[new subtitle added in Nov 2024]: searching for one’s dog
This morning I looked in the spiritual mirror and realized I was a bigot. Not a blowhard, Nazi sort of racist, but a deep, dark hidden kind of one. And I realized, that if I am, then lots of other people likely are too… whether they know it or not: ignorantly privileged.
For a little background: I am a middle-aged, middle class, liberal, definitely left-leaning white woman who supports gay marriage, protests un-compassionate policies, and fights for feminism. I am all for fairness, social programs that lend a helping hand, and wanting my tax dollars to be spent on people who have less than me. I support programs that protect us from chemicals in our water, collective stupidity, environment travesties, and big business. I have friends of many stripes, and would never, ever have considered myself racist.
But this morning, an ugly view of myself smacked back at me from between the wiper blades of my soccer-mom minivan: I pulled out of my driveway and saw a black man on the sidewalk, looking toward the back of a house that belonged to a neighbor, and I seized into a round of biased, fear-based thinking.
“I wonder what he’s doing?” “He doesn’t live there.” “I shouldn’t have left my outgoing mail so visible, now that gift card is going to get stolen,” and several other grace-less thoughts powered through my brain. I wasn’t feeling generous, or even neutral. I was judgey like you wouldn’t believe.
I also realized that dozens of high school kids walk in front of my house every day and I don’t so much as sniff about whatever mail or Netflix wrappers are hanging out of the mailbox.
So, no matter how enlightened I consider myself. No matter how open-minded or fair I think I am, I am still a product of white privilege and possess bigoted thinking that rears up at simple moments like these. I’m not sure where they even come from in that my upbringing was pretty liberal, tolerant too.
These very same kind of thoughts are the ones that make me embarrassed to have meaningful conversations with people who are “different” than me, even though I believe we are all in this together. These racist thoughts make me uncomfortable with myself. The thoughts make me feel bad, and petty, and stupid, so usually I don’t like to feel them at all. I ignore, and carry on with my pretty little world view and liberal thinking, telling myself I am a better person than I am. So, I applaud Colin Kaepernick. I rail against regimes that don’t speak for everyone, and I keep on keeping on. Feeling “good” about myself.
As I write this post now, I wonder if this embarrassing, secret kind of racism — this tiny, quiet white privilege thinking— is why so many middle class white women were willing to vote for someone who was overtly racist while shouting the whole time that they themselves are not. It’s an ugly view of oneself that I bet most people would rather not see. It’s definitely worse than uncomfortable.
As I’ve been on my ‘spiritual adulting’ program, of course, this had to kick up in my pie-laden face. Thanks a lot, spiritual adulting. Now I have to be better, or at least more honest.
So this post is simply my way of being sober about myself. I can stop wondering why we got to where we are with Mr. “I won’t help the brown folk” 45. Maybe if I can be honest with myself and become a more clear, more authentic person, we can improve collectively? Maybe just acting and voting for equality is enough? Maybe not.
So what actually happened as I got to the spot on the sidewalk where the man stood? What did I do? What did I see?
I saw his dishevelment, and his expression of fear, and his posture, and I recognized it immediately.