The third time was not the charm.
I have had two basal cell carcinomas removed in the last few years, both of them resulting in minor, temporary divots in unobtrusive places. This third one was different: right in the middle of my left cheek, and requiring actual surgery to remove, and stitches after the fact. I will be FrankenMommy for a week or so, and then I will have a little extra "character" running down my face.
I am thankful. That cancer is gone.
The basic mechanism here is worth looking at ... skin gets produced from the inside out; new skin cells push the older cells up toward the surface, where they eventually rub off. DNA runs the production, as with so many other body processes. But sometimes DNA gets damaged -- for instance by the ultraviolet rays in sunlight -- and it gives confused directions to the skin factory, which sometimes then goes into overproduction. That kind of overgrowth is often the key characteristic of a cancer.
Here's what I notice: Sunlight is a good thing; it gives us Vitamin D, and affects our moods and energy levels. But too much can do damage. Growth is a good thing, too. We need new skin cells to replace the ones that wear away. But overgrowth of cells in the wrong place can make a body sick or even kill a person.
It's like being white. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with being white. White-skinned people are as much a part of God's good creation as anyone else. The problem comes when there's too much of a good thing: as when a healthy self-respect gets twisted into thinking white people are just intrinsically better (and therefore people who are not white are intrinsically not as good). Internalizing these notions of false superiority and inferiority are just two of the ways we are damaged by living in a racially polarized culture.
Another set of problems arise from what could be considered personal or social overgrowth: for instance, when a healthy work ethic becomes perfectionism ... when a cultural value becomes the grounds for judging others, or even being prejudicial toward whole people groups ... when the desire to achieve financial security turns to greed ... when the need to manage resources, risks or anxiety turns to control and power-hoarding.
Too much of a good thing can produce an evil that can sicken or kill. We can understand this in our bodies. What can our bodies teach us about the rest of our lives?
For one thing, our bodies can teach us not only about too much of a good thing, but also about the need to be observant. I've learned to spot a skin cancer. That doesn't mean I'll spot them all, or that I can get rid of them on my own; but I know the signs, and I watch for them.
We can learn about healthy ways of being white, too, as well as ways that produce evil, so that we can grow into behaviors and results that match our intentions.
And then we can be observant, with eyes of love, seeking healthy growth, and rooting out what causes sickness and death, in body and soul. Racism can be considered a cancer of the skin -- white skin that has grown into something it was never meant to be.
Love is the cure: love for others that produces a more just community, love for self that produces ethical change where needed, love of the God who gives us the hope and grace we need to live into our highest, best selves.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Land genealogies
Thanks in no small part to the assistance of my cousin Richard Brotzman, my trip to South Texas for land research purposes was very productive. We were able to trace the deed records from my uncle Homer Brotzman's purchase of two 40-acre blocks of land in 1916 all the way back to the original grantee, Don Jose Salvador de la Garza, who received his land grant of 284,415.8 acres from Spain in 1781. This was known as the Espiritu Santo grant.
And here's one of the biggest grins of the day: a lawyer friend of Richard's just happened to be there that day, also doing land research. And Richard just happened to have recently found out this lawyer, Buddy Dossett, was a bit of an expert on the history of land transactions in South Texas, because of his work with irrigation companies in the region. Mr. Dossett was very generous in sharing not only his expertise in the use of the resources of the deed vault, but also in providing copies of his own research on land grants and subsequent ownership tracks, which helped to clarify some of what the deeds indicated.
How's that saying go? Coincidences are God's way of remaining anonymous. Gotta love it.
To abbreviate the history, most of the land grant stayed in family hands for the next hundred years, though -- according to Spanish custom -- split among surviving descendants. Land ownership continued to splinter through the inheritance process, until James G. Browne purchased several of the partitions, beginning in 1879, eventually accumulating 22,350 acres by purchasing land blocks from various heirs.
