We were on our way home from vacation when I started getting tweets about the rallies and murder in Charlottesville.
Like so many others, I am saddened and disgusted and ashamed and worried.
I have been thinking a lot about my whiteness and racism and disadvantaged populations, and in thinking about these things I have been reading and viewing documentaries to try to parse out my own complicated feelings.
I have never subscribed to the idea that people can just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and succeed or attain the American Dream or whatever. I think this is generally the exception to the rule rather than the rule. I understand the appeal of the bootstrap mentality, though. It gives a person a sense of control over his or her life. If I work hard enough and long enough, I can get x, y and z. What is the point of trying if the odds are against your hard work making a difference?
The bootstrap mentality is akin to the praying mentality. I think prayer can do great things, but I also know from personal experience that you can try your damnedest to pray yourself out of a situation but prayer alone may not work. I spent my entire childhood trying to pray away the turmoil inside my head, and the only things that helped me "triumph over them" (however long that triumph may actually last is unclear) was medication and cognitive behavioral therapy.
I apply my mental health experience to the situation of disadvantaged people in whatever form I find them. Poor people might work their hardest, but the deck is stacked against them just like my genetics stacked the deck against me in dealing with my anxiety and OCD. Minorities might do everything "right" but their skin color may stack the deck against them in ways that white people do not have to contend. That doesn't mean that disadvantaged people or minorities cannot get ahead or see positive change, but it takes an awful lot of support (institutional support included)....just like my anxiety takes daily medication and checkups with my psychiatrist and blogging and a whole lot of self-talk to help me regulate myself.
Since my thoughts right now are all over the map (ya know, since race and racism and life is complicated....who knew?), I better do some bolding and caps and stuff.
WHITENESS--
I try to be aware of my whiteness and what that means, but I know I fail pretty miserably. I saw this on one of the links about educating oneself about race after Charlottesville, but I cannot identify myself, in large part because I do not want to. I know that I don't speak out about racism as much as I could or should. I know that I rely on my white privilege because it is safe and comfortable and the only existence I know. I am not a good judge of my white identity.
I am uncomfortable with the idea of attending rallies not because I fear acting in solidarity with others but because of sheer laziness, which is probably white privilege. I am afforded the privilege of feeling lazy about such things because they do not impact my life in a way that makes life difficult for me. A couple weeks ago when there was no bus stop for my kids at this end of the neighborhood, you better believe I was taking action and speaking out to remedy the situation. Until or unless you are actively made uncomfortable or life is made difficult/unbearable, you generally keep the status quo.
What I do try to do regularly and well is, through my teaching, play devil's advocate and bring things to the attention of students. I recently found a PBS documentary called Slavery By Another Name, which I will be sharing with students when they read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry this fall. In discussions of race, I often hear White people say things like, "Slavery ended a long time ago," and while this is technically true, documentaries and a little understanding of history make it clear that Blacks spent well over a hundred years after slavery still being stifled by policies that acted in ways that, at best, disadvantaged them, and at worst enslaved them in different ways.
I also made an effort, when I was finding local women to feature in a magazine, to seek out women of color because I felt like every face I was seeing in the pages was white, and it bothered me. I did what I could to try to bring different faces to the forefront.
It's not much.
SEEING COLOR
Whenever I hear people say things like, "I don't see color," my initial reaction is that they are full of shit. I think people like to think they do not see color, and they may not actively or consciously judge other people based on skin color (or any of the others things by which you shouldn't judge others), but they are very much aware of color. It really sounds ridiculous to me, to be perfectly honest.
I have moments when I need to describe someone who is of a different skin color, and I think really hard about how to describe that person, but I ultimately end up mentioning skin simply because this is a characteristic by which a person is identified. To say "I don't see color" is stripping a person of their identity. I think White people mean well (sometimes) when they say this, but I really struggle with it when I hear it.
BLACK FRIENDS
I also cringe when I hear people say something about having a Black friend. I have found that if a White person talks about having a Black friend, you can check their social media "friends" and see pretty quickly that they really don't know any Black people. I actually just checked my own Facebook page for a cursory view of my own "friendships"--- I have about 8 Black friends who are former coworkers or classmates or parents of my children's friends. Between 2-5 of my White friends are in interracial relationships or marriages. Of course, having social media "friends" is not the same as having sustained relationships where you eat together and socialize together and shop together.
UNCOMFORTABLE WITH CULTURE
I get a pretty clear sense of how a White person feels about race (even if they aren't aware of how they actually feel about race) when a discussion of Black literature comes up. When teachers, especially Black teachers, make a concerted effort to educate students about Black writers in any month other than February, I have heardWhite people say something about these teachers' "agenda."
