Once again, I’m reading & simultaneously commenting on Debby Irving’s book Waking Up White.
This chapter is fire.
Creating a racially just world demands a reconsideration of the assimilation (“melting pot”) model long enforced in America… Though its intention may have been to create a united country, its impact has been to create social and economic divisions far from the ideals of most Americans.
I see this in my friends’ lives because (a) they don’t fit into the mainstream of whiteness (which is largely invisible to us who make the rules); (b) they are “encouraged” to fit in; but (c) they can never fit in because at any moment they’ll be ejected for not being white.
It might seem like just a truth to be universally acknowledged—and then we move on—but the reality is that our system of whiteness and white supremacy is an agony to our friends, who are forever excluded from our society. They may be granted a day pass, but when we’re done hosting them, they must return.
Cross-cultural collaboration done well expands everyone’s ability to innovate and solve problems. But there’s a major catch: it’s much harder than one might imagine because it starts with personal change.
This is so, so true. Starting from the idea that we can fix this because we can describe this is a non-starter. I believe that one of the first steps to solving a problem is to accurately state the problem. But behind the belief that all man-made solutions are fixable (true enough if not always true: Nagasaki and Hiroshima, for example, weren’t “fixable” after America obliterated them as a Warning to Others) is the reality that not everyone is capable of fixing everything (we can’t just go into “their” culture and presence and tell them how to fix things), and often when we want to fix things the absolute wisest thing to do is to simply support those who are in the community already & who are already fixing things (Dr. Drew G. I. Hart’s “yellow shirt brigade”).
I don’t say “don’t do anything.” I do say “be willing to go into the situation with the understanding that you, too, will be affected by what you do.” Accepting cultures is not simply a sign of goodness and niceness and maturity, like you can get the gold star for just doing it. You and I, as we work on loving our brothers and sisters, are going to have to do the work of loving them, which involves listening and empathy and involvement and seeing and carrying the burdens of friendship. If you go into the work of change because you want to be well-thought-of—then I’m afraid that I have some very bad news for you.
In my experience, I could not begin to develop a multicultural sensibility until I first looked deep within myself to understand the ways in which the culture I’d lived in ended up living in me.
This is the core, right here. If you get this you get everything, and you can stop reading right now: whiteness lives in us; it shapes us, makes us, and moves us. It may require a lifetime of work to unwind ourselves from the rapture that whiteness gives, but it must be done if we want to see our brothers and sisters, to hear them, to embrace them, and to be involved with them.
Let me be blunt: the people that we presume to “help” by our kindness see all of this for what it is: projections of our own beliefs that people who do nice things are deserving of respect and love and admiration. They see our show, and while they are an unwilling audience, they will leave at the first intermission they can.
I do not know what the change looks like. But I’m going to work on it, as best as I can, not because I want to be “nice.”
I want to be real.
The writer [of the New York Times article about words and culture] explored the way words such as “left,” “right,” “above,” and “behind” are “egocentric directions,” putting the speaker at the center. In contrast, he pointed out, some languages use “geographical directions,” using terms like “north” to describe where something is.
Literally blinked at this. This puts it succinctly: we are the star of our movie, always. White man/woman helps unfortunate & helpless people is the headline of our story, every day.
Our way feels so right and easy to us that we can’t imagine the other culture’s approach holds any value for us.
This digs into the core of my being. My work to become not what I am is work to acquire insight and relationships. But it is still work, damned hard work, every day, because what’s in me—what is me—isn’t this way. It is by will that I continue the long struggle to leave behind selfishness. Like anyone in recovery, I choose each day when I wake up to control my choices. But every single day I have to do this. I’m still not doing it naturally. On my own, I would just do what I’ve always done.
There’s no rule that says I have to reject my culture. But if I become aware of its beliefs, values, and practices, I can try to see it as one culture of many and expand my beliefs, values, and practices beyond it in the name of becoming a better global citizen.
