, instead, opted for radical inclusion and empowerment. They have drawn wide the circle of humanity such that the most marginalized voices and struggles are centered and form the leadership. Women, queer-identified individuals and poor people visually and verbally disrupt traditional perceptions of what appropriate leadership should be as well as how appropriate messaging should be delivered.

For the BLM movement, the goals have not simply been so cut and dry as a list of wins on paper. The goal is to be free to live in liberty, moving in the world based on one’s own inclinations. The goal is to be liberated from the white gaze, white scrutiny and the mishandling of Black bodies that seeks to realize white utopic visions of a sanitized America.

Their objectives push past winning legislation on the basis of righteousness. While policy wins are on their agenda, the core of their mission is to usher in a reality that offers each person justice as righteousness, not securing perceived safety for the seemingly upright. I believe in a God that pushes us forth, such that we might all be free.

May we all be a little no manners.