I just don’t understand why it’s a big deal. Why does taking the picture or the name off of a bottle matter?” He asked.
My brother and I were talking about a syrup bottle. One that we had seen at a family gathering the day before.
“Because of hundreds of years of slavery…” I immediately answer.
Slow down, I tell myself even as the next word comes out of my mouth louder and more forceful than I intended…
“Because generations of black and brown families have been socially and economically disadvantaged, so that generations of white families could reap a multitude of benefits…”
I sense a part of me trying to recover, bring us back to conversation and out of the monologue I’d thrust us into. An attempt to capture some semblance of self-mastery and calm. A desire to link all the ideas swimming around in my brain and share them with him. I will myself to ask questions and get curious, yet witness myself doing the opposite…
“Because of the burning of black Wall Street and the massacre of black families in Tulsa 100 years ago…”
“Because of…” I give many reasons. But speaking them, in the manner that I did, only brought an end to the discussion.
In this conversation, I wasn’t able to heed my inner voice. I didn’t slow down. I wasn’t curious. Rather, I ramped up and plowed on. Spouting facts and sternly re-telling history, in a way that doesn’t disseminate information or prompt consideration so much as it shames another for not knowing.
And in this exchange, I didn’t accomplish anything new or cultivate healing, growth or togetherness. I didn’t connect these things to our story, my brother’s and mine. I didn’t gain understanding of what mattered to him. I didn’t show up as I wished I would
I felt ashamed. Why did I react in such a way and against my own better judgement? My brother, who I know and I love, had simply asked an honest question. He did not seem to have malice or want to prove anything. He just opened up the topic and I pounced.
I didn’t just mess up an opportunity for a purposeful chat with my brother, I had disappointed myself. You see, I have been preparing myself for such a conversation. Talking with my family about race, creating meaning and nurturing connection so that together we can change the narrative of race we share, is incredibly important to me. But I accomplished none of this. Instead, I was reminded of the hold that whiteness has on me.
This grip of whiteness is one I have been trying to escape. I’ve been listening, reading and learning in order to develop a stance on race, racism and whiteness. An understanding, not handed to me from my place in the racial hierarchy, but one of my own making. A position and way of being that works against the unbalanced social order. One that lines up with my ideas of humanity and wholeness, is true to my hopes and my faith, that demonstrates care and keeps me on the side of love.
I’ve been attempting to consciously relate to race and racism in ways that my social position and white identity never required of me. A meaningful and personal engagement that goes deeper than superficial knowledge. I am trying to connect these things to my story, my family, our beliefs, perspectives and ways of being. Weighing and working against the ways whiteness keeps me blind and disconnected.
All the same, whiteness overtook me. Yes, I spoke up and didn’t keep quiet. But the way I reacted, my in-the-moment clapback, didn’t have me doing anything different from what whiteness taught me to do. I didn’t embody anything other than what whiteness said to be.
And I know that the way I engaged with my brother that day simply does not work. I’ve tried it before – being the loudest and most knowledgeable, taking up space so there’s no room for others, generating distance rather than connectedness. And, ultimately, shutting down any promise of meaningful dialogue, thoughtful examination and collaborative change.
This is what whiteness wants and needs – for me to remain captured by it. That’s exactly what happened – I was nabbed by whiteness. In that conversation, I furthered what I’ve come to see as a cause and function of whiteness, that of keeping us belonging to whiteness so that we are kept from belonging to one another.
I wish that in those moments belonging to my brother, to our family and to shared humanness, would have eclipsed the familiar belonging of whiteness. I wish that I could have held to my intentions and tried to genuinely understand my brother.
Why did he want to talk about it, the syrup bottle and what it means? What was important to my brother in this conversation? And why might he want to broach the topic with me specifically?
There’s always room to grow. There will be disappointment, missteps and conversations for another time. This is a journey I am yet on.
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