What Would Make a Grown Man Cry for His Mama?

As a parent, there is nothing more heart-rending than when your child calls out for you in fear. Whether it's a bad dream or because they've been hurt or scared... the response is instinctual. Primal. Your baby needs you, and your body reacts.

During the nearly 9 minutes George Floyd endured with a monster kneeling on his neck, between making him aware that he could not breathe, Mr. Floyd cried out, "Mama... mama..."

He received none of the sought-out comfort. Not from his sweet mother. Certainly not from the murderer who snuffed out his life.

"My God, my God... why hast thou forsaken me?"

In the wake of Mr. Floyd's death, there have been huge, sustained protests against police brutality toward people of color, of course, but also against the intentional, generations-long policies and systems that were designed to keep black people from gaining "too much" ground, "too much" freedom, "too much" success, "too much" of the American Dream.

While we can all certainly intellectually assent to the fact that black lives matter, how things play out in daily life in the USA often flies in the face of that ideal. And when people deny that there is systemic racism baked into our society, whether it's in education, law enforcement, medicine, employment, real estate, or really anything, there are a few reasons as to why: 1) They are so insulated within their privilege that they just don't ever have to see it. 2) They don't want to see it, so they don't look too closely. They tend to jump straight to the defensive when the concept of racism is presented. 3) They sense it, but they're "safe" and don't care to be made uncomfortable.

That's it, really. There's not an option where "they just have a different take on what is happening and maybe they have a point" is valid. It's just not. To see our nation's Attorney General state that he doesn't believe there is systemic racism in our policing bodies is an absolute affront to reality, and it gaslights those who are suffering.

Lots of us white folks don't like the phrase "white privilege" because... I'm not sure why? I think people who are poor resent the idea that they somehow have a leg up on anyone. And then folks who are financially stable, having moved upward from perhaps the lower middle class to the upper middle class, look back on the work that they have done in their lives and resent the idea that it wasn't solely their work ethic and smart financial decisions that got them to where they are.

However, I see white privilege at work in my life on both sides of my family, going back generations.

On one side of my family, several generations back, my forebears owned slaves. So whatever wealth they had was generated by black people working under the threat of violence or death. When the slaves were freed, many stayed on for pay... but they never received back pay. The years of hard labor, separated families, fear of the overseers, indoctrination, disrespect, and oppression stayed with them as they continued that same labor, still enriching the white family who owned property while themselves subsisting on whatever wages they could garner... because what true choice did they have?

On the other side of my family, a little more recently, my grandfather served in the Navy as a barber during WWII. When he returned home, he took advantage of the GI Bill to earn his real estate license and became an agent, then a broker. He worked hard, did his own maintenance, "flipped" houses before it was cool, let people get away with paying much too little because he felt he had a responsibility to house people who needed a house, wouldn't evict renters if they were military, owned several businesses, and ended up saving enough both to house him in a top-notch Alzheimer's facility the last few years of his life, and for my grandma to live in an all-inclusive independent living center for several years. Then they left some money to their living child and all of their grandchildren.

An equally smart, equally driven, equally hard-working black man might have served with my grandpa and come home to try to get an education using the GI Bill only to find that the few colleges he was allowed to attend (Historically Black Colleges and Universities or HBCUs) were full, having reached capacity as many veterans of color took advantage of this military benefit.

So this hypothetical man takes whatever job he can get, works hard, maybe works his way up in the company and is earning a good living. But when he goes to buy a house? Redlining. There are neighborhoods in which he cannot buy. If he decides to buy in a "black" neighborhood, then very few banks are willing to loan money in those areas. Most people at the time were at the mercy of sellers who would put black people into houses on a "rent to own" basis. The terms were that the black person would be paying toward owning the house, and had to make all of the repairs and things associated with home ownership. But if they were late on the payment ONE TIME, the owner could evict them and they had nothing to show for maybe a decade or more of paying on a property in a set-up designed to bilk vulnerable folks out of their money.

Then what would they do? Sue the owner? Who would take the case? Who would side with them in civil court?

Property ownership is the main way that wealth is passed down through generations, and people of color have been intentionally denied this way into the middle class for the entirety of our country's history.

