Racisms effect on mindset

"People know about the Klan and the overt racism, but the killing of one’s soul little by little, day after day, is a lot worse than someone coming in your house and lynching you."

Samuel L. Jackson

Previously, I wrote about the reality of racism.  The post, like the subject of racism itself, comes across as depressing, sad, and frustrating.  After all, a reality that exists where you will be treated differently due to something that is completely outside of your control is a difficult pill to swallow.  But one thing that I alluded to in my previous post is what I think is the worst part of racism, and that is that in all of the examples I mentioned, there is no actual evidence of racism.  It's not like someone attacked me, no one yelled racial slurs at me, nothing actually happened.

It is the part of racism that I personally struggle with the most.  Significant physical harm aside, I would much rather people be overtly racist against me.  Why? Because then I know where they stand and it provides me with information to understand how I should proceed in that specific situation.  Without that knowledge, I am left wondering if something happened because of racism or a hundred other reasons.  And maybe the other hundred possible reasons are legitimate. But if it is racism, it is never legitimate, and something needs to be said or done.  

The challenge is that without an racial slur being said, without an ignorant rant taking place, how am I supposed to know if I should react, take a stand or prepare myself? That curiosity, that wonder, is what has created my own internal struggle.

This isn't a perfect analogy, but imagine you were allergic to peanuts and living in a word that had no ingredient labels and no ability to check if someone cooked using peanuts.  

Imagine you discovered this allergy was a problem because you ate a single peanut.  Now, while that single peanut didn't cause you a significant amount of harm, you experienced enough to know it isn't something you want to mess with, especially not in large quantities.  Pushing further, you hear stories, real stories, of other people with peanut allergies.  These people ended up eating a whole bag of peanuts and experienced terrible consequences, sometimes even fatally. 

Knowing that you and peanuts aren't going to get along, you also know that peanuts exist and even worse, you know that there are lots of companies who use peanuts to make foods, but never disclose it.  

So one day you decide to sit down for lunch and immediately afterwards, you feel the exact discomfort you felt the first time you tried that single peanut.  The restaurant claimed to be peanut free, so you thought you were completely safe.  That is, until you felt that discomfort. You ask the server if there are any peanuts in the food and they say "no, of course not, we are a peanut free establishment." But you know what you are feeling.  You start to think about it more, and then more, and then you realize, well... maybe the chicken just wasn't cooked fully through or maybe it was my drink? Then you go back to that feeling. You know what you are feeling. But then you go back to the idea that it could have been anything... are you really going to call the server a liar without any actual evidence?  Maybe you want to let it go, after all you only experienced a little discomfort, and again it could be anything, so how can you do anything besides letting it go?  But you still felt something, so in the spirit of self-preservation, you just decide to stay away from that restaurant (and hope that no one else with a peanut allergy eats there after you).

So now you are avoiding the restaurant... what's next? Well, you starting thinking maybe it is the type of restaurant, not just that specific one.  You start avoiding certain foods that you think have a higher possibility of peanuts, you start changing your lifestyle to try to make sure that you don't have to experience the pain of your allergy.

Meanwhile, you watch everyone without a peanut allergy trying all sorts of things you would never even dream of trying.  So now you are stuck in a position where, for no reason other than something you were born with, you are afraid to taste certain foods, even if that fear is misattributed to uncooked chicken.  And even worse, every time you feel the possible effects of your allergy (because it is impossible to completely avoid), you can never be sure if it was because of your allergy or because of something else.

In this example, food is to peanuts what everything is to racism. Meaning, you're not just worried about one specific part of your life, racism can effect everything.  It can be a school application, a job opportunity, the ability to build a clock or even your presence in a store.  Hell, it could be your ability to be served food.

I will say upfront that I don't think most people are outright racist, but I do think that racial bias is a spectrum that most people sit on.  People might not even know they are leaning one way vs. another because of racial bias, but they very well might be.  And if they don't even know, how would you?

This. This is my curiosity.  This is my wonder. To me, it is the knowledge that something exists that could be negatively affecting me that persistently gnaws away.  It is a depressing, demoralizing reality. And when I let it, it had the ability to consume the way I thought.  That is my struggle.

And much like life, those struggling feelings ebb and flow, fading from when I feel "safe" from racism, and then immediately reemerging the second I might have experienced racism. 

This is the point of the story where I wish I had a solution for you.  This is the point of the story when I wish I could say that I can protect you from this. But the harsh reality is that it will likely be a struggle that you also feel.

