Black Lives Matter

In the wake of the deaths of Alton Sterling, Delrawn Small, Philando Castile, and the five Dallas police officers, my Facebook feed (my own posts included) has been a constant stream of feelings and arguments and opinions surrounding these deaths. Black lives matter, all lives matter, blue lives matter, ‘protests don’t work’, ‘we have to get rid of labels’, ‘we are all one’, and so on. It’s all so emotional and loaded because, obviously, lives are being taken. And because being faced with having to advocate for yourself or someone or some group to ‘matter’, is terrifying.

Looking back in history I can imagine this argument has happened many times before. When abolitionists argued that slaves deserved freedom, anti abolitionists like James Henry Hammond retorted ‘Sir, I do firmly believe, domestic slavery, regulated as ours is, produces the highest toned, the purest, best organization of society that has ever existed on the face of this earth.’ And when civil rights activists in the 1960s fought for voting rights and for desegregation, people like George C Wallace shouted back ‘A racist is one who despises someone because of his color, and an Alabama segregationist is one who conscientiously believes that it is in the best interest of Negro and white to have a separate education and social order.’ To sum it up, it went like this: ‘slaves should be free!’- ‘everyone should be free!’, ‘black people deserve civil rights!’- ‘everyone deserves civil rights!’, ‘Black Lives Matter!’- ‘All Lives Matter!’ In the roughly 100 or so years from the end of slavery to the civil rights era to now with the black lives matter movement era, the stakes are the same, only the context has changed, and the common thread through all those years is fear. Fear of discomfort, fear of change, fear of admitting white privilege is real, fear of losing white privilege, fear of black people, fear of acknowledging history.

I don’t want to overload this with facts and statistics and recorded historical truth, because that doesn’t seem to convince everyone of the current reality. But this passage from http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/lynching.aspx is worth noting: ‘Part of the appeal of groups such as the Ku Klux Klan was their white supremacy focus. But these groups also played on the fears of Southern whites—that blacks would be able to compete with them for jobs, that blacks could run for political office, and even that blacks could rebel against whites. Lynchings were carried out because of these fears. Whites believed that lynchings would terrorize blacks into remaining subservient while allowing whites to regain their sense of status…A partial list of “crimes” that prompted lynch mobs during these years underscores a chilling disregard for life: gambling, quarreling, arguing with a white man, attempting to vote, unruly remarks, demanding respect, and “acting suspiciously.”…One of the most common crimes answered by lynch mobs was rape—particularly the rape of a white woman by a black man. Often, all that a black man had to do to be accused of rape was to speak to a white woman or ask her out. Lynchers justified their actions by saying that they needed to protect women from dangerous men.’

Something feels familiar about this, doesn’t it? I can’t help but assume this same narrative of ‘the dangerous black man’ affected the trigger finger of the killers of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. It most definitely played a powerful role in the death of Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice, innocent boys like the so many innocent children who were lynched in our nations past.

When I hear people argue ‘All Lives Matter’, I hear that same fear. Fear of losing the comforts that come with not being a person of color, fear that equality will mean everyone is as vulnerable as a person of color is and has always been in the history of our country. All Lives Matter was born as a response to Black Lives Matter, often shouted after the death of a police officer, referencing the BLM efforts advocating police reform. I understand the desire to demand a life matter after a life is lost. But the difference in the context of these movements makes them totally irrelevant to each other.

Before I explain what I mean, let me say that I have the utmost respect for the job of a police officer and for the lives of the officers lost in Dallas this past week. It takes courage to be willing to put yourself in danger for the betterment of your community, and I believe most cops are not like the ones in the videos we are bombarded with these days. But the crux of it is, they choose it and are compensated for choosing it, and are in a position of authority. And if they’re no longer willing to take on the noble job, they can choose not to. They have power over their vulnerability. Juxtaposing that with the BLM movements efforts for equal treatment of people of color, it makes no sense. The value of the lives of police officers and ‘All Lives’ has never, in our US history, been questioned. But clearly, in our US history, Black Lives have.