Even now, a white person making $100,000 a year is likely to live in a neighborhood where the average salary is about $100,000 a year. The average black person making $100,000 a year is most likely to live in a neighborhood where the average salary is $30,000 per year. Which property do you think will appreciate faster? Whose investment is going to pay off if they ever sell?

Throughout my life, my financial fortunes have fluctuated. When I was growing up, we didn't have much money at all. My parents' margins became more comfortable as I got older, due a lot to frugality, to a willingness to live a pretty simple life regardless of income. Then I got married and was pretty poor again. As we got older, things got easier. When I was pregnant with D, I was making pretty good money. Then I quit and we were once again right on the edge. When I got divorced, I qualified for SNAP benefits for about six months (then they decided they'd made a mistake and I was too "rich" because I had enough money to buy an iPad... which, if I'd bought, would have then qualified me to get back onto SNAP benefits). When James and I got married, I was back on the upward mobility track.

I don't take any of this for granted. I know people who have come before me have worked hard and made good decisions. I also know it can be taken away at any time. But the fact is that I have this ability to move about, up and down the ladder, in a way that black folks do not.

While white people can move in either direction on the financial scale, black people tend to slide backward. The big pieces of that are generational wealth, access to education and jobs, and the kind of social capital that white people have in that we can get public officials to do stuff for us pretty easily.

So, there's this from the beginning of our country. It's intentional. Then on top of these troublesome barriers that exist to this day is the scarier reality that black folks, and especially black men, can be killed by white folks, and specifically police, with little to no ramifications. It's dehumanizing. It's a human rights violation. It's criminal, even if charges are never brought. And, honestly, without the saturation of the market by portable cameras, many of these things would not be brought to light or addressed.

I cannot understand white people who can see all of this and not be moved. Not recognize our complicity. Not want to do whatever we can to address these injustices once and for all. Our nation will never heal until we do.

Did you know that one year after the Salem "Witch" Trials, the survivors were paid reparations?

I'd ask why we weren't as quick to address the ravages of slavery, but I already know the answer.

Until our nation's leaders and all citizens acknowledge and say out loud, "Slavery was a horrible atrocity in our country's history, and we are sorry," then back it up with cash, social programs, free education, or whatever we can come up with to repair the damage, we're going to run into this unrest over and over again.

Part of that involves completely dismantling the policing system and starting over with something more akin to peace officers, justices of the peace, serve-y/protect-y stuff.

Maybe it involves having white people liquidate everything they own and give half to an American Descendant of Slavery. That is radical, but I don't think it's unfair.

What is unfair is continuing to prop up a society that has created these classes of people, and that does everything it can to keep these classes right where they are. Even if every individual person in the USA were completely free from racism (which is impossible), the structures have to change.

If we'd acknowledged our wrongness and given freed slaves what was promised to them, that likely would have drastically changed the world we live in today. But freed slaves were never given the land they were promised, that one thing that could have started the wealth-building ball rolling for them. There were Jim Crow laws. Social welfare programs designed to enrich white people. Continued employment discrimination.

NOW, what has snowballed is the tension, the anger, the mistrust, the loss of hope. There are millions more people now to whom we owe a debt than there were if we'd acknowledged our failings and attempted to make recompense.

Our hens are coming home to roost, and hopefully we can use this opportunity to finally fix the damage we have done.

And on a personal note, I grieve for black families constantly. I am so sad for the immediate losses of the Floyd, Taylor, and Aubrey families. But I'm sad for everyone who has to have The Talk with their children, boys especially. For everyone who fears death when they see flashing lights. For people who have to be on their best behavior at all moments or risk becoming targets. I'm so sorry. I do not see how you do it. I will do everything I can to fight for your rights.

That Time I Did Blackface

When I was on social media, I disclosed this episode... and I'll add more information and introspection on it here... AND I'll say that it's part and parcel to something I experienced this weekend at the Austin Powwow and American Indian Heritage Festival.

Also, when I was on social media, I had a LOT of regular blog readers. It's fallen off to a very small number, and I know that if I keep posting soapbox issues, it might be tiring and you folks might be tempted to catch up on something less... whatever this is. However, this is something that's true about me and I can't ignore it: I believe in full human rights and justice for everyone, to a person. For every person from any nationality or of any ethnicity. For gay, trans, and folks who defy categorization. For victims. For prisoners. For people I disagree with. For fat people. For people who are in situations through no fault of their own AND as a result of their own choices. For everyone.

