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Rev. Chaz Howard Ph.D.: Come to the Table. Again and Again.
129 Plays2 years ago
What does it take to hold competing ideas together in tension? What does it feel like to survive a doxxing? Why is representation STILL an issue, even in 2023?
The Rev. Dr. Chaz Howard is the University Chaplain and the inaugural Vice President for Social Equity and Community at the University of Pennsylvania, where he serves as one of only three vice-president-level executives of color.
Content Warning: redlining and gentrification, poverty, Christian supremacy, indirect discussion of white supremacy and police violence.
Chaz talks about growing up in Baltimore, the land history of present-day West Philly, moving beyond fear, acting from love, and the still uncertain fate of the Black Bottom Community — a historic community of descendants of freed slaves currently being displaced from their homes by gentrification.
Buy Chaz’s most recent book, The Bottom: A Theopoetic of the Streets: https://amzn.to/43NKNpX
Follow Chaz on IG: www.instagram.com/chaz.howard
Check us out on Instagram and TikTok: www.instagram.com/uncommongoodpod
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@uncommongoodpod
we chat to ordinary people doing uncommon good in service of our common humanity.
We are creating community that builds relationships across difference by inviting dialogue about the squishy and vulnerable bits of life.
thanks for joining us on the journey of (un)common good!
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Transcript
Choosing Love Over Fear for Growth
00:00:00
Speaker
let's come to the table. Even if this is hard, even if you might put me on blast and like write a mean article and record this thing and push it, I'm like, keep coming to the table because that's love. And you don't come to the table, that's fear. And I think very little grows well out of a fear when that's the soil. And gloves are far more rich in nutrient filled soil for good things to grow out of.
Introduction to 'Uncommon Good' Podcast
00:00:37
Speaker
It's Uncommon Good, the podcast where we chat to ordinary people doing uncommon good in service of our common humanity. My name is Paulie Rees. Fam, I am delighted to bring you today my pal, the Reverend Chaz Howard, PhD. Chaz is the university chaplain and the inaugural vice president for social equity and community at the University of Pennsylvania, where he serves as one of only three vice president level executives of color.
00:01:05
Speaker
Quick content warning right off the top. We talk a lot about redlining and gentrification, poverty, Christian supremacy, and there is indirect discussion of white supremacy and police violence. So as always, if these things are not right for you to listen to, feel free to switch this one off and we will catch you in the next one. Chaz goes on to talk about growing up in Baltimore, the land history of present day West Philly, moving beyond fear,
00:01:35
Speaker
acting from love, working on the clergy team of the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral, a favorite place of mine in Philly, and the still uncertain fate of the Black Bottom community, a historic community of descendants of freed slaves currently being displaced from their homes by gentrification.
00:01:54
Speaker
This is a big one. This has so much weight and beauty and challenge all at the same time. Please enjoy my conversation to Chaz.
Climate Change and Its Emotional Impact
00:02:10
Speaker
It's January and I'm very aware of the fact that both of us walked in to the studio today in very light clothing attire. Does it
00:02:21
Speaker
Is it weird that we've had multiple 60 degree days in Philly in January to you? It's a great question. I mean, in one sense, there's the kind of snarky comment I could make around Philly weather and Philly with these pump fakes into winter and then a flash of spring and then a blizzard after that that happens here in Philadelphia.
00:02:51
Speaker
And it's part of what we love about Philadelphia is you really never know and you get all the seasons twice here. That's true. I think there's an answer around global warming. And yeah, the way that it feels like weather patterns are changing and getting harsher. And there's something very frightening about that.
00:03:09
Speaker
And I think it's possible that both can be true and the emotions behind both can be true. The fear and the grief is probably a better description on one hand. And then the kind of benevolent shrug of that's Philly, you know, that comes. I mean, this was over the holidays, we sort of had
00:03:33
Speaker
really, really, really chilly days where it was single digits here and that very cold for Philadelphia. And then days where I'm going for a bike ride in short sleeves, which was glorious within like a week of each other. So it's deeply complicated. And it's, I don't want to say it's okay that it's complicated, but I think it's okay to feel all the feelings of complexity around something like the weather.
00:04:01
Speaker
When we talk about those experiences of the fear and the grief, like those complicated feelings around existential things like the weather, can you say a little more what you mean by fear and grief? I think the grief in that middle age,
00:04:26
Speaker
Sure. I think there's a part of me that recognizes there will be consequences to actions of my age bracket and people above us that I probably won't feel the great burden of just because of life expectancy. But my kids and grandkids and the students I work with might
00:04:52
Speaker
You know, I don't think the world will be terribly, terribly different 20, 30, 40 years from now. 100 years from now? Yeah. You know, certainly our coastal cities might be really different. And the beating we take from hurricanes and tornadoes and heat waves and storms like that
00:05:17
Speaker
a generation or two after us might feel in a very different way, and I'm sad about that. And I'm not afraid about next summer's weather, but I'm more concerned about what this means for those coming after, and what this means for animals 50, 100 years from now. And what sort of animals maybe won't be here? I don't know. Yeah, that's kind of
00:05:47
Speaker
That feels like a bummer to me. It's happy. We serve the area of University City.
