Recently I've been having lots of thoughts about the South. I grew up in a Southern state, living there until I was 14. Since then I've rarely been back except for miserable summers and holidays with my parents who still live there. Christianity is a huge part of that Southern fear for me and is intimately related to my horrible experiences. It drives my parent's lives--providing a convenient excuse for my mother's depression and makes it impossible for them to see me as anything other than hellbound and in desperate need of salvation. I was born again a few times in my life--or at least that's how I experienced it.
So I haven't thought about the South as anywhere but a place to flee for years. Then I started working on this piece about growing up and went to Creating Change and had the chance to meet some folks from Southerners on New Ground (SONG). Recently I had the chance to hear The Blind Boys of Alabama perform. It reminded me of all the things about the South I do appreciate and what I found so moving in the work SONG is doing--I felt the spirit.
When I was a little kid I believed in the holy spirit. I actually used to pray to the street light outside my window because I though it was the Star of David and the holding place of God and spirit. I don't believe in that version of the spirit anymore, but I do believe in the need for a connection and for that emotional and communal moment of celebration and release and love. Gospel music, bluegrass music, classical, a really pretty day, great art, awesome activists and community, love--I've found it all these places, but it's been a long time since I let myself think about how Christian worship music used to do it for me.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
African Americans have an extra leg tendon, you say?
I dislocated my kneecap recently and now spend multiple hours a week in physical therapy. Today while I was on one of the machines, I started talking with J, the receptionist, about subtle forms of racism within the LGBTQ movement because she asked me about what kinds of conversations I had at the NGLTF conference. I brought up the idea that lots of people expect every African American man on a college campus to be there to play sports as one example and asked rhetorically why people thought that. J responded, "Because of genetics." I waited a second before I realized she wasn't joking and then we had a fairly coherent conversation about how that's not scientifically true. Despite what it said in J's physiology book, published admittedly 15 years ago, African Americans do not have an extra or longer tendon in their legs. In fact there is no biological basis for race. We talked briefly about how science has been used over the years to prove all kinds of things that we as human beings wanted to believe was so in order to justify certain worldviews. "Yes!" J nodded-- "Like evolution?" I was trapped. Besides I was leaning against a rubber ball on a wall and kind of thought my legs might fall off, so I said "Maybe, kind of" and left it at that.
Appropriatory Fashion: The Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of
Having just gotten back from the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce's annual conference, Creating Change, there's quite a lot I need to process. There's a lot of information and emotional processing to do. There's this bizarre new and amazing person in my life that I have no explanatory system for. And then there are my nightmares, which may be the weirdest bit.
I rarely remember my dreams. I can count the number of times I've remembered anything at all from my dreams in the past six months without removing my shoes. That said two of those times have been nightmares about bad haircuts. One was a mullet, and then last night there was the nightmare about having a mohawk. Well more accurately the nightmare was about appropriation, and I was well aware in the dream of having committed appropriation not only of the mohawk, but also of something else I can't remember. When your white guilt starts surfacing in your dreams, something proactive around it has to be done.
Now I've had a mohawk before, and as recently as last year I didn't feel guilty about that, but recently I've recognized that while I don't really know that much about the history of the mohawk, it's probably not a fashion statement I have the right to make. Fauxhawks, I'm more okay with, and still occasionally sport--rightly or wrongly. I don't even know what brought the issue up. Sure lots of white queers have mohawks and I certainly took note of them at the conference and every white gay boy was wandering around all fauxhawked up but I didn't think too much about it--until I woke up this morning all anxious.
I'm not normally all white guilting everywhere. I took the get off your butt and do something philosophy and generally try to my work around white privilege and anti-racism. So I'm not sure what to make of this nightmare or what it means I need to be working on within my psyche. Maybe I just need to be chilling with more white folks who are doing their work--there aren't enough of them in my life right now, I acknowledge.
I rarely remember my dreams. I can count the number of times I've remembered anything at all from my dreams in the past six months without removing my shoes. That said two of those times have been nightmares about bad haircuts. One was a mullet, and then last night there was the nightmare about having a mohawk. Well more accurately the nightmare was about appropriation, and I was well aware in the dream of having committed appropriation not only of the mohawk, but also of something else I can't remember. When your white guilt starts surfacing in your dreams, something proactive around it has to be done.
Now I've had a mohawk before, and as recently as last year I didn't feel guilty about that, but recently I've recognized that while I don't really know that much about the history of the mohawk, it's probably not a fashion statement I have the right to make. Fauxhawks, I'm more okay with, and still occasionally sport--rightly or wrongly. I don't even know what brought the issue up. Sure lots of white queers have mohawks and I certainly took note of them at the conference and every white gay boy was wandering around all fauxhawked up but I didn't think too much about it--until I woke up this morning all anxious.
I'm not normally all white guilting everywhere. I took the get off your butt and do something philosophy and generally try to my work around white privilege and anti-racism. So I'm not sure what to make of this nightmare or what it means I need to be working on within my psyche. Maybe I just need to be chilling with more white folks who are doing their work--there aren't enough of them in my life right now, I acknowledge.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Competence Proves Scary in People of Color
In talking with friend X today, they mentioned that a white co-worker had informed them that they find X scary. In explaining their fears, co-worker said that X is so good at their job and so smart and that is intimidating. I can see why X might be intimidating. X is certainly amazing, very smart, and very together, but the implication seemed to be that it was not these things alone which were so intimidating. Rather X's superb job performance combined with their intelligence, combined, I would argue, with their racial identity were the key factors.
X is a person a color. If X were a white individual, I don't think the comment would have been made in quite the same way although co-worker might still find X scary. Nor do I think if X were bad at their job, lazy, or stupid would they be scary. I think co-worker finds competent intelligent people of color scary--however, unconsciously. Obviously I can't prove it based on the one comment, but it reminds me of the ways "articulate" is thrown at African Americans--as if there's some shock there. Is that because co-worker subconsciously thinks if a person of color outperforms a white person, then the white person is ridiculous because how else could such a thing occur? Is that because X threatens co-worker's sub-conscious assumptions about people of color? Is it because co-worker fears X will see through them and discover some secret flaw?
X is a person a color. If X were a white individual, I don't think the comment would have been made in quite the same way although co-worker might still find X scary. Nor do I think if X were bad at their job, lazy, or stupid would they be scary. I think co-worker finds competent intelligent people of color scary--however, unconsciously. Obviously I can't prove it based on the one comment, but it reminds me of the ways "articulate" is thrown at African Americans--as if there's some shock there. Is that because co-worker subconsciously thinks if a person of color outperforms a white person, then the white person is ridiculous because how else could such a thing occur? Is that because X threatens co-worker's sub-conscious assumptions about people of color? Is it because co-worker fears X will see through them and discover some secret flaw?
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