For ages I didn't go into Black Kos, I am White. I felt I didn't belong there. Sistahspeak? I wasn't going to insult those people of color by going in there and trying to be something I’m not, or understand something I'm not, a black woman.
Yet I am mother to to two black women.
Learning is a never ending process. If I'd had a deadlines for all the answers I'd be screwed...
The rest pours out below the kosqiggle.
As their mother I have watched their pain, felt their pain to the core of my being. I have watched them be assumed promiscuous just becasue of their color, I have watched them be singled out for punishment that wasn't dealt to their white peers. I have battled schools and school boards for not upholding their policies on racial harassment. I watched one daughter hauled off to jail in front of me because an elderly white women complained about her arguing with her boyfriend, also a POC. They were held for 30 hours for arguing, no physical violence, just a heated discussion while walking down a public sidewalk. I have raged, bargained, screamed, cried. Yet my own self made barriers were still there, as exemplified by my hesitancy to participate in BK and Sistahspeak, even after years of awakening and sensitizing to the realities of POC.
And I notice that I find myself saying 'I' a lot here, but it was 'we'. It was my daughters and me, and their older white sister. The sister who felt guilty many times because it was so damn obvious how different the same teachers and school admins would treat her compared to her sisters. We went through this together.
We still are, and we will continue to until I draw my last breath.
Most recently, while flying from CA to IA we had to connect in Houston. My youngest daughter had her small dog with her. She had let him out of his carrier and was holding him. Being much younger than us they scooted on ahead with ease in the direction of our gate. As we rounded a corner they had already turned we were shocked to see them surrounded by two security guards. What in the world could have happened in those few seconds of being out of their sight that could have set this off? It is a situation I’m used to at this point, my husband not so much. He was shocked and appalled at what he experienced first hand, for the first time in his life, on that day.
Their ‘infraction’ was really 'walking while black'. Their rationalization for the harassment, and that is what those guards tone and body language clearly conveyed, was due to the fact my daughter was holding the dog. Now others were holding their animals in the airport, giving their pets a break from the confines of carriers between flights.
What stood out most was the body language and tone of those two men. You’d have thought the girls had just robbed one of the shops at gunpoint. So my White self and White husband walk up and ask what the problem is. We’re told that the dog being carried is the problem, but the implication is there that these black girls are trouble, too. Then we’re asked why we're asking. . “Becasue we’re their parents” prompts a facial response I still find angering, yet hilarious , at the same time. But what's really angering is seeing how the attitude changes. Suddenly these assholes are nicer, not so disrespectful. But the usual damage is already done. The humiliation of being singled out, of people staring and assuming the worst, of seeing that because of their color they are treated with disrespect and disdain, but the color of a parents skin being the “right” color is the only deterrent between harassment and humiliation.
They handle it better than I do at times. One of the guards stood over my daughter in a very intimidating manner as she complied and put the dog in his carrier. Everything in me wanted to shove him aside, get his racist presence out of my babies space. One of the guards deemed to follow us and take notes on a piece of paper, like we were a security threat. Two Darkies with two Whities in Houston is just not 'normal'. We may blow shit up. So as my daughters and my husband went ahead of me on the escalator, to the concourse train, I turned around and flipped off that guard while telling him, “note that, motherfucker." The shock and awe on his face at this well dressed white woman “going there” helped tamp down the fire of my rage. The laughter from my daughters at mom “going ham” I hoped helped their bruised spirit.
When I examine my anger I feel it is out of fear, a fear that princess6 helped me put a description to after all these years, accurately described as soul murder.
So while yes, most marginalized people are more versed in white culture than vice versa, it never really matters unless they are willing to commit soul murder of themselves. I use soul murder as the operative term for putting up with all the racial slights and ignorance and shunning that occurs without speaking up. It is dealing with and adapting to the pernicious racist and criminalizing archetypes that are forced upon us constantly. It is a choice between rebellion, soul murder or checking the hell out because white folks have set the game up in such a way as it is unwinnable. And even when we win, the President for an example, we still lose as individuals who have to witness the downright abject fear, mistrust and racism he encounters.
I’ve seen this happen to them, my first instinct has always been to fight with all my being against this happening to them. And I will always, even if it means jail or death before my babies souls will be murdered by this bullshit that is still okay in this country.
How do I keep their souls from damage and slow death? Build their esteem, teaching them of the strong, brave black women that went before them, and those that are still with them today in older generations, and their present generation. Even the AA community here has been part of that process. There’s many links to diaries of deo’s and others here that I’ve emailed them over the years.
A few months ago we sat together and watched, "For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enough."
For the first time I was aware how vast the differences in us as adult women are. I cried a lot of tears as the awareness hit me I could never totally be the mother, the support they need, even in adulthood, because I am not a woman of color. I watched them identify with experiences I had not been through, but they have. Things I never will experience and they’ll continue to.