Environmental Injustices in Marginalized Communities
00:05:54
Speaker
We talk about land acknowledgement of being on land unceded from the Leni Lenape tribe and the Black Bottom community. Conversations I'm sure we'll visit in our chat, but thinking about West Philly historically
00:06:11
Speaker
in the areas around Penn, a lot of the residents tend to either work for the university or tend to be in a space where their lives are significantly impacted by the university's concerns and business. And many of those residents tend to be in a unsustainably lower income situation. I think then
00:06:41
Speaker
what may necessarily be morally just. I am consistently emotionally impacted by the thought of how our neighbors are potentially already being impacted by climate change.
00:07:00
Speaker
It's a word, you know, the scholars who pursue environmental justice and activists who pursue environmental justice talk about it's disproportionately black and brown and poor white people who are most impacted by climate injustice or climate inaction.
00:07:23
Speaker
Yeah. And so those of us who can own homes all around the country, in the middle of the country, and all around the world, don't feel the same sting. Others who maybe in certain more impacted spots are already feeling the lack of access to clean water. Yes. Already feeling terror from a hurricane.
00:07:45
Speaker
Yeah. You know, those of us who sort of live in the suburbs two hours from the coast, hurricane's okay. And if it messes up our roof, we can sort of replace it again. And it's okay. Others, man, you might lose your home. Yeah. And your life. And there's a real class and racial dynamic to it. And you're absolutely right that it disproportionately hurts certain people, particularly
00:08:06
Speaker
the poorest among us in, quote, the poorest major city in America, Philadelphia. Yeah. Like, my seminarian days, like, out in West Haven and Gulfport and seeing how Hurricane Sandy sort of messed them up, looking at hollowed out shells of restaurants and homes that were never even demolished because there's just everybody left, like,
00:08:35
Speaker
And then thinking back to 2005, the Lower Ninth Ward. Oh boy. Yeah.
Gentrification and Displacement in Black Bottom, Philadelphia
00:08:43
Speaker
I think I was last down there in 2015, and there are still huge swaths of that town that are just still abandoned.
00:09:03
Speaker
My uncle tells a story of how FEMA just can't get to those places to assist with the damage and to assist with the demolition component of recovery to be able to get to a level
00:09:24
Speaker
legitimately a level playing field so that regrowth and rebuilding can happen. I think we forget how much work the work of regrowth means the tearing down of old things that and the uprooting of old
00:09:43
Speaker
physical things and perhaps patterns of life that are no longer serving us well. Preach. We are taping at a time and in a location where
00:10:00
Speaker
There are a lot of difficult feelings around the University City Science Center, around some of the development that's happening here that is displacing
00:10:16
Speaker
realistically speaking, the last remnant of the Black Bottom community. Historically, that's the community that's lived here of the descendants of freed slaves who lived west of the Schuylkill River and made their homes and were continuing to be further displaced.
00:10:35
Speaker
when the major bridges got built across the river and the University of Pennsylvania migrated from Society Hill, you being a person operating at the vice president level of Penn, that you've had a very vulnerable seat to bear witness to all of that.
00:11:04
Speaker
And all of that story, all of that coverage is widely available on news outlets, in social media.
University Roles in Community Displacement
00:11:16
Speaker
So I'm less interested in the university space of this question, but I have to imagine that that's a lot to carry. Yeah, there's a lot.
00:11:31
Speaker
There's a lot to say. It's fascinating. I think it's right that you framed it in one sense.
00:11:39
Speaker
in the shadow of our conversation around New Haven, West Haven, Yale and those communities, New Orleans in some sense, Tulane to a different degree in those communities. Yeah, Tulane, yeah. There's a similar story of Baltimore with Hopkins and Baltimore and Columbia and Harlem. Like there's these relationships between oldish, very affluent institutions
00:12:07
Speaker
that are really complicated and that can bring a lot of good and bring a lot of injury to a community with what's absolutely in real time happening here in West Philadelphia and the role that Penn and Drexel and before it became St. Joe's kind of pharmacy and like, you know, various University of Sciences
00:12:35
Speaker
and other institutions to have played in changing West Philadelphia in some really complicated ways. I think, I'll speak very personally on it, I think as a black man who's from Baltimore but has lived in Philadelphia for almost 30 years now, seeing injury to
00:12:57
Speaker
communities are predominantly of color and predominantly black hurts. Full stop. It hurts, you know? And, you know, I saw and felt the effect of gentrification in Baltimore growing up. Certainly, I was a kid, and so I think I processed it in a very different way, but seeing neighborhoods change,
00:13:22
Speaker
And, you know, some of those changes were like, Oh, cool. Like there's some new restaurants here and I guess it looks a little cleaner. And some of those changes were a little more frightening where there's a whole lot more cops around here now. And while those, my friend's house isn't there anymore. And so those are really hard. You know, I think, um, the story of the black bottom is one that my office and I and others on campus are really tried to lift up.
00:13:51
Speaker
in the name of historicizing it and memorializing it because there were so many people who just never even heard of it. And this is not to tangent, but I think it's similar with like the move bombing of there are just things that need to never evaporate with stories we need to always tell.
