1/6/21

Wednesday. You know the deal - a white mob full of hate symbols targeted primarily at Black and Jewish people were let into the capitol where they defaced and pillaged property, planted bombs and generally posed a direct threat to, well, America. Despite the lavish amounts of tax dollars going into military and national security, the rampage went unchecked for hours until Nancy Pelosi personally called the governor of VA and their National Guard was finally sent in. New information and footage of the attack is still being released regularly if you need more specifics. 

It is white privilege that the blood of these white terrorists did not run down the steps of the capitol and their white families were not holding funerals. I don't have enough words to express my rage about this, and my demographic is not typically assaulted and murdered by law enforcement at unfair rates, so I am moving on.

It is also white privilege that you, my white readers, the average white American that has not committed a crime, is able to go about your day without coworkers or classmates or random people of color attacking you for being anti American. You will not get your hair and backpack "randomly" searched for explosives, either. Please feel free to leave me a comment on what it's like not to be racially profiled - I'm genuinely curious.

It is also white privilege to try to distance yourself from "those" white people. We need to be supporting people of color, especially Black and indigenous people while they struggle for their right to live and drink clean water etc. and when it is safe to do so, we need to be challenging vitriol as it arises in our daily lives. Seeking validation that you are a "good" white person who didn't loot the capitol is a harmful, white-centering waste of time.

It is also white privilege to see displays of white supremacy as separate, isolated incidents. White media wants you to think that racism is the occasional Black person getting shot every couple months. People of color actually experience a variety of race-related injustices on any given day. White supremacy is pervasive for us, and we need you to stop blaming 2020 and start taking accountability for your role in dismantling it. 

I also want to highlight some sensitivities regarding the word terrorism. I have seen some people, mainly Muslims, express concern that an outcry on "terrorism" or "domestic terrorism" will turn into a frenzy of anti-Muslim, anti-brown hatred as seen following 9/11. I have also heard other people of color, including other Muslims, push back by saying that slavery and the things we have done to our Indigenous peoples is nothing less than white terrorism, and should be called as such. Instead of pitting minorities against each other by picking a side, I encourage you to listen/read what people of color have to say about this and if you choose to use the word like I have while waiting and learning, make sure you specify "white" terrorism.

I could go on, but I need to make dinner. I hope this has helped you process some of the many problems with our nation's predicament and helped broaden your understanding of how you benefit from white privilege.

Election Breakdown

 Hello and sorry I'm late...! I'm sure we're all breathing a little easier after the results of the election came in, after a few weeks or months (or years?) of tensely waiting for the opportunity to vote out our immoral golfer in chief. It was, as a friend put it, a life or death election and I see nothing wrong with celebrating the fact that we as a nation chose life. 

Of course, I can't just pass up an opportunity to add some race-related commentary! Let's start with the voting statistics themselves. First, all people of every color voted overwhelmingly (more than 60%) for Biden. And based on the electoral college system, people of color saved America in key states like Arizona (Navajo nation), Pennsylvania and Georgia (Stacey Abrams, among who knows how many unnamed Black organizers). Thanks also to all the unnamed and, in some cases undocumented, immigrants who translated ballots and voter information for their families, community members, social media followers, etc.

Incidentally, I find it flat out offensive that white people, especially those who identify as liberals, are still harping on the fact that "so many" Latinos or "so many" Black men voted for Trump, or "against their own best interests". I'll explain.
1. A statistically insignificant number of people of color voted for Trump compared to the TENS OF MILLIONS of white people who voted for Trump. Why isn't that number making the headlines? Have we fallen so low as a society that it's acceptable that all these white people voted against humanity, never mind their own best interests?
2. People of color are not a monolith. Some people of color wanted to vote against Biden because of what Obama did to their home countries. Some people of color are evangelical Christians (thanks to white colonialism). Some people of color come from conservative countries regardless of white colonialism. Some people of color benefited from Trump's tax breaks in the time of covid. Some people of color don't understand much English and were taken advantage of/lied to. For some people, these issues outweigh the racism, xenophobia, immigration barriers, etc. This leads me to:
3. Being white and/or having a college degree does not mean you know or get to decide what someone else's best interests are. So you can sit around and sneer "why the f would they do that?!!???!?!?!?" or you can sit around and say "hm, I wonder what Trump said or did that appealed to them? If I listen to their needs, I can try to address them and contribute to making a better society for everyone.".

If you were wondering, yes, I do think that last statement needs to apply to white Trump supporters. After listening to countless (predominantly white) Trump supporters on the radio since he first ran for president in 2016, it's been clear to me that they are feeling backed into a corner. What is Trump saying that appeals to them? Mexicans are rapists and murderers. The Chinese are stealing our jobs, and giving us kung flu. We'll protect you if your religion hates gay people. Don't bow down to socialist healthcare. We'll only let 15,000 refugees into this country. Don't let Black people take away your police! Law and order, folks! And of course the way he says it appeals, too - more often than not, his supporters will talk over the other interviewees and moderators etc in a way that implies that they're right and everyone else is beneath them, even when they're lying. I've gotten so frustrated, I've had to shut my radio off. 

