Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Learning to Be Sensitive

I'm sitting here, staring into space, literally. I look out the window and see the lights from a plane blinking across my little arc of sky. My cat Blitz plays with the CD rack, threatening to pull a whole pile of them down onto himself. That would not be good. It would be a setback to any progress he's made toward feeling secure. Still, it seems like it's a setback to tell him no. When I say the word, he flattens out and runs away from the CD rack, yet another thing in the house for him to fear. I hate that he's so fearful in our little house.

I just finished reading 'So You Want to Talk About Race' by Ijeoma Oluo, an incredible book, one that should be read by every high school student for a start. It should be on every library list of must-reads.

I figure it's the continuation of my self-education in social justice. W. Kamau Bell was the funny teacher who's lessons you love and soak in as much as you can. Phoebe Robinson is the poetry teacher and she speaks in metaphors and rifs you think you understand but don't, not yet. Michael Eric Dyson is that great professor whose class you audit and you sit in the back of the lecture hall feeling his booming oration wash over you and hope that some of it sinks in. Ijeoma Oluo is the teacher who speaks clearly, sets clear rules for the class and your life, and puts you on a different path. She blindfolds you, spins you around, and when she pulls the blindfold off your eyes, you're walking in a different direction. At least I hope I am.

Oluo spent a lot of time explaining that we might not intend to hurt with our micro-aggressive comments, but that it hurts just the same because so many people do intend to hurt. Like that time I sang in the lobby of my dorm room freshman year and some tiny blonde girl asked me, with such a snarky attitude, why I sang like a black woman. It was intended as an insult, so I was insulted. But the right answer, I realize after all these years, would have been for me to turn to her and say, "Thank you." Instead, I lowered my head, walked out of the lobby, and hid in the library until I calmed down. I never sang at that school again.

That was a micro-aggression, but it wasn't about me. It was about racism. The part I needed to work the hardest to understand, how a well-meaning white person could screw up so easily, was how I became a part of that racist circus when I didn't say anything back to that tiny blonde racist girl.

It wasn't the first or the last time I screwed up. It wasn't. 

After I read Michael Eric Dyson's book last fall, I still didn't get it. I got so excited to finally have a place to put my feelings and questions about race that I wrote him an email. I got an automatic reply. That bothered me. Didn't he want to engage in the conversation about his wonderful book?

But even that expectation was a micro-aggression, to expect a busy author to take the time to educate me personally. I still wish I could apologize to him.

So Oluo's book spelled it out for so many of us privileged white people. If a person of color is insulted by something stupid we've said, then we can't try to say we didn't mean to hurt so it shouldn't hurt. I've had that very same argument with my husband when his jokes fell flat and hurt my feelings. It was early in our marriage. We were learning.

I finally told him that I was already damaged and his comments, knowing me the way he did, made me damaged all over again. And he stopped. Now and then, I have that same conversation with my son. I don't allow either of them to tell me not to be so sensitive. That is the point, isn't it?

So, I'm still going to make mistakes regarding social justice, but maybe I can understand cultural sensitivity a little better the more I look for answers in the books I read.

I just wish I could manage some wisdom with my little cat.

Thank you for listening, jb

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