Truth be told, I was waiting to write this until I was some untouchable expert on the subject. I wanted a presentation so polished that no one could point to any part of it and say, “Actually, Ally, a better way to look at this might be…” but I’ve realized that that day will not come, and the growth I seek for myself and for everyone will come from open, honest, and deeply humbling conversation. Something ultimately unfinished, hopefully ongoing. All I really know for sure is that passive silence isn’t an option.
I would love nothing more than for this post to become a correspondence, so please feel very welcome to join in.
.
*******************
.
I write this because my soul is so tired of dehumanization.
Let me confess something to hold myself accountable. It was barely a week ago when I sat among a group of people I love, and a reference came up in a humorous tone about the KKK: Someone in California had used the pointed white mask as their protective equipment for the grocery store. The story received some chuckles around the porch, and I sat, sucked in my fumes… and said absolutely nothing. I averted my eyes. Forced some nervous laugh. Waited for the subject to change.
There are so many more subtle jokes like this that need correcting and yet when presented with one of the most extreme and horrific cases there can be, I sat there, silent.
I am so sorry. I have been replaying this in my head on a loop, appalled at myself, and even so (even so!) I can get away with not thinking about it for a while. There are, frankly, a plethora of distractions available to the white upper-middle-class girl. It’s a real temptation. But I seek the stubborn discipline to actively remember it, and I’m hopeful that next time I won’t be such a coward.
Now, I’m glad I didn’t full-on berate the people I love, who likely learned so much of this dehumanizing narrative from upbringing, education even[1], and limited exposure. To berate isn’t to humanize, and I am certainly no better than they are—this narrative gets tangled up in my conditionings all the same. But why didn’t I look them in the eye, and say with all the love I could muster for both them and for my black friends, “Don’t you guys think we can do better than to laugh at that? Can we talk about how this isn’t okay?”
So often these underlying forces of de-humanizing, of racism in particular, remain hidden. I implore us to see events like this one, in which the ugly truth of our conditioning peeks out above the surface, as opportunities to name it and work through it together in the name of a long-needed re-humanization. No more silence.
.
*******************
.
Humanization, naturally, is what we as, well, humans, are wired for. It looks like leaning in very close to the lives of others, recognizing ourselves in them, and letting injustice against them full-force break our hearts—even though keeping our distance feels a lot more comfortable, a lot less vulnerable, or is straight-up habitual.
I received a text from a dear friend (who I love and who is black) last night that graciously rattled me to this keyboard: “Hi, I love you, but your silence on racism is really hurtful to me.”
It’s disturbing how much I needed that text. Why did I need that text? Why was this not more obvious and urgent to me? Of course I have heard about the cases of police brutality against George Floyd and so many others—who I, tellingly, at the moment cannot name without a Google search—but a recent Washington Post headline sums it up perfectly: “White people can compartmentalize police brutality. Black people don’t have the luxury.”[2]
.
*******************
.
Speaking of luxury: I like to run. When I’m running in the park, I like to smile and say “hi” to everyone I pass on the path. This seems far more natural than ducking my head and bouncing past, and really feeds the soul and the tired legs.
In the day after Ahmaud Arbery’s murder, when it was still too fresh to be forgotten by the easily distracted me, one of these passerby on my run was a black man around my age (this anecdote also stands expose to the “I don’t see race” fallacy). We shared a brief and genuine exchange of smiling eye contact and “hello’s,” and as I trotted away, tears welled up in my eyes. How could anything be more natural than that encounter? I wondered. How did that kind of encounter, in merely a different setting, lead to violence? How could going for a run, had I been born in a black body, put me in a position for someone to justify ending my life?
And yet… the crossroad remains: I can lean into my humanity and let that heartbreak affect my life, or I can get stuck believing that that one transcendent moment was enough, some *poof* enlightenment! and go on my merry way.
Robin DiAngelo writes in White Fragility[3],
“To continue reproducing racial inequality, the system only needs for white people to be really nice and carry on – to smile at people of color, to go to lunch with them on occasion. To be clear, being nice is generally a better policy than being mean. But niceness does not bring racism to the table and will not keep it on the table when so many of us who are white want it off. Niceness does not break with white solidarity and white silence. In fact, naming racism is often seen as not nice, triggering white fragility.”
