My White Girl Bullshit

On Sunday morning, after Joe Biden and Kamala Harris gave their incredible speeches, with a heart overflowing with hope, I posted a picture of my truck with an American flag flying on it with a caption comment that I was proud to be an American and that I finally felt like flying the flag on MY truck.

A friend left a comment asking why I was waiting until now. My response was the clipped, angry sort that I have given in to this summer. It went a little something like this: “Um…I need to explain this?? No, I will not. In the words of the world, Welcome back, America.” And the person commented back that she was surprised at my attitude. That she had just been asking. That she was not a Trump supporter and did not want to be lumped into that group and that we should all be united. Sigh…and she is right. I need to do better. The question deserves an answer. And here it is:

Let me begin by saying that my friend is right.  I should be about having the conversation and not about just…wanting…some…peace already.  And right there – there it is – my white girl shit!

Because I can opt-out of having the conversation, I can opt-out of explaining. I can opt-out of educating. I can take a break. Stick my head in the sand for the day, the week – a few years even. And it COULD affect my life in the long run…. but it won’t have any effect on my day-to-day. I can opt-out entirely. I have that option. That’s my white privilege right there. And thank you for pushing back so that I have the opportunity to recognize it, step up to the plate and share my perspective in a loving manner with the hope to educate and change this world. Be the change you want to see. And I was far from that.

So, ahem…first of all – my apologies for lumping you into a group. You nailed it – THAT is the thing that is keeping us divided! And stereotyping is reprehensible. And it hurts!!! (and I’m sorry I hurt you!!)  Sit with how that feels. I am sitting with you. Feel the burn of it. All of us. And I don’t say that in a “there see how it feels?!” manner. I really mean – just sit with it and take that hurt and how it made you feel not seen, not heard – and then we might have just the tiniest – infinitesimal – microscopic glimpse of what it must be like to live with that kind of negative stereotyping every. Single. Effing. Day. And I am so sorry for doing that to you.

In order to answer the question of why I felt that I could not – in fact, had no desire to – fly an American flag– I need to root my explanation in my own narrative.

First of all, let me say that the extent of my knowledge of what it is like to live with a negative stereotype having any effect on my path is closest to zero than any other number. When I was previously married to my husband, a handsome, talented man of color, I did get a front-row seat to having my eyes opened somewhat – as much as I allowed at that time.

“Why are you so afraid of police officers?!”

There are several special little anecdotes that come to mind, but I will share just a couple here. My then-husband and I were once accosted by a jacked-up Jeep SUV-type vehicle at a stoplight, and it continued for miles down a stretch of road. Apparently, the occupants found it offensive that a white woman would be snuggled up to a…I won’t use the word they were hurling. I chalked that up to ignorance. It’s everywhere. Right? Not prolific. Just little pockets here and there. That’s what I told myself. And when my then-husband would stop breathing if a cop would come up behind us when we were driving, I would get mad at him. Mad. “Why are you afraid of police officers?” I would ask in frustration, “That is so 60’s!” My father was law enforcement – one of the best. I found it a personal effrontery that my husband would be scared of a group of people who had gathered at the kitchen table of my home ever since I could remember and who was responsible for my safety – and I had full confidence in them. It was insulting. He, however, was not insulted by my anger. My blindness to my privilege and that of others on this same issue were par for the course, just the things that he had learned from the start that he would have to negotiate and make room for as a black man, a citizen of this country.

Create a world where racism didn’t factor in. Great idea.

When my son was just 7, we were driving through Georgia, giving concerts in various venues to raise money for a non-profit that we had started. We had begun in California, where we lived, and we were headed to Maine in a roundabout way, hauling a fifth wheel, setting up in the evening, and practicing in the close confines of the camper for our next gig. Each night, the camper was filled with beautiful music and the grim faces of related musicians who had grown to hate each other. I like to think that happened on the camping trip…but in truth, in the manner of siblings, it had probably occurred a long time before. At any rate, we set up camp in a town in Georgia that I am not going to name where our next series of concerts were. As soon as we had leveled the rig and given the dogs water (because yes – along with a string trio, there were two Dobermans that moved stealthily around the cello and the music stands, rattling the music as well as the musicians), we headed for the pool.

