A poem in celebration of International Women’s Day ~ published in Middle-Pause

I began as a genderless soul - 
a point of light that yearned, 
from its moment of creation, 
to return to its Creator.

I was given a fertilized egg to care for,
to protect and cheer for,
to accompany
for an unknown stretch of earth-time.

I was adorned with the attributes of God, 
instructed to nurture them, 
use them to guide my companion-body 
through its life of darkness and light.

I watched as my body grew a uterus, 
as female hormones flooded its unformed brain 
and bubbled through its tiny network of
electrical circuits and fluid-filled tubes.

I didn’t yet know what this would mean.

I saw my companion thrust squalling from her soft warm womb-home
into the hard cold glare of the world she would travel.
Afraid.
Confused.

I hovered above her head, 
squeezed into her belly, 
hummed a sweet melody into her ear.
“I’m here,” I sang. “We’ll be fine.”

“It’s a girl,” said the doctor.

“It’s a girl,” sighed the mother. “Thank you God.”

Photo by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash

Even though I don’t know who he is. ~ published in The Memoirist

It’s odd  –  and a little startling  –  to have a thought for the very first time in your life, especially when your life has been going on for many years and you’re one of those people who thinks obsessively about everything. But the truth is that I’ve never had this thought before, probably because I haven’t allowed myself to think about it until this year.

This is the year I’m writing my story of having an abortion when I was young. I’ve done a fairly good job of keeping this story a secret for over five decades, and now here I am, writing it down for all the world to read. It’s a hard story, and sharing it feels risky. Some days it feels terrifying, and I get paralyzed. Yesterday was like that. But other days, like today, I have enough distance and healing  – or maybe grace  – that I can write.

What I’m going to write about now, before the impulse vanishes, is the thought I had today for the first time: I hope the father of the child I aborted is having a good life.

I was an overweight teenager in the 60s. I grew up believing my value was determined by whether or not boys found me attractive. But I couldn’t lose weight, no matter how hard I tried, so I never made it into the “attractive” category. As you can guess, I never felt valuable.

When I went to France at age 21, I found, much to my surprise and delight, that French boys and French men found me attractive in spite of my weight. They didn’t seem to care. I was female; apparently nothing else mattered. To this day I am shocked by how quickly my longing to be desirable outweighed what I thought I believed - that good girls wait until they’re married to have sex and only bad girls are promiscuous.

A therapist once told me I had experienced sexual abuse at the hands of the boy-men I had sex with. Maybe that was true. I was never forced, but I was certainly coerced and emotionally manipulated. My good-girl self said no every time, only to be pushed aside by the self who craved validation.

There were many I did refuse, including the father of the two little girls I nannied. However, there were several who easily overcame my feeble protests. One of them got me pregnant

Of course, there is much more to this story that won’t be told here. The condensed version is that I panicked, had an illegal and very traumatic abortion, went immediately into deep denial, and spent the rest of my life alternating between suppressing and trying to heal from that trauma.

It didn’t matter who the father was because on the rare occasions when I allowed myself to feel any emotion, I hated them all.

It wasn’t until I started writing my memoir in earnest that I experienced something beyond healing. I think I would call it welcoming. The grief, regret, and pain I’ve been trying to escape all my life will probably always be with me. The difference is that now I give these feelings space to exist.

Something unexpected has happened as a result - the hatred and rage lost their cohesion and floated away. Their departure left me with a peace of mind I thought I’d never know. With that peace came the ability to look at things in a new way.

Today is also Father’s Day in France., so I’d like to send good wishes to the father of my child who lives in the World of Spirit. In spite of all the bad decisions, the suffering, guilt, and remorse, there was one good outcome. A soul was created. Even though he never had a chance to live in this physical world, nonetheless he exists.

I gave him the name Ruhi. He is helping me write our story.

So far no one has asked me if, given the chance, I would make a different decision. I’m sure once my book is published I’ll hear that question a lot, and I need to figure out my answer by then. What I do know is that I’m awfully glad my life turned out the way it did. I wouldn’t want to change anything about it.

I have three children who live in this world. They are also helping me write my memoir, and they wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my husband. So I want to end this story with a message of gratitude to him.

Dear G, You learned my secret early on in our marriage and you responded with compassion, love, and unconditional support. That has never changed in 52 years. Even when I’m grieving, or short-tempered, or paralyzed like yesterday, you are there for me. When I spend day after day closed up in my writing room, coming down only for food and then falling into bed at 3 a.m., still you understand. I couldn’t do this without your blessing.

Happy Father’s Day.