My advice is knowing that while this struggle can consume your thoughts in the worst way possible, it doesn't have to.  My current approach is to assume the best of people, assuming that I am not a victim of racism until proven otherwise.  I tell myself I'm not a victim even when I know probably am.  To me, the second that I let the possibility and fear of racism dictate my life experience, they have won, and the hell I am going to let that happen.  In the most serious way possible, whenever I think about this subject, I always end up in a place where I am basically having a Braveheart moment. 

The last thing I will say is that the moment that questionable racism turns into overt racism, the game changes.  At that point, fight back in the most appropriate way possible. I'll help.

A racist reality

"In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate."

Toni Morrison

You are going to be challenged in different ways in life and unfortunately I will be responsible for passing down one of those challenges. I hope that as our society continues to grow, the challenges you might face because of this will lessen -- but from all that I have seen, it is something that at some point in your life will become a challenge.  I say this not to scare you, but to help you prepare, because the first time you are discriminated against for the color of your skin, it can take you by surprise.  

I wish I could say that I didn't think racism exists, but it does.  How racism manifests itself has changed even during my lifetime.  As I am writing this, it feels like racial tension is at one of the highest levels it has been since I can remember which was a result of needless killings of both minorities and police officers.

Now, I can't say that I have ever personally experienced racism in the way that I know many people have. But, have I been followed closely in stores to ensure that I am not shoplifting? Have people not wanted to sit near me because of my physical appearance? Have people told me that I look ghetto simply because I am wearing sweats or a backwards hat? Yes to all of the above.

Maybe these feel like small circumstances that don't mean anything, but let me tell you a couple stories that will hopefully put it into better context:

The first story has to do with balding.  Weird right? The back of my hair has been thinning for a while now, but the front recently became a bigger problem. Despite trying different products, it just didn't want to grow in normally and the result was making me look just a bit ridiculous. In my head I only had two good options:

1. Comb over. This made me sad.

2. Shave my head. This made me scared.

Why did shaving my head scare me?  Because I knew that shaving my head would make me look "ghetto." This isn't a word that I coined for the situation, it is a word that multiple people have described me as when I am "styled" in a certain way.  To me, shaving my head was an invitation for more prejudice thoughts towards me that would likely effect both my personal and professional life.  It's amazing to me how much I had to wonder if my hairstyle would be career limiting.

So, I finally decided that I was going to have to shave it, the comb over simply wasn't fooling anyone. But here is the thing, just as I suspected, the reactions that I received was that I looked more ghetto and less professional.  And in all honesty, I do think it will effect my career in some way, which is a very unfortunate reality.

The second story is a story of earlier this summer when your mom and I were in Chicago for a friend's wedding.  Mom was spending time with a couple of her friends while I was busy doing groomsman duties.  In the past we haven't traditionally rented a car, but given everything we needed to do during the weekend, we thought it was best.  

Now, I don't have the greatest sense of direction, so when GPS was invented, it was a god-send.  That said, I rely on it so heavily that if I am without it, I have no clue where I am or how to get to another place.  So after one of the afternoon wedding activities that I was attending, I went to go pick up your mom from one of her friends. I was about ten minutes away from the friend's place when my phone died.  

I panicked.  I was driving through a residential neighborhood and had no idea where I was, which streets I needed to go down, or how I could figure this out.  I didn't even know the address that I was going to because the information was stored in the phone that was now out of batteries.  Luckily, I had a phone charger, so I just needed to find a place to charge it! Simple enough, right? It didn't feel that way to me.  

The biggest problem is that I knew the neighborhood I was in was over ninety percent white, which I of course am not.  In addition, I have the shaved head (I told you that this was a decision that would continue to come up) and I was dressed in "just" a t-shirt and jeans which might not hurt, but also doesn't help make a case that I am a non-threat.  This might not sound scary to you, but the thought of walking up to a house and asking to use power was terrifying.  Now, when I say scared, I mean scared for my physical well-being due to the possible reaction of my presence on someone's property including the possibility of the authorities being called on me simply for walking up to their house.  So instead of walking up to a shut door, I approached a couple who were doing yard work.  Just as I walked up, the man disappeared around the corner. 

This was just what I didn't want to have happen!  I purposely wanted both of them to see me come up so that there wouldn't be any kind of "surprise" reaction, but the lady had already spotted me and it wasn't like I could turn around at that point.  The lady ended up being nice and said I could use an outlet in their garage.  Right after I plugged my phone into the outlet, the guy appear, approached me in a borderline aggressive manner and asked what I was doing. Fortunately, his wife assured him it was okay and I made it through unscathed, I got about 10 minutes of charge and made it to mom.