So when people argue ‘All Lives Matter’ all I can hear is ‘I’m afraid that this will affect my life in a negative way, because history has allowed me to have an easier life sometimes, at the cost of non whites’, as seen in times of slavery and segregation. It’s fear that life will change if we have to acknowledge the truth of what is happening now. When gun rights advocates are silent in the wake of Philando Castiles death- him being a registered gun owner, permitted to carry- I hear that fear in their silence. If they speak up for Philando, equality might mean they could soon become as vulnerable as he was while living as a law abiding, gun carrying citizen, loved by coworkers and the many children he cared for, a family man.

When people argue ‘no more labels, labels are bad!’ I hear that fear, fear in acknowledging the reality of life for black people/ people of color in the US, fear of acknowledging that our own labels might mean privilege. Because what does that mean, really? We aren’t actually ‘labels’, we are different people. We have differences. And because of our differences we have different experiences, horrible things happen because of our differences. Acknowledging our differences rather than saying ‘do away with our labels and we’ll all be okay!’ would mean acknowledging that some differences make lives easier and some make lives much harder. To advocate no labels is to white wash the bad parts of our history, and to say, in a way, ‘I understand your experience better than you, and I know better than you how to change things.’ A better effort would be to say ‘we are different, our lives are shaped by our differences, but despite our differences, I care for you and will be an advocate for you if necessary.’ Right now, it is necessary for us to advocate for people of color. It is necessary to put aside our desire to say ‘we matter too!’ because that’s not in question right now. It is necessary right now to risk, at the most minimal, our comfort.

So many bodies

I wonder if Alton Sterling knew his life was about to be over, when those two weak men approached him with irrational aggression, called to a convenience store because a man was selling CDs out front. I wonder if he thought about Eric Garner, who was also murdered for selling something in exchange for a few bucks. I wonder if he thought about Tamir Rice and how his own kids might now be that much more vulnerable without him alive. I wonder if he thought about the parents of the little boy who fell in the gorilla habitat at the zoo, who’s pasts were dug up for…what exactly? To prove they’re bad parents? To have a reason to call them bad parents that was something other than that they were black? I wonder if he thought of the beautiful, Langston Hughes-esque speech by Jesse Williams on the BET awards and how it was absurdly called hate speech by privileged bigots. I wonder if he thought about Emmett Till who was lynched a mere 61 years ago, a boy, like his own sons.

 

My heart ACHES for the innocent children of Alton Sterling, and the many other children like them who have to somehow digest such a nonsensical loss. Who are split open exposed to the worlds opinion of their dead parent or brother or sister. For the moms of these kids who have to somehow make their children believe they are valuable, when the worlds opinion is often that they’re not.

 

It’s so hard to know what to do for this world. I’m often uncomfortable at my own inaction, I feel helpless, as I’m sure many and most do. But that’s not important, my discomfort is minimal in comparison, and unimportant.

 

What is important (in my own small, lucky opinion) is for those of us- those of us with the compassion, patience, common sense, ability to handle major adrenaline rushes, and kindness that these policemen are so desperately lacking- to consider taking on jobs in the civil service sphere. Start from the inside out. As a police officer, or anything that nips at you, whatever it is that stays in your gut, that keeps floating up from your unconscious, telling you ‘go for it, give that bit of yourself’ to your neighbors, your friends, perfect strangers who can benefit from your unique ability, whatever it is. I pledge that to my loved ones, to my daughter who loves her daddy so much, that I’ll do it. You, with the aching heart, we can be better than what we have, we can do better than the way it is, let’s go.

Guest post: a message from my sister

Sharing her story through my blog has been another step in self-love and openness for my sister, who I wrote about in the previous two entries. The feedback those entries got has inspired her to open up even more and she asked to share a message of her own on here. 💖

 