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

But I will make a few concessions. ~ published in Crow’s Feet

There’s something special about a bike ride. It’s the wind in your face, the feeling of wild freedom, the sweet ache in your thighs the next morning. It’s the hum of your tires on a long, flat bike path as you whiz past the walkers, ringing your little bell and calling out, “On your left!” It’s the closest thing to flying without actually leaving the ground.

The Beach Ride
One year we spent the winter at an RV park in Melbourne Beach, Florida. Right outside our door was a paved path that ran for miles along the Atlantic Ocean - the perfect way to spend a day! I bought a used bicycle for $30, slathered my pale self with sunscreen, and set out on a balmy afternoon for a long ride.

Which way to go? Maybe left toward Cape Canaveral where I might see a rocket launch. But I was drawn in the other direction, so I turned right and headed south.It seemed effortless. I picked up speed and flew down the path, barely pedaling. Apparently, I’m fitter than I realized, I thought. Look at me go!! Mile after mile I rode, pleased and surprised at my endurance.

The Reality Check
I finally decided I’d gone far enough. I pulled over to the side, got a quick drink of water, turned my bike around, and started back to the RV park. I could barely move. I shifted into the lowest gear but managed to go only a few feet. It felt like I was trying to ride through a wall of cotton. That’s when the gravity of my situation hit me. I wasn’t actually very fit, and I did not have superhuman endurance. I’d had the wind at my back, and now I had the wind in my face for real.

After 15 minutes of fruitless effort, I called my husband to come to get me and my bike with his truck.

The Last Ride
During the pandemic, I figured what better way than biking to get exercise? You’re automatically socially distanced on a bike. Plus there’s no need to mask up if you’re moving faster than the virus. So on a gorgeous afternoon in late spring of 2020, I donned my helmet and rode out of my garage and down the driveway. Just to be safe, I’d decided to avoid the park and ride around my little subdivision.

The problem was the inclines. Well, that was one problem. The other problem was my aging body. I got halfway up a hill that was considerably steeper than it looked, and I ran out of steam. When I stopped, I lost my balance and fell over, landing on my butt in the street with the front wheel of my bike in my lap.

You know what they say about horseback riding - if you fall off, you have to get right back up on that horse so you don’t lose your confidence. It probably applies to bike riding as well, but I didn’t heed the advice. I walked my bicycle up the hill and into the garage, where it sat, unridden and unloved until I gave it to my daughter when we moved a year ago.

Yes, I lost my confidence. Even though I longed to ride again, I felt too insecure to try. If only there were tricycles for adults, I thought.

The Obvious Solution
But wait! Of course, there are tricycles for adults! A quick search on Google revealed three-wheelers of every possible size and configuration. How come I didn’t know this already?

I shared my discovery with my family members, who pooled their resources and bought me a tricycle for my 74th birthday yesterday. It arrives next week. It has seven speeds, a seat with a backrest, and two large baskets for carrying a picnic lunch. And I can fold it to fit in my trunk. A 15-minute drive will take me to the Silver Comet Trail, a wide, paved, flat bike path with frequent toilets and benches. It stretches 60 miles from just outside Atlanta to the Georgia-Alabama border, though I probably won’t be riding quite that far.

I’ll still feel like I’m flying, just a little more slowly than before. I’ll ring my bell and call out a heads-up to pedestrians as I pass. I will once again be wild and free.

Getting old may require some adjustments, and someday I may have to graduate from a three-wheeled bike to a four-wheeled chair. But until then, I ride.

Photo by Brad West on Unsplash

When the Black kids jumped in, all the other White mothers pulled their kids out.

My story takes place in the summer of 1951 in Austin, a Chicago community where my grandparents lived. It’s the story of my very first interracial experience. Maybe it’s what inspired me to work for racial justice later in life.

When Grandma and Grandpa moved there in the mid 1940’s, Austin was still almost exclusively White. But when Black families started moving in, many White residents fled westward to the suburbs. That’s where I grew up, in a town where over 99% of the population was of European descent.

On this particular summer day, my mom put me into some kind of child restraint device — I think it was a blue canvas chair that hung on the car’s front passenger seat — and drove the 20 miles to visit her parents in Austin.

The table fan in their apartment gave little relief from the oppressive heat of Chicago’s summer, so we spent the afternoon at the neighborhood swimming pool in a little park right next to the train tracks. I was 2½ years old.

We must have gone there when I was older too, because I have very vivid memories of playing in the water while the train roared by and looking up at the embankment to count the cars. The following events, however, happened when I was too young to remember them. I’m recounting here the story as my mom told it to me.

At first everything was peaceful. The pool was filled with happy (White) children laughing, splashing, and doing all the things kids do in a swimming pool. I was sitting in the shallow end, where the water was just up to my armpits, looking all cool and cute.

