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dcnativegal · 8 years ago

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I miss Black people

A tall Black man came into the office in Christmas Valley last week to introduce himself as a social services worker for parts of Deschutes County and north Lake County, too. My door and my fellow therapist’s door were open, and we introduced ourselves and chatted amicably. When he and I discovered we had both lived in DC, I became Chatty Cathy, waxing poetic about Ethiopian Food. It became clear that he wasn’t that familiar with it, couldn’t remember the word ‘injera’… but that was okay. I was talking to a Black man who knew DC. I’m pretty sure I embarrassed myself. My colleague was friendly and professional. I was irrationally glad to see him out of all proportion to the occasion.

He probably left thinking to himself, white people are weird. Guilty as charged.

I am one of those white people who study Black people. Their experience, history, personalities, and the systemic, systematic way in which they’ve been imprisoned in one big internment camp called the United States of America. Everything about them, with the possible exception of current music beyond a superficial point. My kids listen to nothing but music made by Black people, so we, as a family, have that covered.

Formative books: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The Color Purple. Beloved. Also, Why do all the Black kids sit together in the Cafeteria, and When Race Became Real. Between the World and Me is the most recent.

Formative movies: Sounder (with music by Taj Mahal). Anything by Spike Lee (with the possible exception of Inside Job, which is excellent, but not about Black experience.) Moonlight. Daughters of the Dust. I am Not Your Negro is the most recent. Anything by Ava DuVernay, most recently, 13th. (I dare you, white reader, to watch it, on Netflix, and not have your mind blown.)

Music: Otis Redding. Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder. Early Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five. Tracy Chapman. India Arie.

I could go on and on… Perhaps I’ll stop with this link to 100 Woke Black women to follow: http://www.essence.com/news/woke-100-women

“Study” does not mean to keep at arms-length. I have been a marshmallow in a sea of cocoa since I can remember being alive. And since, many times, in different schools and neighborhoods, I was one of the few white kids, it behooved me to observe how we are similar and different. When you are the minority, you study the majority.

Little differences, in hygiene practices (Black women are more fastidious), in pronunciation (Andrea is pronounced An DRE uh by Black folks, AN dreeah by white. Darrell is DaRELLE for Black people and DAR rul for white.) In Happy Birthday songs: Black folks sing the Stevie Wonder version. In mythical secret jokes. Some Black people think that white people smell bad when wet. I’m serious. Based on how stinky the white men were when they came across the Atlantic to kidnap Black people. I mentioned this one day to a church friend, a PhD in Math, descended from Jamaicans, and she gasped! How did I know?! (I read it in a book, silly.)

I notice how much African American Vernacular English is used by white people. “You go, girl.” “24/7.” “I’m down.” “Word.” White folks don’t necessarily notice. I do. I try not to use AAVE. For fear of being scolded by my daughter. But also, because it is not appropriate. I struggle with this appropriateness thing. Because it’s the right thing to do. I keep learning how much culture has been stolen from Black Americans. Elvis Presley is just the tip of the iceburg. White people have stolen from Black people for millennia, and not just culturally. I look for examples of this, and find it, daily. I look out of long habit, so that I can give credit where credit is due.

It is absolutely true that Black people have transformed my life again and again. A Black 10th grade English teacher told me I was a good writer and should check out the Urban Journalism Workshop. I did, I applied, I got in, I learned to write, and the article I wrote earned an honorable mention from the Robert Kennedy Journalism awards. It was about the gentrification of Mount Pleasant, a neighborhood in DC. In 1976. I’m pretty sure I got into Oberlin College because of the Urban Journalism Workshop. Because I had zero extracurriculars besides running away from home. Thank you, Mrs. Feely.

I spent 40 years in the grooviest episcopal church on the planet (IMHO) because of a Black seminarian I almost married. He was 9 years my senior, I was 17, when we met. St Stephen & the Incarnation became my spiritual home because he was assigned there. And after I realized I was too young to marry, it stayed my parish home until I moved to the Oregon Outback in August 2016. Thank you, Eddie.

I miss my Black friends. Gay and straight women, with a few gay Black men in there, too. I know a lot of wonderful straight Black men, but I can’t say I’d call any of them in the middle of the night to take me to the emergency room. (One of my criteria for being a real friend. I’m sure they’d take me; I would just be so embarrassed.) Each of my friends is amazing. Of course, that is also true of my white friends. I’ve been mulling over the difference between my white and Black friends.

I’m reminded of something I read years ago about being friends across the racial chasm: the Black woman’s advice to her white friend was, “Forget I am Black. And, never forget that I am Black.” The zen koan of being friends with a Black person.

