Time to Open Up a Can of Whoop-Ass

OK, so here we. The unholy day when 45 stains Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. In my selective reading about what we do next, the most salient advice is to not give in to despair. That’s what dictators want us to do, which helps them impose fascism on us. I honestly can’t even believe I am writing the words “fascism” and “dictator“ in the present tense and not for a book report about the past of another country.

But that’s just it — this has been years in the making, and we are out of time for hand wringing, finger pointing, blissful ignorance, impotent anger, futile outrage, or continued participation in systemic racism.

It’s time to get to work. Pick a democracy-supporting thing, learn about it, throw money at it, or at the very least, stay calm and carry on. Simply not giving into despair is doing something useful. The bar is low, which is good because I got a fair amount of learning to do myself and how to balance with who I am with where I can be most helpful. I am a highly sensitive person who processes things slowly and deeply. My nervous system also easily gets overwhelmed by external stimuli — you know things like fascism running over vulnerable populations, angry people, country going to hell in a handbasket. Most people are bothered by these things, but if I’m not careful, I will feel my feelings about it and everyone else’s feelings about it, and it’s a lot. I know people think it’s weird, but it’s a real nervous system thing, so go look it up.

Suffice to say, I am waaaaaaay of my comfort zone in trying to join the fight for democracy — joining groups of people I don’t know to help fight for democracy, while also encountering other people‘s intense emotions about it. I have to actively work to deflect the emotions and stimuli or let it pass through me or start drinking more. Sometimes all three.

I know boo-hoo for me. It’s not my ass getting hauled in by ICE, or stopped at a light because I’m Black, or being in need of an abortion in a red state (or really any state at my advanced age). So I am bolstering myself with that thought: I am in a better, safer place than many others, and I need to use that position.

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned my list of books to learn more about racism. I finished the first one, White Women, and I highly recommend it. However, if you are a white woman and new to the idea of our complicity in systematic racism, don’t start with that book. Start with Robin D’Angelo‘s book, White Fragility. The full title of White Women is: Everything You Already Know about Your Own Racism and How to Do Better. It’s written by Regina Jackson, a Black women, and Saira Rao, an Indian American women, who are also cofounders of Race2Dinner, which “facilitates conversations between white women about white supremacy,” specifically our complicity and upholding white supremacy and our racism. They attend dinners with 8 white women, and what they deliver is a reality-based can of whoop ass to what Regina calls “white women nonsense.“

She ain’t wrong, but you need to have a fair amount of awareness and humility to read this book, lest you become one of the sputtering white women who start crying or huffing with indignance or ruffled in defensiveness when Regina and Saira say things like, “Raise your hand if you’re racist,” or “Would any of you trade places with either one of us?” Then: “Gun to the head, you have to trade places with a Black women or an Indian America.” We white women always pick Saira.

I admit to alternately laughing at/being horrified by some of the white women’s reactions at these dinners. And in many cases, it was easy for me to say “I may be a clueless white women, but I have never done/never would do that!” But then Regina in the next paragraph calls us out on that too, pointing out that I most certainly have done something, in some way, and in some situation.

That is true, and it is also true that getting married, having 2.5 kids, and living in a straight tony suburb never made sense to me. So I have spent my adult life primarily in the company of white lesbians and gay men. They have taught me a lot about their own journeys of acceptance and the fight for equality. So maybe I have a head start on racism, and I admit while reading the book, feeling smug for the few times I did call out racism.

Regina can call me a racist and complicit in upholding white supremacy, and I will totally agree. Don’t I get a gold star? But as I kept reading, I realized my personal can of whoop-ass was all of the times I did not call out racism.

As any gay person who survived the AIDS epidemic in the 80s will tell you, SILENCE=DEATH. Have I spoken up in every situation? No. Have I spoken up in most situations? Nope. I have been afraid and wanted to be seen as “nice.” Regina talks about the toxic niceness of white women. Not making waves was also the main curriculum of my family growing up, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

The section about how we treat Black and Brown women at work was also illuminating. They feature the experiences of Black and Brown women working with white women. There’s the assumptions they aren’t good workers or they should do the menial work in an office. I can honestly say I’ve 100% never done that, and you know why? Except for one job when I worked for a Black woman, I’ve never worked directly with a person of color in my whole career, and I’ve been in Boston since 1983. I’ve worked in higher education, publishing, and healthcare. Like, what the hell? And I’m just realizing this now?

Sooooooo, I’m no antiracist superhero, I’ve just been comfortably snuggled in white spaces. It’s only been in the last 5 or 6 years that I even noticed the lack of people of color at work in a “we should change this” kind of way.

Regina would definitly give me a can of whoop-ass on that one.

I so want to distance myself from the Karens, and “those” white women who are in the book saying white nonsense, “those” white women who voted for Trump, “those“ white women who do what their husbands tell them to do. I have never felt like one of “them,” but despite my best efforts to not be one and hang with the cool gay kids, I have to accept it: I am a straight, white woman.

So if you’re just starting on this path, read White Fragility, or if you like you ass handed to you with the truth and reality, go ahead with White Women.

I’m going to work on speaking up — well, paying attention first, then speaking up. I know, Regina, I know: Stop my white woman nonsense, and get on with it.