00:14:10
Speaker
the good side of the Black Bottom of like, so this is a strong neighborhood with families and businesses and congregations and traditions that shouldn't be forgotten. Yes. And then that's sort of the sad story of displacement and people being pushed out or landlords sort of selling out and not caring about their residents.
00:14:38
Speaker
I think the role that the official city of Philadelphia played needs to be incorporated into it too. Yeah. I think a lot of this gets hung on Penn's neck and the city, literally city council sort of had and has a role in all this. Yes. But then the kind of contemporary side of, you know, university city townhomes, which is in the area that would have been described as the Black Bottom and was built in response to the displacement and destruction of the Black Bottom.
00:15:07
Speaker
now facing its own destruction with its owners attempting to sell and displace people there. And we can talk a little bit more about Penn's role and not role and all of that too, but just the emotional side of the terror of being told that your home ain't going to be here next year.
00:15:27
Speaker
is a nightmare. Yeah. That the place you live and potentially raise kids and have your friends, and it's next to the subway you take, and it's close to the hospital you go to, and your job is right there, and you're used to it, that, hey, we're selling this, for the owners to say, is frightening and upsetting. Yeah. And again, overwhelmingly this, overwhelmingly hitting black people? Yes. It really, really hurts. It really, really hurts.
00:15:58
Speaker
And the question marks around what's going to happen as of this recording is tough. I'm not sure how this plays out. I think the owners have sort of made their decision and aren't changing their mind with no matter what amount of pressure
00:16:19
Speaker
public and private. And I grieve that. Certainly they're right to do that, but I sure have my own personal opinion of I don't think this is being done well, as well as it could have and should have been done. So it's sad. Golden's very, very sad.
00:16:42
Speaker
It is just profoundly sad. There's a moment that just needs to be acknowledged. It just needs to be acknowledged that these things are really, really heavy.
Historical Patterns of Displacement in America
00:16:54
Speaker
But it does need to be acknowledged that the role of institutions like
00:17:02
Speaker
and as you say, and Drexel and the Science Center and University of the Sciences, St. Joe's, those are not the only side of the story, but it certainly feels like with the coverage that has been done in the news that they seem to be the fall guy.
00:17:28
Speaker
Well, I mean, and I think justly and unjustly, you know, I think justly in the sense of these were institutions that
00:17:40
Speaker
played major roles in gentrification is almost to light a word. Yes. Displacement of neighborhoods, not just the Black Bottom, by the way. There are a couple other sort of ethnic enclaves along this path that aren't here anymore. Yes. And the result of those actions 50, almost 60 years ago, in part, are the cause of where we are today.
00:18:09
Speaker
Some of this is displacement. Some of it is white flight, too. And so there is sort of a strong Italian neighborhood in West Philadelphia that, as black people moved more from kind of the ward where Du Bois does the Philadelphia Negro to West Philadelphia, that white flight went further west into the suburbs. Some of that in kind of South Philly. So there's other reasons they left. Penn also sort of built these high rises for student dorms in, I guess, what we used to call super block.
00:18:39
Speaker
that part I don't think would have been described as a black bottom back then. I think there's an argument made that it was a black bottom, but there was a small Jewish neighborhood there. I think another sort of Eastern European little neighborhood might be too strong, a couple blocks of different groups there that aren't there anymore out of there.
00:18:58
Speaker
And it's worth noting a lot of this transition happened in different ways. Some of this was landlords wanting to cash out and homeowners wanting to cash out and seeking out the university and the city and happily leaving. And some of this was what we would almost call eminent domain that the city sort of takes over for city purposes.
00:19:24
Speaker
that is far more traumatizing and far more scary. And I think that's more the story of the Black Bottom than it is some of the other neighborhoods that just aren't here anymore. And then there's stuff that kind of is from turn of the century. Right on the water, there was something called like Blockley House. This is mostly where like Penn Health System is right now. And it was kind of like an alms house slash sort of like mental health facility and there was sort of some
00:19:51
Speaker
kind of legal stuff going on there, too, that ultimately was not healthy and was not meeting code standards that kind of needed to be displaced and knocked down. But that's a part of history that's not there anymore. And then they put the convention center there and then you put Penn's hospitals in there. There's no remnant of Blockley House left. It's just chop and pen left. That, too, has been displaced in a different way.
Human Stories Behind Displacement
00:20:18
Speaker
And as you did at the beginning of our conversation,
00:20:22
Speaker
All of this was Lenny Lenape land before all of that, and in forest and swamp that had animals, and that has also been knocked down, pushed out, and is a part of the history. Last little thing I'll say, this is not just the story of Philadelphia and West Philadelphia. This is the story of America.
00:20:44
Speaker
And it's important to name that. I don't think we are any different from New York City and Baltimore and DC and Boston and other major cities that have pushed out native populations and pushed around people of color, either out of metropolitan areas or locked them into metropolitan areas. That's not to over normalize or to escape, but
00:21:13
Speaker
It's not lost on me that when people give tours of the Black Bottom, when the very few people who lived there who were still alive and... I mean, you're talking about septuagenarians, octogenarians at this point. Yeah. Or the kids of people who lived in the bottom are still alive. They often walk right here on Market Street. Yes. Kind of between...
