Hate and Fear and Death and Anger

With all the hate and fear and death and anger in the world right now, I am finding it hard to breathe lightly. Deep in my gut I feel sickened and exhausted and helpless. The American political climate is volatile, at its eruption point. Fear is being shoveled down our throats, and animosity is poisoning our veins. People are being shot by police, and police are being shot in return. Racism is killing black people, and white people are fighting over who's fault that is. Transgender people are being harassed over bathrooms. Whole religions are taking the blame for the acts of a belligerent few. Personal freedoms of who to love or who to worship are being yanked from some to assuage others. From Baltimore to San Bernardino to Baton Rouge to Falcon Heights to Nice to Munich to Orlando to Dallas, people are being murdered on the regular, sometimes en masse and each time unprovoked.

I believe in optimism. I believe in goodness, and I believe in love. But the hurricane of hate and fear and death and anger twisting all around me is suffocating.  How can I possibly see an American future where racism is obliterated from the bottom to the top, and from the top to the bottom, when half the country still refuses to see it exists? How can I believe that love will conquer hate when hate has become so palatable and carefree that it is openly preached from podiums and pulpits? How can I teach my children to be the change they want to see in the world when the world doesn't want to be changed or even see a need for it?

I recognize that I am a middle-class, married-to-a-man white woman. I cannot pretend to understand the daily concerns and experiences of black people, Muslims, gay and transgender people, undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers or police officers. As an atheist and a woman, I can relate to certain levels of the discrimination but nothing comparable to those who are being threatened with banishment and deportation, who wake up wondering if they will be attacked in a bathroom today, who say "I love you" every time they leave the house in case it is the last time. I cannot relate to that enough to insist "I know what it's like". I don't.

I may not personally experience the hate and fear and anger and death meted upon so many of my fellow mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, but I see it. Not all of it, but I catch glimpses and glimmers. And they knock the breath out of me. Too often I am a silent observer. I am an observer who does not want to be silent but does not have the words or the platform to say anything or make a difference. I open my mouth to speak, but my own personal fear, my own survival instincts, catch the words in my throat and choke them out. My guilt and ignorance hold my frustration with the world's injustice against me, accusing me of being a part of the problem, and I am rendered silent again. Then I'm reminded that silence is a privilege, and I am hurled back into frustration.

I believe there is good in the world, and I believe in being the change I want to see in the world, but truth be told, both of these beliefs are ephemeral. They are American apple pies in the sky. They are nebulous puffy clouds that shade me from the glaring reality that I do not actually know if there really is good in the world, and I do not believe I can change anything.

This weekend I finished reading two books I've been working on for months. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay is a wonderful book, mixing humor and critical thought into multiple essays surrounding topics of oppression and inequality for women, for people of color, for people who are not thin, for anyone who does not fit the perfect standards American society holds us to. While I was able to laugh during some chapters, I had to pause and remember to breathe during others. I had to look square in the eye many truths about my perceptions as a white woman that I had not realized needed challenging. I was reminded that the inequality I face as a woman can be frustrating but not as frustrating as the challenges for women who heap inequality upon inequality. Inequality is not binary. The more disadvantages bestowed upon a person for his or her gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, race, religion, hometown, education level - the list goes on - the more discrimination a person is bound to suffer. Sexism isn't experienced by me the same way it is experienced by a black woman or a lesbian woman or a black lesbian woman. The book opened my eyes to the sexism experienced by all types of women, not just women who look like me. I too am a bad feminist.

I also finished Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I started this book back in February but only finished it today, because it was the hardest book I have ever read. Reading it was like loading concrete blocks onto my chest, one page after another. It is one thing to "know" that black parents have to teach their black sons and daughters how to behave extra good during certain encounters; it is an entirely different thing to read the intensely honest and intimate letter written by a father to his son about the struggle to preserve the black body from destruction. No other book I've read that openly or begrudgingly let me observe a black experience, not Disgruntled or God Help the Child or Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, though each of those affected me in profound ways, changed me the way this one did. The hate and anger and death and fear twisting all around us are real dangers to our brothers and sisters of color. Yet we continue to tell them they are either imagining things or they need to sort themselves out by themselves, as if we as a country and a history and a society never did a thing to cause this peril to their bodies.

I am crushed under the inevitability of all the hate and anger and death and fear in our world. It feels like change is not going to come. I do not know what to do about it or how to help. I cannot change the minds of those around me who refuse to see the problems. I am such a small, insignificant fish in a fathomless ocean.

