Even though I don’t use “The Daily Prompt” on WordPress anymore because I’ve done them already (when I do, I use the official plugin). I think I’ve been able to do a handful of them, picking up any I missed in 2023. Today’s is “what are you curious about?” I took it to AI and said “I’m interested in intelligence and diplomacy. Can you help me narrow it down?” AI asked what I wanted to focus on and presented a list of topics. There was something in there about “cultural ambassadorship,” and 30 seconds later I’d made the connection I needed to make.
I told her that I was interested in cultural ambassadorship. How jazz musicians could have made wonderful intelligence officers if they’d been asked. Most of the time, when they were working for CIA, they didn’t know it. Nina Simone was hounded relentlessly regarding her civil rights activism, alternately being used for her musical gifts overseas.
Duke Ellington, though, has to take the cake. I have pegged him as a very natural choice for an intelligence officer and not because of jazz. Because of Langley. He grew up here. He was familiar with the rhythms of DC, he was familiar with the lingo, and everything was unconfirmed for a number of years. Ellington being CIA was not revealed during his lifetime, but it brings new context to the piece I wrote about after seeing Jason Moran in concert, “Black & Tan.”
In the blog entry of the same name, I talked about “Black & Tan” being a representation of some sort of storm. Written in 1926, a “black and tan” was a club where people of color could gather; these clubs were often targeted by the police, thus I was not wrong to think Jason’s interpretation was meant to convey anger and turmoil. Jason literally deconstructed music meant for a jazz club and made the piano sound like it was going to conquer the auditorium.
It reflects the life of a spy, because I’m sure it was difficult to be a star in a system that oppressed you (eyeroll. We didn’t give black people a choice to be American, so what does CIA matter?). Jazz lives in me just as much as CIA, another aspect of being nonbinary that feels like wrestling with God. I love stories about spies that do good work. I don’t love stories where the governments those spies work for is oppressing them. But if you are a minority, you’re going to be disrespected and used at any job. Why should CIA be new and different? People outside of DC forget that it’s a perfectly normal organization in terms of being so massive that it’s impossible to have a monolithic opinion of it or its employees. The military encourages “same.” Intelligence encourages “whatever the smartest thing to do is, do that.” Or, they like to think they promote that. They do a better job than other American agencies who have a completely US-centric version of the world.
Those are the type things that Duke Ellington would have seen up close- that being an American in America is different than being an American overseas. In some ways, being African American and traveling all over Europe would have had its benefits, because American racism is so intense. Getting a break from it must have been a relief in some ways, but not much time to enjoy it when you’re performing concerts at night and intelligence operations at all other waking hours.
It speaks to a broader conversation about intelligence in the arts. How it is indeed used to promote cultural ambassadorship, and not just by CIA. That’s an international thing. Intelligence is conducted by artists all the time. Other countries’ assets just have a habit of defecting.
In America, the word freedom is counterfeit kindness, because we can talk the talk better than anyone in the world. Who doesn’t know Americans are free? Meanwhile, you’re trapped as a minority or when you’re poor. You cannot fix your minority status with money in all cases. In the words of Chris Rock, “Clarence Thomas in a jogging suit can’t even get a cab in DC.” The horrible thing is that Clarence Thomas doesn’t have a problem with this. He does not want to show anything about him that makes him different. He wants to be the white, cis, straight, male ideal by dismantling all the racial protections around him, and he’s been bitter about Affirmative Action since college, because no one treated him like he got into school on his own merit.
I am FURIOUS at Thomas because of this, but I also cannot place blame on him, either. Wanting to uphold the system is borne of ENORMOUS pain. Just enormous. Just imagine it. “You’re not that smart. You’re only here because you’re black.” Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick you have GOT to be kidding me. White people fucked him up long before he graduated from college. It’s hard to imagine Thomas as a kid, but if you stand in that pain and really feel it, you can see why he’s such a mess today. Clarence Thomas didn’t go crazy all by himself. White people helped tremendously. If you cannot understand why that dude is COMPLETELY messed up, it’s because he’s trying to uphold a system not built for him AND saying that it doesn’t have to change because it was good enough to make him a Supreme Court judge. It’s the equivalent of being spanked.
You don’t realize as a child when you’re being spanked that it sets up how you’re going to treat other children for life……….. If you don’t go to a MOUNTAIN of therapy. As in, if you were spanked as a child, you probably think it’s okay to hit your kids, too. I mean, you turned out all right, right? The last time my mother spanked me was when I realized being hit was bullshit and I was bigger than her. I didn’t hit her back, or strike first. I was just strong enough to wriggle out of her grasp. My father spanked me, too, but that’s only when I was really little. As I got older and he could reason with me, this changed to deep discussions about behavior and consequences. Neither of them spanked me again. But was it abnormal of them? Of course not. It was like, 1981 or something. Different times, different prevailing attitude on discipline from experts.
Corporal punishment is the only institutional pain I can think of that transcends race and money. In Texas, my favorite way this is expressed is “boy, I am gon’ slap the white right off if you don’t behave.” I would never say that to a child now, but I heard it in the grocery store growing up…… Therefore, if the prevailing attitudes toward corporal punishment hadn’t changed and I’d become a parent, I probably would have spanked my kids, too. It didn’t start with me, it wouldn’t end with me. Culture changed around me.
And that’s what’s happening now. The institutional cycle of parents and children learning what it’s like to punish and be punished is something universal that just might explain the pain of institutional racism to white people. What white people don’t realize is that their hate toward minorities teaches minorities how to act amongst themselves. It takes a mountain of work to have self esteem when minorities just aren’t as good as white people and homosexuality is a sin and trans people don’t exist.