Browne's heirs sold about 20,000 acres in 1911 to Samuel Spears; Spears was apparently acting on behalf of the San Benito Irrigation Co. which had yet to be formed. When the SBIC was incorporated in 1912, with Spears as secretary of the company, he then conveyed the 20,000+ acres to the SBIC.
Because of various business failures, the SBIC went into foreclosure in 1916; the deeds then seem to indicate that some of that property was marketed by the O.L. Wilkins Development Co., with A. Wayne Wood acting as trustee. In 1916, Homer Brotzman bought two 40 acre blocks of land, sight unseen; one 40-acre block came from the O.L. Wilkins Development Co., and the other directly from the SBIC.
At this point, the tracks of the transactions are pretty clear, but I am still curious about some of the players, especially James G. Browne. I want to find out more about him and about the transactions whereby the lands of the original grant left the hands of the family owning it. I already know something about that timeframe; as Armando Alonzo describes in Tejano Legacy: Rancheros and Settlers in South Texas, between 1885 and 1900, South Texas land ownership by Tejanos went from 50 percent of the available land to 29 percent of the land in the region. (p. 180) Alonzo does a good job of explaining the reasons for this shift in ownership, some reasonable and some frankly nefarious. It's also important to place that critical 15-year period in context; 100 percent of the land in what is now the Rio Grande Valley had been under legal title by Spanish colonists as of the 1780s.
Why did the heirs of Jose de la Garza sell to Browne? What was the nature of those transactions? Stay tuned.
And here's one of the biggest grins of the day: a lawyer friend of Richard's just happened to be there that day, also doing land research. And Richard just happened to have recently found out this lawyer, Buddy Dossett, was a bit of an expert on the history of land transactions in South Texas, because of his work with irrigation companies in the region. Mr. Dossett was very generous in sharing not only his expertise in the use of the resources of the deed vault, but also in providing copies of his own research on land grants and subsequent ownership tracks, which helped to clarify some of what the deeds indicated.
How's that saying go? Coincidences are God's way of remaining anonymous. Gotta love it.
To abbreviate the history, most of the land grant stayed in family hands for the next hundred years, though -- according to Spanish custom -- split among surviving descendants. Land ownership continued to splinter through the inheritance process, until James G. Browne purchased several of the partitions, beginning in 1879, eventually accumulating 22,350 acres by purchasing land blocks from various heirs.
Browne's heirs sold about 20,000 acres in 1911 to Samuel Spears; Spears was apparently acting on behalf of the San Benito Irrigation Co. which had yet to be formed. When the SBIC was incorporated in 1912, with Spears as secretary of the company, he then conveyed the 20,000+ acres to the SBIC.
Because of various business failures, the SBIC went into foreclosure in 1916; the deeds then seem to indicate that some of that property was marketed by the O.L. Wilkins Development Co., with A. Wayne Wood acting as trustee. In 1916, Homer Brotzman bought two 40 acre blocks of land, sight unseen; one 40-acre block came from the O.L. Wilkins Development Co., and the other directly from the SBIC.
At this point, the tracks of the transactions are pretty clear, but I am still curious about some of the players, especially James G. Browne. I want to find out more about him and about the transactions whereby the lands of the original grant left the hands of the family owning it. I already know something about that timeframe; as Armando Alonzo describes in Tejano Legacy: Rancheros and Settlers in South Texas, between 1885 and 1900, South Texas land ownership by Tejanos went from 50 percent of the available land to 29 percent of the land in the region. (p. 180) Alonzo does a good job of explaining the reasons for this shift in ownership, some reasonable and some frankly nefarious. It's also important to place that critical 15-year period in context; 100 percent of the land in what is now the Rio Grande Valley had been under legal title by Spanish colonists as of the 1780s.
Why did the heirs of Jose de la Garza sell to Browne? What was the nature of those transactions? Stay tuned.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Racism is ...
Prejudice plus power.