I want to believe in optimism, goodness and love. I want to believe that I can be the change. I want to believe in the story of the starfish, that it matters to walk along the shore and throw starfish back into the ocean, one at a time. I need to believe that the small tangible things I do might matter in the long run - the donations to charities, the volunteer hours, the lessons taught to my children. So small though. Too small.

I also want to know more. I want to be educated in areas I know little or nothing about. I want to read books that tell me truths it hurts to hear.  I want to be challenged and humbled and pushed into action. I want to understand. I don't want to be silent, but I do want to listen. I want to implore others to listen. I want all of us to close our mouths, open our eyes and lean in close to hear what our Muslim neighbors, our gay and transgender neighbors, our black, Hispanic and Native American neighbors, our uniformed neighbors have to say about their experiences and believe them. No "but what about"s or "but I"s or "but you"s.

I want all this hate and death and anger and fear to stop. I know I cannot stop it. I know I cannot escape it. I cannot simply turn off the radio, shut down Facebook, walk away from conversations, and slip under my covers just to make myself more comfortable again. If my fellow mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters do not get the luxury of switching off the TV to find comfort, I will not exercise my ability to do so. I will never fully understand what it feels like to be the target of all this hate and fear and death and anger, but I will continue to face these every day with them. I will continue to immerse myself as much as I can into their worlds through books and relationships and news stories and causes. I will listen when I ought to listen and try to speak when I ought to speak. I will push myself to continue believing in goodness and love, for my children and for my world, however small my influence on it may be. I cannot, I must not let the hate and fear and death and anger win.

The Day That Love Won

Approximately the same time I was doing burpees to "Uma Thurman" during Cardio Dance Party at the gym, it happened. The thing I've been waiting for with baited breath for months (years actually). The Supreme Court ruling on the ban on same sex marriages.

I didn't know anything had happened until I got in the car afterwards and turned on NPR. It was the Diane Rehm show, and I caught the tail end of someone mentioning how great this day is, how it's about time we have marriage equality.  The subject then changed, so I wasn't certain of what I was hearing. Then my friend Elizabeth texted me and confirmed what I hoped I'd heard.

Yes!  The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled bans on same sex marriage unconstitutional. Same sex marriage is now legal in all 50 states!


All those people fortunate enough to hold full-time writing jobs in journalism or blogging have already beaten me to the punch, writing amazing responses to this historic ruling.  Meanwhile, I was juggling taking kids with me on errands, breaking up fights, playing on playgrounds, negotiating the terms of my new job (yes!), and making phone calls while bribing the kids with ice cream from McDonald's to keep them quiet.  Therefore I was unable to put in my two cents before everyone else said all the clever and awesome things.  Hashtag StayAtHomeMomBloggerProblems.

Truth of the matter is, I've got nothing new or insightful to say, nothing that will make me stand out or make my words go viral (a blogger's dream).  I am just happy. I am just relieved. I just want to add to the millions of words out there praising this decision that will go down in history.  In fifty years, if my blog survives, I want this day remembered. I was there. I saw it happen. I did a happy dance. (Really, I did.)

I look at my 666 friends on Facebook, and aside from the implication there that I am in cahoots with the devil, I can estimate that at least one-third of these friends of mine are gay, lesbian, or bisexual. (Not to leave out trans*; I just am not aware if any of my friends are in that category.) That's a lot of people I care about. That's a lot of people who have won something special today. That's a lot of lives touched in an incomprehensible way.

Some of them are legally married in other states.  Some have plans to get married soon.  Some are single but wouldn't mind meeting someone special one day and settling down with them. Some are "in the closet", unable to share this part of themselves publicly for fear of losing their jobs or close relationships.  Some who did come out have lost family and friends because of it.

This is such a win for all these people, and so many more.

I know there are many out there who are disappointed, outraged even, by this decision. While I can't pretend to understand, I can acknowledge that this is how you feel. I wish I could convince you that this is a good thing for my friends above. I wish I could show you that this does not interefere with your marriage or your beliefs.  I wish you could see that this is not an attack on religion, but a leveling of the playing field, an equalization of humanity, of love, of individual people's rights to honor the institution of marriage by joining themselves to the person their heart desires. In Justice Kennedy's words from his statement today:

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. (Page 28)

I wish everyone who is against this ruling could truly see it through the eyes of all my friends. I wish everyone could agree that while same-sex marriage is not acceptable to them for whatever reason - faith, most likely - it is still a human right.  It is still something that others should have access too. Disagree with it personally.  Preach against in church if you must. But please, soften your hearts just long enough to understand how deeply this affects so many of your neighbors, friends, and possibly even family members.  This does not have to change your views, but it does change their lives.