It’s really difficult for me to find a time when I’ve felt out of place, and not because I’m so confident I never do. It’s the opposite. It’s combing through every day of my life to figure out if I can remember a specific story about this, because feeling out of place is almost a continual state of being. I write with confidence and self-assuredness because I am not dealing with social anxiety while I type. You are getting how I sound when I’m alone… not when I’m trying to balance all the energetic forces in a room.
In public, I tend to go out with one person or perhaps meet up with two or three friends at a time. I do not like to go to parties very much, because I find that I only have one mood that likes to party and I don’t know how to get there. I have just been at a party and sometimes enjoyed myself without knowing what I did to deserve the favor. I like overhearing conversations more than I like participating in them. People are interesting to me, and if I don’t know them at all and just overhear them, it’s impossible to identify them on this web site. You won’t meet them, because I don’t even know who they are.
So, to the people at Starbucks and the zoo, I’m listening (trying to bring you Niles and Frasier Crane realness here). I honestly believe that I’ve become a blogger to learn to handle my shit because walking around and hearing everyone else and having my mirror neurons go off makes me feel tired and low-energy. I hurt for what I see around me, particularly homelessness. If I ever have cash, I won’t by the time I get home. That’s because I carry cash a quarter to never and when I do it’s only two or three dollars at a time. I will give it to anyone who asks, because since I don’t carry cash, I don’t often have the chance to give poor people money at all.
If I saw someone buying beer or cigarettes with it, more power to them. I don’t care. The gift was not in seeing what they did with it. The gift was seeing that I may have issues, but being kind is not one of them. But I also notice how long it’s been since they’ve had a shower and I take all that on, too. I empathize with Jacob who wrestled with God. Being empathetic doesn’t incapacitate me, but the struggle constantly disfigures my hip. My blog is a record of the scars.
One of the reasons I wish I’d gone to medical school is that balancing the energetic forces in a room and having your mirror neurons go off at everyone’s pain is the plight of the INFJ. I wouldn’t have gotten in to medical school because sciences and maths aren’t my gift, but I wish I had gone to gain clinical separation. It doesn’t stop an INFJ from doing these things, it just turns the volume down to a point we can take care of ourselves. Our nature says “give it all away.” I am learning to do it on my own just through the nature of becoming stronger in myself. I’ve felt so out of place not being the person to take everything on, and emotional strength is helping me create and maintain boundaries.
Those boundaries are more important to me now than they used to be, because what I’ve realized is that especially growing up queer in Texas I developed a habit of trying to be perfect in all things, do all things for others and not myself, so that people would overlook my deficiency……. because society and culture tells me that there is one. I have tried to be the queer version of the acceptable minority, and now my current favorite documentary is “I Am Not Your Negro.”
I am alive today because of James Baldwin. “Go Tell it on the Mountain” was assigned by my ninth grade English teacher and she had a pretty good idea what was up. I cannot imagine that a black woman teaching in Texas wouldn’t know what she was doing placing James Baldwin in the hands of high school students studying the performing arts. Like no one would pick up on the fact that she was surreptitiously trying to give us a hero without saying anything………….
In education, my experience is that it takes a black soul to reach out to a gay one. Not one of my white teachers ever gave me a gay author except one, and she wasn’t intelligent enough to realize Celie was queer as a three dollar bill (and couldn’t have said it that way even if she did). Because friends totally do that stuff with each other, right? It’s all normal. Totally and completely normal platonic behavior. The difference in tone at the two schools was stunning and had everyhing to do with context. It was like being taught about antiracism from Kendi and Coates, then having to live with Karen’s commentary on what she thinks they meant. Karen hasn’t had to deal with any of the shit on the list.
Black people dealing with internalized racism have a better sense of what internalized homophobia does to a person, and it shows. Sure, lots of black people spew hate at me, too, but it’s not personal. It’s been programmed into them by their churches and most don’t think they’re doing great harm because they think they’re helping me by telling me I’m going to hell.
But I could find that in the white church as well.
Evangelicals all suck, because the opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certainty (picked that up from Anne Lamott). For the people who aren’t evangelicals, we find common ground easily and often. It helps me find my place in the world to an enormous degree.
I am never trying to be egotistical, just trying to stop apologizing for my existence. I have the rights to thoughts and emotions. Freedom of speech, but not freedom from consequences.
When I sound egotistical on my web site, it does not mean that I am egotistical. The difference is that in person, I am only one piece of the conversation. I do not have a lock on anything except my memory of a situation. Ego doesn’t come into it except when I’m writing about the past. First, I am cognizant that this is only my perception of a situation, and others’ perceptions are just as valid. Second, it’s not your name in the author slot. It’s not my story because I’m all that, it’s my story because you didn’t write it.
I am also projecting confidence because I am aware that I am in front of an international audience, and people who are creating blowback are taking it personally a hundred percent of the time, often castigating me over a sentence that could be construed to have been about them because it reads universal, but it isn’t. Their egos are so involved it doesn’t matter what I say. I do not tolerate their foolishness because my opinion is just as valid as theirs, and I know my own intent. I also know when I’m wrong and I just sit there and take my lumps.
Those conversations generally center on “I AM SO FUCKING ANGRY AT YOU FOR SAYING SOMETHING TRUE IN A WAY I DIDN’T LIKE.” Not once has anyone come up to me and said, “now that I know the whole story, I really acted like an asshole and I’m sorry.” No, they show up on my doorstep full of spit and vinegar and I talk them down off the ceiling if I actually care about them. My tolerance is less these days because it doesn’t help me to have friends that care what I say here.
If I am talking about a univeral concept between abused kids, for instance, someone who is not abused will see it and turn the meaning inside out and backwards and now I’m a fucking terrible person for something I never said. That’s happened quite a lot, and made me feel out of place.