I don’t know what Chicago’s pool policies were in 1951. Racial segregation in public places became illegal in 1954, but some cities had already made efforts to integrate swimming pools years before that. Chicago may have been one of them.

Whether or not it was legal, on this day several Black families came together to the little neighborhood pool to swim. Mom said the adults looked really nervous, but the kids just ran ahead and jumped into the water.

Then all hell broke loose. The horrified White parents snatched their children out of the pool, as if the water had suddenly become boiling hot. The way Mom told it, you’ve never seen dozens of adults move so fast and with such collective purpose.

Within minutes, all the White kids were standing in the grass, looking very confused, while their parents hovered protectively over them.

All of them, that is, except me. I continued to sit in the shallow end of the pool, where the water was just up to my armpits, surrounded now by happy Black children who were shouting, splashing, and doing all the swimming pool things.

My mother — God bless her beautiful soul — stood near me with her arms crossed and her expression resolute. And I stayed in the water and played until it was time to go home.

I won’t write about why White people feared being in a swimming pool with Black people, because the stupidity is too infuriating. This is a story about my mom standing up for what’s right, and I want to keep the focus on her. Wikipedia has a good article if you want more information.

Every time Mom told me this story, I asked what the other White parents said to her. She always claimed she didn’t remember, but here’s what I imagine: a White woman shouted, “Your child is marked for life!” and my mom shouted back, “I hope so.”

I also try to imagine what those Black parents must have been feeling. I doubt I would have the courage to do what they did. How devastating to have to weigh your desire to take your kids swimming against your fear for their lives.

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I’m the kind of person who assigns big meaning to events whenever possible. I like to think that on a summer day in a swimming pool when I was very young, I was inoculated against some of the more toxic strains of racism.

Or maybe it was more like a baptism — I was dunked into water filled with laughing Black children and thereby welcomed into the human race.

Although I was too little to recognize it at the time, my mom’s refusal to pull me out of the pool was an act of fierce resistance. She always thought of herself as timid and insecure, and I think that prevented her from recognizing her own strength.

I came to see it clearly though. Throughout her life, my mother intentionally sought out friendships with people of diverse backgrounds. She served her community and promoted the oneness of humanity until six days before she died at age 93.

Now that she lives in the world of spirit, I call on her to help me stand against injustice. Sometimes, when I’m the only White girl in the therapy pool at the Senior Center, I imagine she’s smiling.

Photo by Ben Vloon on Unsplash

For 15 years, my husband and I traveled around the U.S. and facilitated workshops and dialogues about racial justice. We made detailed notes and regularly updated our materials based on the questions people asked. Over and over, in every part of the country — in workshops, over coffee, in emails and phone calls — we heard White people asking some version of this question:

What should I do about racism?

It was expressed in many different ways:

• “I want to help, but I don’t know how.”
• “I want to help, but my life is so complicated/I’m too old/I don’t get out much.”
• “This is all new to me; just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
• “What do you/they want from us anyway?”

Often this question was asked of us or another White person in the room who had experience with anti-racism initiatives. We had lists of many different ways to engage, based on a person’s circumstances.

Sometimes this question was directed to a Black participant in the workshop. Their answer depended on a number of things; the sincerity of the person asking, the feeling in the room, and the quality of the relationships were important factors.

Mostly the answer depended on how that particular Black person felt about the question.

Often they were tired of teaching White people about race.

In this case, they might say something like:

• I shouldn’t have to be the one to tell you this. Ask another White person.
• I’ve been telling White people what they need to do for my entire life, and no one’s listening. I’m done.
• I’m exhausted by this question.
• I feel exploited by this question.
• Not today.
• Haven’t you been listening for the past two hours?
• Google it.

If you’re Black, do these responses seem familiar? Do you have any others to add?

If you’re White, do these responses seem frustrating or unhelpful?

Do you want to respond with “How am I supposed to know what to do if you won’t tell me?”

If you are a White woman, maybe it will help if I share what I do when I don’t know how to react to something a Black person has said. I take race out of the picture for a minute and pretend it’s about gender. In the above example, I would frame it like this:

I’m engaged in an open, honest conversation about sexism, chauvinism, and misogyny. I’ve been triggered several times by people’s comments. I’ve shared my own experiences with oppression and discrimination. At some point, a man (it has to be a White man for this to work) asks me, “What am I supposed to do?”

My response is likely to be, “Really? You’re kidding, right?” Not very gracious or helpful. But I know me, and that’s probably what I would feel like saying.

So the truth is, as a woman who has been hurt by sexism my whole life, I understand why a Black person would respond unsympathetically to a question like that. And how I react to their response is the same way I would want a man to react to me. I would want him to say, “Oh. I get it. Okay. Thanks.”