Another key point: the culture I live within, right now, is not entirely toxic and wrong. I can hold on to some of my own culture. I do suspect that anything that has to do with usurpation and colonization and expropriation and exploitation will have to go, of course. But some elements stem from good desires—we want stability and safety and home and family, and although those desires have become corrupted, we can still return to them and clear out the weeds that choke out the goodness.
One of the great ironies in my quest to understand racism is that the very populations I once sought to help and fix are the ones from whom I’m discovering I have so much to learn.
Man, this just strikes home. The attitude of “helping.” The attitude of “fixing.” The attitude of “here I am to bless you.”
Yuck. So much of this is what I do, perhaps who I am. This is a warning to myself to keep on digging and keep on pushing, as well as a warning to not do it for attention or payoff or admiration.
Unlike me, who grew up in a monocultural world with a household that looked a lot like my school that looked a lot like my workplace, Americans of color, by necessity, have operated across at least two cultures—the dominant culture and their own subculture—sometimes using different languages. Americans of color are already more likely to be multicultural as well as better equipped with strategies to cope with adversity. This is a 180-degree turnaround from the way I’ve thought about white people and people of color my entire life.
This is another key idea (two ideas, actually). One is that we white people need to see that our friends have to work twice as hard, and have to continually context-switch when around us, because we are unsafe and untrustworthy. Even though some of us white people might be safe and trustworthy—how do our friends know, when we behave so abominably, and when the white people they don’t know are unkind and ruthless and destructive?
That’s one side of this.
The other side is that it is we who are the weak and dysfunctional and confused. White people skate by in their disfunction because it’s expected that we’ll get a pass. Our friends cannot—and do not. Our friends have the “talk” with their children. We don’t, and don’t need to. We expect to be the recipients of the government’s attention and largess, and boy do we complain when we don’t get a piece of the pie & when we see others getting our share. Our friends expect almost nothing, and when they receive a benefit—almost always a pale imitation of the ones that we get as white people—it is seen as a fluke and a temporary gift, to be taken back at will.
Questions
Think of a major change you’ve made in your life—a marriage, a divorce, a move, a new job, a lost job. List the strengths and skills you lost as a result of the change. List the strengths and skills you gained.
New job / lost job
I’ve had a fairly stable work/career for the last 30 years (!), all in one industry, doing what I do because it’s what I want to do & enjoy doing (technical writing/editing). I’ve been able to move from one employer to the next, twice, in that time, and have had no interruption in pay or in gaps between employment. There has been stress over finding a new job, but that stress included the the confidence that of course I can find one. That confidence might not last, but it’s been lasting for 30 years. I’ve switched responsibilities/teams a few times as well, and I’ve had the luxury of deciding that the work that I was doing wasn’t something I liked doing, so I found another group to work with.
Many of my friends don’t have this luxury of long-time employment or even doing what they really want to do. They are doing what they can do or need to do in order to pay the bills and support their families through very difficult situations. So I sometimes appreciate that I have a life that has been both easy and fulfilling, but mostly I don’t even think about it because “it just happened.” (And yes, I know it didn’t just happen. White supremacy has been very, very good to me, mostly when I was most ignorant of its benefits and the cocoon it provides.)
As far as what I lost—I can’t think of a particular strength or skill that I lost. Ever since I left the dreams of being a pastor (because of the entirely reasonable observation that I was drinking Milk of Magnesia like it was soda as I tried to handle the demands of people), I’ve been in some form of technical writing/editing/lecturing/training. I’ve built up my skills and strengths, and I’ve been able to apply them in other contexts. For example, I help out at non-profits, not with my technical writing skills, but with my organizational skills. What I’m weak at—being a leader—I avoid as I know I am not a leader. I will function in that capacity when needed, but I typically just avoid the stage.
Marriage / children
Marriage has been a challenge to my own self, and like everything else in life, it has its benefits and its drawbacks. Bringing children into the world has been a true gift, one that I have not a moment’s regret over—even as I realize that having children meant that I would leave certain activities and pursuits.