So my point with the two stories? As much as I pray that society will change before you ever have to experience something like this, the reality is you are probably going enter a world that requires you to take some precautions that might not be necessary for some of your friends. I am not even saying the people in either one of the stories were racist, I am saying that because racism exists you need to take precautions.  Unfortunately that means that simple tasks such as approaching a strangers house or getting a haircut will require a different level of thought than some of your friends.

My last story isn't even my story, but it is a story that I read about this week involving a fourteen year old kid in Irving, Texas who "has a keen interest in robotics and engineering." This past weekend, he decided to create a clock "from a circuit board and a power supply wired to a digital display, all strapped inside a case with a tiger hologram on the front." Sounds pretty awesome right? Well, this child's name is Ahmed Mohammed and he is Muslim... and somehow that made this story much less awesome.  When he brought his creation to school, he had it confiscated, he was cuffed and accused of creating a bomb.  Let that sink in for a second.  He was cuffed in front of his entire school and accused of terrorism for creating a clock. 

Now, I don't know all the details about the story, but I do know that this should never be allowed to happen... and yet it did.  Can anyone say that this happened because of racism? Probably not unless the teachers come forward and express racism. But, do I think that race had to do with this? Absolutely.

I don't want to scare you too much on this subject, but I do need you to understand that things simply will not be the same as your non-minority friends.  Think of life as a series of metaphorical streets.  The majority of the time, the only precaution you are going to need to take is to look both ways and proceed with caution as you cross each street.  Here is the part that will be frustrating: you're non-minority friends don't need to look both ways -- they don't even need to have their eyes open! But if you don't, at some point you will get blindsided.

One thing I would beg is to never, ever not build your proverbial clock because of this, but I do want to tell you to be careful in certain situations and overly cautious in others. Because as much as I wish I could shield you from this aspect of our world, I know that eventually you will have your own story to tell regarding racism and I hope my story helps yours end with a "I made it through unscathed."

Defining friendship

“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything”

Muhammad Ali

Making friends has always been hard for me.  When I was in school, and by school I mean the entirety of my life before graduating from college, my personal life was all about “fitting in,” “being social,” and “being normal.” I think everyone goes through this phase to some degree, but each person to a different extent.  One of the reasons for this is because everyone is at different points along society's "normal" spectrum and as a result, certain people can more easily fall into the idealistic norm. 

For me, I always felt I was on the fringe of that spectrum.  I didn't feel like I "fit in," or at least not like people I knew. I always felt like I was on the second or third circle of friends, but rarely in the first.  Now, it wasn't like I had no friends, I did.  I even had close friends and best friends, but I didn't feel like I had a circle.  This "non-circle" feeling was a constant growing up but it didn't become a problem until middle school.  Why middle school? I don't know, but I distinctly remember middle school being a huge pivot on how I felt about myself and being on the outside of the circle.

At the time, I wasn't happy with it, but I didn't know what to do to change the circumstance.  I felt like people had already chosen their circles or "picked their places" so to speak, so what on earth could I do to change that?  I envied people who changed schools because it felt like that had a built-in entry point to disrupt existing circles and find a place.  In fact, my junior year of high school, I even changed schools partially due to me wanting to force that kind of opportunity.

Well, as you might have expected, that didn't work. But something pretty incredible happened coming out of that change.  You see, prior to that moment, my friends were based on proximity.  Meaning, my childhood friends were completely dependent on the fact that they lived in my neighborhood, were in my classes or shared my extracurricular activities.  But after that moment, it all changed because proximity was taken out of the situation.  What I was left with was a crystal ball that showed me exactly who was willing to go out of their way to be in my life and just as important, who I was willing to go out of my way to be part of theirs.

Those two final years in high school were pretty rough as my plan pretty much backfired when I never really made any great friends at the new school (I told you I was bad at making friends).  But, that change helped me realize two important things about myself:

1. I do better outside of circles.  Maybe that is why I never felt like I was in the inner circle, but it took a long time for me to understand that it was perfectly fine that that was the case.

2. My true friends have the ability to transcend proximity and have the ability to be there for me even when they aren't actually here.  Realizing this was important for me because it became a large part of how I define my best friendships.

I know what you are thinking, "don't you usually have a point to these stories?" Well here it is: until very recently, I credited my high school move with understanding those things about me, but that isn't true.  If you really pushed me, I could have accurately told you the friends that would stay in my life and I could have told you that circles just weren't my thing.  

You don't need to make a move, you just need to do some soul searching.  People define friendships differently and my definition most likely won't be the same as yours.  People have different needs and friendships play different roles in their lives.  So before you make an unnecessary move, my advice to you is to take the time to understand yourself and what you need out of those roles.  There will be aspects of that definition that will change throughout the years and there will also be constants, but know that it is okay if your definition of friendship doesn't line up with everyone else's.