It's So Hard to Watch Activism Get Lost in the Weeds

Anyone who knows me knows that I care about a lot of different things and that I follow a lot of different causes and that I work hard to fight oppression in whatever ways I can. In doing so, I am watching some trends and repeated failures that seem so easy to overcome if we just worked a little harder to put aside differences, and to find our common ground. Some of us are never going to be able to do this, I get it and I love you anyway, but from an often outside observer, I do not think that you all see how close you are to working towards the same goal, but forgetting the bigger due to small arguments and perceived transgressions.

It feels to me anymore that if I want to work toward ending any type of oppression, I have to hand in my own list of experiences and ways that I "deserve" to be a part of the process. I am tired of saying to a group or a leader, I am here, I have energy and talents, I have access to power structures that (fair or unfair) you may not have...USE ME, only to be told that I am too straight or too Caucasian, or too financially comfortable to really be helpful. Or maybe I am too radical or not radical enough, or I mess up and use the wrong language, and it goes on and on and on.

My suspicion is that I am probably not the only person out there feeling this way, and it amounts to a ton of lost resources. It is as if we have lost the ability to identify that there is a root cause to the problems that we are all talking about and wanting to change. I taught my little about pulling weeds this summer, he found it easier of course to just break the weed off at ground level and to be done with it. And if you are a gardener, you know that this can be tempting. I mean, at least for a short time we do not see the problem. However, with any experience we also know that although the roots of weeds are stubborn and deep, if we do not get them out of there, the weed will come back in less than a week. Sometimes those weeds are prickly and painful to deal with, but if I want to harvest healthy vegetables in a few months, I have to make sure that obstacles to their growth are out of the way.

As I was putting together all of my swirling thoughts about this issue, I was reminded of my scientifically groundbreaking fifth grade science fair project. I built a maze box, and at the end I put a reward and then plopped a mouse in the other end and watched what happened.  I timed them, and changed the game now and again to see how they would react, and it sort of seems like that is what is going on with all of the groups that are fighting against powerful ingrained systems that make us feel weak and oppressed.  There are people in power in this world, and if we are honest with ourselves there are not a whole lot of them. They have the wealth and the privilege and the authority and the weapons and the cruelty that keep all of these other groups of people down. And I think that they learned long ago to put us in the maze individually, and if we ever get close to the goal, they change the game.  The unfortunate thing is that we keep behaving in ways that probably amuse them and empower them even more.

Maybe what we need to do is agree to enter the maze together. Some of us might have a good sense of smell so we know where the cheese is, but our sense of direction sucks so we do not know how to get there. Maybe some of us have great leaping abilities and can not be stopped by walls, while others keep bumping into the same obstacle over and over again. I think that what we really need to remember is that none of us wins entirely if we do not all eventually get to the goal. It does not feel good to me at least to enjoy a reward or privilege if I know that there are still folks in the maze that cannot find their way. I want them to succeed too.

Dichotomies seem to be the biggest problem that I am seeing us face. It is all male vs. female, people of color vs. white, gay vs. straight, left vs. right, rich vs. poor, able vs. disabled, old vs. young and so on. And the really painful thing to see is that within each of those dichotomies we further break down the positions of privilege and power.  Most of the active movements that I see are so narrowly focused on one little branch of the problem that they refuse to dig out the root. I am not going to even try to list these types of issues, because they are strong in their multitudes. We just need to wake up to the strings on our backs, and realize that none of the rest of us are pulling them. It is really at its root in my opinion power and authority vs. absolute powerlessness. We can fool ourselves into the seductive temptation of grabbing for little bits of power and privilege because at least it's something, right? But until we are willing to accept that having little nibbles of the cheese is not acceptable when what we really need for the whole community is ALL of the cheese.