That's a simplified version of the definition I learned in a dismantling racism training. (The one I attended was part of the Mennonite church's Damascus Road dismantling racism program; see http://mcc.org/damascusroad/.*) I find it helpful to start with this simplified version and build up and out.
* Many of the understandings I'll share in this post derive from the Damascus Road approach, though I depart into some different understandings and presentations along the way.
Let's start with prejudice. Different forms of pre-judging individual people and groups based on negative stereotypes of groups create different prejudices; anyone can hold a prejudice. There are prejudices based on virtually all aspects of social location, including gender, race, class, age, nationality, ethnicity, ability, religion ... the list goes on.
Individual prejudices have a lot of downsides: they keep us from really seeing the person in front of us. Prejudices are untruths that operate as truths, and so perceptions, thoughts, attitudes and behaviors based on prejudices are inherently flawed and out of touch with reality. Running into a person who is prejudiced against you can ruin your day.
But, running into a person who is prejudiced and holds power over you can ruin your life.
That's why the second part of the definition is important: Racism = prejudice plus power. In this case, we are focusing on a particular form of prejudice -- racial prejudice -- and asserting that the oppression known as racism is formed when racial prejudice is combined with power.
Defining racism this way doesn't mean individual prejudices don't matter; they do. We should all work to eliminate prejudicial thinking and behavior. But racism is here defined as more than racial prejudice: it is racial prejudice plus the power to enforce one's prejudices in a way that affects not just the person standing in front of you, but possibly many others.
So, we can build on our definition. Racism = racial prejudice plus the systemic misuse of power.
It's a simple logic: who will have a more detrimental effect, the racially prejudiced person who cuts you off in traffic or the racially prejudiced bank officer who decides no people of color will get house loans in a particular part of town? The first act is an instance of racial prejudice, individual in nature: the second act is an instance of racial prejudice, empowered by institutional position to have a systemic effect. Individual racism can get you annoyed; institutional racism can get you dead, or at the very least subject to a dramatically reduced quality of life.
Both kinds of racial prejudice matter; but the larger threat -- and the one we white people tend to ignore -- is the effect of institutional racism. Why are white people so oblivious to institutional racism? Because we benefit from racialized disparities in access to power, and its easier to maintain that disparity if we don't acknowledge it.
After all, who holds most of the systemic power in our society? White people. For a quick reality check in this regard, take a look at the roster of CEOs on the Forbes 500; the Senate; the House of Representatives; the board of directors for your local hospitals, schools, etc.
Let's pause here to note an important point. If most of the institutional power is held by white people, then people of color do not tend to have systemic power, and therefore cannot be racist.
I know this flies in the face of what a lot of people want to say; but it's a useful distinction, one which helps us keep power in the equation. Yes, people of color can hold racial prejudices, against white people or against other ethnicities; but people of color do not typically have the institutional power to enforce and benefit from their prejudices. There simply are no large-scale societal systems (think on the scale of our country's financial system, the educational system, the health-care system) run by people of color.
A second point also matters. The more power to be had (and money to be made) in a position, the more likely that position is to be filled by a white person, who is probably also male and straight. The fact that power tends to correlate with race, gender and sexual orientation points out the interrelations among not only forms of power but also forms of oppression.
Here I want to quote Audre Lorde's description of various forms of oppression, their interconnections highlighted by her elegant prose:
"Racism: The belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance.
Sexism: The belief in the inherent superiority of one sex and thereby the right to dominance.
Heterosexism: The belief in the inherent superiority of one pattern of loving and thereby its right to dominance.
Homophobia: the fear of feelings of love for members of one's own sex and therefore the hatred of those feelings in others." (Sister Outsider, 45)
Each of these isms and their related phobias and prejudices can be and are magnified by connection with systemic power.
Each of us is called by the commandment to love to overcome these isms, phobias and prejudices in our selves. But I would argue that the commandment to love the neighbor as self means we are also called to address the systemic misuse of power that enables these isms to have such wide-ranging, life-destroying effects.