Sometimes they were willing to teach a White person about race.

Maybe the question was asked of a Black person who was ready to offer suggestions. When that happens, dear White readers, PLEASE TAKE NOTES!

And now I’ve come to the main point of my story and the reason I wrote it in the first place.

Here is an explicit answer to “What should White people do?” It was shared following the Charleston church massacre, described as follows by the website This Day in History:

“On the evening of June 17, 2015, a mass shooter took the lives of nine African American people at a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The massacre at a historic Black church deeply shook a nation already jaded by frequent gun violence and heralded the return of violent white nationalism in America.”

Three days later, a Black friend, Dr. Phillipe Copeland, wrote a Facebook post in the form of a thank-you letter.

June 20, 2015 
“To those of you out there who demonstrate on a daily basis that there are #ManyWays2BWhite I want to say thank you. To those of you who fiercely speak up, stand up and act up to counter white supremacy I say thank you. To those of you who demonstrate in action a deep and abiding love for black humanity without apology or equivocation I say thank you. To those of you who put your privilege to work to dismantle the system that unjustly grants it simply because of your skin color I say thank you. For those of you who welcome and honor black grief and rage no matter how bad it makes you feel, I thank you. For those of you who struggle for justice honorably without fear of loss or desire for reward, I thank you. You offer living proof that neither demography nor history are destiny. You are the kind of white people this world so desperately needs. Thank you for being who you are. It does not go unnoticed.” ~ Phillipe Copeland (quoted with the author’s permission)

What you choose to do with Phillipe’s message is, of course, up to you. As for me, I copied it onto my phone, with specific phrases bolded:

• fiercely speak up, stand up and act up to counter white supremacy
• demonstrate in action a deep and abiding love for black humanity without apology or equivocation
• put your privilege to work to dismantle the system that unjustly grants it simply because of your skin color
• welcome and honor black grief and rage no matter how bad it makes you feel
• struggle for justice honorably without fear of loss or desire for reward

This is what White people should do. This is how we can help. These actions are as vital now as they were in 2015. Consider how you might share them with others who are not sure how to show up in the struggle for racial justice.

Gratitude to Phillipe Copeland for his potent words and his friendship.

************

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Is human trauma stored in the body of Mother earth?
Do her muscles, bones, and tissues hold on to memories
that seep out over centuries
in the form of energies you can’t quite identify?

And what are we to do when these energies move through our human bodies?
Do we embrace them and ask their name, knowing they will rearrange us in unimagined ways?
Or do we let them pass, like a sieve, hoping to remain untouched?
How do we bear witness to what has gone before and not allow the pain to sap our strength?

Three times in my life I have encountered a mysterious force so potent that I felt it in every part of my body, although each time the effect was different.

South Carolina wetlands

The first time I felt it, I thought we’d driven through some kind of electrical field. It was visceral — not a shudder, although that’s the best word I can find to describe the sensation. An energy passed through me, starting in my gut and exiting through the top of my head, prickling my scalp as it left. Goosebumps rose on my arms.

Because there was no explanation or visible source, I wondered if I’d just imagined it. Then my husband asked, “What was that?” He’d felt it too. It was real.

We’d crossed into South Carolina, a state I’d never been to before. Moss-covered trees hung over the narrow road, which hovered just above the surface of vast swamps. The energy that had passed though us at the border seemed to live in the waters that stretched in all directions beneath our vehicle.

The following day, as we gathered with a small group of people who would soon become close friends, we tried to describe the feeling we’d experienced.

“Oh yes,” said one of the native South Carolinians, “thousands of slaves died there, trying to escape. Their spirits live in those swamps.”

I don’t believe that souls stay on earth when their bodies die. But I do believe that trauma can be stored in the land, where it then seeps into the water and is drawn up through the roots of trees. We can feel it just as surely as we feel the stress of unhealed trauma in our own bodies.

Charleston, SC

The second time I experience this mysterious force was in the Charleston City Market. A new friend had invited us along on a day-trip to the coast and said that our visit would not be complete without seeing the marketplace. The brick building, which was constructed in the 1790s, takes up four city blocks and houses hundreds of vendors.

I followed my husband and our four friends, squeezing our way through hordes of tourists. Inside the ancient building the heat was suffocating, without even a slight breeze to dry the sweat that dripped off my forehead into my eyes.

Despite the oppressive conditions, we were having a great time. We ate expensive delicacies, and I bought a foot-massager that I kept for nearly 25 years. But the further into the market we went, the more I felt a strange pressure leaning on me. It was like a giant, invisible hand pushing down on me from the ceiling.

It became harder to stand upright. I kept walking, because the moving stream of people made it impossible to stop, but my body was hunching over as if someone very heavy was riding on my shoulders.