00:21:41
Speaker
34th and 38th, but especially 36th and 37th Street. And they would say that we are recording this in the heart of what was the Black Bottom. And it's complicated. I mean, there's a lot of, some might say a lot of good that's happening here with research and technology and jobs that are here and the education that's always happening.
00:22:06
Speaker
And yet, the black families that lived here, that rented from homes here and the few that owned homes here, don't have a lot to show for and don't have the same access that a lot of us do with our access cards and financial resources. It's complicated and it's sad.
00:22:33
Speaker
I'm reminded of Walter Palmer's work. Yeah. And I think he recorded a tour with a local NPR affiliate. We'll link to it in the description. And certainly we're both affiliated with the cathedral. Also, shout out of the neighborhood. I'm sure we'll get there at some point.
00:23:02
Speaker
and the community members that have told their stories who live in the townhomes as well. I hope in engaging this piece of conversation is that I don't think we've had the opportunity to participate in. We haven't had the opportunity to see certainly in the media as someone
00:23:22
Speaker
who lives and works in this neighborhood, at least for me, is opportunities to hear this story in a longer format. Because it's sound bites, it's social media, Walt's NPR video interview is five minutes long. And you can't even, I mean, that's a solid, that's half of a moth story.
00:23:51
Speaker
You can't tell a story in five minutes, so I think even just this part of the story to have a little bit of extra time to just
00:24:06
Speaker
Hell, a little bit more of the narrative feels important. Feels very, very human in a way. Feels very anti, anti-social media, ironically, for a podcast. And a hundred percent, you know, if you ask someone to tell me about your family in five minutes.
00:24:28
Speaker
You don't come close to doing it justice. Or even, you know, tell me about your neighborhood where you grew up in five minutes. I can give you some bullet points of the neighbor there, kind of what it looked like, what it's near. But that doesn't capture it. And I'm not sure what amount of time could, but certainly not five minutes. You're right. And certainly not a few tweets or anything.
00:24:51
Speaker
And neighborhoods like the Black Bottom, neighborhoods like West Philadelphia and what is called University City are comprised of individuals who have their own stories of where they went to school, what they find joy in, their own quirks, their own vocations, not just milestone moments in a neighborhood where buildings came down and buildings came up.
00:25:20
Speaker
So your phrase of, we need to do a better job of affirming the humanity in these stories is a beautiful call. And that, to be fair, needs to go in every direction, too. Because I think that some of the criticism of Penn and Drexel, and I can only speak about Penn,
00:25:42
Speaker
These also were institutions made up of human beings with their own dreams and their own, um, hopes and their own shortcomings and their own personalities. A, B, you know, a place like Penn is comprised of 20,000 students, another 40 to 60,000 employees, most of whom don't
00:26:08
Speaker
sort of have an active role in the decision-making of stuff. The average 19-year-old who's here trying to become a doctor or an engineer wasn't alive when this happened, doesn't have any decision. And many of whom are advocating on behalf of UC Town Homes, for example, which is amazing. But obviously, to complicate and to humanize these conversations is a beautiful challenge for all of us.
00:26:36
Speaker
I want to lean into a personal aspect of this project of humanizing.
Personal Toll of Public Criticism
00:26:47
Speaker
This was an uncomfortable moment for me as I was commuting home.
00:26:53
Speaker
I tend to ride my beautiful little periwinkle blue folding bike throughout the city, but sorry Penn Police, I do tend to ride my bike up Locust Walk after hours and on the weekends. Sorry. Apologies. You and a lot of our students.
00:27:13
Speaker
You had the unfortunate circumstance of being personally doxxed in this situation, given the visibility of your role as Chaplin, specifically, technically speaking, in your role as Vice President.
00:27:33
Speaker
I've seen just really awful posters of you, of people posting your staff photo with your email address. And in some cases, I think at least your office number, maybe your personal phone number.
00:27:57
Speaker
That also seems like an incredible weight to bear. And I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about what dealing with that has been like. I appreciate the gentle and loving way you asked the question. I think there's levels to it. I think that there's the surface level answer I would give would be
00:28:28
Speaker
one shouldn't take these things too personally. Some of it comes with the badge and leaders of institutions are criticized. And, you know, if it wasn't me, would be whoever would be in this role. Sure.
00:28:49
Speaker
university presidents and vice presidents and provosts. Fam, this comes with the territory and like, you need to know what's coming, whether it's about gentrification and affordable housing or the food, dining halls, or, you know, our endowment and our investments and like just anything. And, and it will happen again on one sense with the next set of issues that, um, that's part of an Indian to not to over
00:29:19
Speaker
elevate this, but it gave me a brief moment of compassion for our former president, President Trump. And I remember being in DC, I had a demonstration protesting little kids in cages at the border and holding up signs talking about President Trump and
00:29:40
Speaker
tweeting about him in ways that were certainly not, I don't think, mean. I don't think I was making fun of him personally. It was more deep criticism of him. And I was like, yeah, it doesn't feel good. Have your name out on anything like that. It stings. And I don't think these are the same issue at all. And the President of the United States is really different than one of 20 random VPs at a university. It's certainly very, very different. But it gave me a little pause on that. But the deeper answer,
00:30:10
Speaker
You know, is it, more than anything, it makes me sad because there are a couple of things to say. In one sense, and I don't want to sound dismissive, but, you know, 18 to 22 year olds
00:30:25
Speaker
Um, brains aren't necessarily fully formed and sometimes don't see how complicated issues are and don't always think through the consequences of what they do. And so this is why we have frat kids who jump off a roof into a kiddie pool of jello thinking, this seems fun. And you know, 10 minutes later they've broken their leg and they're in the hospital and didn't think that, okay, you know, that's, uh, we were all 19 at one point two. And I think some people thinking through
00:30:55
Speaker
how this putting someone's email address and poster up might hurt them or their families.
