My well-worn copy.
I
love that “woke” is related to “awakening.” “Woke” as an adjective is from
African American vernacular, and, as employed by Black Lives Matter, entails
social awareness, especially of racism and social injustice. It is now used
ubiquitously to suggest someone who is politically aware.
In
spirituality, “awakening” suggests spiritual awareness. An early twentieth
century authority on mysticism, Evelyn Underhill, describes “awakening” as the
first stage of a mystic’s lifelong process. She described five stages of a
mystic: awakening, purgation, illumination, dark night, and union.
What
brings this to mind for me are two recent articles evaluating Harper Lee’s
book, To Kill a Mockingbird. One article reviews a book that offers a disconcerting analysis of Lee’s novel as a defense
of upper class educated Southern whites distancing themselves from racist
“white trash,” as if the latter were entirely responsible for racial barriers, while
excusing themselves with the actual economic, political and social power to end
segregation.
Jarring
as this is for me as a fan of the novel, this appears to be true, and, I hate
to admit, could also be said of those who insist President Trump was elected by
that infamous “basket of deplorables” rather than by educated, middle and upper
class white voters.
The other article, reviewing another related book, explains the writer’s disdain of
the novel as insufficiently aware of the African American experience. Only
Scout’s character is fully developed, she writes, not that of Tom Robinson or
even of Atticus Finch.
I
wanted to counter that this is because the book is not about Tom Robinson or
Atticus Finch: the book is about Scout
and her transformation in the light of her personal experience of events and
characters in the narrative. The most authentic representation of African
American experience would most likely be found in the writings of African
American authors themselves.
The
novel’s film was released a month after Alabama Governor George Wallace’s infamous
“Segregation Forever” inaugural speech. Though the sterling character of a small-town
Alabama lawyer like Atticus Finch might have been a stretch, given the times, as
one writer suggests, he serves as a counter to the prevailing ethos of racial
prejudice. He gives white readers someone to emulate, something lacking in
Lee’s original version, Go Set a Watchman.
Thanks be to God for a good editor who advised her to revisit and reshape the
story!
All
this is to say, as I’ve written in my books and on this blog, To Kill a Mockingbird
served
as a “woke” experience for this 12-year-old boy from California who had never
even visited the South. That, coupled with the Civil Rights Movement and good teachers
and preachers, began for me a lifelong journey toward a better understanding of
racism and social injustice.
The
books of African American authors furthered my growth: Maya Angelou, James
Baldwin, Stephen Carter, Eldridge Cleaver, James Cone, Frederick Douglass, Coretta
Scott King, Martin Luther King Jr., Alice Walker, and Cornel West. Articles,
reporting, firsthand encounters and presentations by numerous others also contributed
to my “woke” process.
Just
as “awakening” is only the beginning of a mystic’s lifelong path, maybe we might
consider “wokeness” as only the start of political awareness. Maybe we could speak
of a “woke-consciousness” that allows further development as well as
application to other social issues of our times.
I
was struck by the spiritual parallels as I completed reading this past Sunday
Howard Rice’s book, Reformed Spirituality.
He quotes Flora Slosson Wuellner’s description of spiritual growth in her book,
On the Road to Spiritual Wholeness:
As we are healed and pulled together into
wholeness, we are shown many things that we had not seen before. We are shown
feelings we have had, but which have been repressed. We are shown things we
have done, judgments we have made during our days of blindness and
insensitivity. We are shown relationships in a new light, and facts to which we
had not awakened. And as we wake and see, decisions about what we see begin to
rise in freshness and power.
I
posted this on July 11, 2018, and post it today in observance of Black History
Month in the U.S.
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