I thought I might be having a reaction to the heat and humidity, although this felt different. I wasn’t light-headed, I just felt pressed down. For a moment I worried that I was experiencing claustrophobia or having my first panic attack.

Then our host, who was walking beside me, pointed up to the top of the brick wall, right below where it joined the ceiling. “See that square mark on the wall?” he asked. “This used to be the slave market. That’s where the shackles were attached to the wall. You can see them all along here.” He said it like he was pointing out an interesting architectural feature.

I didn’t understand how a Black American could speak in such a casual way about enslaved people being shackled to the wall. I felt nauseous for the remaining time we stayed there. The moment I stepped outside into the intense sunlight, the oppressive sensations disappeared.

It was only when I researched this story that I discovered it was all a myth. The City Market had always sold produce. The historical Slave Market was in a different part of the city, near the waterfront. The articles I read said that many people still believed this myth and were reluctant to let it go, even when faced with factual history.

So what was I feeling that day? One article said that enslaved people came to this market to buy food for the plantation. Had sadness and hopelessness soaked into the walls? Or were rebellions and escapes planned there? Maybe I really was affected by the heat, humidity, and crowds, and all the rest was pure imagination.

Or maybe it was something else that I’ll never understand.

Montgomery, AL

The third time I experienced the mysterious force was at the Legacy Museum in Birmingham. My friend and I went first to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, where we walked among monuments to lynching victims in America. Then we made our way through the museum’s exhibits. I am not able to describe what we saw, but you can read about the exhibits here (before you watch the YouTube video, please be advised that some of the images are extremely disturbing.)

Toward the end of the tour, we came around a corner into a narrow room that houses part of the Equal Justice Initiative’s Community Remembrance Project. Lining one wall were floor-to-ceiling shelves holding 800 jars of soil collected from lynching sites around the country.

This time the source of the energy was obvious, and the sensation was easy to describe. I felt paralyzed. The trauma stored in those jars of earth rooted me to the floor. My arms and neck turned to concrete. It lasted only a minute, long enough that I started to worry, then the floor released me and I was free to keep walking.

I’ve been to other places where Black and Indigenous people experienced trauma, but so far I’ve never felt anything remotely like what I described.

What can we do?

My impulse is to ramble on about what these incidents meant to me, but I’m resisting the urge. In case you haven’t noticed, we White people have a tendency to center every story around ourselves.

I want instead to pose these questions:

• Is it possible the earth absorbs human trauma and the stored energy is perceptible? How is the resulting stress impacting our earth?
• Is it also possible that healing energy could be absorbed and released? If healing ceremonies were held in locations with historical trauma, would the earth be healed?

As I’m writing these questions, it occurs to me that some Indigenous peoples already know the answers and are doing the healing work. Please share your thoughts.

Photo by Florian Pinkert on Unsplash

I’ve been to Israel three times on pilgrimage to the Baha’i World Center in Haifa. The most recent trip was in 2004 with my husband, our son, and my 79-year-old mother. Even though I’d been in the Tel Aviv airport before and knew what to expect, I was still intimidated by the young soldiers who seemed to be everywhere, carrying rifles slung casually over their shoulders.

At the Customs checkpoint, I handed my passport to an agent, who took his time examining every page. He verified my name and birthdate, compared my photo to my face, then started with the questions.

Agent: “What is your purpose for coming to Israel?”

Me: “I’m making a pilgrimage to the Baha’i World Center in Haifa.”

Agent: “What locations will you be visiting while you’re in Israel?”

Me: “Haifa and Akka.”

Agent: “What will you do at these locations?”

Me: “Visit Baha’i shrines and holy places.”

Agent: “How long will you be staying in Israel?”

Me: “Ten days.”

There may have been more questions that I’ve since forgotten. I tried to monitor my tone, but I’m sure a note of defensiveness crept in. Did I look like a criminal?

Did my 79-YEAR-OLD MOTHER look like a criminal? Then I reminded myself that this was Israel after all, a foreign country where soldiers walked the streets with rifles.

Things are different here. We’re accustomed to a certain level of freedom in the U.S. We can go where we want without being questioned or regarded with suspicion. People in authority don’t assume we could be criminals.

Oh, wait. Let me try that again.

I’m accustomed to a certain level of freedom in the U.S. I can go where I want without being questioned or regarded with suspicion. People in authority don’t assume I could be a criminal. Because I’m White.

. . .

Now our scene is set in a very White town on a barrier island in Florida. We’re at the end of a bridge connecting this town to a racially diverse city on the mainland.

My friend F.G. is on his way to an art studio on the beach, where he teaches drawing and drumming.