Especially when I see my complicity in injury or oppression, in upholding systems that have marginalized others, I want to speak up. I need to confess so that no one will think I don't know what I've done, or that I am not deeply sorry. And I need people who have developed understandably low expectations of white ladies like myself to have a bit of hope to cling to... not because of anything I am doing, but because of these kids. These kids give me a needed respite to my cynicism, and it is my sincere desire that the affect of these stories will be the same for you.

First. Here are two pictures for you.

The first is from 1978, at the present-day Ka-Do-Ha Indian Village Museum in Murfreesboro, Arkansas. The second is from 1979, at the Cherokee Heritage Center in Park Hill, Oklahoma. Obviously, my parents wanted us to learn about the Native American history or we wouldn't have visited the sites. VERY often, we were the only children at places like these. We had no ill intent. But that doesn't change the fact that in our attempt to "embody" the culture we were supposedly respecting, we appropriated stereotypes in a way that is harmful. It further perpetuates those stereotypes, and it personally hurts individuals. I apologize for my ignorance, and for any damage my actions caused. I pledge to keep learning and keep doing better.

The above pictures are the ones that popped into my head as we were walking through the market at the powwow this weekend. Many of the sellers were Native Americans, and Mal saw something that caught his eye. There were a couple of rows of slightly-smaller-than-life-size ceramic partridges. They were each painted white with lovely designs on their backs. Each one was different. The seller told me that her son made all of them, as well as canteens and other pieces, with no pattern... just whatever came to him while he was designing.

Mal asked me to take a picture. In the past, I can see myself taking a picture of the neatly-arranged flasks, then using it as wall art. But because of what other populations have taught me, I said, "It IS beautiful. But if you think that art is lovely, and you want to look at it, then you need to buy it." That meant nothing to Malcolm in the moment, I'm sure. I could have just said, "No." But it's part of a bigger picture that I'm trying to paint for him. Eventually, hopefully, the whole thing will click into place into his worldview.

We did buy a partridge. I got it for D, whose birthday was Saturday, and who adores birds. Incidentally, here's a picture I took a decade ago when I took my own now-adult child to the Cherokee Heritage Center.

The guide's name is Robert, and he patiently showed D (we were the only people under the age of 60 on the tour) how to weave, play stickball, shoot a rabbit with a blow gun, and how to make an arrowhead out of an antler. Also, he told us that in the early 1800s, the literacy rate of the Cherokees was higher than their white neighbors'.

I want to tell you something about D: D was not raised by any kind of "woke" parents. I have read blog posts from this same time frame, and I cringe now at the thoughts I used to have. Yet somehow, D became this incredibly empathetic, conscientious human being all because that's just who D is. In fact, much of the growth I've sustained over the past few years are because D has dragged me into the light through a strong will and influence. 

We've had plenty of times when D has called me out for, say, enjoying a song on the radio that contained a racial slur. I didn't buy it, but came home and did my own research... and realized that, dang, that song was out.

So if that's the person D is, maybe, just maybe, Mal will be, too? And he'll even have a head start? I'm going to hope that, and maybe you can hope it, too.

Now we'll get to what I wish had been mere clickbait, but which was, in fact, an actual event in my life. As I mentioned, the Native American poses were from when I was 6 and 7 years old. Let's move forward to 1987, when I was 15 years old.

My high school had an annual lip synch contest. Sophomore year, my favorite group was The Pointer Sisters. I'd been in love with their song "Neutron Dance" ever since it had been released. I remember my friend Pam and me dancing around my house to it, and her slipping and injuring herself in the kitchen.

I wrangled two friends, both white like I am, into doing this with me. So I'm in the "it has to be realistic" camp that I see now is ridiculous, but I also am skeptical when contemporaries of mine like Seth Meyers say "everyone knows this isn't appropriate." Adolescent me in northwest Arkansas in the late '80s had maybe a passing awareness of minstrelsy (the only "Jazz Singer" I knew was Neil Diamond). Or Jim Crow. Or any of the baggage that is wrapped up in black face. I wish I'd known. I wish I'd made a better decision.

