Indelible

Time to Crash Through Your Messages of Unity

[originally posted in "Time to crash through your messages of unity" ]

I've seen some schlock on Facebook that would normally merit only snark from me. These days? Oh, you've earned my contempt. Let me share a couple examples.

I’m sick of COVID-19. I’m sick of black vs. white. I’m sick of Democrats vs. Republicans. I’m sick of gay vs. straight. I’m sick of Christians vs atheists. I’m REALLY sick of the media. I’m sick of no one being allowed to think what they want & feel what they do without offending someone. I am sick of the nosey ass people who call the cops when anyone does anything they don’t approve of. I am sick of blaming the whole for the sins of a few.

We’re one race—the human race. You want to support President Trump? You do you. It’s your choice. You want to support Biden? Fine... also your choice! You want to believe in God? Okay, believe in God. You want to believe in magical creatures that fly around & sprinkle fairy dust to make life better? Awesome... you do you.

BUT stop thrusting your beliefs on others & not being able to deal with the fact that they don’t have the same exact mind-set as you. Having our own minds is what makes us all individual and beautiful. If you can’t handle the fact that you may have a friend that has opposing views as you, then you are not any better than the bigots and the racists. I don’t have to agree with everything you believe to be a decent human being & your friend

#repost #beyourself #iamwhoiam #youdoyou

Ugh! I'm so tired of division! Why can't there just be open minds and freaking LOVE?!

There are a few things about these messages that annoy me. You better sit down, because it will take a while to get through all of them.

First of all, let's talk about love. As I've said before, "The Invention of Love"  was not an interesting play but had a great title. I find that the phrase does a great job of articulating how I feel love is so often a show. After all, let's not forget the perennial dog whistle for those who like to appear positive: live, laugh, love. You damn right I called it a dog whistle. Anyway, that phrase is certainly not the only one used by those who wish to project themselves as very positive online, but it's the most commonly found (and mocked, which does bring a smirk to my face). We know it's a projection, though. It's an invention meant to make people look good for their friends on the highlight reel. And while some of know that our social media is a curated experience and adjust to provide a variety of insights, that's not a common practice. My desire to share high quality reporting and cut back on op-eds is rare (but appreciated by my dad, so that counts for something). Most people want to highlight the good times and surround themselves with flimsy "inspirational" materials, materials so trite that there's a cottage industry popping up to mock them. So when the word "love" gets tossed around on social media, yeah, I'm going to think it's fake partly because of crap like this. Even aside from all that, "love" is too fluffy and nonspecific. It's also too fantasy-oriented. In my many months of grieving multiple losses (first my mom and now the tremendous blows to Minneapolis), I have found that offerings of love are too overwhelming. It's like treating a burn. Cool water will help heal. Ice water will shock your system and cause more damage. Love is ice cold water to me. Respect and support with a bit of emotional distance is the cool water I prefer and really need given the complexity of my grief situation.

And I imagine love so broadly applied will not be completely digestible by those who have lost their businesses or sense of safety. If you buy into Maslow's hierarchy of needs, those who have lost these things have bigger concerns and have their focus redirected as such. Assistance given with respect will make them more open to love, but it really needs to be delivered in a way where they can set the pace for accepting love. A lot of us in Minneapolis are not there yet, and we may not be for a while. We will appreciate support and respect much more, and it will feel different from love. Respect and support will make us feel like our dignity is restored. Love will feel too much like smothering, pity, or possibly not even being real because the person giving love might be trying to virtue signal to others. If we push back on love, we don't trust it. We often don't trust it for a very good reason (or two or five or 20). We need to feel like we are being treated as humans with dignity first. When we feel that dignity has been restored (or at least has made significant progress), we will be more open to and less skittish of love. For me personally, I am starting to wonder if I'm past the point of no return on that one. The reasons for that will become abundantly clear as we move ahead with this dissection.

Then there's division. I think the thing that really gets me about messages like these is that they frame division as two opposite choices. The reality is divisions are far more varied and far less clear than these messages suggest. The first message in particular ignores this point. "I’m sick of Democrats vs. Republicans."? First off, it's not quite that simple. There's a lot of middle ground, and contrary to what many in the activist circles believe, moderates don't believe in doing nothing. Moderate favor a more incremental, pick and mix approach. Centrists are somewhat like this but are more willing to support more drastic moves that don't neatly fall into the left vs. right dichotomy. (As a centrist, I support reforming the electoral college to death. I think that's far more effective than outright abolition.) "I’m sick of no one being allowed to think what they want & feel what they do without offending someone." Here's the thing. You can think and feel what you choose. Expressing it has to be done with care. And controversial opinion, you need to be ready to defend it rather than hide behind a comment of "I didn't mean it" or "I was just joking". If you hold an opinion, you better be ready to get the expression right the first time.

Take, for instance, Election 2012. That year, Minnesota had a ballot measure regarding the definition of marriage. If people voted for this amendment, then the state would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Not surprisingly, as a resident of Minneapolis, I saw WAAAAY more signs and stickers urging people to vote no. I was in a bind. I felt emotionally manipulated by the Vote No group, but I did not want to be associated with the hardline conservatives pushing this measure. When I was completing my ballot, I read the text of the measure. It said that not selecting a choice counted as a "no" vote. I stood there for a moment contemplating the measure and the text on the ballot. Then I closed my eyes, exhaled deeply, and decided not to fill in a bubble knowing full well that it was a de facto no vote. I would have preferred to support gay marriage as a cost cutting measure at the local and state levels (as I'd read an article talking about how the dissolution of gay marriages at the time required three times as many court visits to resolve between the union, property, and kids [among other things]). When gay marriage wasn't recognized by the state, each aspect of marriage had to be handled by a different court, which struck me as pretty wasteful spending of my tax dollars. That said, the emotional tactics of the Vote No campaign made me honest to god sick to my stomach, as I knew they were tugging on the heartstrings. It felt cheap and insulting to me. I really did not want to give that campaign credit. Not filling in that bubble was (to me) the least bad option, and I still stand by my decision. In the end, I got what I wanted in terms of tax money reallocation. I wish more people had had a chance to hear that argument.

