I'm about to get real for a moment. So if seeing a Black woman express herself with passion and conviction rubs you the wrong way, I suggest you return to the delusional world you live in where people of color aren't supposed to feel anything about the way White people treat them. Not like you're a stranger there, anyway.
This post brings up a lot about what frustrates me about talking about Black identity and racism with well-meaning White people - that racism is about hate. It isn't. Racism is about power. I can deal with a bigot. I can't deal with an environment that undermines my humanity at every turn.
Even the way you frame this post kind of makes me squirm because it smacks of this attitude that "progressive" White people have that subtly - and not-so-subtly - places the onus of eradicating racism upon the shoulders of those oppressed by it. Whether White people choose to acknowledge it or not, they often place this sort of pressure on people of color to do all the heavy lifting. We have to educate you on the realities we live with everyday. We have to do so in a way that caters to your tastes, appeals to your sense of noblesse oblige, soothes or eradicates any guilt you may feel as a result, and still defer to you as the ultimate arbiter of all that is true and beautiful and good. We're supposed to display endless patience with your attempts to cling to your innocence, endless willingness to educate you even when you show yourselves to be willfully ignorant, endless gratitude that one so glorious as you would stoop so low as to want to treat with us as equally, and endless selflessness to transcend our own pain - to treat it as not real - to make it easier for you to unlearn how to oppress us. Apparently, we're not supposed to express the pain, or fear, or despair, or anger at how we are treated every moment of our waking lives outside the safe zones we carve out for ourselves.
All the while you still don't know the privilege you have to treat racism as an abstract concept, not a reality that people wrestle with every time they interact with you and the people who look like you. You have no idea what it's like to keep your armor on all the time lest those nearest and dearest to you - those who profess deep and abiding friendship that feels closer to family - may say or do something that cuts you to the quick because it says, even if in a whisper, that your thoughts, your feelings, your dreams, your ideas, your very existence, is at best less than theirs and at worst nothing at all. You have no idea how hard it is to trust you with anything important - that is, anything regarding your deepest self - because you don't know if you will treat it with the care and respect it deserves or if you will use it like a toy or disregard it altogether. You have no idea how it feels to have to smother your spirit - or what is left of it - to make yourself less threatening to those around you. You have no idea what it feels like to be exceptional and treated as mediocre. You have no idea how it feels to need to get angry to stave off despair, how it feels to have to bottle up all the hurt at seeing the injustices that the world tosses at you everyday because that hurts less than people telling you how to feel about it and respond to it.
Point of fact is: I'm tired. I'm tired of being expected to be exponentially more capable and virtuous than you simply to be viewed as average. I'm tired of having to be as non-violent as Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi (combined), as serene as Buddha, as forgiving as Jesus, as patient as Job, as compassionate as Mother Theresa and as wise as Solomon just to be seen as a typical human being.
And most of all: I'm tired of you treating me as though I exist for you and not for me.
I don't purport, of course, to have any idea what it feels like to be anything other than a white woman. But...
ReplyDeleteYou have no idea what it's like to keep your armor on all the time lest those nearest and dearest to you - those who profess deep and abiding friendship that feels closer to family - may say or do something that cuts you to the quick because it says, even if in a whisper, that your thoughts, your feelings, your dreams, your ideas, your very existence, is at best less than theirs and at worst nothing at all. You have no idea how hard it is to trust you with anything important - that is, anything regarding your deepest self - because you don't know if you will treat it with the care and respect it deserves or if you will use it like a toy or disregard it altogether. You have no idea how it feels to have to smother your spirit - or what is left of it - to make yourself less threatening to those around you. You have no idea what it feels like to be exceptional and treated as mediocre. You have no idea how it feels to need to get angry to stave off despair, how it feels to have to bottle up all the hurt at seeing the injustices that the world tosses at you everyday because that hurts less than people telling you how to feel about it and respond to it.