F.G. is a tall, slim Black man in his 70s. He hands his driver’s license to the police officer who stopped his car before it left the bridge. The cop took his time examining the license. He verified F.G.’s name and birthdate, checked his car title and insurance, then started with the questions.

Officer: “Where are you headed, Mr. G?”

F.G.: “To the art studio on Main Street.”

Officer: “And why are you going there?”

F.G.: “To teach my art class.”

Officer: “Will you be going anywhere else on the island?”

F.G.: “No sir.”

Officer: “About when do you think you’ll be heading back home, Mr. G?”

F.G.: “Well that depends on whether or not I decide to stay in town for dinner.”

Officer: “Now don’t try to get smart with me. I asked you a simple question.”

F.G.: “5:30. I’ll be heading home around 5:30.”

Officer: “Well thank you so much for your cooperation, Mr. G. I’ll be looking out for you. Have a nice day now.”

F. G.: “You too, sir.”

And my friend F.G. now has to go about his day, teach his class, and interact with his students as if everything is fine. “If I let it get to me,” he told me once, “I’d be angry all the time. That stress would kill me. I have to let it go.”

It’s hard for me to imagine what it would be like to experience this in my own country — to have a person in authority challenge my right to be somewhere, to have to defend that right, to have to choose, based on how much energy I have that day, whether to be deferential, ignore the indignity, or stand up for my rights (which could end up with me being jailed, or roughed up, or worse).

Yet this is the reality for countless Black men and women, day in and day out, all over this country. I wold be grateful to hear what my readers and their organizations are doing to address this. Do you know of any successful initiatives?

Photo by Micky Fritzsche on Unsplash

In my last post I wrote about what it might mean when White people say “I don’t see color.”

In this post I want to talk about another thing we often say and give you some examples of how Black folks might respond.

I don’t see you as Black

There’s only one interpretation I can think of for that statement:

I believe the negative stereotypes about Black people, but you’re not like them. You don’t act the way I expect Black people to act. You’re an exception.

I wouldn’t even know where to go from there. It’s just bad. Try not to say it.

Following are conversations I heard in three different workshops on racial healing. I always took detailed notes and sometimes made recordings, so the dialogue is reproduced here fairly accurately.

Conversation #1

A White woman gave a long speech about how she was free of all prejudice. Then she looked at a Black woman and said, “For example, I don’t see you as Black.”

“What do you see me as?” asked the Black woman.

“I just see you as Lakisha.”

“And if you had to describe my physical appearance, what would you say?”

“Well,” said the White woman, “I’d say you were medium height, middle-age, with very curly hair.”

“You wouldn’t mention my brown skin?” asked Lakisha.

“Heavens no!”

“Why not?”

“Because that would mean you were . . . “ And that’s where she stopped talking.

Lakisha finally said, “If you don’t see me as Black, then you don’t see me at all.”

Conversation #2

White woman: “I don’t like all this emphasis on differences. We’ll never get past racism if we put so much focus on that. We should be talking about all the ways we’re the same.” Then, looking at the Black woman seated next to her, she said, “You and I are more alike than different. When I look at you, I see another human being. I don’t see you as Black.”

Black woman: “What do you mean by that?”

White woman: “Just what I said — you and I are alike.”

Black woman: “You mean I’m like you?”

Ww: “Yes! Exactly!”

Bw: “So how do I get other White people to treat me the same way they treat you?”

Ww: “Well . . . it’s just that . . . “

Bw: “Or do you mean you’re like me?

Ww: “Not that so much . . . “

Bw: “Why not? Why doesn’t it work both ways?”

And that’s where the conversation ended, because the White woman started crying.

Conversation #3

Susan, who’s White, said to Alan, whom she’s known for many years, “To me, you’re just my friend Alan. I forget that you’re Black all the time.”

Alan said, “What about all these incidents we just been discussing — things that happen to me on a daily basis because I’m Black. Do you forget that too?”

“Oh no, of course I don’t,” said Susan.

“Why do you think I experience racism constantly?” he asked.

“Well, because you’re Black,” she answered. Then, “Okay, I get your point. I guess I can see you as Black, but I don’t have to like it.”

“I love being Black,” said Alan.

End of conversation.

Do you see how problematic this is? No matter how we spin it, if we who are White aren’t able to see Black people in their full reality — not only the beauty of their color, but also their experiences — then we’re useless as allies. If we claim we want to do the work of dismantling racist systems and building just communities, we have to see everything.

Does “I don’t see you as White” mean the same thing?

In 1968, during my sophomore year in college, I had a Black roommate. She was from the South Side of Chicago and had been active in the Civil Rights Movement there. She and her friends held a Black Sisters gathering regularly in our dorm room to talk about the changes they wanted to see on campus and how they would go about making their demands.