My sisters have held me up and given me the strength to share one of my stories. It is one that stays with me the most, that I remember every day, that I get lost in and go back to. It is one I have felt immense shame for having experienced, despite my attacker being convicted of two felonies and one misdemeanor. It has stayed with me as a flaw too big to share, despite my pride in being open in so many other ways. For a long time I saw this time of my life as my greatest failure, as a woman but mostly a mother. Maybe I still do. But even if it was my greatest failure, I now have compassion for myself there. Because I understand now the factors that led me to accept the red flags in this situation. I understand how so many aspects of my childhood made me thing that being with someone like this was okay. And that is not shameful, that is really really really sad. That is a lifetime of experiences I never deserved. Now I mostly don’t see myself as my stories, but as me; that I know the most, that I find so much joy in being.  I’m not the person anymore that this happened to 10 years ago. I’m not someone who thinks she deserves to be hurt or someone who thinks that others don’t have to hold themselves accountable for their behavior. It’s a loving act, ultimately, to hold someone accountable for their truths, and not to hold their defenses for them, and sometimes that means leaving them, and then dealing with the consequences of continuing to leave them over and over and over until they get it, arming yourself with support for your safety.
I”m so grateful for those people in my life. For me they were good therapists, women’s groups, beautiful friends who really cared about me and trusted I was worth something, and mostly, loving sisters and a sweet precious, healing husband, who has become my safe, trusted reliable heart in this world. Because of opening up to them over time, my shame has kept lessening. So this is another part of opening up, this is sharing part of my story as my sister writes about the impact its had in her life and her beliefs. Many woman have a story like this. And if you think you might have a personal story that tells you one single thing that you wouldn’t accept happening to anyone else, but you say is okay happening to you, please share with someone. And if that doesn’t help, share with someone else. And so on and so on and so on. Until you find the loving healing support you deserve. Until you feel a small lift, then keep going. Keep sharing and keep lifting yourself up. Know you are not alone in your feelings, and know that you will not be alone in surviving and thriving and relishing in your life and relationships and self and in your growth beyond this, if you pay attention and let your secret out. There are so many of us here to live in the joy that is you, with you. I am sharing this because I don’t want to reject any part of me anymore, and I don’t want you to either.

The Wild West

I was a gun owner once. After my sister was beaten up by her ex-boyfriend she and my 5 year old niece moved out of the apartment he attacked her in and moved in with me and my 2 other roommates. I was scared and increasingly so full of rage as I learned more about what he’d been putting her through. Before that night he would come over to her apartment unannounced, after she’d tried to end it. He’d come over all hours of the day and night, once stealing her cat then bringing it back a few hours later, another time stealing her phone and again bringing it back. Full of threats; ‘I’ll kill you in front of her then kill myself’. All of this building to a night when he actually would try.

So when they moved in with me, I was scared. I was 22 and knew I couldn’t protect us all with my blue belt in Jiu Jitsu. And he’d been to my apartment before, he could easily find it again. So I went to a pawn shop with a gun owning friend, we got there about 45 minutes before they closed. He thought I should get a pistol but they made me nervous, the smaller number of bullets, the loading process. They showed me a 40 caliber Smith & Wesson, stainless steel and plastic, their version of a glock. It felt strong in my hands, safe, sturdy. Pop the magazine in and it’s ready to go. They ran the background check, I gave them $300, and a few minutes before they closed I left with my purchase. My police officer brother showed me how to take care of it, how to hold it and aim, we went to the range a bunch of times.

If he showed up at my house for my sister, or my niece, I’d be ready, full of happy rage. But he never did. I had the gun for a few years but eventually it didn’t feel relevant anymore, it mostly just reminded me of everything that led me to buy it, and I didn’t want it anymore. So I sold it back to the same pawn shop I bought it from.

I understand the need to feel safe, to feel like your loved ones are most protected. I understand being afraid, I understand tangible threats. When I hear cries for protecting ‘my 2nd amendment rights!’ I hear that fear. You can sense it in the loudness of such a weak argument. 2nd amendment rights, it’s very name opening it up for change. Amendment- a change, an edit. The constitution has been amended 27 times in the last 200 years, outlawing alcohol in the 18th amendment then amended that with the 21st, canceling the outlaw of the 18th; and so on. So when cries for our 2nd amendment rights are shouted, I hear that fear, fear of losing this weapon that makes you feel safe, makes your family feel safe. I get it.
But wouldn’t the changes to gun laws people are asking for protect you still? Protect your family, your home? I truly believe they would.

I wonder who first said ‘they want to take away our 2nd amendment rights!’ Was it the NRA? Was it the dozens of congressmen who receive money from the NRA? Or was it the gun manufacturers and gun sellers who see their profits skyrocket immediately after a mass shooting? http://time.com/4137749/gun-sales-spike-san-bernardino/
The reality is the way things are makes the women and children you so desperately want to protect more vulnerable http://m.democracynow.org/stories/16301, and protects the George Zimmermans, rather than our children like Trayvon Martin.