I’m going to close with a Kristina Mahr poem, because it encapsulates everything I’m trying to say to everyone who pops up here….. because generally when people are angry, it’s because I’ve said something that called them out for hurting me.
I had one of the most toxic conversations I’ve ever had with an ally because this time I could feel the anger instead of letting medication stuff it down. I also had enough strength to direct my emotions appropriately. I told her to fuck off and namaste.
I’m the proud mother of a gay daughter. But I’m also straight, single and well over a certain age. We live in a gay friendly town and never had any issues. The ONLY a reason I do not wear rainbows, is because it’s hard enough trying to meet a life partner without them assuming I’m gay. And I am not very good at telling when someone of either sex is attracted to me in that way. I can’t tell you how many times I didn’t know I was on a date with someone. Perhaps there should be a special symbol that means “I support and protect you even though I’m not one of you” . Give me some ideas and I’ll design it and make it.
I told Zac he could have anything he wanted if he went to this thread and started it with “as the man Leslie met (while she was wearing rainbow shit, I’ll grant you- it was terrifying)……………
This is after an entire thread on why straight, cis people are problematic because you can’t be an ally AND scream “no homo.” That comes out in a range of ways. This is exhibit A, because it’s an example of someone who:
Told me she had a gay child, so she can’t possibly be homophobic.
Wanted me to do work for her instead of looking it up.
Missed all the messages where I was trying to tell her that she doesn’t deserve safe space from me or anyone else because she doesn’t need it.
Didn’t listen when I said she’s probably saying all that shit around her child and actions speak louder than words. You know what will kill us? Literally? Telling us to our faces that it’s just too hard to be us, so let’s just not do it.
Didn’t listen when I said that people were being let into a sacred space. That for a lot of history, queer people have needed those symbols to find each other because we were trying to avoid having our skulls bashed in.
Reacted with straight fragility and said something about mental health issues and not needing this to push her over the edge.
It was a rehash of everything I was trying to tell The War Daniel, hopefully in a less angry tone, but this woman hit a trigger without even recognizing she was doing it. Straight people do this to queers all day, every day, because it’s enculturated behavior. I do not get to say I’m not a racist when I do racist shit accidentally all the time. Here’s where we’re different. I TAKE THE FUCKING NOTE.
She reminded me of my grandmother, Rena, who would have put this woman away. “You can’t help it that you’re ugly, but you could stay home.” I am finding the fuck out that I am more Rena than anyone in my biological family. She would fuck you up and bake you a pie. That’s a Texas yellow dog Democrat in a sentence. Tell horrible people to go to hell, but make sure they enjoy it.
She missed the part where I said that I realized I would have to leave Texas because my life was too hard there. I needed to live with real grown-ups. This kind of shit makes me want to settle in Canada or overseas, because it’s not that those countries are SO much more liberal, it’s that queer issues aren’t a thing EVERY election. They don’t have to worry about federal legislation EVERY two years…… and during that time, there will almost certainly be a naturally occurring event that will somehow become my fault. The queers absolutely ruined New Orleans. Remember? You forgive uneducated assholes because too few people care and we’ve made too many allowances for racist, homophobic, and transphobic behavior. I will never again kowtow to people who say they just can’t change. If being with me is important to them, they’ll change. Otherwise, I don’t have time for people who can’t get it in their heads that their homophobia actually hurts. It’s not innocuous and stop asking us to pretend it is. If I ever have to hear “he’s just so set in his ways,” that person is going to be driven out of the temple with a whip.
This person didn’t mention anything about the church, but it’s responsible for everything homophobia is today. The difference between being a sexual minority vs. a racial minority is that if I got black and white Evangelicals together, they’d all tell me to go to hell because I’m a sinner and I deserve it.
Straight, white, cis people are not the only issue here, Dude.
I don’t call out the black church as often as I probably should, because I’m not black. Those churches do not see me speaking with any authority because I’m not black, even though the minority I represent is present in every congregation everywhere. China. Russia. Iran. Uganda. It’s all the same. Skin color makes no difference to me because on this one issue you’re all equally terrible people.
I hate it when I say things like “I could have been killed in the Holocaust” and it STILL becomes all about them.
You can’t be an ally and scream “no homo.”
I don’t owe you safe space. You’re not in front of the firing squad.
Really all I want you to do is read my blog and listen to the story of my boyfriend and one-day husband, Daniel. Then boost the signal if you like what you read. However, I am not only checking in with you because of that. Just asking what I need up front in case you’re busy.
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First of all let me say that you are one of the people I love most in the world just for being you. I am proud to see that when you were acting, you took a huge risk and it paid off big. I take you as you are. All your crap because all people have it and your incredible capacity for love shows through every damn day. We are not strangers, but I doubt that you would remember me because we have not communicated since roughly 2003. You used to be one of my fans and on my Blogrolll (orwhatever). We exchanged comments a few times, and then when you published “Just a Geek,” I came to Powell’s on Burnside to get it signed (Or did you do Powell’s Technical Books that tour? I don’t remember). My blog back then was called “Clever Title Goes Here,” and when you matched a name to a face, you signed my book, “Dear Leslie, Clever Inscription Goes Here.” Those are such precious memories.
Are you tight with Anil Dash and Chason Chaffin? I remember you commenting on Chason’s web site as well, but he hasn’t told me if you stayed in touch. I’m a huge fan because you’re famous, and the way you got there was being well respected at craft. If you have any teaching experience in writing, I’m all ears.
I am definitely writing this to ask you a favor, but not one that’s hard for you……. yet impossible for me. I just need a tool that you have and I don’t. You’re famous, full stop, and you’re a well respected writer. I wrote a blog entry about my boyfriend winning a medal of valor that just left me emotionally spent, and it was short. If you like it, could you put it on blast?