Love engages the system. Love doesn't quit because the system is too big. Jesus, the one who is Christ for us, said there is no greater love than the love that lays down its life for its friends.
We can certainly begin by laying down our prejudices, over and over. We can go on by thinking about power, what it is and who it is for, and whether it helps us choose life, or whether it is being used on our behalf to deal death.
That's a simplified version of the definition I learned in a dismantling racism training. (The one I attended was part of the Mennonite church's Damascus Road dismantling racism program; see http://mcc.org/damascusroad/.*) I find it helpful to start with this simplified version and build up and out.
* Many of the understandings I'll share in this post derive from the Damascus Road approach, though I depart into some different understandings and presentations along the way.
Let's start with prejudice. Different forms of pre-judging individual people and groups based on negative stereotypes of groups create different prejudices; anyone can hold a prejudice. There are prejudices based on virtually all aspects of social location, including gender, race, class, age, nationality, ethnicity, ability, religion ... the list goes on.
Individual prejudices have a lot of downsides: they keep us from really seeing the person in front of us. Prejudices are untruths that operate as truths, and so perceptions, thoughts, attitudes and behaviors based on prejudices are inherently flawed and out of touch with reality. Running into a person who is prejudiced against you can ruin your day.
But, running into a person who is prejudiced and holds power over you can ruin your life.
That's why the second part of the definition is important: Racism = prejudice plus power. In this case, we are focusing on a particular form of prejudice -- racial prejudice -- and asserting that the oppression known as racism is formed when racial prejudice is combined with power.
Defining racism this way doesn't mean individual prejudices don't matter; they do. We should all work to eliminate prejudicial thinking and behavior. But racism is here defined as more than racial prejudice: it is racial prejudice plus the power to enforce one's prejudices in a way that affects not just the person standing in front of you, but possibly many others.
So, we can build on our definition. Racism = racial prejudice plus the systemic misuse of power.
It's a simple logic: who will have a more detrimental effect, the racially prejudiced person who cuts you off in traffic or the racially prejudiced bank officer who decides no people of color will get house loans in a particular part of town? The first act is an instance of racial prejudice, individual in nature: the second act is an instance of racial prejudice, empowered by institutional position to have a systemic effect. Individual racism can get you annoyed; institutional racism can get you dead, or at the very least subject to a dramatically reduced quality of life.
Both kinds of racial prejudice matter; but the larger threat -- and the one we white people tend to ignore -- is the effect of institutional racism. Why are white people so oblivious to institutional racism? Because we benefit from racialized disparities in access to power, and its easier to maintain that disparity if we don't acknowledge it.
After all, who holds most of the systemic power in our society? White people. For a quick reality check in this regard, take a look at the roster of CEOs on the Forbes 500; the Senate; the House of Representatives; the board of directors for your local hospitals, schools, etc.
Let's pause here to note an important point. If most of the institutional power is held by white people, then people of color do not tend to have systemic power, and therefore cannot be racist.
I know this flies in the face of what a lot of people want to say; but it's a useful distinction, one which helps us keep power in the equation. Yes, people of color can hold racial prejudices, against white people or against other ethnicities; but people of color do not typically have the institutional power to enforce and benefit from their prejudices. There simply are no large-scale societal systems (think on the scale of our country's financial system, the educational system, the health-care system) run by people of color.
A second point also matters. The more power to be had (and money to be made) in a position, the more likely that position is to be filled by a white person, who is probably also male and straight. The fact that power tends to correlate with race, gender and sexual orientation points out the interrelations among not only forms of power but also forms of oppression.
Here I want to quote Audre Lorde's description of various forms of oppression, their interconnections highlighted by her elegant prose:
"Racism: The belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance.
Sexism: The belief in the inherent superiority of one sex and thereby the right to dominance.
Heterosexism: The belief in the inherent superiority of one pattern of loving and thereby its right to dominance.
Homophobia: the fear of feelings of love for members of one's own sex and therefore the hatred of those feelings in others." (Sister Outsider, 45)
Each of these isms and their related phobias and prejudices can be and are magnified by connection with systemic power.
