U.S. residents/voters of good will...come in, pls.

[SKL]

21 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

Is it really that hard though? And I mean hard, I don’t mean simply uncomfortable. Grandpa says racist things, and that’s not okay. Uncle Bob is an alcoholic, and that’s unhealthy and dangerous. Aunt Jane’s husband was abusive, and that’s bad. Our ancestors owned slaves, and that was horribly inhumane. Our relatives “bought” most of northern NJ from the native people for mere trinkets (true story in my case) and that was deeply wrong.

My kids have never shown confusion about the bad things in our family history. Now, had i painted our history as no big deal, perhaps I could have gaslighted them into seeing it differently.

Well I think what we mean to say is not always what kids understand, especially young kids.

We usually tell about our people in short stories, not comprehensive reports.  While we may have some relatives we don't want our kids to look up to, others, like most humans, are a mix.  I'll use my paternal grandma for an example.  At 13 I wrote a report about her life that got published in a school publication.  She was an interesting and impressive person on many levels.  Among other things, she immigrated from Hungary as a child, and she suffered a lot of discrimination over that.  She also had racist perceptions.  Not because she decided "let's be racist," but because the world she was born into was racist.  Her racist perceptions and views were wrong, but she was not a bad person.  (She had black friends, but "they were different.")  I also disagreed with her on other matters, but she was still a loved grandma.

It's much more than "Grandma held racist beliefs, and that's bad."  (AFAIK nobody in her lineage ever owned slaves.  Also, I've not heard my dad say racist things, so I assume he wasn't brought up to be hateful.)

I always go back to how I remember my kids' understanding of the Martin Luther King Day lesson in KG.  They came away saying, "at least I'm not as dark as ___."  I believe that at that age, being told that our institutions, government, and many families did xyz is akin to saying that xyz is OK.  If I told my kids some of the jokes my mom brought from her white slum upbringing, while still having a good relationship with my mom, how does a child's mind perceive that?  It seems to work better to wait until they are old enough to understand human complexity.

It may be a little different with my kids since they are nonwhite.  These things are less theoretical for us.

My knowledge of my ancestors' faults doesn't go back very far.  Of my 4 grandparents (2 of whom I never met), 1 was an immigrant from middle-class Hungary; 1 was a descendant from the British aristrocracy; 1 was descended from German Jews; 1 was a violent criminal whose dad was an even more violent criminal.  AFAIK none of my ancestors had a hand in any of the great historical US racial injustices (genocide, slavery, KKK...).  The stories passed down from my folks generally relate to family matters from the last couple centuries.

To add a twist, my kids also have their own biological heritage.  Their home country has a whole different racial history.  We do not know exactly what roles their ancestors played in that.

[SHP]

On 8/7/2023 at 7:50 AM, KidsHappen said:

Which leads me back to my original statement that we start with the verifiable facts and then proceed from there. The discussion has to start somewhere and it seems to me that the facts are the best place to start. I don't really see any other way. Clearly the whitewashing and gaslighting are continuing unabated. If we let that stand without countering then many people will assume it is true because no one argued that it wasn't. If there is a better way I am open to suggestions and eager to learn. 

I agree 100% about facts.

 

Personal truths and people demanding that others accept "their truth" is, IME part of the problem. People think "their truth" means facts. Throw in the saying something over and over that people believe it and it is a recipe for disaster.

I will accept your perception of events.

I will not accept you claiming that your "truth" is a factual representation of events.

Example

"I am oppressed and they violated my right to free speech!" Said by a cishet white dude who was told to leave a small business. He gets to claim that as his truth. 

The facts

White guy was in a coffee shop making racist comments to the black customers and black employees and was asked to stop then leave when he refused to stop.

[Pam in CT]

re limitations of multistrand narratives vs. course correction required to rebalance centuries of hagiography

On 8/7/2023 at 11:03 AM, Amira said:

No, it's [multiple strands of this/ and also this/ and also this] not wishcasting.  But to me, a goal to now lay out the strands more equally doesn't necessarily promote healing from past trauma and violence.  It's certainly better than what we've been doing, and it's not just "both sides," but it's not enough.

Yes, Thomas Jefferson was many things, good and bad. But most of our history has been spent talking about the good and actively suppressing the bad. I don't think it's enough to simply add in  strands about Sally Hemings or James Hemings to Jefferson's life.  That helps, but because there is so much momentum behind the "good" narratives, I think we need to spend more time on the difficult narratives to make sure they actually are getting the attention they deserve. 

It's not something we'll ever be done with.  The "both sides" thing pushes the idea that if you tell two sides, then you're done.  Multiple strands takes more work, but it also can come with the idea that it can be finished if you add in a few more hard stories.  

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, just thinking through what Sneezy's words and your words feels like to me.  

(Also thinking about the historical site I visited yesterday with lots of interpretative signs.  There are now a few signs that talk explicitly about the people who were enslaved at the site.  Their work built and maintained the place for over 60 years.  The interpretation is not a both sides things at all, and they have worked to widen the storyline. But most of the signs and interpretation are still about the white people who lived there even though most of the people who lived there were not white.  One of the three signs mentioning people who were enslaved used a drawing that was very stereotypical.   More strands are there, but the white narrative still dominates.)

I've been mulling over this.

I think you are right.  If you're on a boat, and have been veering off course for many miles, it's not sufficient to turn to the original line; you need to overcorrect to get on course.

And, also.... (...)

We're in a world where not only do many schoolchildren not know historical facts about Ruby Bridges or the Tulsa Massacre, but state and local legislatures are banning books about those events from school classrooms and libraries; and enacting policies that give teachers very good reason to fear that they will be fired if they attempt to cover such historical facts in class.

That is the baseline of which OP speaks.

 

The question of what can dislodge this and ferry us toward a better place is not a question that the Governor, or Moms for Liberty, or Christofer Rufo, or the parents howling CRTeeeeeeee!!!!!!! in Board of Ed meetings across the country, or trolls on WTM boards, are interested in. 

Progress will happen despite such folks, not with them.  That basic dynamic has been true of every movement towards greater inclusion and expansion of rights over time. 

Regressives gonna regress.  Dig in, deny, DARVO, howl about how THEY'RE actually the aggrieved party suffering injury.  It's what they do.

 

There is, for sure, a place for "calling out" individual nonsense and organized political confrontation.  I have long admired @Sneezyone for her work, here and over in the real world, in that lane.

Generally, that is not my lane, by either disposition or skill set. The metaphor that defines for me what *I* can do comes from yoga practice -- the concepts of making space and holding space.  Using the tools in my personal toolkit (my vantage point as white, financially comfortable, cis-, in good health etc; my education, my ease with words, my comparative ability to hold my temper, etc) towards making space for multiple perspectives, for noting and naming where perspectives pull in different directions and explicitly framing that multiple divergent things can exist at the same time, space for disappointment and pain and anger of my own and others, space for optimism that as we learn more, we can do more. Space for hope of redemption in THIS world.

And I try to hold that space, and put language to it, and

one

by one

by one

demonstrate that a grown up embrace of our shared history is actually much better -- not just more accurate but also emotionally healthier, richer, fuller, more interesting / better food & music -- than childish hagiography coupled with furious defensive outrage and denial.  I attempt to develop and strengthen my own muscle for holding multiple strands; and I attempt to do so more-or-less publicly, in my virtual and real lives, to demonstrate -- including the inevitable stumbles and tone deafness and times when I miss the mark -- that it's better to try and stumble, then not to try.

I'm never going to make a lick of difference to folks like Chris Rufo, or the Governor, or trolls on WTM. But we're talking about shared stories, and stories are always, ultimately, received one by one by one.  That's how storytelling diverges from propaganda.

I think you'd like Padraig O'Tuama if you haven't come across him already.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* this IS what censorhip means; government action that limits particular content

[Sneezyone]

Thanks, Pam. FWIW, I think there’s this national fixation with placing blame, which goes hand in hand with the othering (separating ourselves from those who are 'affected'), vs sitting with the uncomfortable truth that we are all the recipients of structures/systems, advantages and disadvantages created by those who came before whether they are part of our ancestry or not. No one escapes the consequences of policies and practices rooted in the nation’s history of white supremacy because it created the miasma in which we still live. You can’t talk honestly about stuff like that waterfront brawl in AL without acknowledging/seeing/understanding the history.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Sneezyone

[Carrie12345]

5 hours ago, SKL said:

Well I think what we mean to say is not always what kids understand, especially young kids.

We usually tell about our people in short stories, not comprehensive reports.  While we may have some relatives we don't want our kids to look up to, others, like most humans, are a mix.  I'll use my paternal grandma for an example.  At 13 I wrote a report about her life that got published in a school publication.  She was an interesting and impressive person on many levels.  Among other things, she immigrated from Hungary as a child, and she suffered a lot of discrimination over that.  She also had racist perceptions.  Not because she decided "let's be racist," but because the world she was born into was racist.  Her racist perceptions and views were wrong, but she was not a bad person.  (She had black friends, but "they were different.")  I also disagreed with her on other matters, but she was still a loved grandma.

It's much more than "Grandma held racist beliefs, and that's bad."  (AFAIK nobody in her lineage ever owned slaves.  Also, I've not heard my dad say racist things, so I assume he wasn't brought up to be hateful.)

I always go back to how I remember my kids' understanding of the Martin Luther King Day lesson in KG.  They came away saying, "at least I'm not as dark as ___."  I believe that at that age, being told that our institutions, government, and many families did xyz is akin to saying that xyz is OK.  If I told my kids some of the jokes my mom brought from her white slum upbringing, while still having a good relationship with my mom, how does a child's mind perceive that?  It seems to work better to wait until they are old enough to understand human complexity.

It may be a little different with my kids since they are nonwhite.  These things are less theoretical for us.

My knowledge of my ancestors' faults doesn't go back very far.  Of my 4 grandparents (2 of whom I never met), 1 was an immigrant from middle-class Hungary; 1 was a descendant from the British aristrocracy; 1 was descended from German Jews; 1 was a violent criminal whose dad was an even more violent criminal.  AFAIK none of my ancestors had a hand in any of the great historical US racial injustices (genocide, slavery, KKK...).  The stories passed down from my folks generally relate to family matters from the last couple centuries.

To add a twist, my kids also have their own biological heritage.  Their home country has a whole different racial history.  We do not know exactly what roles their ancestors played in that.

Just to be clear, I’m mostly making up reasonable hypotheticals. Your ancestry, my ancestry, anyone’s ancestry, unknown ancestry, it was kind of irrelevant to my point.

I do believe almost all kids are more emotionally intelligent than they’re given credit for, particularly when it comes to clear examples of ethics. Using my own, they didn’t struggle with loving my grandfather, who said many racist things when I was a kid. They did understand that I made a rule that it wouldn’t be tolerated around me any longer, or around them at all. It was more complex getting a golden child to understand a narcissist grandmother than it was the scapegoat child. The latter was relieved to have an explanation.

In your MLK example, did you not interpret that as an expression of feeling safer than darker skinned people? That would seem to me to be a sad but logical observation from children, not an acceptable of abhorrent behavior!

It doesn’t have to be “our” personal genetic history. It’s our nation’s history. Not all of my kids are super geniuses, but none of them have ever misunderstood evil for good because it matched their skin. Or their DNA  Or their last name.

I do think it’s more confusing when adults are uncomfortable with the topic because they haven’t worked through their own feelings.

 

[Sneezyone]

19 hours ago, TechWife said:

Speaking to this. I’ve just started reading a book for background on a Bible study class I’m teaching in the fall. I’m only in chapter two so I haven’t seen all of this fleshed out yet. What I have learned is helping me to connect some dots.
Valuing the individual over the collective wasn’t common place in the US until after WWII. Before that, during the Industrial Revolution & Victorian era, there was a sense of social responsibility, resulting in action carried out mainly by women. Charity societies, visiting the sick & poor, providing food & clothing to those who needed it was a cultural  expectation for those who had the means to help. Literacy, advocating for child labor laws, suffrage, etc. were some of the initiatives spearheaded. During the depression people ran soup kitchens, shared what food they could  with the stranger that came to the back door (yes, not everyone did this, but it was common for those who were able to do it).  This came to an end after WW II. Families, especially women, were told it was more important for women to stay home and create a nurturing, healing atmosphere for their returning war veteran husbands. They left the work place having been told it was more important for the men to work and to temper their “independence and confidence” lest the men’s self confidence fall. Women were to stay home & raise kids & by the mid -50’s motherhood was “the most important job in the world.”

These ideas were promoted in books & in magazines like Harper’s Bazaar. 

So, in less than ten years, community action went from being integrated into the Am. way of life to being actively discouraged.  My next block of study time isn’t until Wednesday, and I’m looking forward to learning more. 

This isn’t true of all women tho. Not even a majority of women. It was true for a subset of women who had the means and support to stay home. WoC, low-income women, never stopped working. Both are true. Some women were told that not working, being a full time caregiver, was their right and proper place. Others, simultaneously, were told not working was a form of social grift, whether or not they were married and parenting young children. They were even told they had no right to withhold their labor.

Who benefits from the former narrative? Who was burdened by it? Why aren’t both stories told and reconciled?

IMO- it’s because it would explain (among other related issues) entirely too much of the demonization of working women and  low SES. These messages are pervasive still, today, toward and among the audiences that they were intended to influence.

Even the myth of the ‘strong and angry’ black woman who can endure all and works incessantly without rest finds its roots in this longstanding practice of separating black from woman and mother and spouse and, and, and.

Who benefits from that? Who is burdened by it? Why and how?

The answers to those questions aren’t as pat as black women suffer, and they have/do, but so too did white women who weren’t free to pursue options either, albeit different ones.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Sneezyone