I still remember the tone of that day as we made our way down the piney footpath to the pool, that sharp blue that looks like the synonym for happiness, a cloudless perfection. Tow-headed children bobbed and shrieked and glistened in the pool as their mothers sat in lawn chairs sipping Pepsi. The pool vibe became quieter and quieter as we drew closer. We put our things down on a chair, and my son lowered himself happily into the water. There was a mass exodus in the pool. Every single kid made for the edge hoisted themselves up and stood looking at us. The mothers smirked grimly. My son held the edge of the pool and looked up at me. I can still see the droplets of water on his little brown nose as he looked up at me, new front teeth just starting to grow in, his eyes glowing with a purity that still slays my heart when I peer back at that moment. “Mom,” he whispered conspiratorially with his lisp, “I get the WHOLE pool all to myself.”

“Take your brother and get in the camper and lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone but me.”

Yes. Yes, you do. This was the way that we chose to deal with it. Create a world where racism didn’t factor in. Great idea. On that same trip, we stopped at a little mom-and-pop gas station/store. We walked into the establishment where there were men sitting at the coffee counter. When they caught sight of my little brown boy, their eyes narrowed. We didn’t go looking for this type of thing. It was there whether we acknowledged its existence or not. We chose to turn a blind eye when we could. But sometimes, it was scary. Truly. At the coffee counter, one man bloated with his beer, fried foods, and hatred stood up and folded his arms, chewing on something he had hanging out of his mouth like Andy Capp. My older son felt it too. We were both scared. Take your brother, I whispered in front of the soda cooler handing him my cell phone, and get in the camper and lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone but me. They left. I gathered up the sodas and snacks as the smirking men at the counter made a point of directing all narrowed eyes on me. But we could choose to NOT give this kind of racism a spot in our lives for the most part. That’s what we thought. Privilege. It was well-intentioned, but it did not prepare my son for what it would take to live as an adult in this country as a person of color; it did not prepare him for the moment that a Boston police officer threw him up against the wall – not once but twice when he had both hands up, plainly stating that he was not resisting and had done every single thing asked of him. There’s so much more to that story, but it’s not mine, and I want to respect my son’s ownership of that moment which brought so many things into focus for each of us- and each in our own way.

The focus belongs on America’s soul… not on her clothes

Those are just snippets of my experiences – and on the scope of the horizon, my experiences PALE in comparison to that of others; they don’t even pop up as noteworthy. I don’t tell these stories so that ANYONE will say, ‘oh poor whit and poor whit’s family.’  Broaden that scope and look beyond these individual stories to a whole segment of our population that daily lives with this – and then extend that same compassion that you do to folks you know and are familiar with – to the folks that you don’t know…who live with it every day.  I tell these stories – please – to shine a light, open your hearts to the truth that this is the ugly sickness that America has in her bowels.  It really is out there – a hateful, dangerous racism – institutionalized and just plain rash base hateful racism. We are farther removed from it in Maine – although NOWHERE near as far as what we like to think. I saw evidence of this all summer long, and it nearly broke me. And this “leadership” with its snide smirking personas, just like those bloated men basking in their hateful ignorance, paved the path for it, condoned it. And sought to further denigrate a people by vilifying the ones brave enough to kneel down at the national anthem and the flag. This outgoing “administration” gave that underbelly a path…and that path morally desecrated MY flag, MY national anthem.  Morally desecrated it. I’m not a Christian. But I was raised one. And there are certain truths from that walk that echo in this heart. However, shalt have no other god before me. No idols. A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another …and I have to believe that – inherent in that mandate of love – is social justice.  When a piece of cloth and what it is supposed to stand for,  and a song become more important than lives, social justice, compassion, protecting one another, including one another – all of the things included in that new commandment of love and compassion that the Christian God Yahweh gave to his people – then your flag has become your idol just as surely as the square-jawed folded arm Baal was in the Bible admonishments of my youth. When that flag and that anthem became more important than humanity, social justice, and the kneeling prayers of voices asking to be heard in a country that they helped to facilitate every victory of – it was no longer my flag and what it once stood for, and I could not with any sort of pride fly it.  The focus belongs to America’s soul…not on her clothes.

