Took the opportunity today to look back at my babyhood, born in Chicago 1965 in an extreme racial divide. In this clip below they compared Chicago to South Africa. I am always curious how environment has shaped who i am today. I remember hearing stories from my mom, how shocked she was to come home after our family had gone camping in Wisconsin, and on the news was the horror of what I assume was the 1968 racial riots. My mom and dad had been taking my brother and I to rallies, me in the stroller. I’m sure it must have been somewhat of a relief to my mom that we had missed it all. Now looking back though I wonder if any part of her felt she had missed an important moment? Don’t think she was that radical though. We eventually moved to the suburb of Evanston, just north of Chicago. There was a racial divide in where people lived but in the schools the beginnings of interracial friendships and a kind of unspoken color blindness, meaning we new we lived in different worlds and neighborhoods and I new I probably had more privilege, but we just didn’t say anything about it.
I have found an old journal entry from when I was maybe in 3ed grade at Martin Luther King Junior grade school. Us white kids were actually bussed into the black neighborhood. It was supposed to be a very liberal school with new kinds of learning ideas being practiced, such as beginning every day with writing in a journal, and we could fold over any entry we didn’t want the teacher to read. I think this freedom is the origin of my love of writing; later squashed by being labeled with a learning disability and years of extreme attention to figure out what was wrong with me. Good thing I went to an experimental school where they could experiment on me, not!
My best friend was a cute black girl, Kim. In the journal I describe how Kim was always pinching me on the arm till I bleed, my first tattoos and perhaps my first experience of enjoying pain inflicted on me. I wrote something like this, “I have to understand that Kim’s people have suffered a lot in the past when they were slaves, so she must still have a lot of hurt about that. So I must take her hurting me”
Can’t imagine that I would have come up with that myself, maybe I had seen some of the racial riot footage on tv and my mom had probably done her best to explain why the blacks were so mad. Looking at the footage it feels so familiar like I had been there, but that kind of image must seep into a child’s skin like butter. There are so many ways that I still tell myself what that young self said, that I must be silent and endure others suffering and abuse towards me because I am white and privileged. I am starting to wonder now though if this does greater harm not only to my spirit but to the one inflicting it upon me. MLK was non violent in his actions but in his voice he was no passivist, and I don’t think that distinction was understood by my young mind. It is an art I have not even come close to mastering, to be able to communicate with kindness and dignity for the other and myself, that their actions are hurting me. “I can understand your pain and what your doing is not ok.” How many times I chose to not say this to my Native American partner. I thought I was helping her by “taking it” so willingly.
As far as I can see, this did nothing for her, she still suffers and in a moments notice those that she has loved can turn into her enemy.
I am not an overtly political person at this time in my life, but there have been many ways that I have intimately tried to bridge the racial and class divides that exist between those that I love and myself. There is a way that these issues are part of the deep well of who I am. I hope to write more about it, to bring it up to the surface bucket by bucket full so I may have greater understanding and hopefully ability to love. I expect there will be some sloshing along the way, meaning putting my foot in my mouth and perhaps offending rather than creating an opening. Seems today is a good day to start taking more risks.
I have found an old journal entry from when I was maybe in 3ed grade at Martin Luther King Junior grade school. Us white kids were actually bussed into the black neighborhood. It was supposed to be a very liberal school with new kinds of learning ideas being practiced, such as beginning every day with writing in a journal, and we could fold over any entry we didn’t want the teacher to read. I think this freedom is the origin of my love of writing; later squashed by being labeled with a learning disability and years of extreme attention to figure out what was wrong with me. Good thing I went to an experimental school where they could experiment on me, not!
My best friend was a cute black girl, Kim. In the journal I describe how Kim was always pinching me on the arm till I bleed, my first tattoos and perhaps my first experience of enjoying pain inflicted on me. I wrote something like this, “I have to understand that Kim’s people have suffered a lot in the past when they were slaves, so she must still have a lot of hurt about that. So I must take her hurting me”
Can’t imagine that I would have come up with that myself, maybe I had seen some of the racial riot footage on tv and my mom had probably done her best to explain why the blacks were so mad. Looking at the footage it feels so familiar like I had been there, but that kind of image must seep into a child’s skin like butter. There are so many ways that I still tell myself what that young self said, that I must be silent and endure others suffering and abuse towards me because I am white and privileged. I am starting to wonder now though if this does greater harm not only to my spirit but to the one inflicting it upon me. MLK was non violent in his actions but in his voice he was no passivist, and I don’t think that distinction was understood by my young mind. It is an art I have not even come close to mastering, to be able to communicate with kindness and dignity for the other and myself, that their actions are hurting me. “I can understand your pain and what your doing is not ok.” How many times I chose to not say this to my Native American partner. I thought I was helping her by “taking it” so willingly.
As far as I can see, this did nothing for her, she still suffers and in a moments notice those that she has loved can turn into her enemy.
I am not an overtly political person at this time in my life, but there have been many ways that I have intimately tried to bridge the racial and class divides that exist between those that I love and myself. There is a way that these issues are part of the deep well of who I am. I hope to write more about it, to bring it up to the surface bucket by bucket full so I may have greater understanding and hopefully ability to love. I expect there will be some sloshing along the way, meaning putting my foot in my mouth and perhaps offending rather than creating an opening. Seems today is a good day to start taking more risks.