I’m in Facebook Jail because a black girl called me “Raisin Potato Salad” and I took exception to that. She was clearly trying to insult me based on an hour’s conversation and she wore down my last nerve. I am a line cook. Food is life, and Africans/African-Americans have always been trailblazers In the kitchen. I said nothing racist, but she said something prejudiced. I said, “if you want to come at me with ‘raisin potato salad,’ you are messing with the wrong bitch. I’m from Houston, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world be cause it’s a port. We will throw down, and I will kick your ass sideways.” As my college roommate and soul sister would say, “I am a Christian and I also have no problem breaking your back tooth and praying later.” I don’t even want to tell you what she does for a living, but if she was queer, I would have married my life partner in 1999. This is because she’s already my life partner in a platonic sense, because she’s just one of the people I do life with and have since I was 20. Her daughter is a lesbian, and I said two things that are worth putting here in response to it.
The first was, “you know why your daughter’s gay, don’t you? God saw how you treated me and decided to give you a special girl of your own.” The second is hearing how she deals with homophobia. See above. “I need you to be my mom now. Fight for me the way you fight for her.”
My skin is white but I have a black soul when in comes to cooking because so many racist Southerners (only white ones. Racism is a system. People of color cannot even begin to create such a thing) eat the same shit and turn food into a ridiculous stereotype but only for POC.
Soapbox over. Rooting for you to win Celebrity Jeopardy. I think Ken Jennings is a hell of a guy. Never met him as a writer/content producer, but he’s bomb. Mayim Bialik is the absolute hottest choice known to God and man for this role. Fight me, although I know you won’t. Privately, rawr in the most respectful tone for the good doctor as possible.
If you have a minute, will you tell me what it was like to work with Gaiman once the adrenaline wore off? I’m not digging for dirt. I just want to learn what you learned about his craft, because I know you’re smart enough to have analyzed it by now. Actually, any stories you’d like to share with me about fellow creatives’ process would be wonderful. I’m very positive, not being a dick, wanting to be a student like watching Inside the Actor’s Studio every week even though I don’t act. These days I’m obsessed with carpentry and making check out Laura Kampf on YouTube- gay movies tend to suck because production values are low. So gays went to YouTube and made their own content. They own HGTV now, it’s just not on cable.
That’s what’s running through my mind as I’m discovering I’m not gay, I’m just queer. I’m writing through it. If you think of a project I’d be right for, I’d love to be in the writer’s room. I have legit no experience, but if T**** can be the president, I really don’t mind just shooting my shot and seeing what you say. Not willing to move to LA but would come and visit if you could pay. I don’t want your money. It’s just a tool you have that I don’t. I would also love a digital autograph I could use as the background on my tablet (not for publication ever in case you’re a privacy nerd like I am), also assuming that I’m not taking too much of your time.
All love, brother. I hope all is well. You seem good on the outside. Is that true? You okay?
I hope that you are not offended by my opening salvo, but one of my favorite shows on Netflix is “Dear White People,” and it seems rude not to write back. However, I am not here to be as flip and funny as that show. For instance, there will be no take-downs of shows that made me laugh so hard there were tears and snot running down my face. I hope and pray there will be no “white people are weird” moments, because I agree with you. I’m just here to talk about yesterday, and what it means for our collective futures.
I have said many times that no minority has the capability to be racist. Prejudiced, sure, but not racist. This is because racism is clearly a top-down, systematic, institution. No minority has the kind of power to create such a thing.
Though I would never compare my own struggle to yours, I feel so much empathy and sympathy toward it. Even though I’m as white and nerdy as they come, I am a woman and a lesbian, two things that have worked against me my entire career.
The one shining moment of equality that I’ve ever experienced was in Texas, of all places. I needed two forms of ID to get my driver’s license renewed, and I realized that I only had one… my old driver’s license. And then I remembered that I had a copy of Dana’s and my domestic partnership license from Oregon in my backpack, and I asked if they would take that. There was the usual “let me ask my manager,” but then they said “yes.”
I’ve also experienced some truly cringeworthy moments, the white people are awful moments that we share- the difference being that people can immediately tell that you’re black. They can almost immediately tell that I’m female. But knowing I’m a lesbian is just conjecture until I come out to them. It is not the same, but I hope that we can share some common ground.
For instance, when I was in high school, I told one person that I was a lesbian and two hours later, the entire school knew. One of the percussionists in my orchestra used to hold up Playboy centerfolds where the conductor couldn’t see them and whisper at me to look in his direction. It was mortifying, and it went on for days.
Later in life, I had a boss who spent 30 minutes talking about her children. She said, “I know you’re not going to have any, so I guess you can talk to us about your cat like that.” She also forced me to wear make-up because she said that I always looked like “I didn’t feel good.” Believe me, I was much more comfortable in my own skin without makeup, because while I am not androgynous, I’m not a girly girl, either.
When I was a teenager, I worked at an early childhood daycare center. They didn’t know that I heard them say I shouldn’t be around children, but they didn’t know if they could fire me for that. Over the next few weeks, there was a concerted effort to make me look incompetent instead.
Another story from my junior year in high school was that I had who I thought was a fantastic English teacher, and she would ask me to do things like help her with bulletin boards. I felt safe enough to come out to her, and after that, she had me transferred into a different class.
I realize that the last few paragraphs seem like I’m trying to make this entry all about me, but that is not my intent. I am trying to say that I will always be a part of the Black Lives Matter movement, because if I have had these experiences, you have stories that are 80 times worse.
Yesterday, while the verdict was being read on Derek Chauvin’s case, police shot and killed a 15-year-old girl. She had a knife and was not only lunging at another girl, she lunged toward the police. What I will never understand is why lethal force was necessary in that instance. Perhaps the police could have used defensive moves to take away the knife. Perhaps they could have used a taser to get her to drop the knife altogether so that they could get her into custody alive. She would have stood trial and probably done some time in juvie, but at the end of it, she would have been able to come home to her parents. Shooting four bullets at her was not, and should never, be the answer.