Sometimes this all happens for obviously selfish reasons like monetary gain, or notoriety, or even that pervasive need to just be right. But it also happens for lots of smaller unnamed reasons. It is easy as activists to think in lofty platitudes of selflessly working for the greater good. None of us is ever being selfless in what we are doing. Each and every one of us is gaining in some way through what we are doing or we just would not do it. It's okay to own selfishness and is delusional not to. For myself, it just makes me feel good on the most basic level, and on a deeper level, I do recognize that I have privileges that I did nothing to deserve and it serves my needs to pay something back to people who do not have those same privileges. In real reflection though, the most selfish thing about my actions is this overwhelming feeling I have that I need to pave the way to make things better for the little. He is white, but he may grow to love a person of color and perhaps my actions today will benefit my future grandchildren. He has not indicated to me one way or another at this point to what his sexual or gender orientation might be, but when he does, I want to make sure that his rights will be protected. He may grow up to make choices that are destructive or dangerous and I want to make sure that by the time that would happen, there is not such corruption in law enforcement that his white skin no longer protects him. It also serves me to serve others because it is the best way I know to show him what our family's values are, and to develop those values in him.  Mostly, I just want to be the kind of person that he already thinks I am.

A little more self-reflection of that nature would go a long way. But no self-reflection is any damn good if we do not do something with it. A little less talking and a little more listening would be a good place to start. I was so overwhelmed with emotions watching things unfold in Ferguson that I did not know what to do with those feelings, and I ran into dealing with white people who either had no clue or actively wanted to avoid the topic to dealing with a host of other folks telling me that I did not have the proper credentials to care.  And that spiraled me into even more anger and frustration and I am human, and I lashed out in a lot of ways. But I really have been trying to put that in check. I took a step back, and tried to listen to the pain and lived experience of the all to often "frightening other". This did not diminish my own pain, and rage, and confusion, it actually clarified a lot of things for me. I learned so much that I did not know before. And it was all because I listened, was brave enough to ask questions, and shared my own frustrations with people who look and speak and act differently than I do. It has tempered some of my anger, and increased some of my anger. But it has offered a bit of clarity about what is really going on.

My final analogy has to do with the last time that I worked at the local soup kitchen. While the group of folks I was working with could have debated about the nutrition content, or the organic nature of, or the sourcing of the food we were serving or how it should be cooked and who should do it, in that moment of urgency of needing to produce for lines of people who just really needed to not be hungry, we worked together and fed all of them. All of those other arguments became so trivial, because a mama with a baby crying from the pain of an empty belly does not care where the tomato came from or how it was raised. Her need to resolve a crisis overcame our need to always intellectualize and tear everything down to its least common denominator. It is a well worn bit of philosophy, but one that bears repeating, the whole is in fact greater than the sum of its parts.

So please fellow activists and people who give a damn, can we please gaze together at the bigger picture and see it for the mosaic that it is. We can all fight for our favorite issue in concert with others fighting for theirs and if we combine resources and stop replicating and re-creating a wheel that has already been working, we really can accomplish phenomenal things. And we need to bring the people living the pain into the conversation. We are often complicit in making things so much worse for them. Because we make promises and show them that they deserve more and that we are going to help them get there. But when energy flags, and things get complicated or ugly, or we do not think that they are accepting our help in the right way, we throw up our hands and move on to the next more attractive project, and that is a tragedy.

If you have managed to read this far, and I appreciate it if you did, please dialogue with me about your thoughts, your fears, your needs, your experiences. Access each other and lift each other up. I would like to humbly repeat to you what I said before, and realize that I mean it with sincerity that you cannot begin to imagine... I am here, I have energy and talents, I have access to power structures that (fair or unfair) you may not have...USE ME.

Love and light my friends.

White Privilege is Not About Guilt

I do not feel guilty about my whiteness. I am not a self-hating white girl. However, in the past 10 days, I have been told this time and again. I have been following the story of Mike Brown for eight days. Only eight days because until Sunday, there was not a lot of coverage about the shooting of this young man. Even at that time, a majority of the reports were coming from independent reporters and citizens on the ground in Ferguson, Missouri.