Each of us is called by the commandment to love to overcome these isms, phobias and prejudices in our selves. But I would argue that the commandment to love the neighbor as self means we are also called to address the systemic misuse of power that enables these isms to have such wide-ranging, life-destroying effects.
Love engages the system. Love doesn't quit because the system is too big. Jesus, the one who is Christ for us, said there is no greater love than the love that lays down its life for its friends.
We can certainly begin by laying down our prejudices, over and over. We can go on by thinking about power, what it is and who it is for, and whether it helps us choose life, or whether it is being used on our behalf to deal death.
Valley of the Shadow
I'm headed to South Texas to do a little research. Thanks to my uncle's genealogical studies, I know my great-grandfather, Homer Brotzman, came to the Rio Grande Valley from Wisconsin and bought land near Rio Hondo, Texas in 1916: 80 acres for $200 an acre. But I wonder, who did he buy it from? What is the story of that land?
History is not my strong suit or my primary interest, but I have been reading a lot of it so that I can better understand who I am, as a person and as a theologian shaped by origins in a particular place, in a particular web of relationships and stories.
Like most places, the Rio Grande Valley has its pretty storytellers, who pick and choose sanitized, attractive versions of events. These stories typically render the American Indians as savages and marauders, the Texas Rangers as heros, and the ranchers as cowboy entrepreneurs. We are talking about Texas, after all.
But we are not only talking about Texas. Before this land was Texas, before there was a border to divide peoples and inspire the now-so-trendy Borderlands studies, there was simply a broad delta plain, inhabited by indigenous peoples, expelled and exterminated by Spanish colonizers, who themselves experienced the turmoil of revolutions on both sides of the border. The politics painted the Valley's colonists first as Spanish citizens, then Mexican citizens, then Texan citizens, then United States citizens. And between the displacements and the politics and the turmoil, thousands of people were killed. That passive voice hides a lot. We have to remember that the phrase "thousands of people were killed" means thousands of people were doing the killing. Spaniards and American Indians ... Tejanos and Anglos ... what does this history mean to me? There has been a hard price paid for this land, over and over; where does my story connect? What does the history of the borderlands have to do with theology? What does a white-authored borderlands theology look like?
History is bloody, and complicated, and still pulsing, just like human life below the skin. It's hard to read, to realize the horror. It hurts to let this information pass through me into the writing of the dissertation. My best beloved M. reminded me that according to the Psalmist we pass through the valley of the shadow of death -- we don't get stuck in it -- and she's right; but I couldn't help thinking "the Valley and its shadows of death are passing through me ...."
And yet, this reading, and this writing, feel like the very least I can do.So, I will get on a plane today. Fly down the curving coastline. Remember the peoples, human beings, each one. Try to find out who great-grandpa Homer bought the land from ... and whose it was before that. My uncle's genealogy runs back to Samuel Brotzman in Civil War times, with a little information about how the Brotzmans got from Germany to Pennsylvania to Wisconsin to Rio Hondo; but what about the genealogy of the land?
I am wondering what difference it makes that God said "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants." (Leviticus 25:23)
We are all aliens. The land is God's. These two Scriptural truths don't quite make the same headlines as some other texts in Leviticus. What difference will they make to me and mine?
Theological Laundry
The brand of theology I love and am working on is called liberation theology. It comes in different stripes, varying by the experiences that gave rise to the theology. And therein is the first key: liberation theology begins with a people's lived experience (particularly of oppression), reflects on the presence and power of God in that experience, and tries to discern God's will through that experience, particularly God's will for the liberation of the people. Black theology, feminist theology, womanist theology, Latina/o and mujerista theology, native American theology, queer theology, African theology, Latin American theology, Asian theology ... it's a long list, unfortunately, because particular experiences of oppression are legion.