.
*******************
.
It is natural to deeply value the life, the divinity, of another human being. It is unnatural to keep a distance that allows for “other”-ing and justifies violence. Something insane is clearly at play when it feels necessary to restate these truths. Humanization isn’t politics—it’s part of the story we are born to tell. Here is a piece of that story:
My brother Nick, whom I love, is a police officer. Once, at the end of a long double shift, he heard grotesque shouting echoing from a few blocks over from the station, and ran toward its source. The shouts came from a teenager who had covered himself in hand sanitizer, tied himself to a pole, lit himself on fire, and then regretted it—and Nick arrived in time to calmly talk this kid through it, helping him free himself. Together, they extinguished the flames and allowed that precious life to continue.
I followed up with Nick today about it, and he told me that de-escalation—the approach of calmly communicating with the human in front of you and bringing a situation to a more communicative, peaceful place—was a significant part of his police academy training.
.
******************
.
Racism isn’t an issue of “their liberation”—it’s all of our liberation, tangled in the specific liberation of black people. Whatever your race may be, let this be radically personal. If we are normalizing current racism, we are also normalizing the unprecedented rates of depression, addiction, and suicide in this country. Something is very off in a world disconnected from our natural belonging to one another.
Absolutely none of this violence is our normal, natural state. Absolutely none of this numb, quiet misery is our natural state. We are all meant for so much better.
So friends, I lay my heart before you, broken and exposed, with hope. If it needs to be my conscious discipline to keep it broken (independent on how many recent big-headline tragedies there are), something I need to bring back to the forefront of my attention again and again until it’s natural again to recognize the suffering of others and my connection to it, then so be it.
I’m sorry I have been silent. Please, let’s talk.
.
******************
.
And please, before you go, let’s pause a sacred moment.
Let’s put our hands where we can see them.
Now put them on your heart.
Do you feel that?
Do you ever stop to think about the miracle of your life? Do you know that that is the Divine drumbeat of this whole universe, animating your being? Do you know how very good this is?
Now imagine every single person on this planet doing the same. Eyes closed, hands on their heart, remembering that they are alive. The old couple feeding ducks on the bench. The man talking to himself on the subway. The gas station clerk. Your mother. A protestor. An infant. A man who cannot speak but he paints your heart on a canvas. The immigrant worker who just wants his kid to get through school. His kid, three countries away, learning to tie his shoes in Kindergarten. A man lying sick in a bed with three others.The street corner preacher. The most in-love couple you’ve ever seen, both men. Your boss. Your co-worker. A twenty something whose parents don’t support his dream.The saxophonist outside of the hockey arena. The man with a cardboard sign at the intersection. Donald Trump. Joe Biden. Your favorite teacher. Your least favorite teacher. Your dad. Your uncle. A doctor, sleep deprived. A priest. A mailman. A person who could’ve helped you, but didn’t. A 50 year-old man with Down Syndrome dancing to the beat of a musical pop-up card. A 60 year-old man who has forgotten the love story completely. The black man clapping at his son’s graduation. The black woman publishing her first book. The black girl with a girlfriend she’s nervous to introduce to her friends. The black teenager who dreams of starting a meaningful business. The black husband behind bars for far too long.The black mother whose son was only out for a jog. The black student at a high school grossly underfunded, applying to college. The black champion, kissing her medal and praising God. The black grandmother, baking her specialty. The black choir members touching heaven with their voices. The black newborn. The black newborn. The black newborn.
Let this scene stir the warmest flood in your heart, and recognize this as our natural state.
So, we walk forward, armor and weapons down, eyes met with those of the humans before us, and we finally talk about it. And may we all be too close for violence now. May we all simply be too close.
.
.
.
**********
.
.
.
.
.
.
Footnotes:
[1]It felt like a sci-fi movie when I learned about the mass genocides that accompanied colonization of the Americas–for the first time–when I was all the way in college.
[2]https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/29/heres-why-we-dont-see-protests-when-police-unjustly-kill-white-people/
[3]White Fragility has been on my to-read list for nearly two years now. What is telling here is that it has only recently moved its way to the top of that list.