That sounds sinister....as if the Black teachers are trying to warp the minds of innocent young White kids by showcasing the value of Black literature and the contributions of Black writers. White students need to know this, and Black students need to be inspired by this.
TEACHING WITH BLACK COLLEAGUES
When I first began teaching, there was a team of three teachers (2 Black teachers and 1 White teacher) that I thought were really cool. If memory serves, they were a strictly "neighborhood" team, which means they did not have any AP kids (upper middle class, predominantly White children from the other side of the county).
I felt both honored and scared when I was able to work on a team with the two Black teachers. I had observed how they interacted with students, and I was regularly inspired by them. They were great teachers, but their experience as Black women played a role in their ability to relate to their students, and I feared that my Whiteness would hinder my ability to be effective. Would I be so "White" that I couldn't reach students? Would I be so unaware of their culture that I couldn't make a difference?
It was a profound learning experience for me, and one that I loved. I didn't pay attention to their race as a negative but as a positive that I could learn from. To say that race doesn't matter to students and teachers is not true, in my humble opinion. It can be intimidating or inspiring. In my case, it began as intimidating and ended up inspiring. I think I became a better teacher because I was not on a team of all-White teachers.
DIRTY
There are euphemisms about race that I sometimes hear.
Recently, a family member mentioned that they no longer shop at a nearby Kroger because it is "dirty." That person now shops at the Kroger down the road, which is right across the street from a big, upper middle class housing community.
When they said "dirty," I knew what they meant. They meant that an increasing number of Blacks and immigrants shop there. I know they don't mean dirty as in dirt, filth, disrepair because that Kroger is undergoing a renovation. I shop in both Kroger stores and neither one is disgusting.
These are the same people who don't want their children or grandchildren attending the school district because of Blacks and immigrants. They like the idea of them going to districts outside this county, where the children are predominantly White.
I AM NOT IMMUNE
I might come across as Judgy Mcjudgerson about other people's race comments, but I cannot pretend as if I don't have my own internal prejudiced notions that flit across my mind. I wasn't raised in a vacuum.
Growing up in a virtually all-White community until high school, and hearing comments from people within that community, impacted me. I try to be aware of some of my reactionary go-to thoughts that I know are prejudiced and without merit. I strive to recognize them and be critical with them.
FIN
Not really. It isn't over, and my thoughts about race and my own relation to it are not quiet, but I need to stop writing and give myself time to continue to think.
Like so many others, I am saddened and disgusted and ashamed and worried.
I have been thinking a lot about my whiteness and racism and disadvantaged populations, and in thinking about these things I have been reading and viewing documentaries to try to parse out my own complicated feelings.
I have never subscribed to the idea that people can just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and succeed or attain the American Dream or whatever. I think this is generally the exception to the rule rather than the rule. I understand the appeal of the bootstrap mentality, though. It gives a person a sense of control over his or her life. If I work hard enough and long enough, I can get x, y and z. What is the point of trying if the odds are against your hard work making a difference?
The bootstrap mentality is akin to the praying mentality. I think prayer can do great things, but I also know from personal experience that you can try your damnedest to pray yourself out of a situation but prayer alone may not work. I spent my entire childhood trying to pray away the turmoil inside my head, and the only things that helped me "triumph over them" (however long that triumph may actually last is unclear) was medication and cognitive behavioral therapy.
I apply my mental health experience to the situation of disadvantaged people in whatever form I find them. Poor people might work their hardest, but the deck is stacked against them just like my genetics stacked the deck against me in dealing with my anxiety and OCD. Minorities might do everything "right" but their skin color may stack the deck against them in ways that white people do not have to contend. That doesn't mean that disadvantaged people or minorities cannot get ahead or see positive change, but it takes an awful lot of support (institutional support included)....just like my anxiety takes daily medication and checkups with my psychiatrist and blogging and a whole lot of self-talk to help me regulate myself.
Since my thoughts right now are all over the map (ya know, since race and racism and life is complicated....who knew?), I better do some bolding and caps and stuff.
WHITENESS--
I try to be aware of my whiteness and what that means, but I know I fail pretty miserably. I saw this on one of the links about educating oneself about race after Charlottesville, but I cannot identify myself, in large part because I do not want to. I know that I don't speak out about racism as much as I could or should. I know that I rely on my white privilege because it is safe and comfortable and the only existence I know. I am not a good judge of my white identity.
I am uncomfortable with the idea of attending rallies not because I fear acting in solidarity with others but because of sheer laziness, which is probably white privilege. I am afforded the privilege of feeling lazy about such things because they do not impact my life in a way that makes life difficult for me. A couple weeks ago when there was no bus stop for my kids at this end of the neighborhood, you better believe I was taking action and speaking out to remedy the situation. Until or unless you are actively made uncomfortable or life is made difficult/unbearable, you generally keep the status quo.