It is not the first time that I have been questioned for my mentions of the term "white privilege". It seems from my experience that my being white and acknowledging that I benefit from this in this country makes other white folks uncomfortable, angry and all about retaliation. People seem to think that their comments and anger are going to intimidate or silence me.

However, I do not think that I even really understood the term until the past week. What has opened my eyes? A little research, a little listening, and a little reflection. I have never in my life considered myself to be a racist, and I still do not. But that does not change the fact that I have certain "unalienable rights" that other people in America do not enjoy. And it is time for us all to acknowledge this. Until we do, things in this country are not going to change.

So what does white privilege mean in my world?

-It means that not one time in my life have I been pulled over, frisked, or shot at based solely on the way I look.

-It means that during the three demonstrations I have participated in this year, it never worried me that I would be gassed, hit by a beanbag or rubber bullet, or beaten with a baton.

-It means that I can wear a hooded sweatshirt on the street after dark without being killed by one of my neighbors.

-It means that I can get credit, rent an apartment or get a job without worrying that my name is going to make an impact.

- It means that I am not questioned about my hairstyle or the way I wear my clothing

-It means that I can believe in the American Dream. I never have to question whether hard work and a good education will lead to some level of prosperity.

-It means that at no time when I was growing up was there a question about whether or not I would go to college. It was expected.

-It means that I can question those in positions of power without fearing for my life.

-It means that if my son is shot and killed under questionable circumstances, he will first be seen as a victim and not a thug even if he has a criminal record.

I could go on and on with this list, but I should not have to. Every white person could come up with their own list if they wanted to be honest. I have watched social media critically in the past week and I have taken the time to record some of the disturbing comments under the #ferguson hashtag. Trust me when I tell you that these are a very small sampling of what I have seen.

The only thing keeping black society from killing itself is white police officers. You Niggers in #Ferguson should be thankful.

We whites are showing you blacks how powerless you really are. We had to remind y'all once again & there's nothing y'all can do #Ferguson

Wonder how long the Niggers in #Ferguson would last if the white police let them alone? Criminals like #MikeBrown need white discipline

ok "protestors" time to go home and get to bed. You all have work tomorrow. Right? O wait. I almost forgot. You bums don't work.

Rodney king was a junky on pcp resisting arrest and driving 120 mph. He deserved it just like the shit in #ferguson was deserved

Every 2 bit ghetto philosopher claims #Ferguson is the start of something. Eh, wait till they run out of crack! Nighty night.

They're looting the liquor stores and hair salons? No surprises there. I bet the libraries are safe tho.

If Darren Wilson was racist why did it take him 6 years to kill a black man?

Those are blatant right? The more subtle arguments are still about the race problem that exists in America. A popular one is the response from a lot of white folks bringing up black on black crime. Or some folks point out that Mike Brown robbed a store prior to the shooting. My favorite is the outcry that ignores the original fact and focuses on the looting that has happened out of anger and frustration about the state of things. A majority of the comments made by black folks on this situation are being attacked by white folks who think that they can silence those speaking out.

There have been four unarmed black men killed by police in the past month. That is a fact. One of them was selling cigarettes illegally, one of them was carrying a BB gun in a Wal-mart, and one of them robbed a store and allegedly resisted arrest. If any of these men had been given a chance to go to trial for their alleged crimes, would they have received the death penalty? Certainly not.

So what does all of this mean? It means that even though we ignore the problems, they still exist. If you have not already, I suggest that you do your own research about police officers killing black people. In a search of Google with the term "unarmed whites killed by police", I did not find one example after 10 pages of results. And it goes beyond Ferguson, or LA, or New York City. Segregation is still a fact, substandard inner city education is still a fact, the disproportionate number of black people in prison for non-violent crimes is still a fact. We can bury our heads in the sand, or we can be allies and do something. Because another part of having white privilege is that our voices generally matter more to policy makers, and those in authority. Speak up, stand up and listen to the people who are living with these realities. Saying that it does not happen, does not change the lived experience of oppressed people.

---Please note that comments on this blog are moderated, so if all you want to do is post inflammatory responses, they are not likely to be published. Move along.