That being said, the hatred needs to be addressed. A critical mass of people living in this country are living in fear because Trump has made us a scapegoat. So how are you going to address this? Writing postcards around the election was touted as this great thing that you could do to make a difference, but I want to know how many of you wrote postcards to people outside your political party, and how many of you wrote postcards about something uplifting or humanizing, and not voting. And I do support using mail, because we need to support the USPS and we need to remain covid conscious (to make up for all the people who are NOT being covid conscious). But it seems to me like the White Liberal cares more about Black and marginalized votes than they care about Black and marginalized lives. And if that's true then what are you going to do to fix that, and if it's not true then what are you going to do to prove it?

Thanks for reading, and please stay safe and sensible around the holidays. "Killing everyone off with covid" is not a viable solution for racism.

More Important Than White Fragility: White Rage

 OK, time for my monthly post lol. As you can guess by the title, I have found a more useful book for you to read about racism, and it's called White Rage by Carol Anderson. I haven't actually finished it yet, but within about 5 words, I was already drawn in. The book is one laundry list of "legal" action that white people have taken to preserve their superiority over the African American starting with the end of our civil war. I think laundry list is an unfair term because the book is brilliantly organized, but I hope it conveys the sheer volume of crimes committed against Black humanity. The presidents that we were taught "weren't so bad" or "were basically good guys" sided with Trump-esque politicians who wrote or manipulated laws to keep Black people in their "place". From incarcerating legally "emancipated" Black folks for vagrancy to massacring Black folks in their homes to interrupting the Great Migration by pulling Black people with tickets off trains to refusing to allow Black people to receive education, the real character of the white person has been put into words.

The most interesting takeaway for me so far has been the title, White RAGE. Like most of us, I was taught to see the KKK as a mob of angry, raging white men who ran around in white sheets setting Black people on fire. Then Martin Luther King had a dream and Rosa Parks sat on a bus, etc. But an underlying theme of this country, and therefore this book, is that white people become ENRAGED when they see Black people elevating themselves, and will do anything they can to ensure that Black people stop elevating themselves. Racism against Black people has been made legal for centuries and it's about time we recognized that.

Oh, and were you thinking that you had nothing to do with the past? That none of this is your fault because you didn't know this was going on, you weren't taught about this before and you think this system is vile and you reject it? Sorry, but there's no jail pass for the white person's conscience. Whether you like it or not, you have social and economic power that you do not deserve, and it's up to you to figure out how to redistribute it. 

I, for one, would love to see colleges and universities admit exclusively Black people for one year. Oof, I just HEARD your jaws clench! But think about it - companies are seriously claiming they can't hire Black people because they can't find "qualified" Black candidates. Oh, and did you think that there might not be enough qualified Black students to get into all these colleges? Well, what percentage of these Black students might become k-12 teachers, and make sure that Black children are not cheated out of an education like they have been for centuries? I get it. It's easier to hate all the Chinese international students who are making it harder for your little Timmy to get into Harvard than it is to destigmatize community college, or to raise the minimum/working class wage to something we can actually live on. So it would also be easier to continue to say "look, 6% of our freshman class was Black this year, up from 4% last year!! We're so excited, we put up a Black Lives Matter banner!" than it is to admit at least 99% Black students. 

So since you probably didn't like my idea, tell me what ideas you have. I'm not white, so I'm really not a direct cause of the problem. Asians do, of course, have our own complicated role in racism and anti-Black sentiment, but we can talk about that after you've told me what power you plan on giving up to the people your ancestors stole it from.

Thoughts on Self Education

I've been watching my white friends talk about all the anti-racism books they've read recently, or are going to read soon - primarily on social media. On the one hand I'm jealous. Farm workers don't have a lot of spare time or energy for reading! I am also impressed - a lot of you can now quote people I've only seen on the best-seller lists, and this is a pleasant change from 5 years ago, when I was struggling at Clark because nobody wanted to acknowledge the volume of racism my peers and I were dealing with. 

I do, however, worry about how many people seem to be reading so they can check the books off a list. I am, of course, purely speculating. But as a person of color, you'll have to pardon me for being suspicious that some white people are really just hankering for confirmation that they are not racist without doing the unpleasant work of changing their hearts and minds. 

