Intro to Storytelling Showcase featuring James Meinert

This episode features James Meinert, a student in Campfire’s Intro to Storytelling class. Students told stories around the theme of responsibility. You can learn more about James Meinert on the Campfire website, https://cmpfr.com/events/fall-2018-intro-to-storytelling/.

These episodes of The Campfire Storytelling Podcast showcase students who went through our Intro to Storytelling. These students take a six-week class to prepare to tell a story about life and how they live it. 

This episode was originally performed in November 2018, produced by Andrew Warshauer, and recorded live at The Stage at KDHX.

Transcript

Steven Harowitz:   0:06
Hello, Internet. I'm Steven Harowitz, the director of Campfire. You are listening to Campfire at Home. It's our way of bringing a live experience to you, whether that be listening and reflecting by yourself or experiencing it with friends. Each Campfire invites listeners into discussions about life and how we live it. Before we get too deep into Campfire at Home, what you're listening to, I want to share a few opportunities for you to get involved beyond the live show or this podcast. We offer public speaking and storytelling classes and coaching for individuals and training and workshops for organizations. If you or your organization are interested in becoming great public speakers and storytellers, visit cmpfr.com. That's c m p f r dot com. Each Campfire season poses a life question that is explored by our Campfire Fellows, together with our audience. We're doing something a little new and having our class graduates share stories at a showcase event. They're not quite answering the exact question, but they're telling stories that relate to the main theme of the Season. So let's go to The Stage at KDHX to listen to the students' stories on responsibility.

Steven Harowitz:   1:21
So James, dedicating his story to my partner Mary, not my partner, your partner Mary, and all people working for justice, fighting for themselves and others. So please help me welcome James to the Campfire.