It should be known that the police are also trigger happy with white people, but the reason the Black Lives Matter protests are so important is that the police act as judge and jury in the moment and decide the punishment is death at a rate far greater than they have ever done when white people commit a crime.
Timothy McVeigh is a prime example. He blew up an entire building in Oklahoma and was taken alive to jail. The important part here is that though he died at the hands of the state, it was a jury’s decision. No police officers decided to kill him in that moment, at the site.
We can also add Dylann Roof to the mix. He killed nine people at a Charleston AME church, and was taken alive- even given Burger King on the way to the police station after a manhunt that lasted two days. He did not receive the death penalty, but life imprisonment. So, even though he will never live with his family again, they will get to come and visit. And again, he got to stand trial. No one in that manhunt decided that they were responsible for punishing him.
Getting caught stabbing someone is the least of our worries. Let’s start with the idea that black kids and adults can apparently be killed for holding anything. A toy gun (Tamir Rice), snacks (Trayvon Martin), and it was a cigarette that provoked the white cop’s ire in the Sandra Bland case. Worse, black people don’t even have to be holding anything. Ahmaud Arbery was killed while jogging through a park, though not by the police- by white supremacists in Georgia.
So now we’ve arrived at the part where it’s not just the police. It is all white people, clearly some more extreme than others. Most white people would not identify themselves as racists because they aren’t physically or emotionally violent towards minorities, particularly black people.
Or are they?
I get that most people aren’t physically violent, but the emotional piece is ever-present and pervasive. Believe me when I say that most of the time, white people do not even realize what they’re doing. They have grown up in a racist system that they can’t even see because it’s always been there. White supremacy is still a problem; extremists still exist. But every white person in America has committed the sin of blindness. I am including myself in that crowd, because the color of my skin still allows me privileges it doesn’t give you.
I can buy a car or a house easier than you. If you buy a nice car or house, the police are more likely to believe it isn’t yours.
Remember when Henry Louis Gates was arrested in front of his own house because when he came back from a trip to China, he found that his front door was jammed, so he and his driver tried to pry it open? The neighbors called 911 and claimed someone was breaking into the house. Gates is one of my favorite authors and has been on TV for interviews plenty. (“Finding Your Roots” hadn’t started yet.) Yet, no one recognized him or believed him in the moment.
If it can happen to a respected scholar, it can happen to any black person in America….. like Amanda Gorman, who had literally just been on TV a few weeks before, and if I remember right, it was a national broadcast (that’s the one joke you’ll get in this piece).
I am heartened by the election of Rev. Raphael Warnock, for a very particular reason. He went to Union Theological Seminary after he graduated from Morehouse. At Union, he went all the way to a doctoral degree. He is the antithesis of everything the Religious Right (which is neither) has done to the Republican Party. Instead of living in a comfort zone thisbig by emphasizing fear of hell and damnation, he is letting his votes be inspired by what the historical Christ would have wanted. He is bringing the kindom of God through the soul of politics, which I would support even if I was an atheist…. because his theology is one of civil rights for all, feeding and caring for the least of us, and changing our racial identity as a country, which for a long time has been rightly compared to South African apartheid. He is not trying to convert people to his religious beliefs, just using them to ask himself the important questions.
In “The Black Church” on PBS, Henry Louis Gates paraphrases James Cone’s work in “The Cross and the Lynching Tree.” I had heard of Cone and the title of his book, but I’d never read it in depth. It struck me where I live.
Gates said that when Africans were first brought to the United States, slave owners forced Christianity on them because there was a lot in it about how slaves should behave (that is a whole different story for another day, but sufficed to say, that interpretation is abominable…. and at the very least, the slave owners should have paid more attention to the master’s responsibilities, the bare minimum for people that misunderstood those scriptures so badly). The slave owners didn’t anticipate that the slaves wouldn’t identify with those scriptures at all, but the man who was beaten and crucified, someone they could indeed understand.
To take it a step further, there is no such thing as competitive suffering. Jesus did not suffer more than American slaves, and to say he did is to undermine you both. Howard Thurman said it best when he entitled his magnum opus “Jesus and the Disinherited.” Martin Luther King, Jr. carried a copy of that book everywhere he went, and he kept it close to his heart- literally in the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
There’s probably nothing that I, a nerdy white lady, can offer you in the way of comfort. However, I believe that these two books might become important to you, even if you are not religious. I will also add a second book by James Cone called “Black Theology and Black Power,” which argues that Jesus’ liberation of both Jews and Gentiles alike was the same message that Black Power was preaching. In fact, you’ll read that it was Malcolm X who shook Cone out of his complacency….. Malcolm said that “Christianity was a white man’s religion,” and it stuck with Cone long enough for him to realize that Malcolm was right. The church universal has a lot of work to do in terms of widening the net and dissociating itself from white supremacy…… going back to ancient missionaries trying to bring white European Christian culture to people who already had civilizations older than theirs.
White, heterosexual, cisgender supremacy has become inextricably interrelated with white church. It’s just more polite. Hidden behind smiles and “bless your hearts.” If there is anything the Trump administration showed me, it is that there are still so many people who would treat you as lesser than just because your skin looks different, and treat me as if I am sin personified. I don’t go to a church like that, but I am wary of walking into any of them with which I am not familiar…. or if I’ve heard the things that go on there.
