The year I graduated college, my sister had her first child. Luckily, I went to grad school in Baltimore while she was in the D.C. area, so I could visit often. Sometimes I would take the MARC to visit for a weekend, for no reason. Other than to be around family; other than to escape my life; other than the fact that playing with a 2, 3, 4 year old immediately reaffirmed the joy in life. Other than the fact that immersing myself in family drama reminded me that I was needed, to temporarily fill the vacuum that had grown up around my sense of self that grad school had torn down - other than that, no reason.
I learned a lot about myself during that time. And a lot of it came through watching my nephew grow up, who my sister calls my son because he is so like me.
He is like me because he is quiet. He is scared. He is good at math. He doesn't like to try new things.
I've watched him make life so much harder for himself. But it is hard to say, you don't have to react this way - when someone catches you doing something wrong, it doesn't mean everybody hates you and the world is falling apart - you're not going to magically be immediately good at riding a bike, it takes patience and practice - etc., etc. And yet all I have is compassion. What I want to say is, it is not your fault. Your brain is not your fault. My brain is not my fault.
It became even clearer when my sister had a second child, who is definitely her daughter and not mine at all. She talks and talks. She is fearless. She may or may not be good at math, it is too early to tell, but she definitely likes pink. She jumps into new things the same way she swims - with reckless abandon, expecting the people around her to keep her head above water.
Her fearlessness is not her fault. His fear is not his fault.
The things that happened when I was young, the way my brain is wired, my overactive amygdala - none of this is my fault. But it is still hard. I still make choices. Surely some of those I have responsibility for. But sometimes I just can't. Maybe I could, though. I never know.
In all of this confusion and uncertainty, the only shining light that I can see is compassion. How to obtain that compassion, I have no idea, but I believe that is what's needed. We have this illusion of self-control, of power over our thoughts and deeds, and yet when we prod our human natures with science we learn of our biased perceptions, our need to construct stories about ourselves, and the mental shortcuts of our lazy, energy-saving brains. It is too easy to judge someone by what you think you would do yourself. But what would you do if you had their brain?
Compassion for yourself means giving yourself a break. Compassion for others means embracing uncertainty - without understanding what motives, what life-choices, what brain chemistry brought them to where they are, compassion means withholding judgment.
Of course, compassion is hard, because our brains do not do well with uncertainty. But your brain is not your fault.
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Black History
I remember when Black History Month would come around in school. We would learn about slavery and those who fought against it, about Frederick Douglass and abolitionists, about Jim Crow and Martin Luther King, about Black pioneers like George Carter... Carver?... The peanut guy... We learned about the horrible things that happened back then and the people who made it all better. And peanuts.
What we did not learn about was the system of white oppression. We did not learn about how the structural inequalities were built into our system of government and continue to affect Black people today. We did not learn about redlining, or if we did, it didn't leave an impression on my young white self. The horrible things that happened back then were committed by evil people like the KKK. White people back then were either ignorant racist mobs under the lynching trees and in the courtrooms, or they were saviors who fought for freedom and equality.
In our history books and in our pop culture, white people are re-writing Black history, just as they have been ever since they first stole people from Africa. Take for example the movie The Help. It is not really a movie about the help, but about a young white woman who helps those poor black maids stand up for themselves against the mean, racist white women who treat them poorly. This type of whiteness-centering and caricature of racism is so embedded in American society that most of the time we don't even know it's there.
When Trayvon Martin died, I was pretty angry, so I wrote an angry piece about how racism is often a subtle and unconscious reaction based on stereotypes and bias, and we all need to do better. While true, it is not the truest truth. It was an attempt to dispel the myth that racism is racist people intentionally committing racist acts, but supported a myth of its own by emphasizing racism as individuals behaving poorly to each other instead of as the system of oppression built into our institutions, as prejudice + power.
I didn't really get institutional racism until I read The Case for Reparations. As I said when I posted it,
Black history is really American history. Coupled with the systematic genocide of the Native Americans, it is the slavery that made our fledgling nation an economic power in the world, the Jim Crow and segregation that helped white America build their identity as individualistic entrepreneurs and reject social welfare programs, the modern doctrines of colorblindness and multiculturality that ease any remaining white guilt while we wash our hands of our ugly past.
Though I do believe that education is the key to making things better, it is not enough. It only addresses individuals and not systems. I didn't understand institutional racism for so long because as a white person, I don't have to. And when the knowledge appeared in my lap, I was eager to absorb it in part because I'm an academic. Plus, I really love to appear smart. Now when I'm having drinks with people I get to say "race is a social construct" or explain redlining and feel superior.
Pessimism aside, I encourage everybody, especially the people who will probably never read this in the first place, to do some real Learning this Black History month. Heck, maybe I will even dust off something on my reading list - The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander perhaps. But never stop learning, and never assume that Knowing Things will make everything better. The structure of white supremacy will stand until we can tear it down.
What we did not learn about was the system of white oppression. We did not learn about how the structural inequalities were built into our system of government and continue to affect Black people today. We did not learn about redlining, or if we did, it didn't leave an impression on my young white self. The horrible things that happened back then were committed by evil people like the KKK. White people back then were either ignorant racist mobs under the lynching trees and in the courtrooms, or they were saviors who fought for freedom and equality.
In our history books and in our pop culture, white people are re-writing Black history, just as they have been ever since they first stole people from Africa. Take for example the movie The Help. It is not really a movie about the help, but about a young white woman who helps those poor black maids stand up for themselves against the mean, racist white women who treat them poorly. This type of whiteness-centering and caricature of racism is so embedded in American society that most of the time we don't even know it's there.
When Trayvon Martin died, I was pretty angry, so I wrote an angry piece about how racism is often a subtle and unconscious reaction based on stereotypes and bias, and we all need to do better. While true, it is not the truest truth. It was an attempt to dispel the myth that racism is racist people intentionally committing racist acts, but supported a myth of its own by emphasizing racism as individuals behaving poorly to each other instead of as the system of oppression built into our institutions, as prejudice + power.
I didn't really get institutional racism until I read The Case for Reparations. As I said when I posted it,
I learned a lot, but I can't see a way to post this without it looking like I want credit for having read the whole thing. Because it was long and difficult. It made me sad and upset and angry.Angry at the injustices, at how difficult it will be to change anything - and as cases of police killings of Black Americans continue to happen, over and over again, while police districts suppress evidence and the judicial system turns a blind eye, angry at ignorance. I, now enlightened, wondered how anyone could presume to have an opinion about these things without knowing the history? How could I have ever thought to have justified opinions on race before?
Black history is really American history. Coupled with the systematic genocide of the Native Americans, it is the slavery that made our fledgling nation an economic power in the world, the Jim Crow and segregation that helped white America build their identity as individualistic entrepreneurs and reject social welfare programs, the modern doctrines of colorblindness and multiculturality that ease any remaining white guilt while we wash our hands of our ugly past.
Though I do believe that education is the key to making things better, it is not enough. It only addresses individuals and not systems. I didn't understand institutional racism for so long because as a white person, I don't have to. And when the knowledge appeared in my lap, I was eager to absorb it in part because I'm an academic. Plus, I really love to appear smart. Now when I'm having drinks with people I get to say "race is a social construct" or explain redlining and feel superior.
Pessimism aside, I encourage everybody, especially the people who will probably never read this in the first place, to do some real Learning this Black History month. Heck, maybe I will even dust off something on my reading list - The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander perhaps. But never stop learning, and never assume that Knowing Things will make everything better. The structure of white supremacy will stand until we can tear it down.
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