I have a black brother by another mother named Jamie. (shameless plug – our podcast coming soon: A HalfAssed Buddhist & A Jesus Freak Walk Into A Bar – conversations on race and spirituality) And one day when he was helping me to hold the rage of my moment, something he should not have to do but that he open-heartedly and willingly does…these days, there is nothing that gives me strength more than his prayers and his Georgia self booming on the other end of the phone “Baby Doll – I gotchya back!” One day he stopped me in my tracks with a simple question. – What would you do? He asked it quietly. The pause in his quiet question was like the sudden stop of a storm and the sun burning itself through the clouds. What would you do? Kneeling at the national anthem and the flag is bad. Looting is certainly bad. So – what would you do? And I knew. I would have given up a long time ago. I would have given up hope, and I would have taken a bow and exited stage left because I’m a fragile coward that way. Today. No one can truly be honest about this question unless they really have lived it. I have not. But I know that I nearly gave up hope this summer. And that’s why you see my beloved family members come to the fore.

Your great-uncle died for our country. Sadly, it doesn’t give him or his descendants any more claim to the flag and its meaning than anyone else’s ultimate sacrifice. (And I am not assuming that anyone feels that way in this thread – I’m just saying) My son fought for this country too. Three tours to Iraq, a piece of shrapnel from a suicide bomber still in his arm, lost brothers, and some memories to last a lifetime.  He has his own little brown boy that calls me Yaya. He signed up to fight and protect a country where he could raise his son safely. Where his son could go for a jog safely, walk through a neighborhood safely, where he could even break a rule or law and could expect to be treated fairly and his rights protected. If anyone doubts the usurpation of the flag by violent, racist factions – go to one protest. Just one. It’s like that flag had become the moral ground on which these people rationalize the marginalization and violence toward people of color. It was no longer a thing of beauty; it was a thing that some folks were using to thump others with, to be in your grill. If you say, Black Lives Matter, you’re anti-flag, anti-American, anti-police. If you kneel at the flag or the national anthem because you recognize the heartbreaking truths that it is coming to represent – you’re anti-flag, anti-American, anti-police. Plain and simple…it no longer held any truths to be self-evident…one nation…under god…and that’s why I could not fly the flag until today. I could not listen to the national anthem without shedding tears of utter anguish. Until my black brothers and sisters, my black sons and daughters, my black grandsons and granddaughters are acknowledged and protected in the same manner that I am, I could not fly that flag. That beautiful, morally desecrated flag. But now we got a shot at moving forward, at healing. I have hope! I watch that flag in my rearview mirror fluttering as I drive too fast on the campground. I literally see it, and there is an ache of hope in my chest, and I can’t stop smiling because hope will do that to a body.

In the end, as some have said, Donald Trump might have been one of the greatest gifts this country has ever had. He called the ugliness out from under the rocks where it has been hiding in plain sight, and it can never go back. He made us more aware of the need for compassion by being the ugly, ignorant bully that he has chosen to be. He made me more aware of my privilege than I ever would have been because his denigration of the values of this country and its flag made it necessary to stand up. And so…ALLa that is why I could not fly the flag…but now I can. And I hope to hoist it higher and higher. And once again, I am moved to tears of utter joy and pride when I hear that national anthem was sung.

Thank you for the opportunity to examine for me my own reactions and to pump the brake and try – to the best of my ability –  to be the change that I want to see in the world. Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to educate rather than rage and run. So pointless. So useless.  –I lost my way this summer. The waves of hate and ignorance, and intolerance reverberated even in the woods. And being angry is so much easier than just allowing the hurt. I have become angry. May grace (both the dog and the state) guide me as I honestly examine where I can do better, where I need to see more clearly, and where I can be a force for unity and love.

May we ALL – together – move forward in healing.