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Silence is Violence: the Houston Chronicle interviews Cherry Steinwender

admin — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 21:30:23 +0000

‘Silence is violence:’ Why speaking up against racism speaks volumes

Joy Sewing June 5, 2020 Updated: June 5, 2020 12:28 p.m.Comments7

1of7A man burns sage as he joins George Floyd’s family in a march Tuesday from Discovery Green to City Hall in downtown Houston.Photo: Marie D. De Jesús, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

2of7People join George Floyd’s family in Houston’s march from Discovery Green to City Hall in downtown Houston Tuesday.Photo: Godofredo A. Vásquez, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

3of7Protestors march at a Black Lives Matter event rally honoring George Floyd.Photo: Gustavo Huerta, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

If there’s anything we’ve learned from the global protests against racial injustice and police brutality over the last two weeks, it’s that speaking up speaks volumes. Calling out racism is a crucial step to healing, said Dr. Rheeda Walker, a Ph.D. licensed clinical psychologist, University of Houston professor and author of “The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health.”

“This is an important time in history and an important time to speak up against racism and injustice,” she said.

Still, Walker is cautiously optimistic that the protests will have real impact in dismantling racism in America.

“Even though white people seem to be hurt by what black people have been experiencing for generations, their hurt is not going to impact the day-to-day pain of black people,” she said. “They have hurt feelings, but we have real pain. We’ve learned to endure. What you see now is people tired of enduring.”

Walker, along with her 9-year-old son, attended the protest to pay tribute to Houston native George Floyd in downtown Houston last week. An estimated 60,000 people congregated at City Hall to admonish police brutality and racism in the wake of Floyd’s brutal homicide by Minnesota police last month. The protest was organized by Houston rappers Bun B and Trae The Truth.

Four police officers have been charged in Floyd’s death.

“It was important for my son to be a witness to this,” Walker said. “He’s had a lot of questions and he’s still trying to understand why police officers would do this.”

She added that the stress of racism and its impact on mental health are so deeply engrained it will take much more than protests to reverse the damage. “It may give some relief, but it will be temporary. We have been enduring this so long that many of us don’t realize we’re in survival mode.”

Cherry Steinwender, executive director of the Center for Healing Racism, is hopeful.

“This feels different,” she said. “There have been many protests over the decades, but this is the first time I’ve seen it worldwide. I’ve been trying to get this country to use the word, ‘racism,’ for 30 years. We’ve been afraid to talk about race. Now, we’re seeing so many white people use the word — that’s hopeful.”

Steinwender is hosting virtual “I Can’t Breathe” workshops to talk about racism and its impact. It’s referencing the words uttered by Floyd minutes before his death, “modern-day lynching,” as she sees it.

“Racism isn’t a black problem. It’s a white problem, and their silence is violence,” Steinwender said. “But it’ll take white people to call out other white people for real change. When black people speak their truth, we are called angry or accused of using the race card. We are looking for white people to speak out.”

Steinwender has unique perspective, given that she’s been married to Austrian-born Siegfried Steinwender for 39 years. The couple met a garage sale.

“He was looking for junk and found a treasure,” Steinwender joked, but she admits she concealed the fact she was married to a white man for years because she didn’t want it to confuse her message. She said her husband often has shared some of the racist water-cooler conversations that he would hear; his co-workers just assumed he felt the same. She used those conversations in her educational training and programs about racism and stereotypes.

Racism is the cause of stress in the black community, Steinwender said.

“We know stress is a major cause of illness. Black people are living a life under stress every day,” she said. “That fact that you are black and living under a racist systerm is the cause of stress. That’s why we have underlying health issues.”

Self-care is crucial right now, Walker said. She advises pulling away from TV news and social media. Constant messages about racism and police brutality can further traumatize.

“We don’t realize what we’re watching because the goal is to continue to survive,” she said.

Now’s the time to get creative.

“There are some big ideas in black minds, but they have been so bound in racism that they haven’t had the opportunity to be come reality,” she said. “We need to come up with plans. It’s time to for us to get out from under racism and create our own way moving forward and not wait for the system to fix itself.”joy.sewing@chron.com

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Dialogue Newsletter | SPECIAL EDITION 2017

admin — Sat, 02 Sep 2017 06:01:26 +0000

Click on the image of the newsletter to view or download it.

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Loving Memories of a Dear Friend and Great Center Supporter

admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 04:27:30 +0000

By Saundra Y. Boyd

Our dear friend Ife Mawusi (Lula M. Reed) has passed.

Who was she? Ife described herself as a “Creole child” growing up on a farm in Louisiana in a community of independent-minded people who, nevertheless, supported one another whenever the need arose.

She was named Lula, and, like many of us, she did not like her name because she believed it did not fit her image of herself. She once told the story of how she acquired the name “Ife Mawusi”: While studying African history and culture at the Shrine of the Black Madonna, Bishop Olu, the instructor, gave her the African name Ife Mawusi — meaning “Love in the Hands of God.” For her, that is who she was, and that is who she became for me.Ife and I first came together in our efforts to understand our world and its crazy-making system of racism. She and I were on opposite sides of the double-bladed sword of racism. But she never doubted where she stood with respect to that danger. Yet it took me a lifetime to understand my complicity in the system that wields the knife. It was Ife, however, who helped me understand both sides better.

But that was not all we shared. We both grew up in a segregated society. Throughout our lives we struggled with trying to understand the system that created such a world and insisted upon maintaining it. Our first encounter was at Dialogue:Racism at the Center for Healing Racism, where we were both trying to understand racism and its negative effects. There, we bonded in our efforts to heal from the damage racism had heaped upon of us. Clearly, the damage to her had occurred early, and she was aware of that damage from her earliest memories. She told me the story of her people and what they had endured, including the horror of seeing a man hanged who was not anywhere near the crime for which he was brutally hanged. As a consequence of that early trauma, which deeply scarred her for life, she had to raise her children to be overly cautious, but such caution was not enough to save her youngest son from a violent death.

Through her openness and honesty about her suffering under a racist system, Ife helped me better understand that system. But also through our discussions in Dialogue:Racism, she helped me understand that while I was “privileged” to be a white woman, I was also damaged by the racism inflicted upon her and other African Americans. I did not fully realize until Ife and I met in Dialogue, how the system of racism had deprived me of the broader friendships and connections I might have shared had segregation not been the law of the land when I came of age.

More than once, Ife asked why I was her friend. I am not sure that I ever fully answered her question, but a partial answer lay in her gesture of friendship. When she learned I had lost my mother early in life, she offered to be my “other” mother. I’ve been grateful for that “adoption” because, through it, she enriched my life by making me part of her remarkable family.

Over the years, Ife and I shared in our support of the Center for Healing Racism through her Annual Tea fund raiser, which was continued by her family when she was no longer able to host the event. All our lives are richer for having known and worked with Ife Mawusi and her family. For me, it has been twenty-four years. I am eternally grateful to the Center for Healing Racism for bringing Ife and me together with the countless other seekers for social justice. Through them I am forever blessed. More blessings are due to Lula Reed (aka “Ife Mawusi”) and her progeny as we continue in that struggle. Our hearts go out to them and to one another as we cope with the loss of one of the Center’s greatest supporters.

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