Finding the Capacity

In the wake of the last few weeks, my previous two posts feel both prescient and timely. I certainly didn’t know what was coming and did not expect a global demonstration demanding change. But I have been feeling these changes coming on, and working my way toward speaking up and speaking out about what matters without the specter of perfection or the fear of disagreement. I will not pretend for a minute that those fears and concerns do not exist, but I now have even more motivation and purpose to find the words and actions that I want to use.

For the last few weeks I have been listening, observing, processing, and synthesizing the messages and information related to racism. I’ve drafted text, then pulled back, I’ve watched some more. I’ve thought about my past, the information I had before and, the information is new. But I want to step in, I want to act and so I begin here, in writing.

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I am a white woman and grew up largely in wealthy areas that were predominantly white. My hometown, Boulder Colorado, is notoriously lacking in diversity, but also very open to diversity and eager to teach its children how to be accepting and inclusive. As an adult, I lived in Boulder for a while again before moving to an even more wealthy ski town for my husband’s job and our shared interest in living near the outdoors in wild and wide open spaces. If you’ve read any of my previous posts, it’s obvious that one of my greatest joys comes from being outside, and our life here is about that dream, that passion.

As a child of Boulder, I had access to information about diversity, race, and other cultures, but very little personal experience or connection to people with that experience. In college I sought out a liberal arts education, largely because I wanted to study religion, culture, literature, and history, because I did not want to be steeped in only the sciences. I had access to information about racism, about what it looks like in America, about its impacts. But, again, my understanding was academic, and I did not gain the tools needed to do more with what I’d learned.

I find that, “what racism looks like” has been familiar to me for a long time, but something about George Floyd’s death rocked me in a new way, even before the protests began in earnest. The specific circumstances of his death brought me to a new level of understanding about what racism looks like every day, everywhere: the constant fear and struggle that black people face, that non-white people face in our world. I was never indifferent to the impact and devastation of those struggles, but I was never moved quite so dramatically as I was after learning about Floyd’s story.

Clearly, I was not alone. I’m aware of all of the big-news innocent deaths of the last several years, and every one made me angry, sad, and sick. But before these last weeks I felt helpless, trapped, and incapable of making a difference or even a move. And so I’ve been getting curious with myself, trying to understand what has changed and why, what made me hold back before? How can I use that understanding to ensure that I don’t hold back in the future? I think there are two primary reasons for my awakening, if you will: emotional and physical capacity and a perception that the conversation has changed.</p>

Capacity

I believe that, capacity – emotional, physical, and intellectual – is a huge piece of the puzzle for me definitely and I suspect many, many others. I left my corporate job because I was burned to a crisp. I was, like so many Americans, over-worked, under-paid, struggling to feel financially secure, struggling to get on top of life. All of my education and privilege did not exempt me from burnout, depression, anxiety. I had almost no capacity for anything outside of work and addressing my family’s daily needs, let alone engaging in community or in the ideas and ideals that drove me as a younger person. While I lamented and hated what I knew about racism, I lacked personal capacity  to do anything more than feel helpless and angry.

I think that the same is true for many, if not most of us (Americans in general, white people who wish to do better in particular). Work culture in this country was the catalyzing influence for this blog, it’s the subject of any number of articles about American culture, and it is the threat used against us by those with money and power: ‘all you have to do is work harder to rise up and then you’ll be rich like me.’ What a lie. I’m not sure if I am cynical enough to believe that the culture around work in this country is a conspiracy concocted by the rich and powerful to stifle our creativity and desire to change our realities. But I haven’t ruled it out. It’s not so different from examples from history. And it’s exactly what Aldous Huxley predicted in Brave New World.

Other than to salve my conscious and relieve some frustration, it really doesn’t matter so much why or how we got so tired, busy, and cashed out. What matters is that we can change it. I had been thinking and saying and believing that the change of pace effected by Covid-19 prevention measures is an opportunity to keep the pace a bit slower, to afford us some time to ourselves, some time for getting outside, so that we can be happier and healthier. And now I add to my list, so that it can give us the capacity to address the challenging and complex issues that we face, including especially racism and environmental destruction (which, by the way, I see as very closely tied in many ways and is something I’ll discuss in the future).

I also think that the “new” world we’ve been living in likely contributed to so many of us having more capacity to finally deal with what racism really means here. I know some people attribute it to boredom or cabin fever, and I don’t doubt there is some truth to that. But I think that there is a deeper root, and that after people had time to slow down – to do things that bring them joy on a regular basis, to find a better balance between work and the rest of life – that they, too, were emotionally and physically stronger. That this balance increased our capacity to face difficult questions, difficult personal revelations, and accept the challenge to commit to change.

Changing the Conversation

The other piece that changed for me is a change in the tone of conversation that I am hearing now. I am definitely guilty of feeling like I couldn’t say anything because I am
a) white and didn’t know what I was talking about,
b) not educated enough on the issues,
c) at risk of offending someone or saying something inadvertently harmful, and
d) too removed from the issues to make a difference, have an opinion, or contribute to real change.

These excuses feel feeble and silly after the last weeks, and so I move to change. But I definitely got this message, more than once, along the way. So I felt closed off from the conversation and thus declined from entering it, choosing instead to focus on areas where I did feel like I contributed.

I think it’s important to bring this fear out in the open, not to place blame, but to acknowledge that the sort of absolutest and finger-pointing rhetoric that is so often associated with a call for change is, in fact,  likely to scare of a large swath of potential supporters who exist outside of the center of the discussion. We can’t all be an expert on all of these issues, but if the last weeks have taught us anything, it is that there are millions of people who want to do better, who want to move ahead to a new, better reality, and those people need to have room to learn, to make mistakes, and to feel welcome to the cause even when they misstep.

I am so grateful for this shift. It is really what unlocked me fully from my fear. Without seeing heartfelt messages from brave black people, in which they asked for support and gave permission (for lack of a better word) to make mistakes, I would likely still be feeling upset, frustrated, and helpless to step in. This tone shift has encouraged me to connect more intentionally with the black community (online because I can’t go anywhere still), to find ways to ensure that I live in a more inclusive and diverse world as I move ahead with whatever it is my life brings in the future. So, with sincerity, I want to thank those people. It is not their job to make someone like me feel better, but doing so has unlocked the floodgates made of fear and reticence, and I hope dearly that that courage is rewarded by all of us who wish to do better.

Moving Ahead

Real, tangible change will take time, we’re not going to undo the 500+ year legacy of white supremacy in a few weeks. We need to be in it for the long haul, and in order to do that, we need to shift more than just our social media accounts or our willingness to participate, though that is certainly an important first step for many of us. I’ve read it more than once, and I echo the sentiment: this is a marathon, so pace yourself.

We need to shift so much in our lives to effectively create change, and I can’t help but feel even more determined that the ideas I was grappling with before launching this blog and right up through the Covid closures are an important piece of our healing, of our way forward.

We need to slow down as a society, we need to connect with the natural world, and we need to de-polarize issues that should have nothing to do with politics. In Killer Mike’s heartfelt and moving speech to protesters in Atlanta, he reminded them to take care of their house first, that you can’t fix your community if you aren’t safe and fed and sheltered. I (of course) interpreted this broadly, that you also must first take care of the the house of your body and mind and emotional self.

So go outside, hug a tree, watch some ants, listen to the birds, do some yoga. Whatever brings you peace and comfort, do it. Take care of yourself so that you can have the capacity to support those who need it the most, to continue engaging and taking the steps within your reach to help us rise together for a better world.