With all the conspiracy theories about the government wanting to disarm the people, consider that maybe the people making millions off of your gun purchases are fear mongering you, that the people asking for better gun laws are not the ones being duped, but that you are. Consider that you and I are on the same side. Consider that when Omar Mateen dedicated his rampage to Isis it was merely a last ditch attempt in his final moments on earth to divert attention from who he truly was. Consider that you’re mostly making rich people richer. Stop shouting for your amendable 2nd amendment rights, or that you’re one of the good guys (those elusive good guys who have yet to step in to save anyone in these horrible killings, even in states like Florida with such lax, ‘pro gun’ laws), say the truth. Say you’re afraid, you’re angry, just like the rest of us. Say you won’t give anyone any more money until you are safer, until you not just feel safer but are actually safer. Say you’re afraid of your weakness, afraid of monsters, afraid of bad guys. Understand that my sisters abuser waited patiently for his many years of probation and no contact order to be over so he could send a friend request to her husband on Facebook, understand that because of our current gun laws he would only have to patiently wait five more to get his gun rights restored.

Rule of Thumb

The same week that Johnny Depp allegedly hit his estranged wife Amber Heard, my older sister was getting an MRI to investigate chronic neck, back, and arm pain. The results showed old injuries, the doctor asking ‘did you experience any physical trauma about 10 years ago?’

About ten years ago I was a blue belt in Jiu Jitsu, still sometimes battling the discomfort of sparring with men, the discomfort of being the only woman in a humid, sweaty room of dudes, trying my best to get better despite it. My sister had met someone who apparently trained at my gym, but the other location. I’d never met him but she seemed excited.

Fast forward some months, I don’t remember how many, and I answer my phone at work the morning after her birthday, dropping to the floor as she explained she was leaving the hospital after spending her birthday night getting beaten up by him, being saved by neighbors who called the police when they heard her screaming ‘stop please I don’t want to die’. Something she doesn’t remember saying, her hindbrain battling through her unconsciousness to try to save her.

After telling the owner of my gym what happened, he was kicked out, only to be allowed back a few weeks later with the condition that he couldn’t go to the location I attended. He was sorry, they’d said, didn’t he only hit her once, someone asked, he won’t come here, they promised. He still trains there, all these years later. Her jaw still clicks when she chews; nerve damage and damaged discs send pain throughout the right side of her body; her eyes always checking the periphery in case she might run in to him while running errands with her daughters. About ten years later.

The memory of a guy asking me at the gym ‘didn’t he only hit her once? he said he only hit her once’ will be so bright in my mind, forever I think. So will the bruises on her cheeks, her chin, behind her ears, on her forearms (from trying, trying to protect her head), and the ones on her legs as she strained to walk for several weeks after, because he mounted her and pinned her with his hooks and hips, using Jiu Jitsu to control her as he knocked her head back and forth.

As if *only* once was, of course, excusable. As if there was a lot of fuss being made over nearly nothing. It’s so much easier for some people to believe that these women are full of hysteria, are manipulating and trying to fool us all, rather than these men simply being monsters. That these men are just ‘boys being boys’, or that these men were just raised to believe ‘he’s mean to you because he likes you’.

It doesn’t matter how many people speak up to say ‘he would never do this, he’s so kind, he’s always been so gentle, I’ve never seen him lose his temper’ etc. Wouldn’t it be convenient if everyone who did evil, despicable things was that way all the time? But they aren’t that way all the time, to all people, are they? Sometimes they’re quiet and kind, sometimes they’re charming and extroverted, sometimes they make blockbuster movies and are beloved, handsome celebrities.

The same week that the world calls Amber Heard a liar, a manipulator, posting pictures of her black eye with captions like ‘sorry Amber but Johnny Depp was across the country last week when you say he hit you’ (as if a bruise lasts only one day, as if that proves he couldn’t have hit her the day before or the day after), my sister sees him in the street, not knowing who he is as she begins to politely smile and press the brakes, letting him cross the street before realizing it’s him, before driving the last mile home, before taking her youngest daughter out of her car seat and running inside, locking the door as her neck throbbed and sent pulsing pain through her body.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Recently a male Facebook friend shared a meme. It was of a man carrying the world, Atlas style, and a naked woman sitting up with a straight, expectant back, the caption ‘You forgot the moon and stars’. A handful of men I didn’t know commenting underneath the picture in agreement. Later that day I saw the meme again on Instagram, another male friend had seen it and ‘❤️’ it, putting it out there for the world to see. Both men are married.