As a teacher, we always make learning objectives for every lesson. I think it would be cool if people started approaching at least some* books with the goal of learning something. For example, I started reading Just Mercy to learn more about our criminal justice system. I started reading The Hate U Give because I wanted to have a Black perspective on the murder of an innocent Black youth. And/or, if you're really not a fan of school, I still encourage you to make time to reflect on what you learned. For example, after I read The Hate U Give I actually journaled for a couple weeks about how many terrible assumptions I had been taught and accepted about Black families, and how glad I was that the Asian and Black characters decided to stand in solidarity with each other (fun fact: that is NOT portrayed in the movie. Go read the book!). Learning is usually more fun and fruitful if you do it with a friend, and depending on the situation, it can be a great way to start conversations about race with your children, or somewhat racist family member that you're on good terms with, or... whoever! 

I do say "sometimes" because I think it is important to normalize reading literature by and about people of color for enjoyment, not just education. But keeping that in mind, I think most of us Americans are still in the education phase (which is not a negative judgement), and processing what you learn is an important part of making hte lessons stick!
Happy reading!

What Can You Do Part 1

Hello! I tried to fix the formatting of the last post so that you didn't have to scroll too much to read the text that I had copied and pasted from a document of a different form... I hope it's easier to read now! 

When I wrote my talk, I was careful not to include action steps because I really am serious - I want people to think about what you can do with your own brain. But since I have something to say about pretty much anything, I have decided to share my thoughts on what you can, in fact, do. There are, however, two conditions:

1. Do not tell me that this isn't good enough. We as individuals can't individually fix the system, but we need to start somewhere. So... here's somewhere.
2. Do not tell me why you aren't doing it (if you aren't doing it). It's OK if you can't do everything you read on the internet. You probably shouldn't, anyways. But if you have the time to tell me you aren't doing it, you probably had the time to just do it.

With that in mind, my first suggestion is to call your senators and politicians regularly. At NEYM Sessions, I heard from Diane Randall herself - leader of FCNL - that our politicians do, in fact, like to hear from us - the humble and busy citizens. So we should write to them and/or call them regularly. I admit that I have used work as an excuse for being too busy to do anything, but I'm trying to make time to call or write to one politician once every other week. And when I get into that groove, I'm going to try to make it once a week.

Some of you may have seen posts on social media asking that we call to arrest the cops that killed Breonna Taylor, and I think that is essential. And I don't think there's anything wrong with continually calling and asking. But as much as I want justice for Ms. Taylor, I also want to see more money spent on education and food for children and other social services. So I am trying to call my politicians about a variety of topics that matter year-round in addition to the daily crises (police murder victims, a crumbling post office, etc). 

If this doesn't seem like enough, then I want to know what's stopping you from running for government office yourself!

Spoken on the Floor of Sessions

As mentioned, New England Yearly Meeting 2020 was focused on social justice with emphasis on anti-racism this year. Several individuals were asked to talk about our work in activism at various meetings for business, and was one of them! I have heard talk of these ministries being recorded and published somewhere, but I think everyone on sessions staff is recovering (as they deserve to). I am putting the words that I spoke here for you to read in the meantime. Most of you know me and can imagine my dramatic public speaking. 

Sorry it's so long, but I was asked to speak for 10 minutes (I don't think I took that long? But anyways)...!

 ...........

Non-violence is an important value of Quakerism. It always has been. So I feel like it’s an important thing to address today. I want to start by sharing a quote from Coretta Scott King; I want to publicly acknowledge Johnny Williams from Mt Toby Friends Meeting for bringing this to my attention!

In a speech in 1967 she said, “I must remind you that starving a child is violence. Neglecting school children is violence. Punishing a mother and her family is violence. Discrimination against a working man is violence. Ghetto housing is violence. Contempt for poverty is violence.” 

Back in 2016, I participated in City Year Boston; an Americorps program. I was placed in a trope-ic underfunded school full of poor people, immigrants, undocumented immigrants and limited resources, and I would describe my role as “extra body placed there to mitigate the chaos and run an after-school program.” For all you Bostonians, I was at the Hennigan K-8 in Jamaica Plain. This experience was rewarding but intense, and I will be drawing from it now to illustrate some of Mrs. King’s points. 

Since I was working in a school, it seems fair that I address her point about neglecting school children first. Most of my role as a City Year (a weird noun, but it’s what we used) was to work with a classroom teacher. Unfortunately, I was placed with one of those teachers who really need to retire. I did get the sense that she was a caring, interesting teacher at some point in her career, but by the time I met her, she was barely either of those things. My memory of the first day is that we sat around and introduced ourselves and she passed out one worksheet and then spent the next three hours on her phone. The majority of the year was spent like this; she would acknowledge the class when they showed up, and take attendance. If we were lucky, she would pass out something like a worksheet. Then she would retreat to her desk and sit on her phone and… within one to twenty minutes, my students were all bored and entertaining themselves in non-academic ways. Naturally the noise level would rise, and she would yell at the easy targets - the Black girls and the boys with ADHD - before returning to her phone. If she taught a lesson, it was often full of misinformation. Like one time, she said that the prefix “im” means to stop. So to migrate means to move around, and to immigrate means to stop moving and stay where you are. And she would forget which students didn’t understand English, and get mad at them for not listening. If, of course, she made the time to interact with them. 