Activism, Empathy, and Public Shaming
00:31:02
Speaker
Um, maybe they didn't think that through. Two, I think these are also righteous causes, you know, and, and particularly around affordable housing, divestment from fossil fuels, our relationship to public schools, like
00:31:19
Speaker
These are, I think these are good human beings fighting for good causes that I agree with on almost every point. And I think I am proud of them and I'm, I think they're dope and I think this is fantastic. And I have close relationship with some of the students involved and then I'm cheering for them. Um, and yet I'd be lying if I didn't say it didn't stink. Yeah. It hurt, you know, um, it hurts because I think it,
00:31:48
Speaker
It doesn't capture the work me and some of the other people are trying to do on the inside, on behalf of the same causes, and to treat us like the enemy.
00:32:03
Speaker
It hurts, and I think misses the truth in these things. Two, it felt kind of cruel that at first the only faces put up were two black administrators. Yep. And like no one else. And then later the white president's face gets put up. Yes. Later. Yes.
00:32:25
Speaker
and not the people who actually do control our investments, the people who actually do make decisions about our relationships with affordable housing and community. Yes, I have no decision-making power in any of this at all, nor does the Dean of Student Affairs, Vice Provost of Student Affairs, has nothing to do with these decisions.
00:32:47
Speaker
But you put those two black faces up in it, and I'm not saying that with a shade in accused of racism at all, but I think one didn't think through the way that that looks and the cruelty of that. There are only very, very few black administrators at the university. Yep. I'm the only black male vice president.
00:33:14
Speaker
I'm one of the people who actually agrees with folks out there who are doing this, this stuff, you know, mostly may disagree on tactic and details, but like, I'm with you. And to come at me like I'm on the other side, like really hurt. And yet, you know, I too was a passionate
00:33:36
Speaker
student activists who didn't always think things through. Or I should say, didn't always understand how complicated these things can be. So it's deep love on my side. And I think it's deep love on their side too, but I think people see what would disrupt public shaming as a tactic.
00:34:02
Speaker
that there's a hope that that works and it, and it's not, it doesn't work here in this situation. If anything, it builds resentment and shuts down conversation. That was a lot. Sorry. I mean, if my body language is tightened up too, I'm sorry. No, no, you're good. I mean, like these are uncomfortable things to talk about and I'm grateful that, that we can,
00:34:30
Speaker
we can sort of tease out a little bit of them because these are complicated things. And these are the ways that we start to humanize each other, that we have these uncomfortable conversations in the safest way that we can. This might be a little bit too close to the vest. I don't know if it is or not.
00:34:57
Speaker
because this has happened to me as well in sitting in Asian populations. Usually our conversation is around I'm a Korean adoptee, which means I don't speak Korean, and a lot of my indigenous traditions are lost to me, and I'm experiencing them more as a tourist.
00:35:21
Speaker
And I think the question, so the question as you've identified, yes, the two posters that have been posted throughout the city, the university city, most of them have been weathered down because they've been up for so long, but you identified that those two posters capture the faces of the two most prominent perhaps
00:35:46
Speaker
I don't know if there are any other black administrators at the VP level, at the C-suite level. There we are, besides the two of you. Do we live with the mediascape that we have right now? Are we living in a time where there's room to tease out the uncomfortable nuances of the issue of
00:36:10
Speaker
misplacement of racial pain because it certainly seems like people are trying to draw attention to the issue and it seems like there is this tinge of traitorism that people are trying to point to. I don't know the issue enough for my opinion to really matter, but
00:36:31
Speaker
identifying the fact that this is what is being leveraged against you. Do we at least have the working conditions to tease out the nuances of that conversation? Or do we still have to build that foundation to have that level of
00:36:53
Speaker
conversation. It's a rich question. I mean, I think I would, I would further complicate it in saying that individuals who are sort of making these sort of claims when actively posting stuff. Yeah. Are students. Yes. And there's a, there's not an equal power dynamic between administrator,
00:37:18
Speaker
professional, full, mid-life adults, and literally teenagers and 20-somethings who are students. And so I think the kind of critical response that I think I'd feel more comfortable giving to an age peer at the very least,
00:37:40
Speaker
I would certainly want to hold, I don't use it on a violin language, but sort of pull my punches when dealing with like a 20 year old. And I don't mean to sound patronizing when I say that, but I try to say that with love in that.
