Category: Race

Posted on

“I Can’t Believe It Happened Here”

I’ve said that before. When violence erupted, I automatically tried to come up with all of the reasons it should or would never happen in my neighborhood. I was desperate to feel safe and secure again.

I now know the scalding assumption held in that sentiment.

Tragedy should only happen in “bad” neighborhoods. In poor neighborhoods. Or black or brown neighborhoods. Or inner cities.  Or in third world countries.

Not small towns, white neighborhoods, upper middle class parts of town in the USA.

Really?

Brutal tragedies shouldn’t happen anywhere.

Our words matter. Speaking disbelief that innocent people were gunned down in a “good” neighborhood is its own form of violence. The gaps between us grow wider. We are divided into “us” and “them” not just in the middle of horror, but in the center of how we (often unconsciously) are in relationship with neighbors near and far.

The despair of today is growing as our inequitable economy crumbles and the new has not yet emerged. These transition times are scary as the ground we’ve built our lives on is shaken to the core.

If we want to stand steady together, now is the time to dive deeply into the Big Topics and notice the ways that skin color, money, privilege, power and gender continue to skew our thoughts.

For most of us, separation and injustice is not our intent.

Collapsing into shame or denial isn’t needed or productive. But waking up and diving deeply inside ourselves is the work of those of us alive on the planet today. Leaving no stone unturned, it is time for us to look wide, dig deep and take an old toothbrush to those nooks and crannies that are more easily ignored but when cleaned out, make a house sparkle.

From that starting point, we can work together to bridge the gaps between us and begin to make all neighborhoods around the globe safer.

It is not easy. I can be fun. We owe it to the children, both today’s young and those who will follow us in the years to come.

Posted on

Midnight is No Time to Secede

Twenty-five thousand Texans have signed a petition to peacefully secede from the United States of America. I understand. I’ve spent much of my life trying inwardly to secede from places and groups (including Texas) that I didn’t agree with.

In the middle of writing Big Topics at Midnight I realized how much energy I’d spent trying to distance myself from parts of me or my world that embarrassed me—my wealth, white skin, cultural Christianity, patriarchy and even Texas. I wrote about this struggle in Big Topics at Midnight:

“When I finally noticed that we had more money than many, I was embarrassed by my family’s upper-middle class and, later, upper class status. For a time, I wanted to give my family money away, not wanting to be wealthy in a world where so many had so little. Simultaneously, I wanted to keep all of the options that money gave me.

Likewise, I had recently realized how white my world had always been. As I heard story after story of experiences and perspectives of people with darker shades of skin, I wanted to rip off my white skin and the white-colored glasses that had kept me unaware of signs of racism during childhood and into my adult years.

The glow from the streetlight gave the room an eerie light as I considered other parts of myself that had faced the knife. It wasn’t easy for me to admit being a Christian, either. Jesus didn’t embarrass me, but far too many Christians did. Too often the radical heart of the faith was usurped by traditional US cultural values.

As a strong girl turned woman, I thought I’d avoided sexism. In the dark of night I realized that I’d been largely unaware of the ways I’d absorbed patriarchal beliefs throughout my life. I’d grown to respect my use of reason and logic—the skills honored in my family—and ignored my subtler intuition, gut and heart. I’d slipped unaware into the patriarchal way of valuing only one part of me. In addition, I was disgusted that it took over thirty years for me to discover how slowly liberation had come to my home state—married Texan women didn’t even have full legal rights until the late 1960s.

I felt full of holes, like a hunk of Swiss cheese. So much of who I was brought me shame. Projecting that onto Texas and onto the United States of America at the height of her world power, I tried to increase the distance between myself and the culturally affirmed values I no longer accepted.”1

A few Texans want to secede from the union just as I wanted to secede from Texas. When I finally woke up, I realized that this separation was in direct conflict with my heart, faith and values of living in harmony within our global neighborhood. The only way I could live a just life in our diverse world was to first accept the diversity that is me. Not blindly. Not trying to pretend that nothing is amiss in our world. But consciously, with open eyes.

