Stick to the Hot Mess

Arguing can be loud. Sometimes, silence is even louder.

When Christine Jeske was young and playing with her cousins during the holidays, she didn't understand why her aunt reprimanded her for being unkind to her cousin. It wasn't until years later that she learned what had happened—her little cousin had asked her mom why she looked different from the rest of the family. She was the only Black child in a sea of white cousins.

The history there was thick. Jeske discovered as an adult that her grandfather had refused to attend her aunt's wedding to a Black man. The family didn't talk about this, though.

"As I grew up in the 1980s, my family’s silence about race followed the trend among white communities at the time," wrote Jeske at CT. "We embraced colorblindness, pretending we could remain blissfully unaware of how the surrounding culture trains us in racism. We kept that silence even as racism ripped through our family."

As an anthropologist, Jeske now breaks that silence by studying, discussing, and researching the impact of racism in America. She works to heed the wisdom of a church leader she once interviewed who implored believers to "stick to the hot mess" of loving one another, even when the topics get tricky.

"For me, writes Jeske, "'sticking with it' means allowing the lessons I learn as a Christian anthropologist to seep into my family conversations."

May we learn from Jeske's example as we gather around Thanksgiving tables this week. And may our gatherings be spaces where grace and love abound.

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