I rolled the idea around in my head and thought about these men, and the other men like them, who feel so burdened by the wants and needs of their girlfriends and wives that they’re compelled to put it out in to the infinite ether for all to see, even those of us who know them and know their wives. And I wished I could ask them: Who told you you were giving her the world? Or that she wasn’t giving you the world too?

It reminded me of Don and Betty Draper in Mad Men. Don buys Betty beautiful dresses, a house in the suburbs, they have children, Don thinking this was the recipe for being a good husband, fulfilling the needs and wants of his wife; to be a housewife. All the while Betty languishes in cavernous loneliness. It reminded me also of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a short story written at the turn of the 20th century about a woman whose husband treats her depression by making her rest, not allowing her to work or see anyone or do anything, and eventually she loses her shit because of the oppressive life she can’t escape.

It reminded me of Mad Men and Gilmans story because, again, it’s men telling women what our limits are. It’s men being worldly providers and women needing too much, it’s men telling women ‘you are asking for more than you deserve’. Gaslighting at its purest. If you can convince someone they’re too demanding, they’ll eventually stop asking for anything. But it goes both ways- if you convince someone everything they do is enough, a request will feel like an affront. The husbands of The Yellow Wallpaper era raising the boys who become the Don Drapers, in turn raising the boys who become the men who passive aggressively demean their wives for all the Wide World Web to see. Because they’ve been convinced they’ve been giving their women ‘the world’. Whatever the fuck that means. You can’t actually give someone the world; not literally, obviously, and not figuratively. No matter what, we’re all touched by a nag of emptiness, a nag of something missing, or of not being enough. Like Carson McCullers wrote, “…we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.”

The need for marriage isn’t what it once was, women don’t need the security it used to provide, socially and because it was mostly the only choice. It’s really just for giving and taking and loving and trying. Trying to fill that bit of loneliness none of us can shake alone. To the men who feel so much affinity for the sentiment of that meme, forget your father for a moment, your fathers father, your blood: maybe your girlfriend or wife isn’t that interested in this world you think you’ve given her. Maybe the stars and the moon you think she’s asking for is really just her asking for a hand to grab, through the mess of that nostalgia, that urge for foreignness, that place we’ve never known. That muddy cloud that finds all of us every now and then. A hand to pull her out; a hand you also grab, just as often.

Lemonade

I can’t stop thinking about Lemonade.

I’ve never really been a huge Beyoncé fan; I can always appreciate a good pop song that I can dance to and ‘Halo’ is pretty, but the cliche ‘If I were a boy’ was a big turn off, then years later the reference in ‘Drunk In Love’ to Ike and Tina Turners abusive relationship was confusing and enraging. So when she had concerts with ‘FEMINIST’ emblazoned behind her, and quoted Ronda Rouseys misguided (though important message of self love) ‘do nothin bitch’ speech, I mostly ignored her, save getting involved in one Facebook discussion on why she wasn’t a feminist.

But then I came across a friends Facebook thread that was about Beyoncé, it was a discussion among a few women of color, and one shared this article by Tamara Winfrey Harris: https://bitchmedia.org/article/all-hail-the-queen-beyonce-feminism. After reading it, a thorough examination of all scrutiny of Beyoncé, I was kind of embarrassed. I realized I heard this woman- this rich, beautiful, famous woman- call herself a feminist and immediately doubted it. How could she really get feminism, with all her wealth, all her privilege? Part of me expected her to be a feminist in the same way I am, and when she wasn’t, it invalidated her claim. Or as Harris succinctly puts it: ‘But ultimately, the policing of feminist cred is the real moral contradiction. And the judgment of how Beyoncé expresses her womanhood is emblematic of the way women in the public eye are routinely picked apart—in particular, it’s a demonstration of the conflicting pressures on black women and the complicated way our bodies and relationships are policed.’
I was doing that. And like Harris says, the importance of Beyoncé calling herself a feminist at the same time that American darlings Taylor Swift, Kaley Cuoco, and Shailene Woodley were pointedly denying themselves as feminists, is huge. With all of her reach through her diverse fan base, Beyoncé was at least somewhat making it appealing to call yourself a feminist.

