There are so many great articles covering every corner of this issue that I won't take up space linking to a bunch of them here, except to this excellent piece by Rafi D'Angelo because he breaks down the importance of being a white ally without tipping into madness and pretending to be Black. Which is what I want to get personal about.
I'm putting my two cents into the conversation to confess that this whole business has got me thinking about all the ways I connect to Rachel, and share some stuff both good and bad with her, as a white woman who is significantly connected to and invested in Black people and issues associated with being African American in this country.
Some, maybe most who know me well, would call me a good ally, someone who is "down," someone who gets it. Well, yes, maybe. I better be given my responsibilities as a spouse, parent, grandparent, friend, and welcomed person in some corners of black and brown communities, but it's a slippery slope. Sometimes I've tipped dangerously close to acting as if I am of the Black community, which never has been and never will be true.
The truth is I love Black people and culture, literally and figuratively. Pretty much everyone I love the most in this world is Black. And by association over the last 30 plus years of an interracial life, I've assimilated a lot of pieces of Black culture and understanding of the issues of race and racism in this country into my psyche. Sounds like Rachel in lots of ways, does it not?
And, I've experienced the sting of racism as closely as someone can who is not the direct target. My now adult children have dealt with with everything from name calling to the structural racism that is designed for them to fail. When they were young, I had to learn to think like a Black parent, and to change so many things I was taught as a white person. For example, assuming the police are your friends and will help you, or that most teachers will see your potential and nurture it. That doesn't make me a tiny bit Black but it does give me a window into the abyss that is racism in this country that's pretty damn personal. It fuels my rage and desire to make change.
The experiences that have made me the particular kind of white person I am make some Black people uncomfortable. I partake in and enjoy so many amazing parts of Black culture, and profess cultural competency, while also simultaneously enjoying the fruits of white privilege with every breath I take. I'm implicitly a part of the systems of oppression that I hate. Yes I can and do use that privilege to support change, but that's some deep kind of complicated shit and it's the truth.
I'm also a trusted friend and ally, something I don't take lightly. The racial divide in our country is deep and ugly. So when a Black person extends a hand of friendship or love and decides to trust me, that's no small thing. I'm so very grateful to have earned that trust and would never want to betray it.
Which brings me back to Rachel, and wondering what made her do the unthinkable and cross over. To commit such betrayal and to profit from her sins. It sounds like she could have been an amazing ally and trusted friend. But she wanted it all. She wanted to go where white people cannot. There is a part of me that understands the urge, that gets on some level that being a white woman in such close proximity to Black life can cause a very misplaced thought of wanting to be all in, to actually be Black. But it probably takes serious mental illness of some sort to actually go there and particularly to invent a personal narrative of oppression to go with it.
Just this weekend I was with a group a friends - black and white - and we were reading the hilarious #AskRachel meme on Twitter and Tumblr and testing ourselves on how well we knew the answers. The black friends were having great fun testing the white friends in the group. I knew almost all the answers and laughed loudly - maybe a little too loudly - at the jokes, and maybe with a little smugness at being "down." Ick. It's that line of demarcation - the no crossing or passing zone. I'm acutely aware of it and usually when I cross it. No one called me out, maybe no one even noticed, or if they did they gave me a pass. But I felt it. Time to check myself again. One of hundreds of examples of my own journey with my own particular white identity.
So I can be repulsed by, angry at, and laugh at this woman who took things way too far, but I think there are lessons for me and other white folks like me. I have never and will never attempt to pass myself off as Black (the ridiculousness of the idea makes me shudder), but when you are a white person who spends a lot of time living and loving in Black families, communities and spaces, some of us, maybe most of us, have taken that privileged place too far.
Anyone else wincing at this truth, even just a bit?
This is RoAnne.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this piece, Ann. Although I have seen people play around the edges of this issue (most often deflecting the scary stuff with humor), I don't think I've seen anyone go as directly, seriously, and courageously to the heart of it as you have done with this post. The honesty is in stark contrast to rachel’s approach.
Rachel seems like a kinda pathetic crackpot to me, but as I followed the story over a about a day and a half the outraged reactions became the story making rachel a larger than life monster with the power to steal all that black people have built. So I quickly became bored with reading the reactions. They seemed out of balance with the reality of one woman who did ridiculously dishonest and stupid things. So all I could think as I followed the story was how I hate it when distractingly sensational crap in the media keeps us furiously gnawing around the same tired, overworked edges instead of biting into the heart of whatever issue is being raised.
But I feel differently about all that now, because some good writers and deep thinkers have been inspired to put forth some truly thoughtful work---like you, Ann, and like Rafi D'Angelo and some others I have read. You have bitten into the heart.
I think D'Angelo's description of Rachel is excellent--she's weak. She's a weak little white lady. I think her weakness and what’s behind it is the real story. Lots of good people are weak. Few take Rachel's bizarre approach, but the failure of so many good white people to do take even small steps is one key invisible force that allows racism to flourish. How to stand up and be a true (and truthful) ally in the fight against racism is what the conversation should be about, because it is not easy.
What I appreciate about your post Ann is that it is not an expression of outsized outrage about what rachel has done, but moves the discourse to something much, much more important, and much more difficult to discuss in a straightforward manner--your writing is original, brave, personal, self-questioning, and challenging. I appreciate it—takes guts to go public like that.
