Blog Against Racism
I have been thinking about this Blog Against Racism week and trying to think about what to say, how to say it, and that ever-sticky issue of public versus flocked post on the matter. As a matter of habit, I flock nearly every post I make, and this is a topic that is so near to my heart that I am on the one hand swayed toward the idea of keeping it close and private with those I know and trust, but on the other hand, I see on a daily basis the costs of not addressing these issues publicly.
Where do I begin talking about this?
Maybe at the beginning, or even before my beginning.
My parents had to cross state lines to get married. Let me say that again - my parents had to cross state lines to get married, because in 1956, Arizona wouldn't marry people of two different races. In the lifetime of our race (the human race, that is), 50 years is nothing. I am one generation removed from that sort of lunacy.
Even before that, a decade earlier, my father and his family were ripped away from their houses, their property, including irreplaceable heirlooms, crammed into government storage (which was looted, so that they lost everything), and sent to live in "internment camps" for the sole crime of being Japanese American. They were citizens, but that really didn't count.
Even so, my father and two of his brothers volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team the all Japanese American unit that served with outrageous distinction in WWII. His brothers are buried in France, in a cemetery where 26 pairs of brothers are all buried in a row. He served in a segregated Army to defend his country and ideal of freedom. All the while his parents were behind barbed wire and watched over by armed guards.
Every time I see my father, my aunts, my uncles, I am face-to-face with a specific legacy of what fear, ignorance and sanctioned racism will produce. I bear the responsibility (as do we all) to see that it will not happen again.
But it has, of course. What can I say about Guantanamo or detainees held for weeks, months, years without access to their legal rights, that hasn't already been said by others once, twice, a dozen times? But we must keep shouting about that. We must.
There are so many people of good heart and good conscience who are out there every day doing the right thing, trying to live lives that are balanced, and fair, and equitable. But there is still so much inequity. We allow our prisons and jails to be filled with people of color at shockingly disproportionate rates; we have somehow learned to live with the fact that health outcomes, across the board, are worse for people of color; we are just now "noticing" the fact that African American boys are dropping out of school at 2-3 times the rates of other populations; we allow ourselves to get complacent about our "progress" on these issues because we see evidence of one or two or three people of color who have "made it." We voted in a Congress with almost no people of color (and *please* do not get me started on the lack of women, that's entirely different blog).
These are broad and general characterizations and I don't want anyone to feel that I'm attacking white people. I'm not. But I am attacking complacency. I am attacking blindness. I am attacking a society where the small and large injustices are perpetuated, despite a staggering wealth of resources. It's not okay to not understand that this stuff is hard, this stuff is uncomfortable, but if we don't start really dealing with this stuff, none of our futures are going to be what they could and should be. We all lose if we don't start really addressing this.
I'm part of an initiative to bring professionals of color into mid-level positions in my field. We did our first round of interviews on Friday - bringing in a group of very talented individuals to interview with organizations that would serve as prospective host placements for the coming year. This is the first year of the initiative and at the end of the day, the host orgs, with a single voice said, "Oh my god - SUCH great candidates! Half these folks could be [position title] right now. Why aren't they already working at organizations like us?" Then there was this collective ::headdesk:: from the interviewers, "Oh - what we've been hearing is true - it really is hard for people of color to get into this industry." ::tired sigh::
There are always rays of hope and we have to hang on to them. There are so many great young people out there bent on changing the world and who are starting to make it happen in their corners of the earth.
And, we each of us have the opportunity to work through our own filters and learn from them and move on to better, clearer ways or working and living in our own worlds.
I'm going to end on a story about recognizing my own prejudices and learning to stop and think before I think and talk...
Almost 10 years ago, I had to conduct a site visit to a program in Mobile, Alabama. When I do site visits, I like to go out and walk early in the mornings before hand, because I know I'll be sitting all day. So, I threw on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a pair of keds. I had to pass by a construction site, already busy and working. There were a bunch of men (no women that I saw), and I braced myself for "typical" construction worker catcalls, etc. Instead, I got "Morning, ma'am," "Nice day, ain't it?" I said, "hello," and kept walking, mulling over this encounter with my own class/worker filters.
Then another block on, a huge (must have been 6'4", 200 lbs of muscle) African American construction worker was walking toward me, hard hat, coveralls, tool belt. About 15 feet away from me, he stopped dead in his tracks - staring at me - and dropped his jaw. Now I was really bracing myself. And he said, "Look at you! you're going to catch a cold. You're not wearing a jacket, and look, no socks." I stammered, "Thanks - but my walk is keeping me warm," gave him a smile and kept going.
I came face-to-face with a set of my own prejudices and assumptions that day and learned a valuable lesson. We talk about not judging a book by its cover, but it's ever so hard to do moment-by-moment, encounter-by-encounter. I try to keep my construction worker in mind, before I leap to conclusions about accent, dress, hair color, skin tone, tattoos, body piercing or shoes. Some days I am less successful than others. But other days I can say to myself, "you're going to catch cold" and smile and move through to finding out what is really behind the cover.