Any church that looks at the Bible as if God literally had a pen in their hand and wrote it all down is ridiculous to me. It was written in a time and place that has no bearing on our own, in addition to being inspired by many, many people…. some of whom made it into the canon, and some who did not. I look at theology as a lens through which I see everything else, and I have to admit, I did not write that sentence. Marcus Borg did. The best analogy I can bring to the table is a scene from “Shadowlands:”
Harry: I know how hard you’ve been praying; and now God is answering your prayers.
Jack: That’s not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, it changes me.
I can only hope that the reverse is true with the Black Lives Matter movement… that through the fog, we will carry the light together, bringing along everyone else.
The Black Lives Matter movement has changed me in ways I didn’t know I needed. I am beginning to stand up for myself, not afraid to make waves. I hope that I am a white ally in the best sense of the phrase, but I am not naïve enough to think I won’t stumble along the way. The thing I think I’m doing right is that I absolutely know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am not having the same experience they are, and unless they are a person of color who is also LGBTQ+, they aren’t having the same experience as me, either.
This knowledge has made me less afraid to claim what is mine- to look at what the Black Lives Matter movement is doing, and drawing similarities as to what I can apply to my own life as a minority of a different stripe.
For instance, today it was a Facebook group that asked for a queer roll-call. I got a ton of notifications that said “I’m straight, but I’m an ally.” In what universe is being an ally and being queer equivalent? They may have fought for marriage equality, but they could get married while they were doing it. They’ve never felt the pain of rejection and the internalized homophobia it causes. They’ve never had someone claim that part of their identity is a mental illness. They’ve never had anyone stare in disgust if they gave their spouse a peck on the lips goodbye. They’ve never had to seek out safe space, because being gay in a non-safe space can range from uncomfortable to downright dangerous.
The main difference between the struggle regarding race and sexual orientation is that people can automatically see that I’m white. I haven’t dated anyone for five years and change, so I don’t wear any outward signs that I’m also a minority. Now, because I fit the stereotype of short hair and nails, boys’ clothes, etc. they might have their suspicions, but they can’t say so definitively unless I tell them. Until I was 36, I thought they could, and then I met a straight woman who dressed like me, with roughly the same haircut, and it was a light bulb moment. I wasn’t actually advertising anything. I now know this is true due to the sheer number of men who’ve asked me out on Facebook Dating (man, that algorithm is off).
I also think that straight people wearing the pride flag or associated accessories is problematic. I’m trying to get used to it because it’s popular, but I am, shall we say, old school. Enlightened straight people are over others mistaking them for queer, but for me it is also a matter of cultural appropriation………………. and because I know that my friends mean me no harm, and in fact are cheering me on, I try to let it roll. I know who’s an ally or not among my friend group, but if I meet someone who lights up my world and it turns out they’re straight, my throat tightens. It’s hard putting toothpaste back in the tube, capiche?
The double standard that’s my work to release is that I don’t care if men do it. I’m not interested in them. Whether a man is straight or gay is of no consequence. With women, depending on how much I like them, the effect varies in severity. If I can’t see myself dating them anyway, it’s a simple “nobody’s perfect.” If I can, there may or may not be waterworks I have to pass off as allergies….. because not only am I disappointed, pining for a straight woman is the oldest cliché in the book…. I mean, if Eve had a lesbian friend, I guarantee she was miserable. It makes me feel embarrassed and stupid, and that will last years longer than the actual attraction, because I tend to get stuck in my flaws and failures. If I was weird to you once in 1992, I’m still thinking about it.
The other thing that gets the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up is the community moving toward acceptance of straight people using the word “queer.” I realize that it’s shorthand for all the letters. I get it. The longer the acronym gets, the more comfortable I am with using it, too. At the same time, it feels like being called the f or the n word. I am much more easygoing about queer people reclaiming that word for themselves as opposed to giving straight people license to use it. Not everyone feels the same way I do, and that’s a bitter pill to swallow, because people are increasingly of the “get over it” mindset and I’m just not there- and maybe not ever. Younger people do not have the same word association that I do.
It’s a conundrum, because I feel that the strides younger generations are making are positive. I also feel that if they knew what it was like before they were born, they’d have a different outlook. That’s the other difference that really shines, because unless you are actually the child of a queer person, you don’t inherit our institutionalized pain…. and even though Lindsay (my almost six-years-younger biological sister) didn’t inherit it, she lived through it with me, so we have roughly the same outlook. She uses those lessons every single day in her job (it honors me to no end that I’m part of the reason she took it). She works in government relations for a queer health care outfit in Texas, which in my mind is God’s work. I wouldn’t want to meet with Texas Republicans on issues like trans health care. I would vomit before work out of nerves every single day. She’s just far enough removed from those specific fears to be effective.
It is again why straight allies are so important. I am not interested in denying their contribution. I only get wigged when I feel they are trying to say “we’re in this together.” No the hell we are not. You can run your mouth all day long about gay rights, and other straight people will hear it better from you. But you’re not going to think before going into an unfamiliar situation that it’s possible everyone will hate you when they know. Moreover, that fear is tripled going into an unfamiliar church. The Religious Right is the source of most of the things that cause me pain, because their bile is still infecting millions. You are not in danger if a trans person uses the same bathroom as you. You are not in danger if I’m in the locker room with you.
I mean, I’m not even going to hit on you unless you’re wearing a pride flag.
[Editor’s Note: People of color are encouraged to participate in discussion in this post, positively or negatively. I just wanted to say up front that I am a white person writing for a white audience whom I hope will listen.]
A phrase that endures in both liberal and conservative Christianity comes from an award-winning Christian author named Barbara Johnson. That attribution is difficult because great minds think alike, so theologians like Anne Lamott have also said it…. as has my father, which is where I heard it first in one of his sermons as a kid. It has stayed with me for almost thirty years:
We are Easter people living in a Good Friday world.
Good Friday is all around us.
There is a global pandemic.