I feel lucky when a Black person will deign to be my friend. They could so easily reserve their precious energies for other people of color, especially people of the African diaspora. Out of self-care. (deign: verb, do something that one considers to be beneath one's dignity. "she did not deign to answer the maid's question" Archaic condescend to give [something.] "He had deigned an apology.") When I am hanging out with my Black friends who are activists and seemingly tireless in their work for justice in all kinds of situations, I am amazed that they have time for me. I know in fact that they are tired. And I do my best to be someone they can relax with. Even though I am white.

I have a Black friend who grew up in Crown Heights Brooklyn, where my son lives now in an apartment with many roommates. Her parents were from Guyana, an African-Caribbean country. Crown Heights is gentrifying, but it seems to still hold a special mix of Caribbean immigrants and Hasidim. S is a little younger than I am, and also has 2 kids, one in college (same one as my daughter) and the other graduated (as is my son.) My kids’ dad and I met their family when we each had only one baby in diapers and one parent each were home, and craving adult conversation. Play group in Brookland DC used to meet once a week until the community-organizing father of my children got hold of it, and then it met 3 times a week.

Our oldest boys were friends. We had second children. We developed a tradition of going to the Outer Banks in North Carolina for a week every summer and sharing an old beach house that was right on the water, one family per bedroom. We’d have 4 families give or take, and take turns cooking, looking after munchkins, and going on field trips to the Wright Brothers Museum, Walmart, and movies.

When it was time to figure out where to have the oldest boys go to school, our two families combined forces. In DC, finding a decent public school requires a strategy. We got pretty elaborate: what are our criteria for excellence? How much did each value weigh in the decision? We teamed up, with S and I spending the night in her car one icy January to get on the list for a popular bilingual Spanish/English immersion school (Oyster Elementary). My kids’ dad and her husband hit a number of schools that were apparently much less popular but still made our list. My kid got into Oyster, and S, who was right after me, did not. We decided that our boys would go to a DC public Montessori program instead of risking separation.

By the way, S met a nice Jewish young man from Iowa when they both attended Harvard, and married him. After many years, she decided to convert to Judaism, and both boys had bar mitzvahs, which were very cool to attend.

Both families switched to another DC public Montessori program when the original one seemed in steep decline, and enjoyed that community for a while. It became clear that my son wasn’t doing as well in that context, so I got him on a waiting list for a phenomenal charter school that uses the Expeditionary Learning model (affiliated with Outward Bound.)

We remained friends as families, going to the beach, joining the pool just over the DC line that many Brooklanders belonged to. Our boys grew apart, but we still hung out. One amazing bit of fate is that it was S and her son who introduced my boy to film-making at around 6th grade. He now makes his living as a filmmaker and is a Tisch film school graduate.

S is one of those women who is rather butch, and also straight. She is not femme: never wears make up, keeps her hair very short for minimum of fuss, and never wears skirts or dresses (except in her wedding.) I taught her to knit on one of our beach weeks, and she’s gone on to become expert and imaginative. I figured out at one point that I had a crush on her, but I stomped that out, and we have had a great 20+ year friendship.

When my marriage ended, S and her husband extended dinner invitations to both me and my ex, separately, but only I responded. My ex is introverted, and for some reason he let his connection to these folks wither. I was grateful to hold onto the friendship, and enjoyed coming to their house for amazing food prepared by Ed, the son of the Iowan baker. Lots of far ranging conversation. We’d solve the problems of the world, and then I’d go home. We also share a love of movies. I had to call Ed once to get me to an emergency department, and he did with calm kindness.

Neither S nor her husband are on Facebook much, which is where I keep in touch with most of my social connections from DC. I’ll have to actually write them a letter, which I used to do routinely. I miss these people very much. Maybe I should just call them up. How novel.

S was my friend first, and Black incidentally.

B became my friend and her Blackness was way more prominent. Whereas S never uses AAVE, B uses it a lot, and with her I feel like I can say “GIIRRRRRLLLL” in greeting.

B is from a large African-American Catholic family, originally from Florida. Old school Black, which is to say, ancestors enslaved and brought to the mainland United States, then reared here after Emancipation, and always in the minority. Whereas Island folks, from what was formerly known as the West Indies, were also enslaved, they freed themselves from colonial power, and became majority Black countries. B taught me that some Caribbean folks look down on the old school Black folks. I learned a lot about hierarchies within Blackness from Brigette.

We met at a card game for women in our neighborhood. Her son was a year older than mine, and she lived within a block of us. I started to pursue her as a friend; we attended a Black-taught “all sizes welcomed” yoga class in the neighborhood, and would walk there and back every Saturday morning. On those walks we got to know each other.

She is so accomplished; a law degree, an all but dissertation PhD drop out, an author, a management consultant, a philanthropist. I was honored to be the one white person present for a discernment committee she gathered, Quaker style, to help her make a decision. She influenced me a great deal. I hope I was a good friend to her. She was, probably still is, extremely busy, always, involved in one justice-promoting effort after another. I felt like a slacker in her presence. And she was not judging me. She simply lived every waking moment as an opportunity for social change. I also know there is pain underneath that activity, not just ‘post-traumatic slavery syndrome.’ Our sons are out in the world making art. She is making change. I miss her.