As I've thought about it over the years, I can't help but wonder what the grown-ups in the room were thinking. Did any of them realize it was a bad idea? If they didn't, why wouldn't they tell me? I was quite open about our plans. We had a dress rehearsal, and I made sure that everyone knew we would be actual black folks the next day. The only feedback I got was that I needed to wear a better bra because my chest was too bouncy for a wholesome high school program.

The morning of the lip synch contest, I left the house looking like this, because I had classes before the program.

I think my distinctly uncool high school self was trying to approximate the style on the "Break Out" album as best I could. Remember it? (Also, does the shirt say "Dance" on it in puffy paint? I believe that it does.)

White shirt tied at the waist, check. Boot things, check (actually, they were super-high-top fold-down Chuck Taylors, and my favorite article of clothing. I wore them to a cowboy thing in college, because I've never owned a pair of actual boots until I recently got some snow Crocs). Curly hair, check... it was the late '80s. Layers, not really but I put on a bandana, so half-check? Dark hose so you couldn't see my Caucasian legs? Sigh. Check.

My mom took this picture. She knew I was going to color my arms and face. If she'd known it was offensive, she, of all people, would have set me straight. If there's one thing my mom can't abide, it's people getting their feelings hurt. And swearing.

Do you know how I colored my face and arms? With body paint. I bought it at a Fort Smith costume store. It was basically a tongue depressor that had been coated with this brown "paint" that was dry until you ran the stick under water. Then you could just rub it across your skin, and the color would transfer. I'm sure I talked about the owner about our "cool" plans. That person didn't say anything negative about it, either.

And we danced. We Neutron Danced. We got second place, and I felt robbed.

Then.

Someone complained.

There were three black kids that I distinctly remember from high school; a brother and a sister, and a girl who lived around the corner from me. The neighbor girl went to someone at the school and complained that we'd done the performance in black face. I don't remember how I heard about it. But sadly, here's what I took away from it, since no one told me differently: She liked a guy I had dated the summer before, and she was just trying to get me in trouble out of cattiness.

Once again, I wonder how the adults in charge decided to handle this? I was given no context as to why someone might be upset by what we did ("I ADMIRE them! I want to BE them! That's what we did!" was my refrain, and one that continues to be used by people who are unwilling to examine their actions and attitudes... which was definitely me at 15). 

It's interesting that I've never seen a photo from that performance. It's like even the yearbook photographer knew "These are never going to see the light of day." Oh, the next year, I won the lip synch contest when a friend and I did "Let Go" by Cheap Trick. I dressed up as a man. Until a few years ago, I probably would have insisted that being as "authentic" to The Pointer Sisters as I could was the exact same as dressing "drag" as whichever one of the Cheap Trick dudes I was. 

But regardless of my intent, the impact of my action was that at least one person got hurt, and that I unwittingly contributed to a long history of caricaturizing people of color. I had taken on the easiest and most shallow facet of blackness to mimic, and had not thought of the fact that my classmates didn't get to shower after the ceremony and go back to a position of majority and privilege.

I won't use her name, but on the off chance that the young woman who complained ever reads this, I am deeply sorry. In my self-obsessed outlook, I took your hurt and centered myself. I minimized your complaint to absolve myself of any guilt or need to do emotional labor. I owed you an apology. I owed everyone an apology. I should have gotten up at the next assembly and confessed, repented, and maybe taught a history lesson that just was not covered in our classrooms. You were right. I'm sorry if you didn't feel validated in your concern. I wish we could have sat down and you confront me, if you'd wanted to. You deserved better. 

How does this inform my life today? Well, at least one of my children would never appropriate anything. In fact, when I brought home a shirt with an alebrijes on it as a souvenir for my older child, I had to report that I'd gotten it at the "Discover Mexico" visitor's center, so the sale of it was benefiting a local economy (albeit a robust tourist one) in Mexico. But if the other is tempted, we will talk about it and educate him as to why it's not appropriate.