To be honest though, that’s about as much as I ever expected from Beyoncé. I cheered that she was making such a positive statement, but I couldn’t imagine she would ever go deeper than that.

But then ‘Formation’ came out. The music video is stunning. I watched in awe as every image was a work of art, one after the other. Her face hidden under a wide brimmed hat, long braids, on the porch of a plantation style house, with black men around her, waiting; her head aggressively nodding up and down to the haunting beat of the song, the only movement in the shot. This broken up with scenes of her energetic dancing, her body exposed; an interesting juxtaposition from her face hidden by the wide brimmed hat, clothes all black. As I watched, thrilled at the power of the music, the blatant, raw self love of her womanhood, the haunting beauty of each shot, the haunting beauty of New Orleans, I knew it wasn’t for me. She was reaching out to black women.

Beyoncé has long been criticized for pandering to the male gaze, as Tamara Winfrey Harris points out, and for staying away from making statements of racial identity, as well as receiving criticism for remaining silent during the inception of the Black Lives Matter movement. But she heard that and she responded with ‘Formation’. It is raw self love, a raw statement of her identity as a black woman (‘My daddy Alabama, Momma Louisiana/ You mix that negro with that Creole make a Texas bama/ I like my baby hair with baby hair and afros/ I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils/Earned all this money but they never take the country out me/ I got a hot sauce in my bag, swag’). She also takes on a sort of stereotypical masculine bravado, common in hip hop, referencing name brands, copping to jealousy and possessiveness (‘Paparazzi, catch my fly, and my cocky fresh/ I’m so reckless when I rock my Givenchy dress (stylin’)/ I’m so possessive so I rock his Roc necklaces’); is she mocking it? Or reclaiming it? Or is it more a statement of unabashed confidence, doing what she wants and feels and having no shame in admitting it?

Then came the HBO special, Lemonade. While I was in awe of ‘Formation’, I knew, like I said, it wasn’t for me. But a few minutes in to Lemonade I was having a body reaction, my gut, my heart, my skin; Lemonade was for all women, for me. She describes a journey with a cheating spouse, questioning herself, wanting to run, etc. Not an especially new storyline. But like ‘Formation’ the meaning is layered. Every shot is stunning, careful images narrating the lyrics, women throughout, supporting her. Handing her a baseball bat with a huge smile, dancing for her and with her, solidarity and support throughout a story of struggling with a cheating spouse and failing relationship, through a failing self image; the singularly special support only given by female relationships, silent if needed, but unfuckwithable. It is a truly beautiful work of art.

The reason it’s so important that Beyoncé decided to tell this story is because she has rarely shown insecurity, and more importantly, because even someone with an image of such untouchability struggles with self worth. It sounds simple, but really picture the scope of that. In a world where women are called crazy for pretty much anything that isn’t total agreeableness, for getting angry, for crying, for having sex, anything, she’s cracking open her facade of *agreeably making no waves*, and connecting with the women (and hopefully girls) who are listening, and only the women. While her words are about her relationship, she presents an unspoken message to women through the images, a need for women. To me seeming to realize she can be fulfilled by relationships that aren’t marital or maternal, and in a way that is void of any pretense. She’s not saying ‘look, I’m just like you’, but saying ‘look, this is me’. It’s very different than anything else she’s put out, very different than anything anyone is putting out, and it’s so important we acknowledge that difference and support it.

It calls to me to fight that occasional pull to judge and disregard the content of other women because it may not be as ‘enlightened’ as I think I am, or may not be a decision I’d make, and to instead fight more for that unique and powerful connection that can happen between women, that connection that can be so massively powerful, that is so untouched by the overwhelming patriarchy we are bombarded with every day. To support the growth of all women and as Harris says, rather say ‘I don’t like that decision but this one I really like’. It calls to me to, when women say ‘look, this is me’, just respond with ‘this is me too’.