Guilty Conversations

I can stand up and discuss the need for equal rights and share articles with my friends on facebook about what needs to change in our world.  I can read books and listen to speeches and chat with like minded friends about the state of our world, but when it comes down to it, I’m not comfortable with racism.  It makes me fidgety, and while I can have “big picture” discussions, I’m not good at one-on-one conversations about it.  When I do have in depth conversations about racism and prejudice, the conversations are almost exclusively with other white folks (and, in fact, usually with other white women).

I’m embarrassed because I don’t know a lot about racism.  Oh, sure, I know the big picture concepts.  I understand how it negatively affects the world. I’m not good with the day-to-day personal life of racism. I end up comfortable and afraid to broach the topic. The majority of my friends are white women, even though I live in a heavily Armenian and Asian town.  I do discuss race in person with a few of them, and with some of my friends we have held conversations about how we’re not sure how to discuss it and then make racist jokes while singing “Everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes” because we aren’t sure how to discuss whatever the specific topic was without making racist commentary and feel better purposely making a joke that we apologize for.  Then we say, “I’d never say something like that in public,” or “You’re the only person I’d say that to.”  

Without having conversations, though, how do we find the right framework and language for the personal discussions?  We have the language and reference points for the large societal issues but not for conversations amongst ourselves, and that’s a problem.

I have been known to get into arguments with my family about race while avoiding saying anything to strangers because I have no vested interest in them.  It’s easier.  I want my family to learn and grow with me so that we can all be the best that we can be. But instead I fail and just end up creating chasms in relationships that seem impossible to breach and end up with apologies or situations where we just ignore the fight.  (Oh, and to make it clear – this is true on so many other topics when it comes to family!)

This weekend Hilary Clinton said, “I know there are truthswe don’t like to say out loud or discuss with our children. But we have to.That’s the only way we can possibly move forward together."

I don't have children.  I don't plan to have children, but I do read many of the parenting blog posts my friends link on Facebook.  I think about what you are possibly going through as you try to live and work and learn and grow and raise your children in a world that seems very different from the one we grew up in because we didn’t generally have these discussions at all with our parents.

I have seen so many articles about how difficult it is for Caucasian parents to explain racism and prejudice to children because many Caucasians have problems figuring out how to frame the questions and answers and ideas in a manner that won't create or expose further problems... I have the same problem myself, and I don't even have the added task of attempting to converse with children and not create another generation of folks who have the same problems and silence.

Reading books and theories from the 1970s, the ideas and concepts themselves were different.  Language and ideas have grown and changed, and I haven’t kept up with it.  I started learning and growing and understanding in my teens and twenties then just stopped because I had already read that.  I’d been there.  I’d done that.  I want someone to tell me what books I can read that can help me understand the world I live in today and not the world from two decades ago.  But I don’t because I don’t want to tell anybody that I’m embarrassed.  I don’t ask for help because I can’t admit that I don’t know how to “fix” racism even within my own personal square of the world. 

I re-post race articles on my FB or put a notification about them on my blog, but I rarely hold a discussion on them in a public forum.  I have discussions in small enclaves among other Caucasian folks I am close to.  If I decide to bring up the topic of racism and prejudice, I sometimes stutter and am just not sure how to work out what I want to say or ask without sounding like I want an African American man to explain to me racism and how I can be a part of the solution or asking an Asian woman what she wants from me because I don't want to put my discomfort onto someone else; someone whose job isn't to tell me what to think and who shouldn't have to explain things to me.

So I wanted to point out that Hillary Clinton is saying something.  She is asking us to step up and take responsibility for our own actions, to think about how we talk to those around us, how we talk to our children.  She is pointing out that what we don't say is just as important. 

I suggest that we need to not just talk to our children but to each other.  I still don’t know how, but maybe I’ll keep reading and accept the fact that I will make an ass of myself and probably make inappropriate commentary.  I don’t know what I’ll do, but what I need to not do is not try to frame today’s world in 1990 political rhetoric any longer.