00:37:55
Speaker
You know, when, when, if one of my kids said something offensive to me in a moment of passion, I'll respond hopefully with a more of a teaching posture and compassion that teenagers have all kinds of like ups and downs of emotions. It was our day at school and you don't know what you're doing after like, as opposed to like, if my brother said something to me, like we can have a very different conversation. Um, and I don't say that to be dismissive. It's meant to be said in care, in love, in that, um,
Love as Action in Conversations
00:38:26
Speaker
You know, there, A, B, there's a lot to say about...
00:38:31
Speaker
confidentiality and kind of, um, yes, HIPAA, FERPA, one of those is true for higher ed of like, I, we also, I've journeyed with a lot of these students and just know a lot more about them. Yes. They're, they're ups and downs of life, which hopefully can kind of bring more compassion for me, but also like, I feel like I see it a little more complicated than they are calling me a sellout. It's like, it's just, it's deeper than that because of the life some of them have lived.
00:39:00
Speaker
Yes. And so for me to kind of get into a debate with with certain students, I'm not sure good fruit comes from that. And I don't think I don't think it's the love move. You know, that hurts, though, because I have a lot of thoughts about it. Yeah. What is the love move these days? I think the first love move is not hating.
00:39:30
Speaker
and not hurting others, I think is a love move. I think not punching back. I think listening, I think taking seriously, I think these are love moves. I think sort of staying engaged even when
00:39:52
Speaker
One's utterly exhausted with these very draining conversations. I think trying to figure out now, what's it, uh, uh, Teresa of Abula, sort of old Catholic saint, you know, it's not a matter of thinking much. It's, uh, do whatever most Kindles love in you is, is her quote. And I think it's trying to figure out, well, there's certain things we can do.
00:40:22
Speaker
But what can we do in love? You know, I think we they're not, for example, they're not selling UC townhomes to us. It's not for sale to us. We can't buy them. Is there something else we can do? You know, I think, uh, if, if our students are asking a lot of us and maybe we can't say yes to everything, but what can we do? How can we love, you know, there's, uh,
00:40:50
Speaker
I try to, I think it's important for that question to be the guiding compass in most of what we do. What's the loving thing to do right now? What's the love move?
00:41:06
Speaker
It's easier asked than answered, I think. Yeah. How do we get to the space of asking more question and a greater level of curiosity? Because that's the one thing that I hear you expressing that I think is disappointingly uncommon. I'll go further, disappointingly refreshing. It's disappointing because of the fact that
00:41:34
Speaker
curiosity has to be refreshing. I would love for curiosity to be a norm rather than the oasis in a desert of cynicism and preconceived notion. I don't mean to sound whatever, but I think podcasts help with this kind of a thing.
00:41:54
Speaker
like spaces that are designed to pose questions. And I think a radically democratized internet and media and social media, I think, lends itself to being a dialogical space that allows for us to sit across from one another and
00:42:15
Speaker
dream and learn and ask questions and laugh and grieve and unpack things together. Obviously, not all of us can be on one podcast at the same time, but we can engage. I think that's one thing. I think two is
00:42:34
Speaker
this notion of coming to the table. We're doing it now. Our students are very often demanding meetings with the president, demanding meetings with others. And there was a time, I felt like, when I was a student,
00:42:52
Speaker
that we often got blown off because the administrators didn't have to come to the table. They could just wait us out because we are going to graduate in a couple of years and leave. I think the posture of most universities now is to stay engaged with students, even if we can't work toward a yes,
00:43:13
Speaker
Let me hear you out and affirm your, not only feelings, but your ideas and do our best. And, you know, we see things differently, maybe on a whole lot of issues, but we care about you. I think that translates also into communities of
00:43:34
Speaker
let's come to the table. Even if this is hard, even if he might put me on blast and like write a mean article and record this thing and push it, I'm like, keep coming to the table. Because that's, that's love. And you don't come to the table. That's fear. And I think very little grows well out of a fear when that's the soil. Yeah. Gloves are far more rich in nutrient filled soil for good things to grow out of.
00:44:01
Speaker
So my wife Leah is a political scientist and so much of her work has been around dialogue and particularly dialogue across difference. Yeah. And, you know, she talks about the importance of listening and having compassion and recognizing different life experiences form into the way we vote and the way that we sort of see the world. And it's possible to hold two different
00:44:32
Speaker
Positions and tension almost right at the very least to have room for two different world views
00:44:40
Speaker
until it's not. And by that, I think she would mean like, we can always come to the table as humans, unless you don't see me as a human, and unless your acts are violent and dehumanizing to me. That doesn't mean you're not human, but it means that it's really hard to share space with you. I think it's similar with ideas too, in that it's possible for people to sort of see something like big government, small government,
00:45:08
Speaker
I think it's possible to sort of see some really complicated issues out there with some tension. Pro-life, pro-choice, Israel, Palestine. I think these are hot button issues that people have very strong feelings about. I think it's possible that there can be perspectives on either side.
00:45:31
Speaker
If one of those perspectives is I want to get rid of a certain type of person, I want to do violence to you. I'm not sure I can hold that idea intention. I can hold the people intention. Um, but I think that's very hard to do. Um, it's not so much holding ideas intention. It's holding perspectives with equal care.