History was made today.  When I got home after the gym, I grabbed my kids and swung them in the air.  I told them all about what this means.  I listed some of the people they know by name and how this positively affects them. I tried to instill a bit of excitement in them so that one day they could tell their kids they remember Obergefell v. Hodges, that they remember the moment marriage equality was granted to everyone. Just this morning, I was telling Lolly about the Civil Rights Movement and Loving v. Virginia, and how not too long ago black and white people couldn't even eat at the same restaurants, let alone marry each other. ("But that's so mean!" she responded in horror.)  Now when she grows up, she can tell her children how not too long ago, girls couldn't marry girls or boys marry boys.  And her kids will thankfully be flabbergasted too.

(That is, of course, if she chooses to have kids!)


However. I hate to rain on anyone's (pride) parade, but there is still work to be done. There is still a fight to be fought.  Just like bringing down the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state house was a small battle won in a much larger on-going war, this too is just part of the continuing story. Absolutely the SCOTUS ruling today was HUGE, especially compared to a few flags coming down, but the fight for equal rights is not over.

After today, kids will still be kicked out of their homes for coming out gay.  After today, people will still lose their jobs and their housing for being homosexual.  After today, young people will still be uneducated about safe sex, and HIV/AIDS will still be spread, because parents and schools are too afraid or disgusted to talk honestly about it. After today, young people will still be afraid to get tested because of how it will "look".  After today, kids will still be sent to "pray-out-the-gay" camps and told they are going to hell.

I hate to be a downer, but this is the truth.  Just as Civil Rights was an enormous step in the process of equalizing rights for people of color, so too this is a huge step in normalizing same sex relationships. But just as the Civil Rights Act could not end racism, today's ruling will not end sexual prejudice. Fifty years after the CRA, we are still arguing over whether it's okay to fly a flag that has come to represent racial hate and bigotry over state buildings. In fifty years, we may still be arguing over the morality of homosexuality. I hope not. But I can say this:

We've come a long way, baby!  But we still have a long ways to go.


P.S. For some of the best things I've read all day, visit these links.
To My Evangelical Friends Upon the Legalization of Gay Marriage (A great article)
Arguments For and Against Same-Sex Marriage (this one is from The Onion, so don't expect the depth of the former link!)

P.P.S. If you know someone who is LGBT and homeless or at risk of homelessness in the central Arkansas area, please contact Lucie's Place.

P.P.P.S.  So I don't end on a totally negative note, let me just say TODAY WAS AN AWESOME DAY! LOVE WINS,  ya'll! And congratulations to all my friends who can now enter my state as a legally married couple. (Ya'll know who you are.) THIS IS THE MOST EXCITING DAY!!!

Pride and Prejudice

I'm not a prejudiced person. I'm not racist or homophobic or sexist or a bigot.


Am I?

It's easy to test, right? Take homophobia, for starters. I am completely comfortable and at ease around gay people. I can make jokes without worrying I'm coming across as offensive. I don't wince when I see a man kiss a man or a woman kiss a woman. I support marriage equality. I totally get it; love is love and it doesn't bother me who loves whom. I can be totally myself around LGBT folks without feeling I have anything to prove - eg prove I'm not homophobic. Except... when I meet someone who is gay (either openly, obviously or assumedly), I immediately want them to know "we're cool". I immediately have the desire befriend them. Without even knowing them (knowing if they are nice or mean, boring or interesting, someone I'd have anything in common with or not), I want to like them, because, you know, "we're cool".

I have to wonder - is that just prejudice in reverse? Am I overcompensating somehow?

Or take sexism. Anti-feminist comments, sexist remarks and patriarchal attitudes infuriate me. I am completely against gender stereotypes and the boys-will-be-boys mentality or the pretty-in-pink girly girl thing. I believe women are just as capable as men, and men are just as capable as women. Yet when I first heard about the documentary Women Aren't Funny, my very first thought was they aren't. Replaced immediately by self slap on the hand and a recognition that that's exactly the problem; even we women are accepting the anti-female attitudes and lies. Or the first time I met a stay-at-home-dad, I had to correct my knee-jerk mental reaction dead beat.

Does having that instant reaction to women (or men) mean I'm actually a total sexist?