What I do try to do regularly and well is, through my teaching, play devil's advocate and bring things to the attention of students. I recently found a PBS documentary called Slavery By Another Name, which I will be sharing with students when they read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry this fall. In discussions of race, I often hear White people say things like, "Slavery ended a long time ago," and while this is technically true, documentaries and a little understanding of history make it clear that Blacks spent well over a hundred years after slavery still being stifled by policies that acted in ways that, at best, disadvantaged them, and at worst enslaved them in different ways.
I also made an effort, when I was finding local women to feature in a magazine, to seek out women of color because I felt like every face I was seeing in the pages was white, and it bothered me. I did what I could to try to bring different faces to the forefront.
It's not much.
SEEING COLOR
Whenever I hear people say things like, "I don't see color," my initial reaction is that they are full of shit. I think people like to think they do not see color, and they may not actively or consciously judge other people based on skin color (or any of the others things by which you shouldn't judge others), but they are very much aware of color. It really sounds ridiculous to me, to be perfectly honest.
I have moments when I need to describe someone who is of a different skin color, and I think really hard about how to describe that person, but I ultimately end up mentioning skin simply because this is a characteristic by which a person is identified. To say "I don't see color" is stripping a person of their identity. I think White people mean well (sometimes) when they say this, but I really struggle with it when I hear it.
BLACK FRIENDS
I also cringe when I hear people say something about having a Black friend. I have found that if a White person talks about having a Black friend, you can check their social media "friends" and see pretty quickly that they really don't know any Black people. I actually just checked my own Facebook page for a cursory view of my own "friendships"--- I have about 8 Black friends who are former coworkers or classmates or parents of my children's friends. Between 2-5 of my White friends are in interracial relationships or marriages. Of course, having social media "friends" is not the same as having sustained relationships where you eat together and socialize together and shop together.
UNCOMFORTABLE WITH CULTURE
I get a pretty clear sense of how a White person feels about race (even if they aren't aware of how they actually feel about race) when a discussion of Black literature comes up. When teachers, especially Black teachers, make a concerted effort to educate students about Black writers in any month other than February, I have heardWhite people say something about these teachers' "agenda."
That sounds sinister....as if the Black teachers are trying to warp the minds of innocent young White kids by showcasing the value of Black literature and the contributions of Black writers. White students need to know this, and Black students need to be inspired by this.
TEACHING WITH BLACK COLLEAGUES
When I first began teaching, there was a team of three teachers (2 Black teachers and 1 White teacher) that I thought were really cool. If memory serves, they were a strictly "neighborhood" team, which means they did not have any AP kids (upper middle class, predominantly White children from the other side of the county).
I felt both honored and scared when I was able to work on a team with the two Black teachers. I had observed how they interacted with students, and I was regularly inspired by them. They were great teachers, but their experience as Black women played a role in their ability to relate to their students, and I feared that my Whiteness would hinder my ability to be effective. Would I be so "White" that I couldn't reach students? Would I be so unaware of their culture that I couldn't make a difference?
It was a profound learning experience for me, and one that I loved. I didn't pay attention to their race as a negative but as a positive that I could learn from. To say that race doesn't matter to students and teachers is not true, in my humble opinion. It can be intimidating or inspiring. In my case, it began as intimidating and ended up inspiring. I think I became a better teacher because I was not on a team of all-White teachers.
DIRTY
There are euphemisms about race that I sometimes hear.
Recently, a family member mentioned that they no longer shop at a nearby Kroger because it is "dirty." That person now shops at the Kroger down the road, which is right across the street from a big, upper middle class housing community.
When they said "dirty," I knew what they meant. They meant that an increasing number of Blacks and immigrants shop there. I know they don't mean dirty as in dirt, filth, disrepair because that Kroger is undergoing a renovation. I shop in both Kroger stores and neither one is disgusting.
These are the same people who don't want their children or grandchildren attending the school district because of Blacks and immigrants. They like the idea of them going to districts outside this county, where the children are predominantly White.
I AM NOT IMMUNE
I might come across as Judgy Mcjudgerson about other people's race comments, but I cannot pretend as if I don't have my own internal prejudiced notions that flit across my mind. I wasn't raised in a vacuum.
Growing up in a virtually all-White community until high school, and hearing comments from people within that community, impacted me. I try to be aware of some of my reactionary go-to thoughts that I know are prejudiced and without merit. I strive to recognize them and be critical with them.
FIN
Not really. It isn't over, and my thoughts about race and my own relation to it are not quiet, but I need to stop writing and give myself time to continue to think.
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