... yes, I do. I know all of those feelings. Not because of the color of my skin, perhaps, but because I am human. But I do think there is a difference in how we talk about our experiences. Even whether we talk about them at all. There's a book called Black and White Styles in Conflict, which occasionally oversimplifies but was eye-opening for me in a lot of ways; that our very basic cultural habits of expression could differ so much, and that can lead to a lot more hurt and misunderstanding than anyone realizes. Of course there is still racism. It's still huge and terrifying and disgusting. But I think we just have to listen to one another. Period. I don't know what it's like to be you, and vice versa. I know that I am at an advantage by the sheer luck of being born the color I am, and I feel like I do my best to just look forward, try to shape the world into a better place any way I can. Because I can't change history. I'm not responsible for history - I didn't cause it, and I don't feel guilty for it, because that wasn't me. Me, my job is just to work towards the way I think the world ought to be. I think it's up to individuals to teach our children to just see people - to notice skin color in the same way they notice hair or eye color. Just see people. I know, I know, it's naive. But what else can we do? Do you have suggestions?
OK, go ahead, let me have it now.
Black people have been living dual lives, one public, one private since they were first captured and placed on US soil.
ReplyDeleteYour responsibility Dear Bard is to merge your two lives as much as possible. It's not to educate folks, or waste a bunch of time explaining yourself. Your job is to be fully and authentically yourself.
But the flip side is that there is a cost to that. It can be lonely. It can be scary. But it's that way for everyone.
Just understand that the closer you to get to embracing and revealing your true self, the more powerful you are.
And yes folks will try to stop you. They always do. But their power has been blunted. Millions of good people have shed blood to blunt that power. So, this my friend, is your time.
Do you.
Be you.
And if people can't deal with that.
F*ck 'em
But what else can we do? Do you have suggestions?
ReplyDeleteOff the top of my head - get off the mic and share the spotlight, even if it makes you sweat.
Something I've noticed is how hard it really is for White people to defer to non-White people. I'm serious! I mean it's like pulling teeth to get most White people to fully accept the authority of non-White people - on anything - as legitimate.
RCVBard,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate this post, and yet again, I'm so sorry you felt the need to make it. It's just the same damn thing over and over, isn't it? It's not on you to make white people "understand" anything. That particular burden does not belong to PoC.
I also don't understand the post you linked to. I have no idea what that guy is about.
Hmm. So, given that my main reaction to your actual post is "Yes! Absolutely!", I hope it's okay if I address some of the other comments and say something a little more substantial.
Laura, I mean no offense when I say this. You seem like a genuinely nice person. This is not, by any stretch, me "letting you have it"; I'm not interested in that sort of discourse. But some of your comments strike me as a little, as you say, naive:
I know all of those feelings. Not because of the color of my skin, perhaps, but because I am human.
No. I am sorry, but no. You do not know how RVCBard feels; as a white person in a society that favors whiteness, you have never, ever known the feelings that she does. This is not your fault. I am not "blaming" you for this, or for anything else. But I am a white woman too, and I cannot for one second tell myself that I understand what RCVBard, and other PoC, go through every day because we are all "human." (And how is "human" constructed? The default social setting for "human" is almost always "white man," and I'm not one of those either.) I don't encounter racism both latent and manifest; my everyday life is not inescapably shaped by that. I don't know how she feels. Neither do you.
Also:
I think it's up to individuals to teach our children to just see people - to notice skin color in the same way they notice hair or eye color. Just see people.
This is pretty much the same thing I just pointed out, and it is one of white liberalism's (and humanism's) fatal flaws: the assumption that there is this 'fundamental' common humanity residing in all of us that somehow transcends culture, race, ethnicity, history, etc; that beneath all of those supposedly superficial exteriors, we are all the same. This is the sort of argument that leads to the desire not to have affirmative action, not to have Black History Month, not to have Gay Pride, because deep down we're all the same and nobody should get "preferential" treatment.
But we are not the same. We have all been shaped by our experiences of being racialized, sexualized, Othered, normed, whatever. It is naive at best to presume that we can teach our kids not to "notice" skin color. Why should we want to teach them such a thing? Is seeing color bad? Is it somehow wrong or shameful to acknowledge someone's blackness? (Because that is almost always what it boils down to: when someone says they are "colorblind," they almost always mean that they are trying to be polite and ignore that other people are not white.)
