on race and family
Mar. 19th, 2008 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmOne of the interesting things I've noticed in the aftermath of Obama's speech yesterday is people talking about their own experiences with racism: not racism directed at them, but the racism around them in family and friends and the racism in their own hearts.
This has been powerful, and important. It should not be diminished. But it should be kept in perspective, for confession does not absolve us. But neither should it be tossed aside, because confession matters, stories matter, the truths of our lives and our families have power either to set an example or to never be an example at all. As Obama so skillfully pointed out yesterday, often it's both.
I am a white woman, more or less. The more or less by and large doesn't matter very much. Living in this country, it's what you look like, and a lot of my heritage I didn't learn until I was older.
I am Sicilian Catholic, North African, Lithuanian Jewish and Mongolian.
My mother's people, for whom we have a family tree dating back to 1710, traveled from far-Eastern Russia, settled in Lithuania in the late 1780s, then traveled through Eastern Europe before emigrating to the U.S. in the 1880s. My grandmother, who died when I was seven, had Asian eyes and bright red hair.
My father's people are Sicilian, and what we know of their history is oral tradition only. No one wrote it down until a couple of decades ago; before that, people didn't just not have the inclination -- they mostly didn't have the education; my grandmother never got farther than second grade. We did come to Sicily from Malta, where we were probably Jews. Several African people that were almost certainly Tunisian married into the family; they were black and they were fisherman. If you met the whole of my extended family on that side, you might well be shocked that we're all related to each other; we're a mix of Caucasian features and dark skin and deeply African features and blindingly pale skin.
I grew up in New York City in the 1970s, which was fucked up in about eight different ways. I lived in a tony neighborhood and had one African American friend in preschool. His name was Nigel. When I went to Hewitt, the kindergarteners, held the hand of a graduating senior for their ceremony. I was assigned to a dark-skinned woman whose named I don't remember. People said she'd make me dirty. When I told my parents, they didn't tell me it was untrue, merely not to repeat things like that.
After that, they didn't have to worry about it for a long time. All the girls at Hewitt were white, except Mamiko, who was Japanese. And despite living in New York, my world was entirely white. I didn't think I or it were racist, but it certainly didn't occur to me this was odd or problematic, which pretty much speaks for itself in ugliness. I liked the bubble of my archaic life, and did not see the flaws in it I see now.
One of the lessons of my life is that all communities will ostracize. I may have been white, but I wasn't a Daughter of the American Revolution, so I wasn't white enough. And the people of Indian descent I've dated (there's been more than one) always spoke to me about how skin tone mattered in their communities and families. I know that it is not dissimilar in the African American community.
Racism, largely, has never been something I've seen as my battle. Certainly, it's not something I can lead the way in, but must follow in (it's a point made repeatedly on the journals of my friends who are PoC, and I am glad to listen and to nod and to accept that; it makes sense). But lately, through this election largely, I have come to see it as a battle I must actually, finally be present in.
Not just because I am sick of the suspicion with which my father looks at his African American neighbors in his tony apartment building. Not just because I am embarrassed by the things my uncle says, to the point I don't feel comfortable being in public with him, but because as a person living in a nation of immigrants, descended from people who came from places of significant ethnic mixing, I feel like I am watching our nation eat its own the way I have long watched my family eat its own.
My grandmother, when I was eight years old said to me, "You are in my will. But not your mother. You are of my blood. She is a Jew."
Well, I'm a Jew too. And chances are, so were the people my grandmother was descended from. Jews and Muslims and Christians alike. I may be pale and aquiline and privileged, but I know what I am, even if no one else does, and I cannot tolerate, in myself and in my family, all this racial and religious hatred anymore.
Surely, I've still got my own battles. I will freely admit that living in the economically depressed neighborhood I do can bring out the worst in me at times, feelings I know better than to give credence to, but still regrettably have. But as much as I confront my own racism, I feel like I also need to confront those remarks and incidents around me that I used to let slide because they'd just cause too much drama to address (and trust me, in a family like mine, there's a lot of drama to cause).
At the end of the day, all these little stories don't matter unless we change, and confession is not the same thing as change. I know that. I want to repeat that. But all this sudden confession, it feels like a start. It feels like we're thinking, if not again, then maybe for the first time.
Maybe we can finally get over our shit, as individuals and as a nation.
ETA:
Since it's also about to be Purim, you may want to listen to Esther: the Feast of Masks by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ellen_kushner, as it addresses many of these issues about the spaces between what we are and what people think we are and what obligations and quandries that leaves us with. You can get the audio here: http://streams.wgbh.org/scripts/ram.php?show=026_esther
Meanwhile,karnythia is hosting a discussion about race here: http://karnythia.livejournal.com/977549.html
This has been powerful, and important. It should not be diminished. But it should be kept in perspective, for confession does not absolve us. But neither should it be tossed aside, because confession matters, stories matter, the truths of our lives and our families have power either to set an example or to never be an example at all. As Obama so skillfully pointed out yesterday, often it's both.