James Meinert:   1:41
Six years ago, I joined the Organization for Black Struggle. I know. I'm white, but OBS actually wants people of other races to join their organization because they understand the importance of having allies in taking on certain fights, a lesson I would learn now. First, I didn't go to any of OBS' meetings ,and I would tell myself, like I'm a white guy. I don't really want to intrude. But the truth is, is like I felt out of place, you know? And so I felt uncomfortable. Um, but I would go to some of their events. So they'd have, like, a documentary showing, or something like that. I would show up. And when I was there, I would get to know the organizers and activists that are a part of the organization, and they would invite me to come to other things and eventually it started being like a little more uncomfortable to keep saying no than it was to say yes, and, um, it turns out when you show up to stuff, you get asked to show up to more stuff. Uh, so eventually I was doing quite a bit with them. Now I was never central to the organization, but small stuff, you know, so helping clean up. You know, phone banking, door knocking, envelope stuffing, that kind of stuff. Fast forward a couple years, Mike Brown was shot in Ferguson and protests were a daily occurrence, both in Ferguson and then eventually in St. Louis City, in the Shaw neighborhood. And the Organization for Black Struggle supported these protests and the protesters on the ground by having activists and organizers do whatever they could to, you know, support movement work. So I would help out also, and I tried to always kind of keep a low profile, stay in the background. So I would show up when there was a march. And, you know, I might not, like, put my hands up or shout or anything, but I would, I would march along with everyone else. Um, but because I knew these organizers and activists, I was on a group text message and one day, a text message comes through from one of the activists, and she says, "We're planning an action. We need some white activists who have kept a low profile." Shit. Like that's me. And I realized, like my strategy of sitting in the back of the classroom and like not making eye contact, like only works until they call you by name. Um, so my wife, Mary, and I, we text back, "We're in," like, not knowing what we were in for. Um, well, the activist explains to us, uh, that the Veiled Prophet Ball had been delayed because it was originally scheduled for the same night as the grand jury decision was supposed to come out, and they wanted to avoid direct protests. Well, the The Veiled Prophet is a local organization in St. Louis that fancies itself a philanthropy organization. But it's essentially an organization of mostly elite white people, and it grew out of the KKK. And they have a few events they still do, like, um, Fair St. Louis, used to be called the VP Fair and like the VP Parade, and they have a debutante ball called the VP Ball, and this activist wanted us to infiltrate the VP Ball. And I thought just like going to OBS meetings made me uncomfortable. Um, our mission, that was simple. We we were just supposed to take pictures. There was a larger campaign being organized that was connecting the elite white people of the city with power and racism and the police and those kinds of things. So we were just supposed to try to get into this invitation only event and snap some pictures. All right. The organizer rented a room in the same hotel where a VP Ball was in. I wore my nicest clothes. I had a suit jacket on and pants. They did not match. Nice long tie. My wife is wearing one of her nicest dresses. Um, she's got makeup on. She doesn't usually wear makeup. I remember, uh, the hotel bathroom. And, like, you have no idea how much I'm sweating, you know? And I'm combing my hair. Not because I think, like, maybe I'll fit in better, but because I can't figure out what else to do with my hands. We get on the elevator to ride down to the floor where the ball is. And, you know, when you just know you don't fit in somewhere, like that feeling? Ah, getting off the elevator was like that. It brought me back to this time in sixth grade. I had transferred from a public school to a private school. We had moved, and our first dress down day, I showed up in, like, my kind of ratty shorts and a hand-me-down t-shirt from my uncle. And, like all these private Catholic school kids are wearing like polos and Tommy Hilfiger and stuff like that. And I was like, oh, dress down. Okay, so like, stepping off the elevator is like that, but like, 10 times worse because, uh, all the men are wearing like very similar black tuxedos with white bow ties and cuff links, and I do not own cuff links and, like the women, are all wearing like evening gowns in matching white gloves up to their elbow. And my wife is bare handed, right? So we step off and we walk forward a little bit where the other people are moving forward and there are two security guards checking people's invitations. We do not have invitations. So my wife, Mary is kind of like, like leads me off to the side and we're like looking in her purse as if we're gonna find some invitations and, um, we notice a room off to the side where people are standing in a line getting drinks and we're like, great stall tactic. And so we walk off to that room and we get in that line and we have a conversation with each other that's something kind of along the line of like, "What the fuck are we doing here?" "I don't know." "What the fuck are we doing here?" And I asked myself like, "What am I doing here?" Um and I remembered, like in my, in my college years, in my early twenties, I had a pretty diverse friend group. But after leaving St. Louis and then coming back, after being here for a couple years, I looked around and I had this very homogeneous social life. Like sure, some of my friends were queer and some were straight and some were more working class and some were more middle class. But all of my friends were in their mid-twenties and white like me, and I have felt ashamed by that. Like that without wanting that, that's how my life had ended up. And then I felt a little resentful also that it was gonna be my job to have to do something about