Liberation theologies often begin with what Ada María Isasi-Díaz calls "the cry of the oppressed." This cry names and denounces the form and sources of oppression, and calls for the justice that liberates. As I began learning liberation theologies, I was struck by what seemed to me their rightness and intrinsic authority. And then I began to wonder ... "What is the cry of the oppressor?"
Put simply, how do I love my neighbor as myself if I and other selves like me have been treating the neighbor wrong? How can I move from being the enemy to being one who loves?
The theology I am working on through this dissertation will try to answer that question; this, too, will be a liberation theology. So, it begins where liberation theologies begin ... with experience. My own experience as a white female child growing up in South Texas is not irrelevant. My personal and social history grounds my theologizing; some of the things I know about God -- some that are important to this theological project -- I would not know if I had not had those experiences.
But the experiences are not always pretty. Every life includes a mixture of oppression and privilege, and describing my own experiences means putting what some would call "dirty laundry" out for the world to see. (There may be some comfort in the fact that dissertations have a very small readership!) That's not easy. Fear and shame arise immediately. But I am not the first person to face these particular demons. To paraphrase one of my heros, Audre Lorde, our silences do not save us.
And then there was that man from Nazareth, who said "you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
Time to do the laundry.
Liberation theologies often begin with what Ada María Isasi-Díaz calls "the cry of the oppressed." This cry names and denounces the form and sources of oppression, and calls for the justice that liberates. As I began learning liberation theologies, I was struck by what seemed to me their rightness and intrinsic authority. And then I began to wonder ... "What is the cry of the oppressor?"
Put simply, how do I love my neighbor as myself if I and other selves like me have been treating the neighbor wrong? How can I move from being the enemy to being one who loves?
The theology I am working on through this dissertation will try to answer that question; this, too, will be a liberation theology. So, it begins where liberation theologies begin ... with experience. My own experience as a white female child growing up in South Texas is not irrelevant. My personal and social history grounds my theologizing; some of the things I know about God -- some that are important to this theological project -- I would not know if I had not had those experiences.
But the experiences are not always pretty. Every life includes a mixture of oppression and privilege, and describing my own experiences means putting what some would call "dirty laundry" out for the world to see. (There may be some comfort in the fact that dissertations have a very small readership!) That's not easy. Fear and shame arise immediately. But I am not the first person to face these particular demons. To paraphrase one of my heros, Audre Lorde, our silences do not save us.
And then there was that man from Nazareth, who said "you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
Time to do the laundry.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Where'd she go?
It's been almost a month since my last post. I actually wrote a post December 19, which mentioned the work of a couple of American Indian activist/workers, and I wanted to get their permission before publishing the post. I heard back from one, and am still waiting to hear from the other. I won't publish that post until I do, which means I may not publish that post.
This is, for me, part of being a white anti-racist. That may seem craven: "Oh, you get permission from people of color before you do anything?" Well, no. White people have our work to do on racism and issues of white privilege in particular, just as people of color have their work to do. We need to practice good followership and we need to take initiative.
But white people often do things for well-intentioned reasons that have unintended results. Even racist outcomes. So, checking in with my friends is important for several reasons.
1) It shows I am trying not to take them or their work for granted.
2) It shows I am aware that white people have appropriated the images, ideas, property, names, art, and land of American Indians for centuries, and I don't want to and am trying not to perpetuate that.
3) It shows that I am attempting good followership, and trying to open myself to being accountable to them for my thinking and my work products.
Later blog posts will say more about appropriation, followership, and accountability. For now, I just wanted to say there was a reason for the wait. Just as there are reasons to keep working while I keep waiting.
This is, for me, part of being a white anti-racist. That may seem craven: "Oh, you get permission from people of color before you do anything?" Well, no. White people have our work to do on racism and issues of white privilege in particular, just as people of color have their work to do. We need to practice good followership and we need to take initiative.
But white people often do things for well-intentioned reasons that have unintended results. Even racist outcomes. So, checking in with my friends is important for several reasons.
