Spiritual Shadows in Whiteness Work

Trigger warning for People of Color: This post deals with the anniversary of Tony Robinson's death, recent assaults by a white teacher of a young black girl in Madison schools, and white spiritual bypassing. Please read at your own discretion.

For white folks, this post is likely to make you as uncomfortable to read as it made me to write. So please, read with kindness. But read it. It's essential.

What seemed separate suddenly wasn't.The new hashtags #blacklivesmatter or #blm had, previously, felt important, but far away. Distant. Not that I did research to see when any Black people had been shot by police in Madison. Not if, but when. Police violence against Black bodies seemed conveniently elsewhere, even if Ferguson was in the Midwest depending on who you asked, even if it was the hometown of one of my longest running students, a white woman shaken to the core by how close it suddenly felt to her.

But checking twitter that night in March four years ago, I swear - though this may be 20/20 in hindsight - I could feel the walls falling, the distance closing. Seeing at first the bare descriptions - a young black man, an older white male cop - then the name: Tony, called Terrell - Robinson. Then there was a face, too, varying depending on who was putting it up - local Black community or police department. There were no pictures of him where he looked like a thug. No, that difference came in description, evocation of the incident - mentions of drugs, possibly being armed, uncontrollable.

***

Ilana is reading the 76 page police report - with a lot of redaction - about an 11 year old black girl whose braids were pulled out, who was dragged on the ground, and hit by teacher at Whitehorse Middle School a couple of weeks ago in Madison. Reading the report is bringing it closer, clear, even with all the details protected for privacy. That feels important, because the white male teacher won't be returning to Whitehorse, but this week our Black District Attorney announced he will not press charges against the teacher.

Sensitivity to Sensitivity

This week, the prompt for my weekly contemplative writing classes started "I first knew I was different when..." or "I first knew he was different when..."

The quote at the bottom of the prompt:

“But even though we may not have been fully conscious of the racism of our games, we did understand that racial stereotyping was titillating and a little bit taboo. And as a half, my understanding went deeper.” -Ruth Ozeki, The Face: A Time Code

I had considered making race the prompt - "I first became aware of race when..." and then, decided to broaden it, while still keeping it specific. Race definitely came up - currently, all of my students are caucasian, white people who can, if they choose to, ignore race. As I know working more and more with us white folks on race, though, just because someone is white doesn't mean they ignore race. So for those who wrote about race, it was powerful enough to make me want to do an entire day retreat on race. What a significant and important topic for especially white people to write spontaneously about and share - mainly with each other. If people of color choose to, they can witness it and share, too - but we can be mighty messy as we figure things out out loud.

However, because of the broadened but still specific prompt, two things came up in the majority of writings, things I hadn't expected but am not surprised by.

The False Immunity of Being White

A few years ago, I got a flu shot. I don't usually get one - no particular reason other than no good reason to get one. But that year, ilana was getting one and I thought, "Why not?"

We didn't have health insurance, so we got it at a pharmacy. I kind of hate getting shots (likely another reason I hadn't gotten them often) and so felt a bit woozy during and after. They had me lie down and rest, and then I could get up and move around. I felt pretty sick for a couple of days - fever and all - when we called the pharmacy they said that can happen. It passed and I didn't get the flu that year, but I don't usually get it. Ironically, I did cancel classes that week due to the severity of my reaction to the innoculation - I did understand that one week sick is better than multiple weeks.

Why do I bring this up?

I've been thinking a lot about white fragility lately, and how easy it is for those of us who are not often exposed to the pain behind racism to get overwhelmed by it. So many good fellow white people I know - dedicated, heartfelt humans and activists, everyday Janes and Joes - are simply unable to endure the log haul, emotionally and physically. Self-care, like in any area of our lives, is crucial, but I also think we whites have to accommodate for our previous lack of exposure (chosen or by-product of privilege) and lower ourselves in slowly, or we wind up leaping in and out and being inconsistent in our support of important movements.

Innoculation a, by design, give us tiny exposures to a disease in order to build our immune systems to better handle them. Racism is a disease, an endemic one, and one that is in the air and water all the time. The thing is, white people, we think we are immune. But it is a false and dangerous immunity. We simply have the privilege to not be forced to be exposed as often, to choose our exposure and its effects on us. We have to choose to breathe common air, to drink common water. Even more accurately, we drink it, we breathe it and get sick - for racism injured us, too - and somehow don't feel the injuries.

Looking at the Flint water crisis is a great

Literal metaphor and example of this. Large numbers of people who are poor, and most often of color, pay the true environmental price of the computers and technologies of the privileges enjoyed by the few. When the few on top - the folks who are predominately white, and sometimes rich - hear about these prices, we are outages for a hot minute, then forget. 

Why? 