There were other caring teachers in the building who were good at their jobs, and I tried to follow their example by teaching lessons of my own when I could. But when I tried to advocate for myself and my students, City Year told me I was not in an ideal situation and I should just do small-group sessions with a few students, the administration made it clear that they couldn’t do anything because of her tenured status and the teacher herself made it clear that the real problem was that our students’ mothers were crackheads. 

Several mothers actually showed up over the course of the year to investigate the lack of learning. Sometimes they made appointments; sometimes they showed up at the door. None of them seemed remotely high on anything. My teacher abused her power as the white teacher talking to these Latina and Haitian and Somalian moms, downplaying their concerns, telling them their children (who usually functioned as interpreters) were making good progress. And then telling me afterwards that these concerned mothers were just crackheads. Punishing a mother and her children is, as previously stated, violence. 

I want to remind you that in 2016, Trump got elected. I imagine this was a troubling time for most of you. I would like you to know that this was a terrifying time for the immigrant families in my school. The day after the election, I remember walking downstairs into the cafeteria to greet students, and being met with chaos. Usually, large groups of children sound like noise. That morning, the noise was full of fear and tears. Not first-day-of-school tears, desperate tears. A few younger children were refusing to let go of their parents, and school staff were floating around presumably trying to reassure people. I remember one of my students waving me over and saying hi. Normally her dad would walk her and her two younger brothers to school. That day, he was sitting on the bench next to a woman I’d never seen before. “Is that your mom?” I asked my student. She said yes. She also said, “Normally she doesn’t have time to come to school, but today she thinks we should be home packing in case we get deported later this week.” I was rattled. How much of this fear was related to families being split up due to deportation? Then, the mother started speaking to my student in Spanish, which I took as my cue to leave them and rejoin the frenzy of students yelling “Ms. Lindo, we lost!” and “Our president is racist now! How could this happen?”. 

And in January, almost immediately after inauguration, some of my students’ fears were realized when Trump passed his Muslim ban. While the news cycle blew up with the story of the MIT student from Iran, my Somalian students - and probably many others - were cut off from the family members who had not immigrated. Their stories flew under the radar. Thankfully we didn’t lose any of our students, but I know the issue kept everyone on edge. I am not familiar with our country’s history of deportation from the 60s, but after my witness that year I think that ripping families apart would be a good addition to Mrs. King’s list of systemic violences. 

I’ve been thinking about non-violence this summer. “I only support the non-violent protests!” has become a refrain for my liberal white friends here in New England. We have the Civil Rights Movement as a model for how to gently insist on having rights, and it worked reasonably well, so it makes sense to like it. I am including myself in this “we” because I was raised and socialized by white people, and I do think nonviolent protests play an important role in our society! 

But I was drawn to this quote from Barrington Dunbar as it appeared on the NEYM instagram page the other day: 

“Black people living in the ghettos of American cities… cannot hear Friends who profess the way of love and nonviolence, but yet maintain a destructive silence in obvious situations of social injustice.” 

So what do we mean when we say “I only support the non-violent protests”? Do we mean “I am uncomfortable with the images of buildings on fire” or do we mean “I am ready to dismantle systemic violence”? 

I know the systemic violence is overwhelming. Mrs. King’s list was long, and I just added to it! I left that City Year feeling utterly discouraged because 22-year-old me could not make up for what my students deserved. But it is empire that wants us to feel discouraged and it is empire that wants us to stop trying because we haven’t done enough yet. It is in our power to stop listening to empire and start listening to each other. We have heard ministry and non-violent activism from Friends among us this week in feeding the hungry, providing for local communities, changing unjust government and so much more. So I ask, what are you willing to do? This is a big question, and it will take time to answer. I encourage us to sit with it and let Spirit and all the resources you have heard this week guide you to find your answer.

A Brief Check-In

Hello. I'm very sorry for my absence. I am moving in 2 days and I am also preparing for the NEYM Sessions gathering which also starts in 2 days. While working on the farm. And slowly sweating to death. If you haven't registered for sessions yet... well, it might be too late but I would really love it if you did. This year is going to be on zoom, which will be weird but also cool because there are different sessions at various times of the day so there should be some time for you. Plus also, I am speaking at the meeting for business on Saturday the 8th, so if you like hearing me open my mouth and you want to hear my personal call to action, you should sign up! If not... I'll probaby post my talk (or an abridged version; it's supposed to be 10 minutes) here anyways.

OK, off to go write said talk. It's been a long time since I've had to actually structure what I'm writing... Wish me luck!

The plan is for me to write more regularly after this week of sessions!

This post is sponsored by Lots Of Ice Cream.