I grew up briefly learning about the KKK in history class. "Wow. So much hate," I probably thought. And we learned about the Nazis, too. Of course we did. I read historical nonfiction, my thoughts consumed that it was possible to have that much visceral hate towards a group of people different than you. But it was all in the past. I had yet to learn about implicit bias and systemic racism. I could tuck those scary bad guys into the same category as black-and-white TV and the horse and buggy: historical artifacts. So imagine my horror when I woke this past weekend to see a new visceral kind of hate. This kind didn't wear masks or starched uniforms. This kind looked remarkably like some of my former students or classmates when I was in college. This kind had the same hatred on their face directed at people different than them. And seeing these images now feels different than seeing them when I was a child for two reasons: 1) This is MY lifetime, not the lifetime of my grandparents. 2) I am the mother of children who are in one of the hated groups. So this week I watched the video with Chris Cantwell, a white nationalist leader, and I heard him say without emotion, "I think a lot more people are going to die before we're done here," and that scares me. Because the bad guys aren't tucked away in my history book anymore. They are gathering and organizing and making plans. I see the map of hate groups and realize that yes, there are a few here in my new state of Minnesota. I listen to NPR and hear experts on white nationalists talk about the strength of the movement and their agenda to make sure that whites remain the majority in our country. Yes, some are willing to use violence to achieve that goal. And there it is again: fear and sadness. Fear for the safety of my children, especially my son who struggles to control his anger and refuses to back down from a fight. Sadness that this is really the country I brought my Black children to. Sadness that I haven't fallen into some strange time machine; it truly is 2017. Last fall Chris and I took a class on the hard conversations that come when we discuss racism. We learned more about implicit bias and systemic racism. We heard a bit more about what it means to be an ally, on creating dialogue to hopefully build bridges. So when things like Charlottesville happen, like many others, I post articles that speak to me on Facebook. Maybe it's silly because most of the people who don't believe that racism is still a problem in our country have hidden me from their newsfeeds years ago. But still I post. And sometimes there is a dialogue, and sometimes there is not. Sometimes people get riled up, and sometimes they do not. Often, though, I lose sleep. That I need to work on. Parenting transracially adopted children brings a whole host of challenges that Chris and I weren't prepared for. There, I said it. We weren't prepared. We were ignorant white folks who thought that racism was a thing of the past and everyone was the same on the inside anyway, so why did it matter if we lived in an all-white town in Iowa? And then we began the hard road of parenting. We heard our child get yelled at by a grown-up for leaving his bike in the wrong spot, while all of the white children who parked their bikes in the same exact spot weren't addressed at all. We saw the police pull up to our house because our sons were seen doing something suspicious at the park behind our house while the white friend who was with them sat safely in his house without a visit from the police. We watched while our son was followed around a gift shop at the Grand Canyon while the white children wandered the aisles freely. We yelled at our child to put down his friend's airsoft gun because we could still see Tamir Rice's face. We made sure to stay near them in convenience stories, especially when traveling in other parts of the country. We had The Talk again and again and again because the world will treat them differently. It already has. We called church leaders and emailed principals when our son was called the n-word or made fun of because his skin looked different. We talked to our boys about microaggressions and why they don't have to let others touch their hair and how to correct grown-ups when their name is mispronounced. It's tiring, and we had no clue. And to think the the African-American community has endured a lifetime of this fatigue. We have great friends to offer support and encouragement on the journey, but some days it feels incredibly lonely and isolating as we learn who is in our corner and who isn't. Others using their voices to speak out don't feel scared and sad; they feel angry. Angry at injustice and the baffling reactions from Trump and the silence from their white neighbors. Anger isn't my go-to emotion because I'm so damn sensitive, but I understand that anger, too. And sometimes that means our words aren't measured; our reactions might get messy. I'm not even sure my point in writing this other than to say that I'm watching history repeat itself and I refuse to be a bystander. I wrote earlier this week about the importance of speaking out, and I will continue to do so in some way. Because I want a better world for my kids, for all of us. In this process I'm probably burning some bridges and hopefully building others.
4 Comments
Greg Stevens
8/18/2017 03:19:49 pm
Incredibly written. I'm so sorry for your boys, and at another level, you and Chris. I'm sorry for all the people that put up with this form of racism. Your posts help me understand the idea of systematic racism better than any other because you come from my world: English teacher, small white town background, and happily married. Thank you so much for the courage to post.
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Deb Reisner
8/19/2017 04:07:20 pm
THIS!!!! So glad to have met you and to count your family as part of our community!
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