I came from a 99.98% white suburb of Chicago, and I heard things in that dorm room I’d never heard before. Often they were angry. They talked about Black Power and used unfamiliar words for White people. The first time this happened, I sat on the floor in the corner (my bed, desk, and chair were occupied by Black women) and tried not to look shocked.

During the second Black Sisters gathering, I asked, “Would you be more comfortable if I left the room? I can go study in the lounge.”

One student asked, “Are you uncomfortable with us?”

I said, “No, but I don’t know how you feel about having a White person listening to everything you’re saying.”

“You stay here,” she said. “We don’t think of you as White.”

I was not insulted; I was grateful. The education I received sitting with those powerful young women has served me throughout my life. Some of the things they said were really difficult to hear, so I got to practice facing my fragility. When I said something stupid — which happened quite often — one of them would say, “Well that was stupid.” If I talked too much, they told me to shut up and listen. It was a tough start to my race education, but I wouldn’t change anything. They were among my first teachers and I honor them.

I would love to hear about your experiences. Have you said dumb things in a conversation about race? What happened? What did you learn?

Photo by Emily Rose: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-blind-fold-2893996/

As you may have figured out by now, I spend a lot of time thinking about race. Specifically I think about my racial conditioning as a White woman and how I can replace it with truth. I find it helpful to look at the things we White people commonly say and their underlying assumptions. Two of the most predictable are “I don’t see color” and “I don’t see you as Black.”

Let’s examine these statements and try to uncover what we really mean when we say them. We’ll look at the first one in this post and the second one in the next.

I Don’t See Color

I’ve come up with three different things White people might be trying to say when we speak those words.

• God doesn’t see color, so I shouldn’t see it either. Color doesn’t matter. We’re all the same on the inside.

I do believe that God sees us as colorless souls. But we are dual-natured beings, both spiritual and material, at least as long as we’re living in this world. Bodies have skin, which have color, and our society has assigned meaning and hierarchy to those colors. We are given or refused advantages based on color. We experience oppression or entitlement based on color. We have to be able to see these differences if we hope to work for justice.

Try this experiment: extend your arm straight out in front of your face, with your thumb up and at eye level. Close your right eye. What’s behind your thumb? Now, keeping your arm perfectly still, open your right eye and close your left. What’s behind your thumb now?

What you see behind your thumb is different, depending on your literal point of view. Nothing else changed. My bookshelf is directly behind my thumb, and my printer is directly behind my thumb. Both views are true, even though the objects are 18” apart.

So let’s say that one is your spiritual eye and the other your material eye. When you look at a person through your spiritual eye, you don’t see color; you see another human soul who is just like you. However when you look at her through your material eye, you see the color of her skin, as well as what that color means. It’s not dichotomous; one does not cancel out the other.

So we don’t see color and we do see color, both at the same time. Besides, if you believe in God, then you must believe She/He made humans colorful on purpose.

• I look at you and I truly can’t distinguish your color at all.

I assume this one could be true if you have a certain kind of color blindness. But if your eyes perceive color normally, it’s more likely a statement designed to convince someone you’re not racist. I grew up thinking that if I noticed dark skin color, that automatically meant I was racist. It seems to me that younger generations have moved beyond this idea. Let’s hope it dies out with us old people.

• I do see your color, but I don’t let it influence how I think of you. I treat everyone the same.

This is a worthy goal, but in our current society it’s not possible. Anyone who thinks they’re free of color/race bias can go here for a reality check. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

This is Harvard’s Implicit (as in unconscious) Association Test, and it will mess with your mind. There are 15 different tests — I recommend the Race IAT and the Skin-tone IAT for our purposes. Once you’ve been sufficiently humbled, you might want to try some of the others.

When I took the Race test several years ago, my results surprised me. Here’s the test description:

“Race (‘Black — White’ IAT). This IAT requires the ability to distinguish faces of European and African origin. It indicates that most Americans have an automatic preference for white over black.”

My results show “a strong automatic preference for Black people compared to White people.” Only 2% of all respondents have this preference. (I made a screen shot of my report and I keep it on my phone, just in case I ever have to prove that I’m not making it up.)

I was thrilled! I finally had official proof that I’d succeeded in overcoming all my racist attitudes. The following day I reported my score to a dear Black male friend, who knows me very well.

“I’m in the TOP two percent!” I boasted. I wouldn’t have said this to anyone else, Black or White. It can come off all wrong. In fact, I’ve told only a few people about my results. Up till now, that is.

“The top?” he asked.

“Yep! Top two percent, that’s me.” (If we could use emojis on Medium, I would place a face-palm here.)