Although I am totally and fully responsible for my choices, even as a teen, I do wish that the grown-ups in my orbit had done a few things that could have helped everyone. So I will use that as a blueprint in case I ever need to intervene in such a situation:

1) I will try to keep anyone, especially minors, in my charge from committing blatantly offensive and needless acts.

2) If there is a complaint, in relaying it to the offending party, I will use grace but also inform them why their actions were problematic. If I don't know, I'll do the research and learn why on my own, without forcing the offended party to justify their hurt.

3) I will seek as much input on how to handle the problem as the offended party wants to provide.

4) I will strongly suggest that the offending party respond in some reparative way, even if it takes a while for them to figure out why, and then how.

Okay, that's it. Gormless but trying. Your continued patience is appreciated.

"Hairspray!" with New Eyes

After I'd excerpted from "Hairspray!" a bit ago, James suggested we watch it again. I love that movie. It's been at least five and probably closer to seven years since I've watched it in full.

If you've been following along, you know that my entire worldview has changed massively in the past few years, and so, while I enjoyed the movie a great deal, as usual, this time a few things popped out at me that hadn't before. I'll list them, then explain why they're problematic.

1) Although there was structural racism in the film (i.e. white kids were the norm for the music show, with black kids getting only one day every month), it was embodied in a single, nasty white woman, Velma Von Tussle.

2) When "Negro Day" (as the once-a-month black episode is called) is cancelled, it is Tracy Turnblad (white protagonist) who has the idea to march on the television station.

3) After many black folk and Edna Turnblad (Tracy's mom, also white) are arrested at the march, Wilbur Turnblad, husband/dad, bails EVERYONE out. He says it's about 20 people.

4) Little Inez Stubbs (the daughter of the host of "Negro Day," "Motormouth" Maybelle) dances on the show when Link Larkin, a white guy, brings her out onstage.

First, I want to say that when I literally googled "Is Hairspray a white savior movie" yesterday, I learned something interesting about this film. John Waters wrote it as an alternate/happy ending to a real event in Baltimore history. The Buddy Deane Show ran on local TV from 1957 until 1964. It, too, had a white cast and audience, saving once per month. A civil rights group staged a "dance in" where the show was integrated for the episode. Apparently, the producers of the show supported integration, but rather than deal with the blowback from area segregationists, canceled the show altogether. This was Waters' way of literally rewriting history.

So I know that this was written with no ill intent. The music is superb, and the tone is so hopeful; I think that is one of the things that appeals to me most. When I listened to "You Can't Stop the Beat" the other day, I was a little saddened by the line "Tomorrow is a brand new day and it don't know white from black." It's so aspirational. And we have so far to go.

Now, here is why the things I didn't even notice before are problematic:

1) Hateful racist lady: This is a character that allows us to say, "Yeah, she's awful. Good thing I'm not like that!" and basically not have to examine our own complicity in any systems that exist today that uphold racial inequality. It allows us to say, "If that's what racism looks like, I'm definitely not racist!" In that way, it absolves us as the "good white guy." We're part of the "Not all white people" crowd. In our minds. And we're not moved to challenge that thinking.

2) What are the odds, in 1963, that a 17-year-old white girl would have the idea to march as a protest before any black kids and even an adult black woman? It sort of takes away some agency and although the whole group (all black folks except for Tracy) ends up marching, it makes them seem almost passive and ignorant in asserting their own rights.

3) I can understand why Maybelle and Seaweed would need to be bailed out, but if a white dad had to bail everyone else's kids out, this says something about their parents' presence and/or ability to post bail themselves. We already know that Wilbur is a VERY good guy; this points to his better impulses, I understand. But it makes him literally their savior.

4) This is another instance where, instead of a black person being shown taking what is rightfully theirs, this gain is facilitated by a white person's invitation. Whereas that can be problematic as it's repeated in this fictionalized narrative, it also points to an important reality: White people have to be willing to risk their own privilege if things are ever actually going to change.

See, one of the things this hopeful but overly-simplified story does is pretend that once an instance of racism is toppled, everything shores up and we're all even. One of the things I found when I was googling yesterday was someone talking about how, in the movie, when the news anchor reports that "interracial dancing has broken out in the studios" all of the white people waiting outside go crazy in support of the desegregation. She pointed out that many white people would have (and did) lose their minds over this type of thing.