There is racism. It is real, it is corrosive, it is dangerous, but it can be overcome. Step by step, walk by walk, minute by minute.
Thus endeth my entry for now.
Thank you for reading.
Peace,
Viv
Where do I begin talking about this?
Maybe at the beginning, or even before my beginning.
My parents had to cross state lines to get married. Let me say that again - my parents had to cross state lines to get married, because in 1956, Arizona wouldn't marry people of two different races. In the lifetime of our race (the human race, that is), 50 years is nothing. I am one generation removed from that sort of lunacy.
Even before that, a decade earlier, my father and his family were ripped away from their houses, their property, including irreplaceable heirlooms, crammed into government storage (which was looted, so that they lost everything), and sent to live in "internment camps" for the sole crime of being Japanese American. They were citizens, but that really didn't count.
Even so, my father and two of his brothers volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team the all Japanese American unit that served with outrageous distinction in WWII. His brothers are buried in France, in a cemetery where 26 pairs of brothers are all buried in a row. He served in a segregated Army to defend his country and ideal of freedom. All the while his parents were behind barbed wire and watched over by armed guards.
Every time I see my father, my aunts, my uncles, I am face-to-face with a specific legacy of what fear, ignorance and sanctioned racism will produce. I bear the responsibility (as do we all) to see that it will not happen again.
But it has, of course. What can I say about Guantanamo or detainees held for weeks, months, years without access to their legal rights, that hasn't already been said by others once, twice, a dozen times? But we must keep shouting about that. We must.
There are so many people of good heart and good conscience who are out there every day doing the right thing, trying to live lives that are balanced, and fair, and equitable. But there is still so much inequity. We allow our prisons and jails to be filled with people of color at shockingly disproportionate rates; we have somehow learned to live with the fact that health outcomes, across the board, are worse for people of color; we are just now "noticing" the fact that African American boys are dropping out of school at 2-3 times the rates of other populations; we allow ourselves to get complacent about our "progress" on these issues because we see evidence of one or two or three people of color who have "made it." We voted in a Congress with almost no people of color (and *please* do not get me started on the lack of women, that's entirely different blog).
These are broad and general characterizations and I don't want anyone to feel that I'm attacking white people. I'm not. But I am attacking complacency. I am attacking blindness. I am attacking a society where the small and large injustices are perpetuated, despite a staggering wealth of resources. It's not okay to not understand that this stuff is hard, this stuff is uncomfortable, but if we don't start really dealing with this stuff, none of our futures are going to be what they could and should be. We all lose if we don't start really addressing this.
I'm part of an initiative to bring professionals of color into mid-level positions in my field. We did our first round of interviews on Friday - bringing in a group of very talented individuals to interview with organizations that would serve as prospective host placements for the coming year. This is the first year of the initiative and at the end of the day, the host orgs, with a single voice said, "Oh my god - SUCH great candidates! Half these folks could be [position title] right now. Why aren't they already working at organizations like us?" Then there was this collective ::headdesk:: from the interviewers, "Oh - what we've been hearing is true - it really is hard for people of color to get into this industry." ::tired sigh::
There are always rays of hope and we have to hang on to them. There are so many great young people out there bent on changing the world and who are starting to make it happen in their corners of the earth.
And, we each of us have the opportunity to work through our own filters and learn from them and move on to better, clearer ways or working and living in our own worlds.
I'm going to end on a story about recognizing my own prejudices and learning to stop and think before I think and talk...
Almost 10 years ago, I had to conduct a site visit to a program in Mobile, Alabama. When I do site visits, I like to go out and walk early in the mornings before hand, because I know I'll be sitting all day. So, I threw on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a pair of keds. I had to pass by a construction site, already busy and working. There were a bunch of men (no women that I saw), and I braced myself for "typical" construction worker catcalls, etc. Instead, I got "Morning, ma'am," "Nice day, ain't it?" I said, "hello," and kept walking, mulling over this encounter with my own class/worker filters.
Then another block on, a huge (must have been 6'4", 200 lbs of muscle) African American construction worker was walking toward me, hard hat, coveralls, tool belt. About 15 feet away from me, he stopped dead in his tracks - staring at me - and dropped his jaw. Now I was really bracing myself. And he said, "Look at you! you're going to catch a cold. You're not wearing a jacket, and look, no socks." I stammered, "Thanks - but my walk is keeping me warm," gave him a smile and kept going.
I came face-to-face with a set of my own prejudices and assumptions that day and learned a valuable lesson. We talk about not judging a book by its cover, but it's ever so hard to do moment-by-moment, encounter-by-encounter. I try to keep my construction worker in mind, before I leap to conclusions about accent, dress, hair color, skin tone, tattoos, body piercing or shoes. Some days I am less successful than others. But other days I can say to myself, "you're going to catch cold" and smile and move through to finding out what is really behind the cover.
There is racism. It is real, it is corrosive, it is dangerous, but it can be overcome. Step by step, walk by walk, minute by minute.
Thus endeth my entry for now.
Thank you for reading.
Peace,
Viv