New Thinking

Right now, I should be doing school work.  I am supposed to be writing my response to our readings this week.  Our readings this week were about White identity development and White privilege.  "Everything I read was so disheartening and confusing"  (which is basically as far as I've gotten on my school work.)

I don't even know where to start.  I guess at the beginning.  I never really began thinking about my white identity/culture till last year.  Many white people NEVER consider having culture, because to in our thinking "culture" means "different" and white is normal.  This is the article I read more than a year ago:   White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Over the course of the last year, and specifically in the last few months, I have spent a lot of time thinking about this.  I feel guilty, uncomfortable, unsure of my own intentions, I find myself analyzing even the simplest of actions.  When I smile at a stranger even.... I think was that paternalistic?

Here is what I know for sure:

• There is no such thing as being color-blind...that is just something that white people say.

• Racism is not just action and conscious behavior, it is thoughts and unconscious behavior. White people, when they think of racists think of white supremacist groups or the KKK, but those are just extremes.  Racism is a spectrum...and almost everyone is on it.  

I fall on that spectrum, and I don't want to anymore.  This is for me to work on, and I am.  But this is also where my frustration and confusion kicks in.  I can "fix" myself but I am still a recipient of this unearned privileged....Am I just supposed to feel guilty and privileged...no of course not, I should DO something.  But what?  What can I do when even those closest to me can not acknowledge the privileged we have as whites, the privileged my children have....

As I continue to learn about the embedded racism in our culture I am overwhelmed.  Where can one person start?  I guess the short-term answer is....me.  I start with me.

Gettysburg

Good morning!  Imagine me cracking my knuckles and dusting off my computer.

We took the opportunity to visit Gettysburg last month, wow.  Maybe it was just me, but when we parked and got out of the car, I actually felt the history and heartbreak there, it was overwhelming. (To be fair, it could have just been the humidity.)

We watched the movie in the visitors center and were a little concerned that it would be too graphic for the boys.  We warned them ahead of time that the film may show photographs of dead bodies.  The only thing that seemed to upset them was the volume of the music during the movie, but the images themselves only prompted questions which is what we hoped.

Living in mid-Virginia, there is a much different attitude toward the Civil War than there is in Indiana.  Seriously the cannons on town squares still point North...I'm not joking.  We have friends that come from even further south and Chief and I discovered early-on that, for them, the Civil War had very little to do with slavery.  Sure it's not the WHOLE story, but you can't leave it out, either.  

So while at Gettysburg we were trying to explain to the boys about the battles and who came from which directions.  Union and Confederate, North and South, but what really speaks to that age group of boys....good guys and bad guys.   I admit it didn't exactly feel right leaving them with the impression that the Confederates were the "bad guys" but they understand the Civil War to be about slavery...those who wanted it and those who didn't.  They don't think about state's rights, they think about human rights.  

The biggest hit of the day, was Devil's Den (thanks to my Gettysburg expert, Jen!)  Where curiously, I discovered that I am now afraid of heights.  But I understand that this is common when you have young children, and may go away after time....

See those 3 figures standing on that rock....that's my family...they are having fun...I'm hyperventilating.

Unbelievable...

Do you ever have a moment when you think, "that did not just happen?"

I had one today.  I was out to brunch with some friends (no one is more shocked, that I used those words in the same sentence, than me!)  Sitting on one side of us was two women and an itty-bitty baby (we would later find out was only 15 days old!) and on the other side was a mom, dad, and a two year old.  However, sitting on the other side of the women and baby was an older man eating alone who we will now call Mr. Miserable.

As he is leaving he says to the women, who have been speaking Spanish, he asks, "Where are you from?"  Now these ladies are smart and one quickly pipes in that she is from New Jersey.  But Mr. Miserable doesn't get that this is not her first time on this ride...  He continues in the way that these types do....he finally says to the women that he hopes they teach the baby English because this is America...  The women do not respond to him, because sadly they've dealt with this before.  Not that it matters, but these women did speak English....

This all happened so quickly, I could not believe my ears, I kept waiting for John what's-his-face from What Would You Do to show up with a microphone.

The women I am sitting with all hear this conversation as well, while I am still dumbfounded that Mr. Miserable has just said what I thought he just said.  The dad from the other table gets up and follows Mr. Miserable.  Turns out Dad is a Warrant Officer (whoop!) and not only is he bilingual, the attitude of Mr. Miserable is one that he takes "issue with".

Dad returns after some time, we've been able to see them through the windows, and relates to us (because by now we are all old friends, and the waitress too) that he is one of "those guys".  It turns out that Mr. Miserable is himself a retired officer, so WO Dad gave him the "as an officer I'm disappointed in you" speech.

Of course, no one not even a hundred WO Dads is going to change Mr. Miserable's attitude, and if nothing else he won't eat at that restaurant again.  And what restaurant was that, you ask?  The IHOP....INTERNATIONAL House of Pancakes!

Unbelievable....