John Brown and the Power of Privilege

“In Ferguson, when the shit was about to go down, someone would shout out ‘John Brown!’ … and that meant it was time for all the crazy white people to come to the front.” – Rev. Osagyefo Sekou

I first learned about John Brown at our weekly assembly as a fourth grader at St. Michael’s Episcopal Day School in Tucson. The rector/headmaster, Fr. Clint Fowler, gathered the whole school every Friday morning for an hour, and we would sing Gilbert & Sullivan songs, national anthems from various countries, ragtime tunes … and other fairly odd ditties.

One of them was this old Union song from the Civil War era that was sung to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

John Brown's body lies a-molderin' in the grave, John Brown's body lies a-molderin' in the grave, John Brown's body lies a-molderin' in the grave,, His soul goes marching on!

Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His soul is marching on!

He captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so true. He frightened old Virginia 'til she trembled through and through. They hanged him for a traitor, themselves the traitor's crew. His soul goes marching on.

That’s how I learned about the radical white evangelical abolitionist who was captured, tried, and executed by the Commonwealth of Virginia for a raid and incitement of an uprising of enslaved peoples at Harper’s Ferry in 1859.

Yeah … it was not your average elementary school.

I didn’t know it then, but it was one of my first introductions to the idea of the power of privilege – even though Fr. Fowler didn’t call it that.

What I took away from it was an admiration for this white man who instead of holding onto the comfortable life he had, had given up his life for and with the lives of enslaved black people.

Rev. Osagyefo Sekou is arrested in front of the Ferguson Police Department (St. Louis American photo)

And so, at night in front of the Ferguson police department, when the police stood in full riot gear tapping their batons rhythmically against their shin guards against a group of young black people armed only with signs, voices and courage, when that cry “John Brown” would go out, I knew I was being given an invitation.

The invitation was not “to have privilege or not to have privilege.”

That was already settled.

I have plenty of privilege – white, male, cis-gender, heterosexual, educated, economically secure. You name it, I’ve got it. And I can’t change that I have the vast majority of it.

The invitation was for me and other “crazy white people” like me to use our privilege like John Brown did (though probably with less extreme results) … to give up our comfort and security to stand in solidarity with black people … to be willing to receive the blows that they receive every day if they dare to stand up for their humanity but that we never live in fear of.

I learned a lot from Sekou on that street.

Like the time, in my mind trying to affirm the humanity in the police, I went over during a lull and started to talk to one of the officers. And Sekou pulled me aside and said firmly and lovingly:

“Never do that again.”

You see, because I was white – because of that privilege – I could do that, but they could not.

And that not only separated me from the people I was supposed to be standing in solidarity with.

That not only potentially raised suspicions of me being a collaborator with the police.

Even more than that, it was me using my own power apart from the counsel of the leaders of the movement to do something that, if I was honest with myself, was about preserving that privilege more than it was about helping the people I was supposed to be standing with.  

That was an important stage in my ongoing learning about the power of privilege.

Sekou was inviting me to lay down my privilege as much as I was capable. To give up the ability I had as a white male clergy person to talk to the police in order to stand with those who did not have that privilege and were fighting for their lives.

And I needed Sekou to tell me that. I still need friends like Sekou to tell me that.

As Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes:

“Privilege blinds, because it’s in its nature to blind. Don’t let it blind you too often. Sometimes you will need to push it aside in order to see clearly.”

Sekou also taught me a simple matrix of privilege:

The more privilege one has, the more the opportunity/responsibility to put your body on the line for those who have less or none.

Literally.

John Brown.

An invitation for the crazy white people to literally put our bodies in between the batons and guns and the young, black, queer folk in the street.

An invitation to be willing to risk the fruits of our privilege (including even the power of that choice) — that which we would not have except for our privilege — for those who have less and those who have none.

And this is not just political theory … this is scriptural and theological.

The three scripture passages I have chosen for my funeral (the ones I used my last Sunday at All Saints Church) are – no coincidence – all about the power of privilege and how God uses it.

One is Philippians 2:5-8, the oldest hymn we have from followers of Jesus

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he existed in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be grasped,
  but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
      he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.

This is all about privilege. As I said in that sermon:

“When we talk about power and privilege, I think we have to admit God’s got more than anyone… ain’t nothing better than God privilege.

“And yet God recognized the messy call of love, the greatest most complete joy any of us can have is to willingly give up our power and privilege for the other and physically, intimately enter into and share the pain of the other.”

The very nature of the love that is God is that action of self-emptying. Of giving up privilege.

So how do we do that? How do we have “the mind of Christ?”

The other two scriptures give us examples.

In Exodus 3 God says:

 “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them.

When you have privilege, the first thing you do is listen to the cries of those who do not. Know them – and remember that word know is the same one as “Adam knew Eve” (in the Hebrew יָדַע (yada) … we are talking physically and intimately know those sufferings … and then be responsive to them.

Now, it’s important to note that when we do this that we are not God … which means we do not have wisdom surpassing that of the marginalized and suffering community … so being responsive to the needs of the marginalized and suffering people isn’t just doing what we think is best.

Which is why the Gospel reading is so important.

Because Jesus takes it a step further in Mark’s Gospel with the story of Bartimaeus the blind beggar by the side of the road shouting out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stops what he is doing – important as it is, leading a whole crowd of disciples to Jerusalem – and takes the person who is most on the outside, most suffering, and brings them into the center of the community and let’s their voice be heard. Lets them set the agenda for the entire community … and Jesus does what he asks.

That’s another way to use the power of privilege … to amplify the voices of those who have a hard time getting their voices heard not because they aren’t loud or strong but because of their lack of privilege people aren’t listening.

To let those without privilege set the agenda for we who have it … and as much as we have influence … for the community.

That’s at least part of the power of privilege.

Privilege itself is a powerful word. And because of that, it’s a word that we can easily weaponize against one another in that “label and dismiss” kind of way.

“You’re speaking out of your privilege” can be a way of labelling and dismissing what someone has to say in that way that we can “use our weakness to manipulate.”

And “you’re speaking out of your privilege” can … like Sekou did for me … be an invitation to self-examination and self-awareness.

Am I speaking out of my privilege?

And if so, do I want to take another look at what I’m saying?

Do I want to listen more deeply to those who don’t have privilege?

Do I need to push it aside more in order to see clearly?

Is someone crying “John Brown” … and I’m not listening?

A common theme in response to my Substack “I’m working for Kamala Harris … but I’m not voting for her” was privilege – that I had privilege from being a straight, cis-gender, white male who lives in California.

All of that is absolutely unarguable. And unless I move, there is nothing I can do about any of that.

It does raise two questions, though.

First – is my privilege blinding me to something I need to see but am not? I always have to allow for that possibility … even that probability.

Second – am I using the power of my privilege the best I can for those who have none?

Am I hearing and responding to the call of “John Brown?”

These are excellent questions … and I am grateful for a community that poses them and helps one another wrestle with them.

And … I trust that they were not meant to be the end of a conversation but the continuation of one. And an important one, at that.

Because I am learning that the conversation keeps going and going and going.

The cry is going out:

John Brown.

His soul goes marching on.