Move
I’ve moved in a significant way only once. Back in my late 30s I was offered a chance to move 1200 miles away to take up a new job. We packed up the kids and our stuff and moved. It was extremely challenging, as we’d moved to a place with no family and friends. Gotta say that was the hardest part. For us, church was a major part of our lives, as it was the one time each week we were guaranteed to see people who wanted to see us. It took a while to settle down in our new home, and we eventually did find a church that embraced us. We stayed there for about ten years. But because the move was for a new job yet in the same field, I can’t say I lost or gained any new skills directly.
Career change
I haven’t really changed careers since my initial departure from my then-desire to pastor. I’ve stayed in the same path, and have been both fortunate and privileged that my education, experience, curiosity, and natural passions all were able to find fulfillment in the career path I’ve been in.
For context on this series, see my kick-off post here:
Di Brown ‘Nixie’ at https://dianabrown.net/blog-challenge-waking-up-white/
This chapter (from 26-45): https://dianabrown.net/waking-up-white-the-final-chapters/
Dawn Claflin at https://dawnclaflin.wordpress.com/
Interesting to me that you only addressed the “skills” you didn’t lose. 🙂 Those comments about how our world centers on our selves – seem to be reflected in your responses to the study question.
Even today, if I moved 1200 miles away, I can see that I would lose some terrific strengths – my family, my network, my familiarity with the local landscape, understanding of something as simple as weather patterns and seasonal hazards/planning needs….All of those things have a huge imp[act on my well-being and foundations, and “losing” them in my day to day life would require a lot of adapting and new learning.
Makes me kind of wonder how the white-american mythos around exceptionalism and individual achievement plays into your thought process around the question…?
Huh. Good insight, but I’m not sure if I can say I lost “skills.”
I lost connections. I grew up in Los Angeles, and I knew the area. Knew the different types of vegetation, depending upon where I was–sea level, in the hills, in the mountains, in the desert. I can tell you the difference between a Jeffrey pine and a Ponderosa, an opuntia vs. a saguaro, chaparral vs. creosote. I knew all the freeways, and with my insomnia I drove most of them at night for hours, from San Diego all the way up to Calabasas and out to Riverside–I still remember the sweet smell of blooming orange trees at 3 in the morning. I knew all the neighborhoods, and all the cross streets from Tustin all the way into the South Bay.
When I came to the PNW, it was all different. I didn’t know the trees–first class I taught to the Boy Scouts was on how to identify trees and bushes of the PNW because I wanted to know them. Learned how to adapt to the complete shift in weather and lighting. Learned how to mow the lawn in the rain, in my shorts and sandals, like a crazy person, without a hat. But I didn’t lose a skill. I just replaced a knowledge base.
I did lose other forms of connections, with people. There is just something different socially in the PNW when it comes to meeting people. I was casual and friendly with people I met in California, and that behavior struck a wrong note everywhere I went up here. It has taken me 30 years to learn how to adapt my desire for friendships to fit the gestalt of the PNW.
Now when I return to California I feel like an alien and a stranger. What I’ve adapted to here in the PNW comes across as too serious and intentional in Los Angeles.
As far as the white-American mythos of exceptionalism and individual achievement, certainly that fits in, along with the confidence that comes from full membership in the white middle class of generational wealth and inherited privilege.
I moved 1200 miles away to a job with a small company, and the week I showed up, my company announced it was selling off my division, so that I would no longer have a job. We had no family up here, no church friends–and now, no steady job. But I was supremely confident I’d survive, and we’d make it–and through a series of events that make sense only in the early days of the technology bubble, I found myself part of a company that was acquired by IBM, became a consultant and writer for Microsoft for Windows 95, got hired by Microsoft, and then got hired by my current employer. I’ve thrived and adapted in an environment that’s perfect for me–but has had little room for others during those early years, years when it was simply a white middle class job.
I guess I read “skills” to mean “learned habits that result in efficient output,” like learning to use a lathe so that you can turn out a dozen spindles all the same size and shape. I don’t know that I’ve lost skills with that meaning.
But… Did you see the word “skills” in quotes in my comment? Because the question was “what STRENGTHS AND skills”
Individualism also allows us to fail-to-note that the people, connections, ties to the land, and understanding of our environment are also part of our strengths….