I am a white woman, more or less. The more or less by and large doesn't matter very much. Living in this country, it's what you look like, and a lot of my heritage I didn't learn until I was older.
I am Sicilian Catholic, North African, Lithuanian Jewish and Mongolian.
My mother's people, for whom we have a family tree dating back to 1710, traveled from far-Eastern Russia, settled in Lithuania in the late 1780s, then traveled through Eastern Europe before emigrating to the U.S. in the 1880s. My grandmother, who died when I was seven, had Asian eyes and bright red hair.
My father's people are Sicilian, and what we know of their history is oral tradition only. No one wrote it down until a couple of decades ago; before that, people didn't just not have the inclination -- they mostly didn't have the education; my grandmother never got farther than second grade. We did come to Sicily from Malta, where we were probably Jews. Several African people that were almost certainly Tunisian married into the family; they were black and they were fisherman. If you met the whole of my extended family on that side, you might well be shocked that we're all related to each other; we're a mix of Caucasian features and dark skin and deeply African features and blindingly pale skin.
I grew up in New York City in the 1970s, which was fucked up in about eight different ways. I lived in a tony neighborhood and had one African American friend in preschool. His name was Nigel. When I went to Hewitt, the kindergarteners, held the hand of a graduating senior for their ceremony. I was assigned to a dark-skinned woman whose named I don't remember. People said she'd make me dirty. When I told my parents, they didn't tell me it was untrue, merely not to repeat things like that.
After that, they didn't have to worry about it for a long time. All the girls at Hewitt were white, except Mamiko, who was Japanese. And despite living in New York, my world was entirely white. I didn't think I or it were racist, but it certainly didn't occur to me this was odd or problematic, which pretty much speaks for itself in ugliness. I liked the bubble of my archaic life, and did not see the flaws in it I see now.
One of the lessons of my life is that all communities will ostracize. I may have been white, but I wasn't a Daughter of the American Revolution, so I wasn't white enough. And the people of Indian descent I've dated (there's been more than one) always spoke to me about how skin tone mattered in their communities and families. I know that it is not dissimilar in the African American community.
Racism, largely, has never been something I've seen as my battle. Certainly, it's not something I can lead the way in, but must follow in (it's a point made repeatedly on the journals of my friends who are PoC, and I am glad to listen and to nod and to accept that; it makes sense). But lately, through this election largely, I have come to see it as a battle I must actually, finally be present in.
Not just because I am sick of the suspicion with which my father looks at his African American neighbors in his tony apartment building. Not just because I am embarrassed by the things my uncle says, to the point I don't feel comfortable being in public with him, but because as a person living in a nation of immigrants, descended from people who came from places of significant ethnic mixing, I feel like I am watching our nation eat its own the way I have long watched my family eat its own.
My grandmother, when I was eight years old said to me, "You are in my will. But not your mother. You are of my blood. She is a Jew."
Well, I'm a Jew too. And chances are, so were the people my grandmother was descended from. Jews and Muslims and Christians alike. I may be pale and aquiline and privileged, but I know what I am, even if no one else does, and I cannot tolerate, in myself and in my family, all this racial and religious hatred anymore.
Surely, I've still got my own battles. I will freely admit that living in the economically depressed neighborhood I do can bring out the worst in me at times, feelings I know better than to give credence to, but still regrettably have. But as much as I confront my own racism, I feel like I also need to confront those remarks and incidents around me that I used to let slide because they'd just cause too much drama to address (and trust me, in a family like mine, there's a lot of drama to cause).
At the end of the day, all these little stories don't matter unless we change, and confession is not the same thing as change. I know that. I want to repeat that. But all this sudden confession, it feels like a start. It feels like we're thinking, if not again, then maybe for the first time.
Maybe we can finally get over our shit, as individuals and as a nation.
ETA:
Since it's also about to be Purim, you may want to listen to Esther: the Feast of Masks by
ellen_kushner, as it addresses many of these issues about the spaces between what we are and what people think we are and what obligations and quandries that leaves us with. You can get the audio here: http://streams.wgbh.org/scripts/ram.php?show=026_estherMeanwhile,
karnythia is hosting a discussion about race here: http://karnythia.livejournal.com/977549.html
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Hey...
Date: 2008-03-19 10:28 pm (UTC)Being Jewish I never experienced any anti-semitsm thank god.
Whew! sorry about writing so much. let me know what you think.