American cities large and small are burning in protest over decades of post-traumatic stress disorder while “Nero fiddles.”
The president, regardless of party, would usually have something to say to calm the nation after 100,000 deaths from COVID-19…………. perhaps an additional acknowledgement that these protests did not come à propos of nothing.
Whites have (of course) been affected, but the virus has disproportionately hit areas with high concentrations of people of color, magnifying inequities in the health care system that have existed since the United States won its freedom from the British Empire……. and still hasn’t moved for significant change.
It is akin to schools in minority neighborhoods not having the resources that white schools do. Though the country is becoming more integrated in some areas, there are others where black families move into those white neighborhoods to give their kids better education, and whites sell their houses. The inequality begins anew.
People of color have been crying for help; their sorrow has fallen on deaf ears… and then, a nine minute video of a policeman choking the life out of a black man surfaced on social media.
For people of color, it does not matter whether they personally knew the person killed by racially motivated violence. In fact, it was not even the murder by law enforcement of one Minneapolis man named George Floyd that threw the first match.
Racism is an institutionalized top-down system of oppression, carried out in education, health care, housing, workplaces, and many, many, many people of color killed by the police for no apparent reason other than they “looked suspicious.” Perception is in the eye of the beholder, and looking suspicious is relative given that white people wearing the exact same clothes as people of color are seemingly off their radar.
For instance, Dylann Roof, who murdered nine people in a Charleston church was taken quietly (meaning still alive) and given Burger King on the way to the police station. Eric Garner was harassed on suspicion of selling single cigarettes out of boxes without tax stamps. When he said that he was not selling cigarettes and tired of being harassed, the police choked him to death.
Good Friday is not only egregious inequality, it is the refusal to acknowledge it exists. Phrases by white people like “I don’t see color” and “we should all belong to one race… the human race” cease to acknowledge complete ignorance.
White people have never been segregated like people of color. White people have never lived through being stolen from their homeland and enslaved, being counted as 3/5ths of a person, Jim Crow laws, and now racism that is every bit as entrenched, just couched in more politeness (which never matters because people of color see it for what it is).
To be an Easter person during this particular Good Friday, you must challenge your own assumptions about race. You must ask yourself what you can do to promote equality in every aspect of your life, because it touches every aspect of theirs. An axiom in our society that needs addressing immediately is that it isn’t that white people’s lives aren’t hard- they’re just not hard because they’re white. The link I’ve included in terms of promoting equality is an article written by a white woman, because I think that our responsibilities are separate from minority communities.
We do not need to put people of color in the position of comforting us, making us feel better, telling us ways we can help when we are completely capable of doing our own research.
To add to her list, white people, get out of the protests. Stop. Just stop. Stand on the sidelines with cold water, masks, and/or bail money. Do not even think about moving from your station. When white people are involved in these protests, we are again off the radar. The police aren’t likely to grab us, but the nearest person of color instead. They will pay for what we have done.
On Good Friday, Jesus said, “forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” This makes our own Good Friday even more covered in ash, because we do not have that excuse.
Most, if not all white people see racism every day, but do not call it out.
Hiring managers do not even bother to wonder why they automatically put resumés with names like “Tyrone” or “LaToya” in the “I’ll pass” pile, even when Tyrone and LaToya have over and above the required qualifications and experience.
White “boys will be boys,” but boys of color are liable to be arrested by school security. The prison pipeline starts early, because once there is one arrest, it all too often snowballs.
These are concrete examples, but it’s more than that. White people fail to call out racism in simple conversations, particularly when all participants are white. In fact, the white people who heard the racist comment and didn’t call it out are likely to think that they aren’t racist, the person who said it was…. they were just standing there. It is not enough, and never has been, that white people remain quiet and let the moment pass.
Being an Easter person in a Good Friday world is not one decision. It is a lifestyle choice. It is a commitment to do everything you can to help the world progress.
My analogy for this is that I didn’t decide I loved women at 13, told one person, and that’s all I ever had to do. I come out to everyone who is new to me. It’s a choice to come out every single day, not that one time once. Advancing the nature of humanity is the same way. It begins with new behavior every day, not that one time once.
If you only have one story in which you stopped racism, I am giving you an invitation to create more- hopefully one for every day of your life from here on out.
We, as white people, do not have an ability to apologize for the past- at least, not in words. “I’m sorry” doesn’t mean anything without changed behavior. We have shown to people of color over and over that words of contrition are just that.
A Good Friday white person is one that says “my ancestors didn’t own any slaves. Inequality doesn’t have anything to do with me.” An Easter white person recognizes that the way racism has been woven into the fabric of our flag, inextricably interrelated with our culture, means that they have benefited from a system built on the backs of the people living here when we arrived, and the people we stole to build our own infrastructure. An Easter person recognizes that we’ve made people of color participate in our own delusions of superiority…. our own ridiculous narrative that has lasted far too long.
The more we try to dismantle it, the closer we are to bringing Easter to the masses, rather than keeping it for ourselves. The enduring phrase becomes more meaningful, because we will have a concrete idea of what it means to be Easter people in a Good Friday world.
We don’t have to take it lying down, as if the world will always be Good Friday with a few people willing to make it Easter on their own.
Moreover, the world will always have Good Friday problems. There is no way to eradicate them. The difference made is the number of people willing to stand up and claim Easter as their own….. a groundswell of hope outweighing despair.
Changes by Easter people, from small to sweeping, will help in more ways than we should be able to count.