1) It shows I am trying not to take them or their work for granted.
2) It shows I am aware that white people have appropriated the images, ideas, property, names, art, and land of American Indians for centuries, and I don't want to and am trying not to perpetuate that.
3) It shows that I am attempting good followership, and trying to open myself to being accountable to them for my thinking and my work products.
Later blog posts will say more about appropriation, followership, and accountability. For now, I just wanted to say there was a reason for the wait. Just as there are reasons to keep working while I keep waiting.
Language Liberates
Racism and anti-racism are a funny pair of words, both negatively charged for most people. Start bandying the word "racism" or "racist" around in polite society, and in most settings you'll soon find yourself without the polite or the society. It's impossible to say everything that needs to be said about racism (because racism mutates), much less capture it pithily in a single blog post, and yet there are some things that should be said right up front, as simply and clearly as possible. So, I'll do my white-girl best,* with a little help from my friends.**
* Indicative of the fact that the history of white women and racism is long and not always filled with insight from the white side of the story.
** People of color and white folks who've been at this a lot longer than me. I'm lucky to be in very good company.
When I'm in a workshop setting, one of the things I'll say is "This language may be awkward for you to hear. You may feel afraid, or angry, or pained. Just swim in my ocean for a while. Try these ideas on for size. You don't have to accept it all, or all at once." Sometimes that helps. Sometimes nothing helps, right away.
But in my experience, having new language can open a space in my mind for new ideas, new ways of thinking, and sometimes that makes all the difference. Language can liberate, in that way. So, in the new few posts I'll talk about some of the language. Racism. Anti-racism. White. White privilege. Accountability.
Some of the vocabulary won't be new, but the meaning attached might be. It's a simple but important insight that so many of our conversations about race and racism founder in our different understandings of the word. We can't help but have different understandings: our understandings -- indeed, what we can know -- are shaped by our differing experiences. What's important is to realize that's the case, and become deliberate about our vocabulary and what the words mean and how we use them.
One of the best things about having gone through a dismantling racism program that a lot of other people have gone through is that you then have a shared vocabulary. When I say "racism," everyone knows I'm talking about prejudice plus power (the short version). And so the conversation can actually get somewhere. Shared language provides a crucible that helps to contain -- and tools to help work through -- the fear, anxiety, shame, guilt and anger that talk about racism can engender.
So, we'll do a little vocabulary together. And maybe some new spaces will open up, so that language can help liberate us.
* Indicative of the fact that the history of white women and racism is long and not always filled with insight from the white side of the story.
** People of color and white folks who've been at this a lot longer than me. I'm lucky to be in very good company.
When I'm in a workshop setting, one of the things I'll say is "This language may be awkward for you to hear. You may feel afraid, or angry, or pained. Just swim in my ocean for a while. Try these ideas on for size. You don't have to accept it all, or all at once." Sometimes that helps. Sometimes nothing helps, right away.
But in my experience, having new language can open a space in my mind for new ideas, new ways of thinking, and sometimes that makes all the difference. Language can liberate, in that way. So, in the new few posts I'll talk about some of the language. Racism. Anti-racism. White. White privilege. Accountability.
Some of the vocabulary won't be new, but the meaning attached might be. It's a simple but important insight that so many of our conversations about race and racism founder in our different understandings of the word. We can't help but have different understandings: our understandings -- indeed, what we can know -- are shaped by our differing experiences. What's important is to realize that's the case, and become deliberate about our vocabulary and what the words mean and how we use them.
One of the best things about having gone through a dismantling racism program that a lot of other people have gone through is that you then have a shared vocabulary. When I say "racism," everyone knows I'm talking about prejudice plus power (the short version). And so the conversation can actually get somewhere. Shared language provides a crucible that helps to contain -- and tools to help work through -- the fear, anxiety, shame, guilt and anger that talk about racism can engender.
So, we'll do a little vocabulary together. And maybe some new spaces will open up, so that language can help liberate us.
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