There are many others… Imani, D, Isaiah, Fern, Paulette, Liane…and powerful Facebook friends... Claudia, Alan, Reuben, KM

When I see a Black person out here in Oregon, I am riveted and try not to stare. Black people in white places are used to this, it is the ‘white gaze’, just like women are conscious of the ‘male gaze.’ For the observed, this vigilance is automatic and barely conscious until there is a perceived danger. Is that man (of whatever color) following me down this street? Is that white woman following me in this store? I regret that I am adding to this vigilance for people of color in Oregon.

In Eugene Oregon at a huge hippy extravaganza called Country Fair, I took to counting Black people. Less than 20. I follow the SURJ-Eugene Chapter on Facebook. It’s the closest chapter to where I live. (Standing up for Racial Justice is a white person’s organization that hopes to support Black Lives Matter efforts. White folks can ask other white folks to call each other out and help each other grow. This is not the job of Black People.) Oregon is a very white place.

I am an anti-racist organization of one. Which is not to say I am the only one who cares about racism against Black people, systemic and individualized here in Lake County. I have not yet met anyone as steeped as I am, but it’s always possible. (Where are you?) Anybody out here willing to start a book club to read Witnessing Whiteness? It’s for white people who want to reveal and counteract the racism that lives within all of us.

From the context of my upbringing, and my choice, the collective and multi-hued Black American World is my north star. The Black/white conversation, the current animosity, the centuries-long history, is my cosmology: “noun, the science of the origin and development of the universe.” My social universe. The foundation upon which I build my politics, my theology of justice, my self-image. My corrective. Also, my joy.

I am a white person who works on her racism. Even when there are no Black people in my Oregon Outback world, except a phlebotomist, one former client, and the girlfriend of another. My moral universe is constructed around the fact of the injustice of slavery and its current unjust sequelae. (Noun. se·que·la. a condition that is the consequence of a previous disease or injury.) Part of the post-slavery curse is the anti-government bias that is ripping further the tattered safety net. It is hard work to help white folks in mostly white contexts to see how anti-Black racism seeps into every bit of politics and also harms them individually. I’m working on this. I find it exhausting when the occasional conversation starts with “I don’t have a racist bone in my body.” I was so spoiled in D.C.

Yes, I believe in reparations. TaNehisi Coates’ work on this in The Atlantic is a paradigm-shifter. (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/)

I only recently read a book on the native American experience, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s epic, “An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States.” Now I can include the injustice wrought against native peoples into my cosmology. Except I did not grow up as a white person in a majority First Nation context. A whole new arena to familiarize myself with. First Nations are deeply relevant to life out here due to water rights. (You can watch Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz read from the book here: https://youtu.be/Pn4QTS6S3WU.) And you can read about water rights and the Klamath Nation here: (https://www.rotary.org/en/rotarian-helping-klamath-river-dispute)

I will continue to be a Black-identified white woman living in Whitelandia. I will try not to be obnoxious when I hear something flatly racist, although I will counter it. Someone said something about Black on Black crime early on. I said something, and now she knows I’m a ‘liberal.’ I share about Black experience on Facebook because I rejoice at the artistry and profound accomplishments of people who Overcome, every day. Maybe my new friends in Oregon will have a couple of stereotypes dashed by following my Facebook posts. Maybe not. Some of the clients at our mental health center are white ex-offenders with Aryan nation tattoos. Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

My job is to enlighten white people, somehow, with humility, because i know next to nothing. I need to tell the truth, but tell it slant, as Emily Dickinson wrote, so the truth will dazzle gradually. My job is to live with integrity wherever I am, as inclusively as possible, mining my own deep veins of ignorance (see, Native American History, also, the racist history of Oregon vis a vis Sundown laws, et al.) Counteracting the deep ignorance of the public discourse about the roots of our current politics in my own thinking. And praying to know how to be a bridge builder.

Written on the immensely tall wall of the Lincoln Memorial are words from the 2nd Innaugural address. To quote Wikipedia, “Lincoln suggests that the death and destruction wrought by the [Civil] war was divine retribution to the U.S. for possessing slavery, saying that God may will that the war continue "until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword", and that the war was the country's "woe due".’ What I believe is that the great Civil War in the USA right now is the price we are paying for the sin of slavery, the divide of have and have not, early white immigrant/imperialist versus newer immigrant especially from South and Central America, the disconnect of white republican voters-for-trump and the fact of their deep dependence on the government. My cousin, President Lincoln, (4th cousin, 5 times removed) was more right than he knew.

I will be an ally no matter where I am, however (deeply) imperfect. I can’t help it.

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kentplate480-blog · 7 years ago

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