Having said all that, let me also ask a question. You write about the misplaced desire to be all in, to actually be Black--I dont quite get that part. Do you mean to appear Black? To have a Black life story? To have a first-person understanding of what it means to be black? Or do you feel some troubling space in your relationships that remind you that you’re not all in? Do you feel sometimes like an outsider in your own community, maybe the slight insecurity of an immigrant at once connected to and separated from multiple homelands. I don’t mean "The Black Community", but your community in which most of the people who are dearest to you are black, and probably the circle beyond those intimates is also largely black. You have a sincere appreciation of black cultural heritage, you have maintained long-term relationships with black people and you understand how racism continues to impact all of us. I could go on... All of that does not add up to being black as you say in your piece, but so what? If you woke up black tomorrow morning what would be fulfilled for you?
And...
I’m a black woman and no one is confused about that when they look at me, and I’m a Black woman who has often gotten the message from my sisters that I am not quite black enough. So the story about your friends taking the test on Twitter---I wonder if I would have made the grade!
Wow, RoAnne - Thank you for this thoughtful response. So appreciated. I feel like I should respond to your question here, it makes sense that there is a hole in the post that I might try to fix. This is what resonates in your question:
ReplyDelete"Do you feel sometimes like an outsider in your own community, maybe the slight insecurity of an immigrant at once connected to and separated from multiple homelands. I don't mean "The Black Community", but your community in which most of the people who are dearest to you are black, and probably the circle beyond those intimates is also largely black."
It's the outsider in your own community part. For example, the way Susan is able to interact with my kids. (For readers who don't know me - she is my spouse, is Black, and has been in our lives for the past 12 1/2 years.) She has a connection to them that I'll never have in spite of her having a minimal commitment to be in their lives and not having raised them. They have a cultural connection of a lived Black experience that is immediate and I'll never share. I can't change that but it at times creates a longing and a feeling of being an outsider that can makes me sad. It is, however, the privileged reality of choices I have made in my life, so it just goes with the territory. I accept that.
There is no part of me that wants to artificially create a black persona, but I get that Rachel's response may have come from a similar place. In an interview with her she says part of identifying as Black came when she took full custody of her adopted brother - she says, "How could I be his mom and not be Black?" Crazy talk because of course she can be his mom and be white but maybe she couldn't handle all that comes with being white and choosing that path - she was too weak to handle it.
Then there is the the reality of being Black - the racism and injustice that is part of that lived experience. The only place where I can connect to that is through association. I will never know what it's like to experience that particular brand of hatred and ignorance - like being the 14 year old girl assaulted recently by the police in the pool situation in McKinney, or all the million ways Black people are slighted, marginalized, seen with suspicion and distrust, or murdered for being who you are. But I do know what it felt like when my then four-year-old daughter ran home crying when she was called the N-word by the mother of a neighborhood kid and not allowed to go in their house. I know the experience of comforting her in her hurt, and going and confronting the mom and the anger I felt.
And when there is another police shooting and social media lights up with parents having conversations about "the talk" they have to have had with their kids, or remembering "the talk" their parents gave them, it is Black people talking to each other and I feel that twinge again about the line I walk of outsider/insider. It is what it is. But I've had "the talk" with my kids, and feel visceral turns in my stomach with each gunned down young man or woman, and worry for my own kids safety. But I didn't learn about racism from my own growing up - I learned it by association as a mother who needed to become a culturally competent parent. I literally had to put a new identify on (parent of Black children) that radically changed me. So I see that as on the continuum somewhere with Rachel's apparent need to become Black, while being a very long way from actually going there.
From my Facebook post of this - for the blog record, names removed since I didn't get permission to share that:
ReplyDelete1. Very open.
2. Thank you, Ann. What a beautiful and honest reflection. I've been doing a lot of reflection (long before this episode) about the ways that I move in and out of other folks' communities in my work and personal life. I am constantly trying to check myself on when I'm walking up to that line--and when I'm crossing it. One of the many pieces of our personal work that will never end. I also *really* relate to your sense of "oh oh...they seem to have given me a pass, but I think I fucked up."
3. Very honest, Ann Freeman. Thanks for speaking to this issue from your unique point of view. I am not sure about Rachel's pathology, but imagine that her desire to identify with us took on a life of it's own. The fortunate and unfortunate result of this "outing" is that now she can move forward without the pressure of waiting to be found out. That must have been very challenging for her to keep up all these years. It has also created a fresh dialogue about the limits of co-option of racial identity. I hope that she and her family will find a way to heal from all of this.
4. Appreciate your courage to be honest.
5. Ann, thank you for your raw and honest reflection. Love you, your words and your truth.
6. So well said Ann!
7. thanks for sharing, ann.
8. It strikes me that Dolezal would also know all the answers to the #askrachel meme, which flips the hashtag on its head a little bit, in an odd way, since its function is to mock her. (For the record, I'm running at about 50%, of which I am not proud.) And to be clear, I'm not defending her. And I too am reviewing all I thought I knew. What is construct. What is lived experience. What is gender. What is race. I quickly reject the idea that there is a parallel between Caitlyn Jenner and Dolezal, but then find myself having a hard time articulating it. At any rate, I love your inward, honest looking post and what it teaches us about our outward selves.
9. Well said!
10. I didn't want to tokenize you by asking you what you thought… but I knew you'd have something to say. Thanks for sharing it.
11. This is why I love you Ann.
12. Yes and yes.
13. I love your writing Ann. I have had some of these complicated emotions as well and always want to be aware of my privilege... especially now that I pass as a guy, however short I am. smile emoticon Thanks for sharing this and showing this part of yourself.
14. Very interesting, thanks for sharing.