Because I can't change history. I'm not responsible for history - I didn't cause it, and I don't feel guilty for it, because that wasn't me. Me, my job is just to work towards the way I think the world ought to be.
I agree completely with all of this in a literal sense; however, I have also learned to be wary of such statements because, while they invariably mean well, they also tend to point towards an erasure of history, or at the very least an attempt to ignore our continuing complicity in modern-day racism. As a white person, I still reap the cultural benefits of a system of slavery that ended well over a hundred years ago. That legacy is still very much a part of our society, and if I only focus on "moving forward," I risk forgetting the lessons I need to learn from that traumatic and unforgivable past.
Oof, those are a lot of words. I'm sorry if I talked too much. It's hard to stop me when I get going. I hope I didn't offend anyone, or step on any toes, because it wasn't my intention.
RCVBard, thanks for such a great post, and for letting me shoot off at the mouth.
And I want to see your play! It sounds utterly awesome.
...I also just realized that I kept switching up the 'V' and the 'C' in your username. Oops. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteUgh. I wish I hadn't responded. I did because you asked me to, but I felt like I was walking into a landmine. There is no right thing to say, and much of what has been interpreted from my words weren't what I meant, no matter how carefully I tried to choose them. So I'm bowing out of this conversation. I feel like no matter what I say, I'm going to be told that I couldn't possibly have anything to say on the subject. I'm out.
ReplyDeleteLaura:
ReplyDeleteA few quotes from other sources that I've been researching recently . . .
Quote by bell hooks about what happens when White people change
A little discomfort, if you please
Comfort and discomfort
To keep the conversation from turning into debate, I should be clear about my desires for posting this and letting a few of my allies read it.
ReplyDeleteNo, this isn't a "STFU and listen" sort of thing. I've found that silence speaks more than words when it comes to racism, and I'm increasingly uncomfortable with it.
However, this is an invitation to watch, and comment if you felt compelled to. It's one of the rare cases when I express something I experience everyday and feel very strongly about. I'd prefer not to have a debate, more of a personal reaction, to see if anything I say connects with any of my White allies at all. And, hopefully, if there's anything new or different being revealed here, or if I'm just becoming more of a broken record.
And as a corollary to that, I'm hoping that this post doesn't get usurped. Too often, I find that I start by sharing something deeply personal and painful then people take over this and make it into an intellectual debate.
ReplyDeleteI liken it to having a friend come to you and confess being raped. But instead of, "Who's that bastard and where is he so I can kill him?!?!" you respond about the evils of patriarchy and the persistence of sexism in society.
It's also like if you have a gaping knife wound and someone finds you. But instead of doing something like dialing 911, or even offering comfort and hope, you rail against crime in the city, the lack of adequate health care, public transportation, and other Important Issues. Meanwhile you bleed to death on the street.
I hope that shows what I'm getting at.
I apologize. I didn't know that you didn't want this sort of response, and I didn't mean to co-opt your post or try and take over the discussion. I'll know better in future.
ReplyDeleteA friend sent me your initial post, said you're seeking response, and urged me to consider responding.
ReplyDeleteI'm an old white guy, married for 25 years to a black woman, 15 years younger than I, and better read than I.
The experience you describe is real. There's essentially nothing in it that my wife hasn't, at one time or another, described to me.
Central to the problem is the need for white folks to read, listen, learn and think; and that takes effort. Few people think of themselves as being central to the problem. Few realize how little of our American racial history they know anything about.
For example, in reading about Mark Twain and trying to understand his "unlearning racism" I began to realize how ignorant I was in regard to post-Civil War history and how we came to neglect real racial change for 100 years between the end of the war and the 1960s.
I changed that ignorance to knowledge only by reading lots and thinking about what I read. Enlightenment, to the degree I've achieved it, came only with work, with effort.
Part of the result of that reading was that I began to accept the fact of my ignorance. I'm still learning.
I've written a book, MARK TWAIN AND ME UNLEARNING RACISM, that I posted on a blog site where it could be read free. Unfortunately it's been hacked/destroyed.
