About fifteen years ago, a black friend of mine asked me, "Don't white people talk about being white?" I think that my answer of "no" was as surprising to her as the fact that the question had never occurred to me was surprising to me. Over the years, this question has followed me around.
This fall I had a hiatus from work in order to enjoy a three month sabbatical. While I was on sabbatical I volunteered at the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities (VCIC). I attended some of their workshops, facilitated a couple of breakout sessions, and got a peek into the inner workings of the organization. And, of course, like any good volunteer, I happily stuffed a few envelopes. Aside from taking part in the day to day of the workings of VCIC, I caught up on some reading that I kept meaning to do. No one read is perfect explanation or a perfect analysis of race in America. But here are some that I found thought provoking. With the end of the summer at my back, I started with Born a Crime by Trevor Noah. Yes, he is from South Africa and in his narrative he reflects the racial divides that also exist in America. Then I went for a classic: Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum. I had given this book a glance a year or two ago and put it down. I am glad I picked it up again. The book highlights, among other things, the conflicting messages students of color, in particular, get around race and identity. I will reread. Over the years, one of the topics that has gone in and out of focus for me is white racial identity formation. Some days I see clearly how race fits in my life, and other days I am overwhelmed by how little I understand anything about the racial dynamics in the US. I found some good groundwork with two books. I first read White Fragility by Dr. Robin DiAngelo. This one I may need to read again. It is relatively short and packs a punch. If I had read it even five years ago, I probably would have kept saying "yes, but" in my head instead of allowing the thesis its own space. Then I dove into Waking up White by Debby Irving. It was helpful to read both of these books in part because these two authors come from the two ends of the economic spectrum in America and both of them are white people writing about what it means to be white.
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Growing up I learned how to keep track of contact information in an address book. Along the way addresses got crossed off, but never fully erased until was time to transfer everything into a new address book. I have never really set up a good system my contacts in the new world of perpetual data. I know that I have been in the digital age for a while now, but keeping track of people is something I thought I would be better at doing despite proving myself wrong time and time again. Somewhere in my computer I have a spreadsheet that I started. It only lists family members from a singular attempt to send holiday cards. Probably half of those addresses are now out of date, but I keep the list just in case. I have a lot of addresses in my phone contacts, of course. Others are hidden in an email trail. No ragged pages tell me that I need to take stock of my contacts and figure out who gets transferred and who gets left behind. No one system keeps them all in one place. I am not sure I can really call what I do a system. It is my version of throwing my hands up in the air. The result? This means that my grandmothers' addresses are still on that spreadsheet even though their eyes will never again read a card. A few days after my father died, I picked up my phone to text him something or other. It was probably something about his funeral which makes no sense but grief is like that. Is there a protocol for what to do with these digital reminders? To delete them causes discomfort yet to keep them seems morbid. Even when I do hit delete, I know that they are still with me and they leave their echoes. One of those moments happened today. When mom didn't pick up on her cell, I called the land line as one does. Dad's voice is still on the answering machine. He told me that he was not available to come to the phone right now and that I could leave a message. It happened two days in a row. Really, it happens so often, I usually lose count. And I feel a rant coming on. Sunday night, Remo Millz hosted a comedy open mic in Richmond. I got to perform in my first open mic in front of a forgiving audience. Much appreciated. Remo is very funny, has a great presence. I just met him, but I would come see him perform again. That's not my rant. Remo started his set commiserating with some of the audience members about their losing sports teams. It worked. There was a couple at the front of the stage, happily engaging with his opening. Personally, I don't really care about any sports teams. Every once in a while I will pretend to care when a Philadelphia team makes a splash. However, I don't have much to say about them most of the time. But, I get it, it is the guy way of saying hello. Fine. And the rest of the set moved onto other things. The very next day, I went to an educators conference. The keynote speaker started his bit with about three to five minutes about some losing team in Oklahoma City. Now I was starting to get twitchy; it had not even been twenty-four hours. This bit has obviously worked for him before. However, his entire talk was about making connections with our students. This was an educators conference, and I'd guess at least eighty percent of the attendees were women. Sure, there are plenty of women who love sports but it is not typically our go-to hello language. Why wasn't he trying to make a connection with me, with us? Or was he trying to connect with the men in the audience? The rest of the talk was okay, a little trite, but fine. He had a couple of creative ideas that I can put into practice. That's a good day at a conference. But he almost lost me with sports. I work with a lot of men. There are a lot of sports analogies used every day for everything. I am beginning to wonder, is there no other space of conversation where men can make that first connection? When the audience is predominantly or even half women, do men think we most want to hear about men from men every time? Even if the audience is mostly men or all men, are sports it? If that is the case, I don't know what to say. Sorry, I guess. |
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