On Racial Tension

Well, here it goes.  This is my attempt to write about something that has become a very big issue in our country right now, something that I haven't felt able or qualified to write about before (and let's face it, that hasn't changed) for a few reasons.  One is that I'm white.  I've followed the news a little and every time I see an article about white privilege, I find myself nodding along in agreement.  Yep, that's me, someone who has lived her whole life privileged enough not to have to think about race.  I would rather listen to others share their experiences than try to jump on my platform and tell anyone what is going on with race in America.  The other is that this topic is so HUGE.  It is not only what is happening now, how different cities and states and sectors of society are handling issues of race, but it encompasses everything that has led to this moment.  We are reaping the consequences of decisions made by our parents, our grandparents, and so on and so on all the way back to our nation's founders, 16th century conquistadors, Greek philosophers, and Hebrew kings.  People hating other people because of superficial differences in appearance, religious practice, eating habits, or dress code is one of the only constants we can point to in history.  No matter where, no matter when, somebody was prejudiced against somebody else because human beings just love to break complicated issues down into us vs. them.

The truth is, I am a spectator.  I am not involved in much that happens beyond my front yard.  I am a commentator at best, enjoying a good discussion about what is going on without really doing anything about it.  So this is not me taking a stand; quite literally, I am reclined in bed as I type this.  All I am really hoping to accomplish is to make public the words that I have spoken in private, and, if I may be so bold, talk about the future.

It began tonight at dinner.  My husband and I were trying to have a conversation over the children's chatter, and the topic focused on the issue of race.  My husband (and I should perhaps point out that he and I see things differently from time to time, and so I will express my own opinion and please don't ever assume that he speaks for me or that I speak for him unless we explicitly make that claim) said that racism seems to be getting worse lately for some reason.  But I disagree.  I think racism is honestly making a slow but steady loser's retreat.  However, in the past year or so (because the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner occurred last summer), racial tension has increased dramatically. And I see that as progress.

While I am not qualified to speak about race, I am qualified to speak about history, being a long-time student and lover of it.  There is a word that comes up time and time again as we look back, and that word is revolution.  Now here is the thing I find most interesting about revolutions.  Do you know when they happen?  Do you know what precipitates and provides catalyst for them?  You would think it is when things are at their worst, when people are horribly oppressed and voiceless and they just. can't. take. anymore.  But that isn't when revolution happens.  A revolution comes about when things are getting better.  There is futility in being voiceless and oppressed; only when a light begins to shine at some far off point do people seize their weapons and storm the palaces of their oppressors, demanding equality and justice and demanding blood as recompense.

And so I skim the news and I listen to people talk and I can feel the tension building.  There is anger in America right now, there are mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers demanding that their voices be heard and refusing to accept the status quo.  And I feel a revolution coming.  If you disagree, if you think we have gone backwards and black lives don't matter to the ones holding the guns, ask yourself if anyone would have cared if this happened 30 years ago.  Would anyone have known?  And if you think the police are just doing their jobs and this is all being blown out of proportion and media bias and all that, ask yourself if a cop has ever pointed a gun at you.  In my younger, wilder days (which were quite honestly very tame, but I'm a mom now and speeding seems like a thrill ride for a reckless woman) I got pulled over quite a bit.  I was caught speeding or running a red light, and even though my parents taught me to be polite to the police, I really started to get irritated with them.  And one night (let me emphasize that it was completely dark) I was cruising on home (too fast) and got pulled over a block from my house.  Instead of being appropriately contrite with the officer, I got an attitude.  I said something along the lines of "C'mon man, I live right over there, can you go bother someone else?"  And he let me go with a warning.  So you will excuse me when I say that Darren Wilson overstepped his duties when he shot an unarmed teenager dead in the street right in front of his house because the kid gave him a little lip.  In my story, the guy actually saw me break the law, and the conclusion I am forced to draw is that police treat white and black people differently.

