Motus Theater presenting virtual program, Welcoming the Stranger, on Sunday

NEWS RELEASE
MOTUS THEATER
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The great African American civil rights leader, Ruby Sales, talked in an interview with Krista Tippet about learning to ask the question, “Where does it hurt?” That simple question gets beyond any narrow ideology to the essential human-to-human insight that emerges from deep listening.

From that place of tender inquiry, one can begin to understand.

A man was murdered last week. He was accused of forging a $20 bill. No surveillance videos show George Floyd resisting arrest. They show a handcuffed man slowly being executed as he tries to tell the officer how it hurts. He pleads, he calls for his mother, he very slowly dies. His ‘peaceful’ protest is met with numb, cold denial and the unwillingness to intercede by four officers over eight minutes.

Peaceful protests don’t always work. A mother’s son is gone, and nothing will make his beauty breathe again. 

At the protest in Boulder on Saturday, a young minister from Louisville, Maurice Cox, spoke impromptu to our community. He spoke of the "other Boulder." The one he experiences as a black man: “I wanted you to know that the people of color who walk in this community … walk around in another America — facing other trauma that you will never have to experience.” 

He reminded the mainly white crowd of their position of privilege in interrupting racism: “We will never be at the dinner table with your racist uncle. We will never be at the kitchen table with your spouse who says something like, 'those blacks' or '...,' but you’re there. The places that you occupy and take up space — you need to say something. Do something!”

And when you do something, Cox said, “It will cost you.” That is how you know you are being an ally. If it doesn’t cost you, then you are not being an ally. It may “cost you that friendship … it may cost your job. But guess what? It’s been costing our lives,” Cox said.

If white people would ally and take action to support black lives, police brutality would end because we would stop letting it happen. White people would also be in too much pain to tolerate the terrorism and injustice inflicted on black bodies. The lack of passion and compassion (which means “suffering with”) is at the root of Mr. Floyd’s death. It is at the root of the ongoing brutalization of black and brown bodies over the arc of U.S. history.

At Motus, we ask people of color on the frontlines of violence in America to choose a story from their lives that they want to share. The audiences who get to hear these stories experience what has been silenced, twisted, and covered up. This type of deep listening is essential to ending systemic violence against people of color because white supremacy can’t function without blocking out the voices and humanity of black people — an intentional deafness and denial you witness in officer Derek Chauvin as he slowly executed George Floyd, and in three other officers who did nothing to prevent a murder.

White people, we have so many opportunities to be allies, to take action that will cause ourselves to suffer the pain of racial violence that surrounds us daily (“Do something!”) so our brothers and sisters are not killed. Below, Motus offers a few specific resources that we find helpful at this particular time, and that I, personally, have found helpful in my ongoing work to become a skillful ally.

And this Sunday, June 7 at 5 p.m., you can join Motus for our virtual program, Welcoming the Stranger, in which the Rev. Pedro Silva reads aloud the monologue of Alejandro Fuentes-Mena, whose personal story gets at some of the hurt that white supremacy is causing the undocumented community. The Rev. Pedro Silva will be reflecting on Alejandro’s story both theologically and personally.

Although this event has been planned for months, we anticipate the reflections will cover some of the current pain expressed in the protests. The Rev. Silva has been leading reflections on social media from his experience as a black man in Boulder and Alejandro has been attending the protests in Denver.

And finally, a shoutout to all the Motus monologists, staff, funders, board members and advisors who have been part of a strategy of fierce, peaceful protesting  — many of you have been tear-gassed and I know at least one from our staff was shot with a rubber bullet.

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