it. Like I was like, I didn't create segregation. Like, why do I have to do anything extra about it, you know? But I knew that if our society was gonna kind of push white people to only be close with other white people, like I was gonna have to push back somehow. So I went to this anti-racism workshop because I was like, "Well, this will teach me some things, right?" And I remember something the facilitator said when she was like, "You know, more important than just trying to, like, desegregate your social life, you need to join an organization led by people of color. Back their leadership, support the work they want done, figure out how to be accountable to them." So here I am, standing in line at this VP Ball being like, "Is this what accountability looks like?" We get to the front of the line, we don't drink alcohol, so we like get our waters and which doesn't really help cool the nerves at all. And Mary looks at me and I notice that the security guards have stepped off and they're talking to someone else and she gives me that look like, "Are we doing this?" And I'm like, "Shit, yeah, we're doing this," and then we just walk into the VP Ball. Now we must have stood out like two sore thumbs, right? But no one says anything to us because, like rich white people, they don't really like conflict. It's like a faux pas and like we're white also so, like they don't really want to, like, confront us. And so we're walking around pretending to look at our phones a lot and like snapping pictures of random people like not really knowing why we're there. Exactly. And eventually we're all ushered into the main room where there's a raised stage, and, um, there's these, like men sitting on it, wearing these big pointy hats and their faces are covered, and you're like, oh, okay, it's like pretty direct, right? Um, like the debutantes are being walked out along the stage and, like these like rich white men are accompanying them. So we're snapping pictures of all these people and a usher comes up and he's like, "Excuse me, sir." And I'm like, "That's it. We're kicked out. We're caught," and he's just like, "You can't take pictures here." And I'm like, "Oh, okay." And so then we keep taking pictures, but like, more sneaky, you know, like like on the DL. And I'm starting to get uncomfortable, like, more uncomfortable, and I think about it and I'm like, "Well, I was raised white and, like, I mean, I was raised in rural Missouri. I was raised in, like, the whitest like country town. So it's not being around like all these white people, that's making me uncomfortable." And I'm realizing it's the dissonance right? These people are all acting like, so happy and like everything is fine. And I'm thinking about my friends that are like tear-gassed in Ferguson and the tanks that are sitting on their streets. And so then I start getting angry, and then Chief Dotson walks out accompanying one of the debutantes. He is the guest of honor of the night, and I'm like, "Oh, this must be one of the reasons we're here." So we're snapping Chief Dotson's picture, and then my anger starts to really boil up. And I want to scream and interrupt this whole charade because I'm thinking of Mike Brown's body laying in the street for four and half hours, and they're all drinking their cocktails and being all like this, right? And we text the organizer and we're like, "We're gonna, we're gonna do a chant. We're gonna scream. No justice, no peace, no racist ass police, you know?" And she writes back, she's like, "No, no interrupting." Like just take your pictures and get out of there. And we're like, okay, so we do. And the next day the pictures are all over Twitter as people are trying to make these connections between the police and, you know, the elitism and that kind of stuff. But within 24 hours, most of it's gone because there was a lot of news cycles going on at that time. Um, and I remember wondering, like, you know, did we accomplish anything? And I kind of think in a way, no. But like, does it really matter? Like I don't think so. Right? It helped us build more connection and like trust with these organizers and activists in this organization we're in. Um and I think when I made the decision that I was gonna try to, like, desegregate my own life, like I had no idea that it was gonna lead to having to infiltrate like an elite white organization, you know, like but I think that's a part of accountability, not necessarily knowing what you're gonna be asked to do and like where it might take you. You know, I was just a white guy wanting to do the right thing and mostly stay comfortable and looking back at that night, there was lots of moments when I could have chose comfort. You know, like we got off that elevator, we saw the security guards checking invitations, I could have been like, "Well, no invitations. Deuces." You know, like like, turned around and walked out. But we didn't, you know. We didn't quit. And I think that's what matters. Like do you believe black lives matter? You know? Do you believe immigrants' children shouldn't be locked up? Do you believe Jews and trans people shouldn't be murdered? Right? And if you do, like, what do you do about it? Like, how do you do good ally work for these other communities and people that you care about and love? And I think when it gets hard and it gets uncomfortable, that's when a lot of times we want to take the easy way or quit. And so my message to you is don't quit even when you are uncomfortable. Thank you.

Steven Harowitz:   15:31
One more time for James.

Steven Harowitz:   15:35
 And that is a wrap. I'd like to thank all of the graduates of Intro to Storytelling for sharing stories on responsibility. Also, a big thank you to the Campfire team, our photographers and videographers. Also a special thanks to KDHX Community Media for being our partners on this journey. We're always so honored to host Campfire live at The Stage at KDHX and for letting us record in KDHX Studios in St. Louis, Missouri. If you want to learn more about Campfire and the work we do, you can visit cmpfr.com. That's c m p f r dot com. And if you liked what you heard, please leave a review on iTunes or wherever you find your podcasts. It really does help out. Until next time.