I thought seriously about boycotting Starbucks until I realized that I still had money on my gift cards. I reasoned that my coffee had already been purchased, and if the boycott persisted beyond that, I wouldn’t spend my own money there. Thanks to social media wisdom, though, I realized something important. There are thousands of black baristas, and this one shop in Philly was the problem, not Starbucks as a whole. If that sounds callous and racist, I am very sorry. But the truth is that I live in a neighborhood with lots of black people. Some are African-American. Others are immigrants, mostly from Cameroon, Nigeria, and Eritrea. Boycotting my local store might lead to cutting down on employees as they get less busy, and I am not about to contribute to it.
The plain truth is that this is not a Starbucks problem. It is the top-down system of oppression that has been in power for hundreds of years. For instance, why didn’t the police officers just laugh in the barista’s face? Why, after explaining the situation, were the men still cuffed?
There is blame to be had all the way around, and when the police were called, they had absolutely no reason to follow through. What about the barista’s story made any damn sense except the police being as racist as the barista? I don’t even have a jacket as nice as the one the man on the left is wearing, and I guarantee you I’ve looked worse in a hoodie and jeans stumbling into a coffee shop than the man on the right. This is not to say that every black person who walks into a Starbucks must be dressed a certain way. I am only making the observation that if the barista and the police were looking for people making trouble, these men weren’t it.
Memorize their faces. Memorize the man on the left looking down with his hands in his pockets. Memorize the man on the right making a pained face as if this is not the first time this bullshit has happened to him. I can’t think of any situation that makes me feel more helpless and angry…. but I have to think it through. I have to think about all the ways I, as a white woman, can use the platform I’ve been given, both here and out in the world. I am generally not assertive when things happen to me personally (like truly repulsive comments regarding watching lesbians by men, for instance), but it’s a whole other thing when my mother lion gets engaged.
I am one of those hopeful people who’s been crushed by the amount of racism in my area, because DC is overwhelmingly black (a little under 50% of the population). I mistakenly thought things like that couldn’t happen here, or at least, more rarely than they actually do. I’ve cut way down on the optimism lately, anxiety rising like bile in the back of my throat.
I am no expert on race relations in DC, but it seems as if racially mixed neighborhoods have existed forever, even before gentrification…. keeping in mind that this is not every neighborhood’s case, but more often than in, say, the rest of the South. Technically, DC and Maryland are still the South because they’re under the Mason-Dixon line, but God help you if you mention it. No one around here wants to be compared with Alabama. We’d like to think we’re more progressive than that. Racial makeup of the neighborhood ceases to matter when you’re just trying to find a place you can afford.
In some ways, we are that progressive. In others, we’re not any better; we’d like to think of ourselves as liberal and inclusive, sweeping the incidents where we’re not way, way, way under the rug. If it doesn’t fit with the image we have of ourselves, it didn’t happen, definitely not a two-way street. White people just can’t be afraid of black people in the same way. I will never be afraid that a black person is going to call the police on me for anything…. ever.
Moreover, people of color absolutely cannot be racist, because racism, again, is a top-down entrenched system of oppression. They can, however, be prejudiced, stereotyping white people because they have to. They don’t know ahead of time if a friend or foe is approaching. Prejudice exists for a reason, and for people of color, it is self-preservation…. a fear that, as white people, we are absolutely responsible for creating.
For the most part, though, when we’re all on the Metro together, the racism and prejudice is left at the station. For instance, once I was waiting for the Orange Line back to Metro Center from Landover, and one of the WMATA employees came up to me and asked me if he could give me a hug, because I had a Black Lives Matter button pinned to my jacket. We just stood there and held each other, healing energy running between both of us.
While I have trouble believing that racism will be solved in my lifetime, I definitely hope. Interestingly enough, I think Marvel has taken it upon itself to help. Movies like Black Panther and Captain America: Civil War, and television shows like Luke Cage are challenging the status quo, because they portray black people in a way that few pieces of media do. Marvel can’t be responsible for solving every racial issue, but movies and TV shows that are popular can’t hurt. For instance, nothing did more to help the queer community be seen as regular people than Will & Grace, with Six Feet Under a close second. Progress is still slow, but it’s faster than it used to be with the help of visibility.
The difference is that I only have to be afraid for my life when I’m walking hand in hand with another woman. Alone, people can only guess that I’m a minority. There is no covering up every inch of your skin. However, I do empathize because I, too, look over my shoulder for unenlightened white people. We are definitely not in the same boat, but I often believe we’re in the same part of the ocean.
As I sip my coffee, I wonder if this entire essay is going to make me look like a basic bitch. I want my thoughts to go toward some good…. perhaps make some people think. I know it reaches me. I could spend an entire afternoon brainstorming about all the ways society needs to change and what I might be able to do in bringing it forward. The most concrete way I know for myself is challenging all the microaggressions I think I don’t have. Being white is just a series of privileges that run so far under your skin you don’t even realize you’re broadcasting it.
The one good thing I can say for myself right this moment is that I can say I have black friends without lip service. I have people to teach me when I’m being a jackass without any awareness. I am lucky that my friends are willing to attribute my flaws to idiocy and not malice, because I guarantee that in terms of staying woke, I need to pay more attention when I become “sleepy.” I am lucky to have friends that have no problem calling me out on the carpet about it, even when it’s hard…. because sometimes you want to fix the whole world, and are at a complete loss as to what would help.
Although I know that at least my infinitely small part of the world will change, as long as I’m paying attention.
Coffee helps in keeping my mind busy and my eyes open. However, I cannot stay awake forever. That’s where you come in, batting relief.
Thanks to social media wisdom, though, I realized something important. There are thousands of black baristas, and this one shop in Philly was the problem, not Starbucks as a whole. If that sounds callous and racist, I am very sorry. But the truth is that I live in a neighborhood with lots of black people. Some are African-American. Others are immigrants, mostly from Cameroon, Nigeria, and Eritrea. Boycotting my local store might lead to cutting down on employees as they get less busy, and I am not about to contribute to it.
Stories That Are All True 