00:45:58
Speaker
or even go even further. Maybe it's having love across difference. Even if your idea is a really bad one, like we can, I can love you and we can love each other and I can love and recognize the feelings across the table. Even if your idea makes no sense, you know, then you forget to ramble for one more sentence. I mean, I think I've thought about this with some of the kind of dangerous
00:46:24
Speaker
conspiracy theory, kind of far-right QAnon kind of stuff that is, I wish I could say this without a judgment seat, but like this is off the wall and it literally doesn't make any sense. It contradicts itself and is whatever.
00:46:41
Speaker
I don't think we need to take those ideas seriously. I think we need to take those people very seriously and the painful life journey that causes one to fall into that and makes one feel like they need to believe in those things. I think we can love them and care about them without having to, you know, give them any sort of seat at the dialogue around ideas that we need to wrestle with, but we can love them.
00:47:12
Speaker
I think there's an answer somewhere in there. What makes an idea a bad idea? I think you know things by their fruit. And I think if an idea
00:47:25
Speaker
causes major pain to others, certainly aspects of it might be bad. I think there's some good ideas that have hurt others too. I think the idea of America is probably a good idea, a democratic nation that takes very seriously the voices of others, the voices of its citizens, as opposed to kind of an all-consuming monarchy. I think it's a good idea.
00:47:55
Speaker
But certainly the idea of America has hurt people too and the displacement of others. It's possible for a good idea to be cruel. I think a bad idea or bad aspects of ideas hurt people. One, two, I think that ideas that are just frankly not true or that are based out of not a different perspective, but that are based out of a lie with the intent of
00:48:23
Speaker
unhealthy gain from that lie, I think is a bad idea. And I think we've seen a good amount of that passionately recently. By untrue, we mean ideas that are objectively and patently false. Okay. There we are. Fair enough. Good qualifier. Good commercial, good qualifier. This capacity to hold
00:48:51
Speaker
ideas and tension and to love across difference. Where does that come from for you? It's a good question. I mean, I think a couple thoughts. I think a couple thoughts. There's a musical number there. That's a song that you need to write or write that. Yeah. The two basses will sing that. Drop some bars.
00:49:17
Speaker
I would like to say it was in one sense, the way I was educated in seminary and I hope, I think in college too, in great part, this notion of, for example, kind of in a Christian paradigm,
00:49:41
Speaker
there can be a range of ways to worship God. In some Christian paradise. In some Christian paradise. And one doesn't have to be right or even better. They can be different and they can be even in tension and can be beautiful in tension.
00:49:58
Speaker
whether it's, quote, high church versus, quote, low church kind of stuff that both are really important to me and feel very at home for me. And I can hold them with both arms in love. That's sort of like a gentle example. I think there's harder examples around
00:50:20
Speaker
you know, growing up in Baltimore in, you know, like McCullough Street, which is a block from where Freddie Gray got killed. Yeah. And growing up in black North Baltimore in one sense, and then going as a scholarship kid to a white private school in Roland Park, which is a sort of upper middle-class area in Baltimore. Mm-hmm.
00:50:49
Speaker
those aren't necessarily different opinions of things. They're just a very different worldviews, different worlds almost that I felt comfortable and uncomfortable in on both sides at different times. Yeah. And that was just the life I navigated. Um, I think even now, you know, growing up living as a black man who has been stopped by the police
00:51:14
Speaker
three times in the last five years and feeling the how disempowered and fragile life can be in those moments.
00:51:26
Speaker
And yet also at this point in life, being an upper middle upper middle-class, um, university administrator at a place like Penn. Yeah. And that sort of very interesting tension there, um, of having moments of being pretty poor growing up. Yeah. And moments of sort of, you know, living with real comfort now, um, having that tension, um, I think was deeply formative for me.
00:51:55
Speaker
and has formed the way that I pretty often see issues. And so if I look at something like town gown stuff of Penn and Philly, Hopkins, Baltimore, Yale, New York, I can sort of see these things with complexity, with the real good that a world-class research institution can bring to the world, i.e. the research that leads to the COVID vaccine.
00:52:21
Speaker
Yeah. Or, you know, saving lives every day in a health system or educating people and all that. And yet the tension around gentrification and over-policing and lack of access. And so I can sort of see these things with a tension with the complex, I don't know,
Navigating Philadelphia's Cultural Diversity
00:52:44
Speaker
tinted glasses that I think they need.
00:52:50
Speaker
I want to pivot a little bit. I have this phrase of a city like University of City has a lot of ethnic food for white people.
00:53:04
Speaker
never heard that. We have, as of a couple of years, we have a halal guys cart. Well, it's a brick and mortar, but your phrase, ethnic spots for white people is hilarious, but kind of accurate for a lot of these, a lot of spots. I mean, I think about, well, I will call them my name, but I think that there's some spots that
00:53:25
Speaker
Uh, if you were looking for an authentic version of that food, I would go to different parts of the city for it. Oh, yes. Uh, yes, yes, yes. I think there's some food truck exceptions. Um, I think there's a Caribbean food truck that is really good. Um.