We don’t have the luxury to cut and bail whenever we don’t agree. Our hurting world is teetering too close to midnight for that. We will all thrive together or crash together on this one planet we share. I am a Texan. Texans are Americans. Our world depends on us learning how to get freed from the “distress [and separation] of our oppression and to listen to each other in a present and conscious manner.”2

The time to run away with our toys and hide out with others like us has come to an end. And really, the world is a fascinating playground if we can do the work to “build effective relationships and sustain true alliances.”3

 

  1. Big Topics at Midnight, pages 238-239
  2. Be Present Empowerment Model, realms 1 and 2
  3. Be Present Empowerment Model, realm 3
Posted on

Black and White

There it was again. Black and white. Separated.

My brother-in-law told me that in Shreveport, Louisiana, his hometown, a black man accused of murder would have a predominantly white jury. Not because Shreveport is filled with white people—there are more black residents than white in that city.

The issue is racism. Today. Not just in the past. Not just in Shreveport.

It is possible for people with white skin like mine to live in white-skinned neighborhoods and to look at our own experience as the norm. Sequestered, it is easy to be oblivious to injustices such as this one. I know. I did it for much of my life. I still forget.

But I prefer to live in the real world, where the diversity of our experiences is noticed.

I live in Portland, Oregon, famous for our micro-brewed beer, bicycle commuting and progressive green living. We are also known as the whitest big city in the country—or, as the census would label it, the “non-Hispanic whitest” big city in the country. We have our own Jim Crowe history. Today, gentrification is growing as certain neighborhoods become white and artsy, squeezing out long-term, black-skinned residents. I enjoy wandering among the shops on two of these streets, Albina and Mississippi, but I understand the cost to the families who once called this neighborhood home. On another front, Karyn Hanson, a friend and a city of Portland civil engineer, is working on a process to shed light on institutional bias that has racial impacts.

The focus of my life work is to open up conversations across our differences. I want relationships to hold the possibility of transformation rather than remain caught in historical or present day schism and distress. But that doesn’t mean I can ignore signs all around me that things are still amiss. Waking up first requires seeing the world around me with clear eyes in order to catch sight of things that don’t make sense and degrade us all.

I can’t stand on my high horse, however. I was asleep for far too long to have any moral superiority. I’ve woken up and fallen to my knees in shame and sickness at what I saw. But the issues at hand were far too important for me to stay there.  And injustice wasn’t the whole story. I know I need to stand up and bring my whole self to the conversations and actions across the gaps.

It is humbling. It is frustrating sometimes. But I don’t want my children and grandchildren to be trapped in the same racist systems as my ancestors. As we are today. It harms us all.

I’ve experienced the shifts that can happen in sustainable, collaborative partnerships. Not easy. Not quick. But absolutely possible.

Even in Louisiana or Mississippi or Texas or Oregon.

I am staking my life on it.

Posted on

Books for My Pilgrimage

Reading is my favorite doorway into new thoughts, experiences and perspectives.  After I’d complied my list of favorite books for inclusion in both Big Topics at Midnight and my website—a bit overwhelming to say the least … Are these my favoritest favorites? Am I forgetting a cherished book? …—I stepped back and looked over the list with new eyes.

I saw lots of diversity on the reading list, but was aware that most of the authors had white skin.  I challenged myself to expand the edges of my reading.  Last week as I was gathering up books from every room in the house to return them to the shelves or library, I realized I’d stepped up to the plate.  And I loved every book.

I’ve been drawn to novels, and here are the best from my summer’s reading:

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow.  As her website says, “Inspired by a true story of a mother’s twisted love, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky reveals an unfathomable past and explores issues of identity at a time when many people are asking ‘Must race confine us and define us?’”  Great story about love and tragedy and healing, all held in a biracial family.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler.  This narrative leads through the fire of a civilization in chaos, but “what begins as a flight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny… and the birth of a new faith.”  I love books that head straight into tough, big topics and find transformation on the otherside.

Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama.  I actually have reread one of her novels (Dreaming Water) and read this one.  Tsukiyama is a beautiful storyteller, with her books set in China (this one), Japan and/or the US.

And for a different sort of diversity, I picked up Second Son: Transitioning Toward My Destiny, Love, and Life a memoir by Ryan Sallans.  A new friend of mine is a female to male transgendered person.  His experience is far outside of mine and I wanted to know more.  So I picked up this book, learned lots and plan to seek out a few more.

Nothing like listening to someone else’s story—in fiction or memoir—to learn more about others and myself.

How about you?  What edges do you want to push out a bit through your own reading?

Enjoy.