There are other things about the divisions that irritate me. The line "I’m REALLY sick of the media." is one I've heard so goddamn often over the years. I want to say to these people, "What are you doing about it?" I've been walking the walk of getting high quality reporting shared. And with the Minneapolis riots, I've been working to get the full picture out there for people to understand just how complex the situation is. We've arrested several arsonists and looters, but there are still so many on the loose. The national media has glossed over the fact that what happened in Minneapolis wasn't strictly the voice of the unheard. It was a hodgepodge of troublemakers goading a small number of the unheard, with others in the unheard crowd working to call these instigators out. There have been some people in alt media talking about this a bit on the national level, but it's not that common. So for those who complain about the media, I have no pity or mercy for you because I've been trying for YEARS to reward good journalism, the deep dives and even keeled language. Then I see you complainers sharing badly written local-ish media articles that take only a couple minutes to read. They usually focus on inane crimes/accidents of the day. Very rarely are you tackling the complex, controversial, or plain ol' substantial issues of the day. That shit is on you full stop.

And that leads me to perhaps the biggest kicker of them all. These message are often shared by people in small towns with insular mindsets. There's a lot of coddled behavior from what I have observed from those who share these kinds of thoughts. Because of social media being what it is, women are far more likely to perpetrate this behavior. I've recently read some comments from white women where they've remarked on being infantilized in their way of thinking after they start to learn about the way black women live (and often the burdens they carry after a black man in their life is killed [especially by law enforcement]). While I'm not entirely certain of all the things mentioned in this op-ed about white women's role in black oppression  , I think there are veins of truth within it.

Perhaps because I'm only half white I did not have this kind or level of sheltering. I have remarked on the past that my family often lauded my brains before lauding my looks. They delivered messages that I would find my value in my intelligence and diligence. Looking back, there wasn't a whole lot of messaging from either side indicating that I would be valued for being white. I think it was clear to everyone in the family that I was not fully white (even though I can pass for white in various contexts), so there wasn't much sheltering me from finding out how non-whites live. There wasn't an effort to have me adopt principles of upholding practices that benefited whites at the expense of others. Then again, that would have been a weird thing from my parents given that I actually spent the first three years of my life living in a predominantly black neighborhood. At the same time, my middle school was converted from an old segregated high school and is surrounded by predominantly black neighborhoods and Section 8 housing. I could write a whole entry on my middle school. I think I will. I think you can see enough here, though, that shows I was not always surrounded by the comforts of white messaging.

Without a doubt this has shaped me into a harder woman than many. I don't conform in any way to the image of the white Millennial wine obsessed woman in the 'burbs. Instead, I've been reading about the diversity of thought among blacks in the US for the last couple years. I've spent many conversations discussing what races/ethnicities I've been mistaken for over the decades. Trust me. It's been decades. It's been with me my whole life. I've journaled about it more times than I can count, and yet somehow I feel like I never run out of things to say about it. I've fought to not have my Asian identity erased by pretty much everyone that isn't Asian. My mother-in-law recently told mi amor that she forgets I'm not 100% Caucasian. When I show up for family events in Minnesota, it's pretty damn obvious I'm not white. John and Laura's wedding pictures are explicit proof of this. Why am I going on and on and on about this? Because this background will help you understand why I interpret messages of unity as a sign of white fragility and privilege. Here's the thing. I probably have had white privilege as much as I've been racially profiled. I've never just had one or the other, and it's a weird ass experience. It's actually rather lonely. Because of that split experience, I am almost viscerally repelled by these messages. They come from a secure place that I don't know and have never known. I will also never know it because as people continue to reevaluate their perceptions of race, I'm going to bear witness to their confusion and desire to project what they want on me as they wrestle with their racial demons. I cannot fight their fight, but I can point out when they're backpedaling or losing the fight against themselves. The line "If you can’t handle the fact that you may have a friend that has opposing views as you, then you are not any better than the bigots and the racists." brings this into sharp relief. Sometimes, a friend who has opposing views is more than a difference of opinion. It can come across as trying to erase a part of you, so we will fight back. I've had to deal with people trying to mold me into one race or another since I was a little girl. At 6 years old, I had a teacher tell me to fill in "white" for the race on a standardized test. At 36, a whole lot more has happened where I've been pigeonholed and used as an unwitting inkblot for racial purposes.

When Black Lives Matter first came on the scene, I felt like I was being accused of having white privilege when I knew that wasn't the case. As they have gained more energy, I've come to realize that the white privilege I've experienced is not as much as one might think I've had. The years that have passed since then made me realize that what bothered me the most was the white guilt from overzealous allies, a guilt that I feel may inadvertently overshadow black voices (which is some straight up bullshit). I've also taken the time to inventory my life from the perspective of racial biases, injustices, and education. The development of my racial perspective has been all over the goddamn place and VERY different from what the white women promoting these messages of unity and love likely experienced. I was in classes with mostly white classmates but was in far more diverse schools and met people of all demographics through my extracurricular work. I then went on to attend a majority Hispanic college. It's been a patchwork, to say the least. Through all that, I can look at these messages and see them for the virtue signaling that they are. At the end of the day, I cannot and will not abide.