White History Week

It's White History Week in Albuquerque. I missed the opening gathering Wednesday night, but last night I made it to the "White Racism: We Can End It!" forum, hoping that perhaps people with productive ideas would have a platform to speak out about what can be done to start ending racism.

I was disappointed when I arrived to find maybe twenty people present, easily fifteen of whom were of the well-intentioned white liberal persuasion. Turned out that the core group who had shown up were New Mexico's assembly of white people against racism, whom I've never heard of despite being pretty involved with social activism in the city already. There were two people of color present who were involved in that group, and two who had arrived separate from that group. The kid orchestrating the whole thing was another white guy, who liked to stress things like "openness" and "vulnerability." Snore. We literally sat in a circle and listened as Well Intentioned White Liberal Guy (we'll just call him "the host" from here on out) told us how the evening was going to progress, and proceeded to send us off in pairs to talk for two minutes each about cute little topics like "Something you are proud of," or "What it would be like to really show yourself." I refrained, at the time, from expressing my frustration to be paired up with another white lady talking about things we're proud of and how open we are in our lives; they were all very nice people. The thing is that practically everyone I know is a white person of questionable good intent and pardon me for not giving a shit what we are all PROUD OF.

I'd invited a white-boy amigo of mine to accompany me to the forum, as we had been going head-to-head over race issues recently, and he's frighteningly blind to such things; comfortable with his white privilege. He checked out the website, and then refused to attend because he was offended by a blurb he saw on their website reading: "White people created racism, and it is our job to end it." I didn't have the opportunity before leaving to explain what *I* thought the author of the statement had been intending to convey, but as the author was the host, he was given a chance to explain himself later on in the evening.

The third dyad was about what had actually brought us to the forum. I explained to my dyad-partner that I am involved with social activism and that feminism had been my pet project for quite some time; that only recently had I started getting involved with racism and realizing that of all the -isms there are to be oppressed by, the only thing I've really got going against me in this white, heterosexual, able-bodied, cis-gendered, male dominated capitalist society is that I'm female. Feminism is a huge and worthy cause, but I do believe that racism is a cut above, as it oppresses people INCLUDING women on such a grand scale. So we re-grouped and the host asked us to share. I didn't bother, but the one other PoC who had arrived on his own, an asian college kid, stepped up to bat and stated that he'd been curious. He mentioned the blurb on the website that my friend had earlier been offended by, and gave the host a chance to explain that.

Being another individual whose eyes have been steeped in white privilege from the moment I dropped out of the womb, I'd read the statement and understood that OPPRESSION was the topic at hand. My mind translated it to "White people perpetuate oppression," but I didn't understand who he meant by "ourselves" when he said "it is our job to end it." [emphasis mine.] He pretty much stated the same thing and that was that, but I had to wonder how many other people felt alienated and didn't attend the forum because of that statement; who's curiosity might not have been enough to get them past that, and who might have actually benefited from this kind of thing (who knows). Our host never did explain who he was talking about when he said "our job." While it's nobodys job to make a forum comfortable for the white people to attend without feeling threatened, I got the impression that the host had actually directed the message to the white folks in the community, and had inadvertently created another white space for white people to gather in. SIGH.

He constantly requested that the people of color within the group speak first. I understand that in our culture, PoC rarely get to go first at anything (aside from being test subjects, or whatever unpleasant task is at hand) but it seemed a little presumptuous of him to assume that anyone would WANT to speak first. Who ever wants to speak first? It's intimidating to be in the spotlight, and certainly no one else in the group was volunteering... It seemed like he was constantly sort of eyeballing this one older gentleman (who was NOT part of the core group), dragging the spotlight over and sort of pressuring him to speak. Sometimes he did; mostly he didn't, but I found that a little grating. It was like our host was saying "*I* want to hear from you, so *I* would really love it if you would speak first." After the second dyad which literally was "What would it be like to really show yourself," he was eyeballing that one older PoC so hard that it seemed like the guy felt obligated to speak up, and that, I feel, sort of defeats the purpose. Sure, make space for people... But stop with all the pressure! Who wants to be first to really SHOW themself?! It seemed like the host was pressuring the guy to do a performance for us, which NO ONE was obligated to do!

I found myself disappointed to be paired with an older white guy for one of the dyads when the question was something like "what has been your experience with racism" or something like that. It was my go to speak first, and I took the opportunity to complain about how this gathering was 65% white and not what I was hoping for at all, which was probably annoying of me. When it was his turn though, I was pleasantly surprised. He's involved with prison reform; had come from the northwest working in prisons which he said was like "the end of racism," I think. Perhaps not the "end" but whatever word he said, I didn't get it and asked for clarification, and he told me about the anger that people have (naturally) in our culture-- how HE'S obviously angry about racism, but not nearly as angry as many PoC are, and how a black guy will get arrested and sent to prison for doing something that he could get away with "at least the first time." It was actually kind of nice to talk to someone who's active outside of the "talking circle" hand-holding sort of setting. (All the same, since the white guys have all the power in this world, I feel that this is basic human decency and that we should be able to take for granted that more people like him would wake up and get involved with making things better, but that's probably a rant for another time.)

When it was all over, we went around and were granted fifty seconds (on the stopwatch, no lie) to talk about how it felt to have been there. I passed, and passed again when at the end our host offered the floor to me again, but I was a little grossed out how much self-congratulation seemed to be present there, with people feeling OH SO HOPEFUL just from having sat around in a circle with nineteen other (primarily white) people chit chatting about our feeeelings for two hours. Then everyone started applauding the host for putting it all together and being such a sweet little moderator and I was ready to go. Pet yourself on the back everyone... you've done very near nothing at all.

The core-group I mentioned exists with the purpose of ending white racism in the area. I'm interested in joining up to see if their other meetings are more productive (and if maybe the group actually contains more PoC), but when I inquired they told me that you have to take this 16 week "co-counseling" class in order to join, which sounded a little weird to me; extraneous for one, and exclusionary for two--another accidental route to keeping the group from growing at all. I have no reason to think it wouldn't be anything but more of the same; little workshops on how to actively listen; how to remain open and non-judgmental and keep an interested expression on your face while listening. (I'm not kidding; our host really stressed the importance of looking pleased while the other person was speaking.) I've got very little patience for that kind of stuff, really. Interested yes, but not intrigued, based on what I saw last night.

That evening, I ended up sitting on the couch with my white-boy friend for the next two hours breaking down what it is I see about him that is actually racist, why busting out the "I have black friends/ I dated a black girl" statement is a bullshit way of saying "I'm not racist," why it's not the business of PoC to instruct him, why it's a cop-out to try and say he's still a little uneducated kid when it comes to such things, and promising to share more resources with him to help open his eyes. The talk was completely exhausting, even with a white guy who says he wants to understand, and I feel like I gained a little more understanding of why PoC get so goddamn frustrated so much of the time and just walk away. It shouldn't be their job to sit around and spoon-feed us information on what to do, or what not to, and why stupid shit is NOT OK. It got late and I promised to email him some links to peruse on his own time.

I'll be going to the poetry slam on Saturday (it's called "Some of My Best Friends Are Poets" which cracks me up) and I think it will be fantastic. Local slam poet Hakim Bellamy will be there, along with a local poet Andrea Serrano who's work I really admire. I think it will be eye-opening and I'm planning to bring this kid with me.