Take racism. I'm not racist. People are people, skin color is decoration. But I live in the whitest of white towns, and I am white. I acknowledge - with embarrassment - that I've got white privilege just dripping all over me. My parents and grandparents, while not wealthy, have also had white privilege serve them well, so somewhere down the line, my parents, easily obtaining jobs and living in nice, fairly safe towns, never being sent to inferior schools and forced to drink out of special water fountains, were fortunate enough to send me to private school for several years, pay for school trips to Boston and mission trips all over the world, and later pay for the college tuition left over after my scholarships, which has left me a well educated and well traveled young woman. Since then I've easily obtained many jobs, I've been pulled over a couple of times by police officers but sent on my way with just a warning, I've never been viewed suspiciously by strangers because of my hair or skin, and even when I totally look like I'm shoplifting by putting my hands in my coat pockets, I've never been questioned. In fact, my whiteness has been so advantageous that I actually don't even have a clue what setbacks black people or other minorities experience day to day in areas I take totally for granted.

When I start to dwell on just how lucky it is to be white in the United States, I feel guilty. Isn't "white guilt" just another branch of racism?

Or when I walk out of a store late at night in one of the surrounding non-white towns, and I see a group of black guys hanging around the parking lot looking at me and I feel an instant pang of worry followed by an instant rebuke of "wow, that was racist of me". Does this prove I am actually racist? Maybe, but I hope not. I mean, I immediately realize that any group of guys staring at me while I'm alone and vulnerable will make me feel nervous (because while I might be white, I am also female), but maybe I'd be less worried if they were white guys instead...

Isn't that racist too?

So, I often ask myself, am I a prejudiced person after all?

Do our first gut reactions of discomfort or disdain of the unfamiliar make us bigots? Or is it the following moments of realization and restructure that count for more and better define how tolerant we actually are?

A picture recently went viral of a woman in a bikini that had everyone cheering this mom on for being confident enough to show her imperfect belly on the internet. I was annoyed by the sexism implied - yay, a woman is showing her body and it's kind of flabby, good on her! - as if perfect bodies are the norm and she was a trailblazer for being imperfect. The question was asked, do people judge women for their bodies or do women just perceive they are being judged? (The answer is both.) My friend admitted that her first instinct often IS to judge, followed immediately by a self-check of non-judgment. I didn't think she was being anti-feminist by this admission; she was being honest. Human. Is it simply human to not understand what is not known? Is it going beyond human instinct to recognize we are uncomfortable by what is not known and to correct those feelings when we discover them?

I used to be uncomfortable with gay people. I couldn't get out of my head the idea of "ew, boys and boys in bed together". It was as if I assumed the whole point of their existence was to be gay. It wasn't until I realized my faulty thinking and began checking my discomfort over and over that I was finally able to see gay people as just people, like me. Who really are more than their sexual orientation.

I used to be very un-feminist. I believed women weren't funny or good musicians, and that they were unfit for leadership (because they were too emotional) and were designed to be helpmates for men. It wasn't until I recognized this faulty thinking and began to check myself over and over that I began to shed this socially ingrained attitude towards gender that I became comfortable with gender equality (and gender identity, which is something I am still in the process of checking myself on). I realized men and women, girls and boys, cisgender or trans, are just people, like me. Who are actually more than their gender.

I used to be uncomfortable around black people. When I left high school, I went to university and joined a gospel choir. I had never, in my white high school life, been in the minority until I joined that choir, where there were forty or fifty black students to seven of us whites. It was there that I realized how uncomfortable I was around black people (and how embarrassed I was for having come from such a segregated town). I realized that while I knew us all to be the same, I felt consciously different, separated by culture. I began to check myself and acknowledge when I felt "other". Since then I've come to recognize that racism in the US hasn't expired, and that it happens in ways I don't even notice. Like with sexism, some things are so socially ingrained, I don't always notice their effects or influence, but when I do notice, I check myself, restructure my thinking, because people of all colors are really just people, like me. Who are much more than their skin color.

So the question I wrestle with is: Are we all actually to greater or lesser degrees prejudiced people? Aren't we all, by default, bigots? Until we recognize the biases we have inside our own minds and hearts, we cannot help looking at the "other" as something to distrust. It's probably evolutionary, but we've long since out-grown the need for it and now it's just a roadblock, cordoning off the road to progress.

I'd like to believe that the more we each individually open our own eyes to our own prejudices, peel away the deep layers of fear and distrust, and teach the next generation how to do the same, our society will grow into a much more inclusive one, where "otherness" is something we love and enjoy and use to our advantage rather than quake and fight over.

I think it's okay to say I'm not a prejudiced person, because in my heart I don't want to be.




P.S. To follow up with a little bit of light-heartedness...