It's tempting to think that if we can just get people to stop having racial prejudices, that racism won't be a thing anymore. Which is one reason we want to say, "Well, I'm not racist. I treat everyone the same" and not have to work alongside our brothers and sister of color to assure that they have, in practice as well as theoretically, the same rights as we do. I keep seeing this quote repeated, and it's true: "It's not enough not to be racist. You have to be anti-racism."

I wish John Waters' vision of what could be had come to fruition. But we have not even started the work in earnest. I hear people say "Slavery happened 200 years ago, and I didn't have slaves, so why should I have to be responsible for any of this?" Thing is, slavery was just officially abolished (with the notable exception of incarcerated people, and we know that there is a disproportionate jailing of people of color) 150 years ago, and that there were laws both on the books and unofficially but enforced as recently as a few decades ago.

I think all white people should listen to the entire 14-part Scene On Radio series "Seeing White," but to clarify what I'm about to say, the episode on "White Affirmative Action" is truly an eye-opener.

What we are left with is like a Monopoly game where there are teams that switch players every 15 minutes. We've been playing for nearly an hour. Fifteen minutes ago, one member of one team admitted that the three people who'd played before him had cheated, and he was not going to cheat. That team is way ahead, though, as cheating was a successful strategy. Now a new member of the team comes in to play, and his opponent remarks that the opposing team isn't able to catch up given the unfair advantage the first team has. "What do you mean?!" the player says. "I just got here. I didn't cheat. We're on even ground now!"

But we can see, in this example, that they aren't. Why do we choose not to see this in real life? While people of color in our nation do not need (or want) a white savior, what we are required by our humanity to do is to listen, believe, and then partner with black folks to figure out how to fix the mess we made. We need to let them talk, and we need to be willing to give up things we think we earned solely on our own... which I don't think is as difficult to do when you realize that you DID have a leg up just by virtue of the color of your skin.

I know it won't be easy. Another quote I keep running up against is: When you've been in power a long time, equality can feel like oppression. I feel this deeply when we say, "There's racism against whites, too" or sigh over the fact that straight white cis-males can't get scholarships or jobs because companies have diversity mandates. We need to stop it. As long as we are defensive and refuse to acknowledge how lopsidedly our country as been constructed, meaningful change will not come.

Ethical Ramifications of the "Indian Card"?

James got his Cherokee Tribe cards in the mail last week. They certify that he is 1/64 Cherokee. Since he has his, the next logical step is to get Mal's. Mal would be 1/128 Cherokee, since I have no Native blood.

There was a girl at D's gym who ended up going to college for free in Oklahoma because she had her Indian card. At the time, I thought that was a pretty cool deal.

I am no so sure about that anymore.

My son is white. He is physically white. He is culturally white. He has every conceivable advantage in the USA right out of the gate, including economic security, a stable home life, relative safety, and a level of freedom from suspicion that many people also born and raised around here just do not have. No one will make assumptions about his potential, capabilities, criminal proclivity, predisposition to diabetes or heart disease.

Doors will likely be easy for Mal to open.

I don't think we should "use" the Indian Nation certification for anything but to remind Mal who he is. He doesn't need any extra advantages.

If something happens to James or we end up destitute and in desperate need, I might change my tune and go back to the "grab whatever you can" mentality I have definitely had during leaner times in my life.

In the meantime, especially as we head into July 4th and I've been trying to figure out how to explain the USA to my 4-year-old, I'm going to be thinking a lot about how to contribute TO the tribe from which my husband's ancestors hailed, as well as the Tonkawa Tribe and Comanche Nation, whose land we now live on. (Also, I think about reparations a lot, as my ancestors benefitted from owning slaves. But that's another post.)

If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

I don't want my child growing up with a myth of what our country is. It makes July 4th difficult to "celebrate." I found a years-old article today that explains a portion of why: The Dilemma of the Fourth of July.

I hope Mal will grow up recognizing the inherent value of all people, as well as the ability to listen and do right by others. D did, and did most of that research and emotional labor alone. So there's hope.

Anyway, my point I guess is that we don't have to exploit every available "opportunity" when we have so many thrown at our feet. I want us to pass opportunities on to others who might not be the "default target demographic."