So about that coming revolution.  The tension is building, the protestors have taken to the streets, and I say Don't let up.  Because when was the last time a Congressman sat down to meet with his fellow Congressional leaders and said, "Hey guys, apropos of nothing, I think we should give women the right to vote.  It just occurred to me that it's rather silly that we make all the decisions just because we're men and because we've just always done it that way, and you know our wives and daughters and their friends are actually quite smart and probably capable of making an informed decision at the polls."  Rather, it took more than 70 years of suffragettes marching and petitioning and getting arrested (yay Susan B. Anthony, you go girl!) and storming the institutions of government until they got what they wanted.  Similarly, the Supreme Court justices did not meet in an empty chamber and say, "You know what I just thought of?  We have actual laws in this country that prevent homosexual couples from getting married, and yet we don't have anything that prevents consenting adult heterosexual couples from doing it.  Doesn't that strike you as strange, and even a little illegal?  Why, we should just write a ruling now before anyone realizes what's happened so that if any gay dudes want to put a ring on it, they can?"  Of course they didn't!  Change came about because of focused, intentional efforts to promote gay rights as being something that should be equal to straight rights. (Is that a thing? Is that what we call it?  And btw gays, I watched that How to Survive a Plague documentary and may I just say, you guys and ladies practically wrote the book on civil unrest.  Well done.)

Those in power will always uphold the status quo until it becomes unbearable for them to continue doing so.  And pressure and tension and raging against the machine are the only proven ways to make the powerful pay attention.  So media, keep talking about the cases of excessive use of force by police.  Black people, keep your concerns front and center.  Ordinary citizens, keep an eye (and a camera phone) out for injustice.  All lives should matter, but Justice Department investigations have shown that they don't in actual practice.  I see a revolution coming against the institutionalized racism of our police departments and our courts and I welcome it.  I would like to stress, at this point, the importance of nonviolent protest, the success of both Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr (and yes, I realize they both died for what they believed in and Nelson Mandela smuggled weapons into South Africa and lived to a ripe old age but hear me out).  I think we need action and we need tension and we need pressure on those in power, but I don't think we need armed chaos in our streets and in our cities.  I think the message gets diluted when authorities can claim that both sides have blood on their hands, when righteous anger gives way to mindless vengeance.

Let me conclude with a few things that I believe.  I believe in people.  I believe in a better future.  I believe in making the world a better place, in teaching children love rather than hate, peace rather than war.  I believe that light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.  I believe we are better than our prejudices.  I believe our founding fathers gave us the framework to pursue liberty and justice for all, even if they didn't practice it.  I believe that good wins out in the end.

My Thoughts on Women

I woke up this morning with a question on my heart:  Has there ever been a better time to be a woman?  The answer is an emphatic NO.  One only has to watch season one of Mad Men to realize how much has changed for those of us living today, how much freedom we have to think and act and be who we want to be.  Thanks to the tireless work of the suffragists, the educators, the trailblazers, the leaders, the law changers, I get to live in a time of unprecedented opportunity.  I can choose what job I want to have (homemaker!), what color to dye my hair (I'm thinking purple next...), what books to read (The Trumpet of Conscience, go read it NOW), who to vote for (that one's trickier since politicians suck as a rule).  Don't even get me started on the advancements in menstrual care...from red tents and rags to those bizarre belts and toxic shock syndrome, and today researchers are hard at work finding ways for us to avoid that monthly debasement altogether.

Girl Power! (I'm in the yellow shirt) 2006

I shared last week how I feel about men, both the general men of the world and the men closest to me.  It is because of these men who love me, my husband and father and sons, that I find my femininity.  It is in response and in relation to them that I see who I was created to be, see all my strengths and weaknesses clearly.  We have both, sisters, because we are whole people and we are flawed people.  The weaknesses of our gender aren't too hard to discover.  We wound with our mouths.  We gossip and whisper, we exaggerate and lie, we criticize and we judge.  And for all of the pain we inflict, we are mortally wounded when the tongues of others lash our skin.  Chris Rock says, "Women would rule the world...if they'd stop hating each other."  We allow envy to course through our veins and we forget to cheer each other on.  We forget to embrace the positive side of womanhood.

BFFs 1998

Because we live in a world that says we have to be like men to be worthwhile, we have forgotten why it's so great to be a woman.  We carry and birth new life.  We are created to safeguard the next generation with our bodies, and are capable of so much love, tenderness, and nurture.  If the children are the future like the song says, then ladies, it all begins with us, with our wombs and our breasts and our arms.  Let us never forget to wonder and celebrate at what we bear within us.  And closely related to our child-bearing is our child-birthing and ridiculously high tolerance for pain.  I firmly believe that if men had to experience the process, the human race would die off.  But we don't just stop there, with the necessary aches and groans of labor, we inflict more pain on ourselves in the name of beauty.  Waxing and tweezing and high heels and underwire (not to mention the torture of Jillian Michaels) and we don't even bat our eyes.  That's nothing.  We can endure and we can triumph through it all.  And our greatest strength is really the flip side of our greatest weakness.  All the infighting and verbal assaults we wage against each other can very easily be steered towards good.  Because our most feminine quality is our ability to go deep.  We learn about each other.  We open up about our hurts.  When we let our hearts swell with love, we realize how much we actually care about each other.  We realize that your victory is my victory and your pain is my pain.  We learn how to join arms and hold each other up.