From my reading, my listening to my wife, from thinking about my personal and family experience -- I empathize with you. I applaud your expressing your thoughts.
Now, breathe deeply, write, think, and stay sane. My wife says often that it's a wonder most black folks aren't crazy. Breathe. Stay sane. Keep writing. Some of us white folks will listen and learn, and perhaps change.
Cal (a friend of Scott's at Theatre Tribe)
Hey. Thanks for this conversation. I wasn't pissed and didn't mean to be melodramatic; I just kind of felt like no matter how hard I tried, there was no way to effectively contribute to the conversation without pissing someone off. And so I'd rather just stop than keep putting my foot in my mouth trying to defend something. I struggle with this, because I feel like racism is not something that's realistically going to just go away, and I think it shouldn't be something we're afraid to talk about. But I also frequently feel like if, as a white person, I try to talk about it, there is nothing that I can say that will be right because I don't know what it's like to not be white. Of course I don't. I would never claim to know that. I was just trying to find common ground to start from, and I didn't succeed at that. We all come with a whole lot of ancestral baggage that we have no control over. All we can control are our own contributions to the present and the future, and that's all I was trying to say. Why couldn't I have been that succinct yesterday?
ReplyDeleteI'm going to repeat something I said a short while ago, in the hopes that a few White people who want to "get it" can have something to work with. Although it's not my responsibility to initiate volunteering this information (especially since it's not that hard to ask or to take "No" for an answer), I do it for my own sanity.
ReplyDeleteI'll say this as plainly as possible because I've often had White people take my circumspect, subtle way of getting at things - my attempts to be gentle - completely misunderstood and labeled vague, as if I don't know how to communicate my thoughts and feelings in a variety of ways.
Let me just get to it.
I'm not stupid. I know that no White person can know what it's like to be Black just as I don't know what it's like to be paralyzed or to grow up without a mother. But that doesn't mean I can't empathize with people whose experiences differ from mine long enough to consider the impact that has on them on a day-to-day basis and treat them accordingly. It does mean that when a friend of mine says she's been raped or that something triggered her to relive that trauma, I put aside my acid indigestion, my gripes about my boss, my head cold, my aching feet, and the fact she's been a little irritable lately because she needs my compassion, my patience, my understanding, and my fortitude more than I need to protect my own comfort. My responsibility in that case is not to suffer for her or experience her pain for her, but to get the fuck over myself and be there for her in every way I can, even if it starts with, "I can't imagine what that feels like, but I'll do everything I can to let you know you're not alone, and I'll do all in my power to help you heal. If that means we talk, we talk. If that means we go out together, we go out. If that means I shut the hell up and give you a hug, I do that too."
Being real. Being. Love, balance, truth, and the vagaries of an elephant in the hands of six blind wise men.
ReplyDeleteIt's not always easy for us white people to take a look at ourselves in the mirror. We want to be good allies. We tell ourselves we're good allies. However, when the mirror gets held up to our faces, we realize that we're not as good as we think we are, because we can no longer ignore all of those dark blemishes that we're ashamed to admit we have. Many of us will want to push the mirror aside, and say, "That's not me. I'm not that person. That's someone else's reflection, not mine." However, if we're good allies, we'll look in that mirror and say, "Yes, that's me. I recognize that face. Thank you for showing me. I forgot who I was."
ReplyDeleteI am the person you talk about in your entry. That is my reflection in the mirror. My face is dirty. I will wash it for you. Thank you for showing me my reflection. I forgot who I was. :)
RVCBard, I'm a newcomer here--just met you one Twitter today without really knowing anything about you, and decided to check out your blog to learn more about you. I've read a few posts where you are responding to other white men. I don't know who you are talking to, but my word, you are certainly sharing a whole lot of personal shit here. You are brave. I'd give you a hug, but I don't really know you, so I guess that would be kind of weird.
ReplyDelete@Aaron:
ReplyDeleteThank you. It's nice to know that some people are truly listening and responding to my humanity and not an abstraction called Angry Black Woman.