Date: June 8, 2020
Time of post: 7: 24 PM
Quarantine Day: 75
Last Song I Listened To: “I Was Here” by Beyoncé
Last Person I Communicated With: Lexi Bedell
Last Thing I Ate: a burrito
Last Thing I Read: some fanfic
Current Mood: sad
One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: ran an errand / picked
up a package
One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: being less sad
would be nice
One Reason I’m Stressed Today: I don’t even have the
energy to explain
One Reason I’m Happy Today: Group Zoom tonight
Dear Apocalypsers,
I’ve been trying to write this for days. Weeks even. I
don’t have words for what’s happening in the world. For the sheer hate and
bigotry that Black Americans are facing. For the way Trump has responded. When
I started this blog for class, I thought I was writing as if the COVID-19
pandemic was the apocalypse. In the last few weeks, it’s dawned on me that I am
living through more than one pandemic and apocalypse.
My words aren’t what the world needs right now. I
honestly don’t feel like I can say anything better than the countless posts I’ve
shared, so this post is for me. I’m trying to process what’s happening—to the
world and to me.
I am white white white on both sides. I was raised in
Alabama by college-educated, late Baby Boomer parents who moved to the South
from Pennsylvania a few years before I was born. My parents taught me to treat
everyone the same way and to treat them with respect and kindness. I like to
think that my judgement of people has always been based on their behavior and
not on factors like race, gender, socioeconomic class, religion, or
sexuality—but I know I’m not perfect. I know I’ve made incorrect, harmful
assumptions about people. I know that I’ve been silent when I should have
spoken out. I know that I’ve used and misused my white privilege in hurtful
ways, sometimes unknowingly, sometimes just ignoring the voice in the back of
my head saying, “You should do something.”
I can blame my silence and complicity on being a woman
from the South, where there’s still an unspoken rule about what being a “good
girl” means (and what that means is “sweet, soft-spoken, and agreeable”).
But growing up, I was never a “good” Southern girl, at
least not by traditional standards. I am loud. I like being in charge. I like
being the center of attention and getting my way. I love kids, but I want to
live out my dreams before settling down. My home has done and still does some
things I don’t agree with, but I can’t blame it for my silence.
I can blame it on my own anxiety about being liked. I
was never popular in school (like I secretly wanted to be), but I tried my
damnedest to be liked by most people. If I ever “failed” at that, I cried. To
this day, I can’t tell you exactly why; I just really wanted to be liked.
But if you know me now—and especially if you knew me
while I was editor of my undergrad newspaper—you know that I care so much about
protecting people. If someone in a position of power is abusing their power and
hurting someone else, I hope you know I’ll stick up for them. (Another thing my
parents taught me was to cheer for the underdog.) If I write an op-ed about how
that person in power is a bully who doesn’t actually care about the people who
work for them, it’s not about name-calling or making them mad; it’s putting the
truth out there and letting the affected group know that there’s some lowly
college newspaper editor on their side. The point is, I’ve never felt more
alive than when I was pissing off my undergrad administration, because I knew
they were in the wrong and that I was right. I didn’t care if they liked
me.
So, clearly, I’m capable of pushing aside my desire to
be liked.
So why have I not been louder on my social
media and in my own actions? It’s something I’ve asked myself daily.
And there’s no excuse.
The truth is that I’m learning to recognize my privilege
and change my behaviors and be more aware.
Please believe me when I say that I want to do
whatever I can to help end racism. I don’t always know what that is, and I
sometimes afraid to ask (but I’m trying to get better about that. And if you
have the emotional energy to give suggestions or point me in the right
direction, I’ll gladly take it.)
But I’m also afraid of being “that” white person who
asks the Black community to educate me, when, in reality, that’s something that
we each need to do for ourselves. We need to actively search out Black
voices and listen to what has been being said for decades.
So I’m looking. I’m looking for a lot of things, but,
right now, the two big ones are information and balance. I’m looking for resources
on systemic racism. I’m looking for petitions to sign. I’m looking for Black-owned
businesses to support and Black art to consume and share. I’m also looking for
balance, between asking for help when I need it and not stepping on the Black
community’s toes or out words in their mouth and checking on the people in my
life who I know are more affected by this than I am. I’m finding that it’s a
delicate balance.
(Here's just one of many lists available. This one is from NPR.)
I’m young, white, and privileged, but I’ve never
experienced a time in my life when the world felt as fragile as it does right
now. I’ve spent days in a depressive state. My nerves—already shot from months
of isolation and trying not to catch a virus in my immunocompromised
state—can’t really handle another large-scale crisis. But I force myself to
read a little news every day. To share links on Twitter and Instagram. To sign
another petition. To donate what little I can when I can. My heart hurts so
much.
(Here's a website that lists bail funds from across the nation and other resources, like mental health resources and Black revolutionary and anti-racist texts.)
But this isn’t about me.
Several years ago, I remember thinking that maybe the
reason I’d been given a relatively easy life was so that I could help other
people. (I realize now that there are a whole lot of problematic things with
that statement), and, at the time, I thought that just meant being as nice to
people as I could be. Being nice has always come easily to me, so it
made me feel good to think that I was doing what I was “supposed to” do by
doing what was easy.
Now, I understand more fully that doing what’s right
is often uncomfortable because it means recognizing your own shortcomings and
actively bettering yourself. When it comes to human rights, the right thing
sometimes requires a complete lifestyle change. And that takes work. I’m
working on it.
I’m not sure I’ve said anything groundbreaking. I
certainly don’t have all (or any) answers, but I will keep looking for them. I
will keep learning, and I hope every other white person takes up that task,
too. I want to be hopeful that this movement brings real change.
I know my generation will undoubtedly fail our
children. We will fail them spectacularly in ways I can’t even imagine right
now. I can only hope that we fail them in different ways than we have been
failed. I hope they don’t fear being gunned down at school or at a concert or
for who they love. I hope their skin color will not make them the target of
police violence, that they will feel safe going out at night or going for a jog
or birdwatching in a park or walking and playing in their neighborhood or
sleeping in their own homes.
But I really don’t know.
The first half 2020 has brought out the worst in
humanity. I hope the second half will show us the best.
No cheesy ending line
this time. Because there many people for whom the odds aren’t in their
favor. And that needs to change.
Katie