Even though they are my flesh and blood their flesh is darker than mine so their experiences, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, are always going to be vastly different. Their pain comes from more areas at very essence of their being, and in a deeper level, than I ever encountered, and I’ve encountered a lot of pain in my life.
Now I share all this in light of what I’ve watched unfold here. In the last year I have gone into BK a lot more. My awakening began to what was going on here.
I was shocked and appalled at the group of people going into BK and Sistahspeak with full intentions of inflicting pain and inciting trouble.
Comments made that were not blatant enough for most people in this community to recognize as slights and/or under the radar racism; but it was, and it has been.
It would take a lot of time to go through those old diaries. It could be done if one wanted and with more of an open mind and a new perspective after you’ve read bjm’s diary, sberel’s diary, and the comments in it. Those I point out here as a couple of the more recent posts that are a beginning to grasp what has unfolded here.
Given my experiences, what I've witnessed has stirred my emotions enough that I have taken the time to go back and read and see what unfolded. It’s something I wish just one of the admins would/could do.
I realize it’s not time that most people, kos, or admins, have. But it’s time well spent, not just to get a picture of what’s happened in this community, but to become awakened, aware, and grow.
It’s been a process over the years. One that I had no idea that I was getting into. I’d not do it any different. It’s like parenting in general there are those moments when I’d ask myself if I had really known what being a parent entailed would I do it. Hell yes. Because for all the ups and downs I have grown as a person.
And even more parenting children of color . I have had to look into myself in really damn uncomfortable ways and reevaluate and change my belief system and my views of this world
I've learned that our society is not that much different than it was fifty years ago. There are a few protections, but a lot of them are just bullshit on paper.
In potatohead's diary, "But Dad, You Don't Know What Being Black IS!", GenX made several good points about having additional lessons to teach, one in particular:
Oh, just wait until you have to have the "talk". Not the birds and bees but the other one. The one about how to behave if the police stop you.
I have found myself becoming very frustrated with others in my personal life who in a good-hearted way want to know “what’s the solution, who has proposed a solution”
There is no easy answer to that. My answer is taking responsibility for ones self. Listening, living with the discomfort that listening to POC, their experiences, the emotions around that, what is my part in it, entails.
It’s being responsible for maintaining my integrity, having the courage to speak up when I see the dog whistles, the blatant racism, the baiting. That is something I will increasingly do hell, no matter the consequences.
It is understanding the over the top reactions at times and looking beyond the emotional words at what pain really lies beneath, and what set it off.
From my perspective I have winced at some of the comments uprated and thought “oh lord, don’t do that, they’re gonna nail you for it” But damn it, I understand that those tips to comments most find over the top is one way here in this online forum to say, “yes, I know why you’re so fired up, I know your pain, I’ve lived it”
And in the last few days I’ve learned that some fine folks here were punished in various ways for using those tips as expressions of unity. Not unity in going after others, but unity in the shared pain of being singled out and vilified, poked at over and over and then made out to be the bad guy while the real assholes play the victim.
As I come to the end of emptying my soul into text here I have reflected on what will become of pouring all this out.
(I know there is at least one person in real life, not a kossack, who’ll have a heyday with personal info I shared here. That person is sick and I post this in spite of their vile shit stirring in my personal life.)
In the end it doesn’t matter.
The motivation and some sliver of courage to share this came forth from two people I admire greatly.
Aji , with this comment, and this section that touched a deep place in me:
“So I realize that by the calculus of many here, I'm "unprincipled." But I cannot and will not participate any longer in politics that elevate principle over people. It will not make me (or most others) famous, or powerful, or authoritative, or wealthy, or influential, or anything else our society holds dear. But it will perhaps, on some rare occasions, provide enough serendipitous grace to help alleviate someone's human suffering. And to me, after all I've done and seen and experienced, that is worth more than all the rest of it put together.”
emphasis mine
And RadioGirl, who in this comment so eloquently put what has taken me many years and a lot of pain, much of it self-inflicted, to even begin to grasp.
For me, humility means accepting that I have more to learn from others than I have to teach. It means my answer might not be the best one, and it certainly is never the only possible answer. It means I refuse to gain awareness that there are things I don't know or see that should factor into a situation.
"Principle at all cost" sometimes leads to an arrogance about "my principles" and so shutters out the voices/perspectives of others. It avoids the hard work of learning that if we try, we can work together to find new approaches to old conflicts and impasses. Pre-fab answers won't work.
emphasis mine
Now, given some of this history I have shared, in retrospect I feel silly that I felt I didn’t have a place in BK or Sistahspeak, yet I’m still backwards in many respects and willing to admit and accept that.
I have realized the last few days looking at the list of voices silenced in some form that the women of BK and sistahspeak, some of color, some not, are the ones I’ve learned a vast amount from, and grown the most from.
That tells me a lot that I’m still processing.
In ending I feel that I would do an injustice by not pointing out this comment by Diogenes2008. Those of us not of color can learn a lot from reading this with an open heart and mind.
Open hearts and minds are powerful tools for growth and healing.