00:53:48
Speaker
I think there's some halal trucks that stand out to me and that I think people who really, um, want a better version, I think we'll find their way too. There's a, oh man.
00:54:05
Speaker
a, I think a Moroccan food truck. Like on the end of it, that is really, really good. And that's not always there that I really, I think is just dope. I would be remiss if we ended the chat without talking a little bit about the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral.
Connection to Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral
00:54:24
Speaker
Join us. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit of the story why the Episcopal Church in 2023
00:54:33
Speaker
I think there's a couple of answers. The first is it's, it's just a beautiful place, you know, like it, and at this season of life, um, I love a multi-century worshipful experience. It's, it's visually a lovely spot. There's just a lot to take in, be it stained glass or kind of, you know, the beautiful deep paintings on ceilings and, um,
00:55:02
Speaker
The lighting is cool and the sort of the seating setup is different every season. There's a beautiful baptismal font there and you sort of hear the water flowing. The music I think is top rate. There's incense and so you kind of get a little bit of the smell kind of thing going on there.
00:55:25
Speaker
the different range of sounds, I think be it the magnification of song that's there, or clear hearing of sermons, or even just like little things like there's like a little gong kind of thing that we hear after sermons, which is the
00:55:42
Speaker
Like, I soak all that in, in a way that I, not sure every space I would. Two, I think, you know, Dean Judy's development of the liturgy there has spoken to me, the rhythm of the worship, the physicality of the worship, the intersection of kind of old and new, I really love that.
00:56:07
Speaker
I think more than anything else is just my relationship with the Dean who I've known for 21 years at this point. We did our summer sort of clinical pastoral education, kind of a chaplainy
00:56:23
Speaker
CPE. CPE. Summer internship together and then became family way back then and I was delighted when she sort of was at the cathedral and then came back to the cathedral as dean. I think just her presence was probably the first magnet for me. They're in its proximity to the university and the city. A friend invited you to church?
00:56:48
Speaker
which is so often the way it happens that people come in there. How about you? That's a really good question. I'm very grateful listeners of the pod know that I'm in recent recovery from a bike accident, also connected to CPE.
00:57:14
Speaker
I'm also very grateful to the Dean, to Dean Judy, on a number of things, of being my mentoring priest when I was in the ordination process in the Episcopal Church in the past, in providing just top-notch
00:57:35
Speaker
empathetic, deeply compassionate pastoral care throughout seminary and then throughout recovery so far. And then having a place that's committed to
00:57:57
Speaker
a lot of the values we've talked about so far about standing in the uncomfortable sort of middle places and trying to be present and trying to listen. As you've said, even when we can't necessarily give yeses or noes directly or if it has to be a gentle no, the power of the gentle no
00:58:23
Speaker
There's another podcast hour by itself. Which one? Power of the gentle no. The power of the gentle no.
00:58:35
Speaker
Those are the couple of the start of that iceberg of gratitude. Yeah. And the music too. I have to shout out hopefully future guests, Tom, Lloyd, whom we have to acknowledge, curates the art installations, directs the choir,
00:59:04
Speaker
Yes. Professor of Music Emeritus at Haverford and Bryn Mawr College is Grammy nominated artist for his work with Bonhoeffer. Yeah.
00:59:24
Speaker
All of those wonderful honorifics, also a Yale Seminary person, Yale School of Music alum. Yeah, the multisensory as well. Yeah.
00:59:40
Speaker
Dope.
Hope for a Compassionate World
00:59:41
Speaker
Thank you for all of the time that you've spent with us today. We are just nearing the end of our time, so we have just one last question that we ask everybody as they're ending and we're finishing up, that we end every show with, and that's, what do you want the world to look like when you're done with it?
01:00:04
Speaker
That's a beautiful question. I think my hope and prayer for the world when I'm transitioning is that it would be a place driven more by love and less by fear and love for each other and love for creation, love for the planet.
01:00:28
Speaker
a special love for the most vulnerable. I think I would hope for a world that is far less violent.
01:00:38
Speaker
far more economically cooperative and just kinder. So I think most of my hopes are behavioral and relational. And I think that from that, a different physical world will emerge. And I have hope. I really do think
01:01:01
Speaker
We are closer to that than we are to the opposite. Thanks so much for being with us today. Plesson to be with you, fam. You already know.
01:01:12
Speaker
My thanks to my guest, the Reverend Chaz Howard, Ph.D. You can buy Chaz's most recent book, The Bottom, a theopoetic of the streets, wherever books are sold. And you can follow Chaz on Instagram at Chaz.Howard. Thank you so much for tuning in to Uncommon Good with Pauli Reis. This program is produced in Southwest Philadelphia on the unceded land of the Leni Lenape tribe and the Black Bottom community.
01:01:38
Speaker
Our associate producers are Willa Jaffe and Kia Watkins. If you enjoyed listening to the show, please support us by leaving us a five-star review and a comment and subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps people find us. Uncommon Good is also available on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram at UncommonGoodPod.
01:01:59
Speaker
Follow us there for closed captioned video content and more goodies. We love questions and feedback. You can send us a DM on social media or an email at uncommongoodpod at gmail.com. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, wishing you every uncommon good to do your uncommon good, to be the uncommon good.