It takes a Village 2013

I went to high school.  We all went to high school.  So we all know how scary other women are.  I chose to inflict pain right back at those who hurt me.  That seemed like the only way to survive.  But it's not.  I've been learning the past few years about another way to go, about real, healthy female friendships.  What it is to accept someone for who she is, to notice her abilities and her beauty and not feel threatened by it.  I've learned how to be vulnerable because I know I'm with safe people.  I know what it's like to be freaking out and scared and realize that my girlfriends (or sisters or roommates or classmates or whatever) are the last people I want to call.  Which is a real shame, because I have a few ladies on speed dial that are better at talking me down than even my husband (that's really saying something, since this is the guy I chose as The One to talk me down for the rest of our lives).  And WOW!  When I can reach out and there's actually another woman there who doesn't make fun of me or criticize me or judge me?  It's an incredible feeling ladies.  It's what I want for us all.  But we have to make it happen.  We have to be the change we want to see.  (Ghandi!!!)

Sisters (at Madame Toussaud's) 2013

For all that we have left to accomplish, the changes of the past several decades give me hope.  We aren't "there" yet, but we can get there because of the advancements women have already made.  We have platforms and microphones and education and spending power ladies!  We have voices and passions and we were made to be part of the solution!

*All the women pictured are dearly, deeply loved by me (even Oprah), and I will always feel tremendous gratitude to each of you for being a friend, a sister, a mentor to me.  You ladies rock!*

To my boys

Today I am praying for you.  I am thinking about a time in the near future when you won't be chasing each other around the yard and climbing into my bed in the early morning to start the day with cuddles. A time when you will be men.  White American men.  Because of this-where you were born and the color of your skin- many doors will be open to you, and you alone.  And so today, I'm praying.  Praying that you will recognize the arbitrary nature of privilege, that you will see those open doors not as a right, but an opportunity.  I want you to walk in to those exclusive places, places that are barred to a woman like me, or your friend in the wheelchair.  I'm praying that when you do, when you take your seat at the table, you will start a revolution that changes this world from the inside out.  I want you to teach inclusion and love, create opportunities and throw the doors wide open.  I'm praying that your lives will intersect with people who are different from you, and you'll have the chance to embrace and celebrate the human spectrum.  Because they will judge you and assess you and rank you based on your outside (all the things about yourself that you can't control), I'm praying for your insides, the part you get to choose.  I'm praying that you will use your strength to protect.  I'm praying that courage will come to you when you need it most.  I'm praying that you will think for yourselves.  I'm praying that your hearts will break when you see injustice, and you'll turn heart break into action.  I'm praying that you'll measure success in the number of lives you change.

And I'm praying that right now, today, your dad and I are preparing and equipping you for what lies ahead.  I'm praying that I will remember the big picture and not be caught up in making sure you wash your hands and tie your shoes (those things are important and worth doing, but they aren't the most important thing I can teach you).  That matching socks and washing dishes won't distract me from the job that matters most- being your mom.  Your dad and I want so badly to get it right, this job of being your parents.  We want to avoid the mistakes our parents made with us (I know, your grandparents are AMAZING people, and you love them more than us sometimes, but once they were stressed out parents and occasionally they went about things the wrong way), because we know what our baggage looks like, and we don't want to see you boys struggling to carry this with you through life.  But we will make mistakes too, probably different ones, and I'm praying that you will be able to overcome whatever wrongs we inflict on you.  When I studied history in college, when I learned of the atrocities that human beings are capable of committing against each other, I couldn't believe how much is actually carried out by the ordinary masses.  That a handful of evil people can lead entire tribes or even countries to annihilate one another. And I have to believe that people capable of being swayed to violence and hatred can also be swayed to love and compassion...but someone has to do the leading.  Boys, you could be the ones.  You could change the world.  I love you.  I believe in you.