Because we can. Because media encourages us to see such things as anamolies and unconnected, as if the flu were called something different each year, instead of being variations on the same strains. Because we are so unaccustomed to, so normally unexposed to just how bad - literally and psychologically metaphorically - the air and water are. Our shock is a symptom - rather than showing our righteousness, it shows our privilege. And our indignant and impatient responses are also a sign of how unaccustomed we are to the real situations.

This is not all bad. When the people on top begin to realize how bad it is for those on bottom, if they work on it and stay sympathetic, they can actually take action to help reverse the trends. If we inoculate ourselves enough (preferably with other white people so folks of color don't have to put up with our constant questions and emotions) we can actually have the benefit of having been protected from the disease, and having realized there is no protection for anyone so long as the disease persists.

The disease of racism can only be truly overcome through obliteration. This is where innoculation as metaphor falls apart. We have to be able to abide it so we can be allies in the race for the cure - to wipe it out. But that will take a long ass time. It just will. So becoming truly immune - not just above exposure but able to abide alongside those who have no choice but to drink and breathe it - helps us to truly see it, feel it, and touch the passion needed to get rid of it.

So if you are white, and curious, expose yourself. Go gently, but persistently. When you feel worn out, take a break but come back. Don't give up. Be inspired by people of color who have written about how to keep up the good fight in the long run.

And don't wait to get your shot like I did. If one wipes you out, then maybe more regular exposure is needed. Rest for a few days and try again. Keep trying.

*My back porch apologies to all the epidemiologists and other scientists I know who may cringe and my using the flu as a metaphor. I claim poet's license here!

Opening and Closing in Crisis: Alton Sterling and Philando Castle

Buddhism teaches this: when tragedy strikes, there are two ways to go:
We open.
We close.

I am trying to learn to open. Everything in me, all my privilege, all my familial training - all of my protective devices from both being a victim in the past and also having not had to face as much victimhood as a lot of other folks - all of that training says CLOSE. FIND ANSWERS. GET COLD. BE PRECISE.

And all of my Buddhist training says "Soften. Open. Trust. Feel."

I make mistakes when I feel, but I make worse mistakes when I don't.

This week, I am feeling the Alton Sterling killing. Then, the completely overshadowed but far more telling, Philando Castle killing not twenty four hours later. I am trying to stay open.

17x13/4+33+21=?

I never have been very good at math.

My Enneagram sign (2-the Helper) says that makes sense - that I am more an ideas person than a numbers person. I'm more a person person. So when my employers tell me I'll have 17 13 or 14 year olds in my summer program for the next two weeks, it means little. Not until I see their files, then especially, not until I see their faces, will I have anything in my mind to work with.

I tried to send them some of that empty space this morning. I did Tonglen for my students-to-be (and myself!), 24 hours before the whole shebang begins. To these strangers, who to me now are what Pema Chodron calls the "neutrals" - I don't know them yet, have no expectations, they are just open slates to me. This is a pretty good state to be in, and I won't be in it again with these kids. I won't be in it with myself for two weeks, as teaching this program takes me to the edge of myself; full on energy, full on teaching skills, full on time use.

Earlier this week, Birdfarm sent me three books on teaching - the first of which I am almost done with, and which was the one she'd brought up the most when we were talking about, surprisingly, not teaching at all! We were talking about power relationships, and in particular, about one of the shoots we did this last weekend in Seattle for a Miksang Level II program I was teaching. I was describing how different the two groups gathered in one park were - white, middle-class folk in a dog park and black and Latino folk gathered at a hepped-up car show. The different groups responded quite distinctly to being photographed (our topic was "People and Other Sentient Beings") - the white middle classers scoffed a bit, posed, looked awkward; the black and Latino folks smiled, went about their business, didn't seem to care much or used it as a chance to connect, rather than disconnect.

She recommended Other People's Children by Lisa Delpit, which I certainly ordered and carried at Rainbow Bookstore for years and never ever actually looked at, seeing as how I wasn't teaching, much less teaching African-American kids. It's a great book on integration and segregation at far more nuanced levels than just "merging" kids of different races and classes - beyond the physical mixed classroom, there are power struggles at stake between, in particular, white teachers and black kids all the time.

Mainly, Birdfarm was talking about how uncomfortable "white people" (meaning, us, white, middle class Americans) are with their power, and how we purposefully or subconsciously push away our power, try to hide it, act passively, in order to disavow it. Only we still have it, and especially those with less power in the room know it for sure. When we take our power and own it, use it for the benefit of others, it's ok, and others can respect it. Usually. Unless we are secretly not benefitting others.

It's pretty complicated, obviously, but damned important going into teaching a, likely, mixed classroom of class and race variety in the next two weeks. What those figures don't tell me is how power will play out, and even the races of the kids can't tell me that. Only interaction can tell me that, and only if I listen.

Yet another reason why math doesn't particularly appeal to me.