When he finally stopped laughing, he said, “I don’t think that’s the goal Phyllis. I believe the ideal would be to show no preference for one over the other.”

Ego is a tricky devil. Mine got crushed when I took some of the other tests.

What could we say instead?

The best I’ve come up with so far is “I notice and appreciate differences of color and I’m working hard to overcome my unconscious racial biases.”

What would you say?

Photo by pawel szvmanski on Unsplash

A few years ago, a beloved friend died suddenly, leaving a gaping hole in my life and my heart. He was seriously ill, and we all knew his time on earth was limited. But no one expected it to happen so soon.

I flew to San Diego for his memorial service and burial, where I was surrounded by others who loved him. For three days we shared grief and stories of how this exceptional person had touched our lives. At the end of our last evening together, I checked in to a hotel that had shuttle service to the airport, so I could catch an early morning flight back home.

These events, although not directly related to my story, are important because they tell you something about my emotional state that night. By the time I’d gotten settled in my room, I was exhausted from crying. I felt vulnerable, fragile, and raw. All I wanted to do was sleep, only sleep would not come.

As I sat on the bed, trying to get my bearings, I realized I hadn’t eaten all day and suddenly I was starving. I figured as long as I wasn’t going to get any sleep, I might as well get some food. It was near midnight, but this was San Diego. There had to be someplace to eat nearby.

I went to the front desk, rang the bell, and waited a long time for the night clerk. When he finally showed up, he told me there was only one restaurant still open this time of night. It was a seafood place on the bay front, about six blocks away. He offered to call me a cab.

“No thanks,” I said, “I’ll just walk. I need the fresh air anyway.”

“I don’t advise you to walk alone at night in this area,” said the clerk. “Let me call you a cab.”

“No thanks,” I repeated. “I’ll be fine.” I wasn’t being brave and I wasn’t naive. I was just utterly depleted and not thinking clearly. I went out the door and headed for the restaurant, which I could see among the lights on the marina.

I was walking briskly, thinking about the crab cakes I would soon be enjoying, when a group of men come around a corner and toward me on the sidewalk. They were White and young. I could tell they were drunk by their voices and movements.

My throat constricted, and for a moment I froze. Then I looked around frantically for anything that might offer safety. On the opposite corner I saw a lone Black man standing by a bench that was partially hidden in the trees. I didn’t know what he was doing there and I didn’t care; I knew he would protect me. I ran across the street and straight to where the man stood.

“Could you please help me?” I asked him. “I’m afraid of those guys and I don’t want to be alone.”

“Ma’am, what are you doing walking around out here by yourself at night?” he asked. “You’re not safe.”

“Yes, I can see that now,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking. I’ve just been to a funeral, and I have a flight really early tomorrow morning, and I haven’t eaten anything all day, and that’s the only restaurant where I can get some food.” I was jittery and babbling at that point. I was pretty sure I had narrowly escaped danger. “Can I stay here by you until they’ve gone?”

“Let’s not stand around here,” he said. “Come on, I’ll walk you to the restaurant.”

And that’s what he did. I don’t remember if I asked his name or what we talked about. Maybe I told him my friend had died and my heart was broken. He walked me to the door of the restaurant and made me promise I would take a cab back to the hotel. The White men were long gone by the time I returned.

So why did I write about this experience? Because some of my White sisters have never heard a story like this one, and I want them to know it’s possible to reverse what we’ve been taught.

Here’s the thing: this fear we have of Black men is based not on actual experience, but on the lies we’ve been told. When we don’t have any actual experiences, we have no real evidence to disprove the lies, so we’re stuck with our racist conditioning.

But when we build relationships with many honest, kind, caring Black men, then that’s what we come to expect. That’s what I’ve come to expect anyway. I’ve been teased, threatened, bullied, and harassed by White boys and men since elementary school. I have never — not once — experienced any of those things from Black men. So where else would I go for safety?

Yes, I know there are other considerations, including different reasons why Black men are polite to White woman. I also know some of you are thinking my decision to walk alone at night was stupid. I’ll agree with that before you even say it. Then there’s the reality that many women feel unsafe with men, regardless of their color. And there’s the fact that they were drunk. It’s also true that there are plenty of kind, caring White men who would never hurt anyone. All of those are valid points, but they’re not the point of my story.

The point of my story is that even though we’ve been trained to be afraid, we have the power to turn that around.

The one thing I will add is that I possibly put that Black man in danger by walking with him. I went to him for protection without ever considering how it might look and what could happen to him as a result. That’s my White privilege. Does the fact that I was frightened of a group of White men make it okay?

I realize I’m taking a risk by sharing my experience here. I’m okay with that, as long as the story can be used to start a conversation or can help someone see things from a different perspective.

Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash