Privilege, racism, and trauma
Disclaimer: I’m a white woman, with plenty of privilege, who doesn’t have answers and is going about her life in the best way she knows, imperfectly and open to feedback. So.
I’m a white woman.
The kind of white that turns pink under the sun and forgets sometimes what it means to be white in this country of ours. I forget and allow my own past experiences to convince me that I’ve been through enough shit to know how it feels at the bottom.
I don’t.
The country is tearing itself apart trying to find balance, and I find myself at a loss for words. This is not uncommon for me the last few years of my life, but I feel one specific truth down into my bones.
I’ve spent a lot of my life making myself small, staying silent, hoping that safety will follow.
My silence helps no one.
Especially right now.
I’ve said for a while to my nearest and dearest that I felt things needed to get worse before they got better. Now that they have, I am hoping that this is as bad as it is going to get. But that really depends on us white people.
The system isn’t broken; it’s working the way we designed it to. Systemic racism is so alive and thriving that some of the white population doesn’t believe it exists. Like global warming, it is too uncomfortable and inconvenient to be true so it is simply dismissed. The institutions have been “functioning” for so long that change is slow and non-linear. We jump forward, we jump back. The pendulum swings and yet doesn’t seem to find a happy middle ground where everyone is truly equal.
We, as an entire country, are stuck in some serious trauma loops. Generations of it has accumulated, affecting all of us. The field of epigenetics showed in a recent study that adverse experiences can be traced through 14 generations. 14 generations. Our DNA changes to carry these things, and it becomes the blueprint for our lives. Think of it as a huge and unhealthy family dynamic.
The thing about trauma is that longer it stays in the system, the stickier and scarier it becomes. I was at an Amanda Palmer show last year and she said a friend of hers, a therapist, once told her that if you don’t deal with it, trauma “goes into the cellar of your soul… and lifts weights”. Exactly this. We get more reactive, less responsive. It takes more and more energy simply be, much less to override and choose something new. It turns into a way a life, determines how our neural pathways develop, dictates how we feel in relationship and in everyday situations.
As awful as all of this sounds, especially when applied to something with as wide of a scope as this, there is hope. We are being offered an opportunity to heal major wounds that span generations. Making space, compassionately and patiently listening, validating the experiences of BIPOC, supporting them is a good start. Taking a good look and checking ourselves is even better. It is not up to our friends of color to heal the pervasive, systemic, and institutionalized racism that we find ourselves in. It is not up to them to correct the imbalance. If it were, it would already be done.
White folks, we have some work to do.
We all know that our brains have incredible healing potential; I’d be shocked if you haven’t heard the word neuroplasticity or personally knew someone who has suffered a stroke or concussion that had a seemingly miraculous recovery. Awareness, responsiveness, and compassion are key to shifting beliefs and actions.
Feel like you’re just fine the way you are and don’t need to change? Uncomfortable with having these kinds of discussions? Feeling defensive just reading this? This is a sign. Get curious!
Feeling inconvenienced by the protests and news? Wanting things to “go back to normal”? Have a hard time believing that a police officer would kneel on the neck of a black man until he died, and even a harder time believing why the community would want to burn the city to the ground? This is a sign. Get curious!
I can guarantee you know some pretty amazing people that you can have good conversations with. Start there. Ask how they perceive you. Be gentle with yourself if/when you discover that you are also caught in a loop. There is no one to blame here; it is not our fault that we turned out the way we did, but it does become our responsibility. I’m begging you, please do your work. It will be imperfect and awkward and hard and maybe never complete but it will be worth it. Evolution and change are slow processes and it starts from within. We cannot grow as a community unless we grow as individuals. Micro to macro, this is how it works.
As for the civil unrest that is spreading across the country- please support your community. If you are too uncomfortable or are unable to leave your house and protest, there are plenty of other ways in which you can lend your weight. There is ample opportunity for donations of time, supplies, money. If you still can’t manage to get involved, at the very least find compassion and make space for those who are. We are gaining momentum towards a beautiful change, and with all the power white folk have, it would be a shame to let it go to waste.