What Happens When?

This, my white friends, is privilege. Even in our most activist moments, we don a cause like a fashionable hat, briefly, until we exhaust our emotional reserves; then, when it suits us, we retreat to the comfort of our white, cushy cloud of isolation, so to recover from our (ahem) heartache. But the real victims never have such an option. When they’re tired and dismayed, the job only gets harder; it never goes away. Retreat literally is not an option.

Clinton J. Moyer, Huff Post

Even though I have been engaging with friends all week, trying to unfreeze my emotions around the latest slate of shootings, it took the above paragraph on today’s Huffington Post site to spur me to action. It was the final crack in ice already cracking.

            I’ve heard it before, thought it before…was just talking about this phenomenon with a close friend…but something about this man’s directness, his call for whites to get out of their comfortable chairs—how he calls us out for “when it’s convenient” activism—woke me up. And it hurts.

            The ice started to melt earlier last week, while watching Free State of Jones, then again when talking with my wife about it (in our “cushy cloud of isolation”). There in front of us were brave and activated individuals, white and black, fighting side by side, not giving up, not giving in. It was like watching a Hollywood trope for the Black Lives Matter movement; or, at least, a history lesson reminder what is possible. I felt the same way watching when I saw Selma. Movie as wake-up call. Act! Do Something!

       There are clear moments in my life when I know how and when to act. There are times to join the protest. I was there to escort a black friend to the chief of police’s office in order for him to see clearly who she is and agree to protect her as he would any white citizen. But these isolated acts of mine don’t feel enough. Not now, not as I watch along with the rest of the country this barrage of assassinations. And aren’t I always in danger of using them as pat-myself-on-the-back moments, emblematic encounters that prove that I am engaged, not afraid, doing the right thing? It sure feels that way.

My wife and I are almost through watching ESPN’s 5-part OJ documentary, Made in America, actually stopping halfway through the last episode to catch our breath. It was so very stunning to watch (again!) the divide that opened up between whites and blacks when OJ was acquitted. Sobering to see many of his “loyal” white fans turn their backs on him, spit on him. Painful to watch him begin to court the very black communities and church leaders he seemed to hold such disdain for earlier. Ironic to hear black activists at the time owning up to wanting “payback.” Of course they did. (So would I. I still do, if a privileged white male can call for pay back on something he has never directly experienced.) But OJ as a civil rights figure? All OJ ever wanted, it seems to me, was to be loved and adored. (And for us to ignore that he was a wife-beater.) We watch him over the course of the documentary sell his emotional wares to the highest bidder; and when the bidding ceased, when he was in danger of becoming a pariah, Simpson hauled his rag cart to the only place he thought he could be seen and loved. (And was he not right to do so?)

My boy and his three best friends are an interesting group. Among the four, two are Jewish, one was born in Jamaica, and one was born in London, where his East Indian father still lives. My son and his Jewish friend each recently had their bar mitzvah and wear their Stars of David outside their shirts with pride. I worry about them all.

        What happens when this foursome pile out of a car to grab sodas at some gas station? Will the police hanging out in their car have their inner radar turn on? Will they feel inclined to engage, intervene, arrest? What will happen to these boys inside that arrest? Will my son’s whiteness—his blue-eyed wonder-boy persona—end up “protecting” his darker-skinned friends from harm or will his and the other Jewish boy’s presence in the group exasperate the problem? 

I sat my son down the other day to talk about the two recent shootings of unarmed black men. (This is before the Dallas shootings.) He hadn’t heard yet, hadn’t realized there were videos to watch and mourn. I talked to him about his being Jewish and anti-semitism. And I talked to him about being white and his unearned privilege. I tried to let him know that his friends might be treated differently just because of the color their skin. He understood; I could see him taking it in. But he’s thirteen and doesn’t really know what to expect. Do I show him the videos or keep him from them? (It has taken me days to sit down and watch them myself.)

This conversation might be one of those “must-have” moments. There was no doubt in my mind we had to have that talk, and that the conversation needs to remain open and active. Just yesterday, as we gathered with other families delivering their children to a month-long Jewish sleep-away camp, the director warned the kids and placated the parents that they had all the appropriate security in place. How ironic is it that the local police are serving that security role? Do those southern white men (as I imagine them) really harbor goodwill for a bunch of Jewish kids and Israeli counselors? Or does their otherness blare forth at the local pool or at that imaginary gas station?

Let’s remind ourselves that this is not about us. Let’s allow, indeed, invite those who suffer to speak for themselves. Let’s entertain the possibility that such voices represent the best not just in “their” community, but in OURS — all of ours. Let’s let them be our voices, so that when we say “us,” we include them.

Clinton J. Moyer, Huff Post

Getting back to the article and its cattle prod to my comfort zone freeze… I am awake now, brother! But what next?! I will attend the protest, sure. But I know already that doesn’t feel like enough. Writing this letter helps a little. But even this…to what end?

It’s “not about us,” Moyer reminds white people. It’s not our voice that matters most. He urges me to let the suffering voice speak and to allow it to become my own voice. I agree with this, and I don’t agree with this. Letting other voices speak for me feels too much like the easy “arm chair” activism he’s warning against. Too privileged. I want to add my voice to the conversation. I want to listen carefully to other voices then join the conversation best I can.

            I guess I need help figuring out what to do next. Surely, this is no time to dawdle. I will keep writing and keep talking with our boy. Keep watching the movies and reading the op-eds and talking with friends and loved ones. And I’ll do my best to keep up the good work—Teach. Write. Listen. Speak up. Stand up. Not give up hope.

Dear American Airlines

I was sitting on the aisle in an emergency exit row not far from the first class partition. Snacks were being served. Two stewardesses were taking orders from the passengers in the seats before me. A woman was waiting in the aisle across from me; she had returned from the mid-cabin rest room and was blocked by the cart. I saw the closer stewardess nod to the woman and hold up her finger. A few minutes later, looking up from my book, I was surprised to discover the woman still waiting, now for close to five minutes. The woman in the aisle seat across from me, shaking her head in disgust, was also watching the scene unfold. I should say here the two stewardesses were white and the waiting passenger was African-American.

At this point, a steward appeared from first class and asked to be let through. This seemed a perfect time for the stewardesses to let the woman return to her seat. However, the stewardesses found a way to block the woman. I watched the woman’s face carefully. She remained outwardly calm but now her arms were crossed at her waist. The woman beside me was shaking her head again as the stewardesses made sure to avert their gaze.

Unable to remain silent, I stood up and approached the woman, touching her lightly on the shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s not fair.” She gave me a brief smile and said softly, “I’m used to it. I’m patient.” Then she turned back to waiting.

Meanwhile, and to my astonishment, the lead stewardess began serving people in the row behind me. The second stewardess avoided our gaze again and took her time serving her row. The woman bristled with barely concealed anger.

I’d had enough. I stood up to confront the stewardesses. But, seeing me stand, the woman stepped up to the back stewardess and asked to be let through. Then she repeated herself. It was at this point that the stewardess moved the cart back and allowed the woman to take her seat. I probably don’t have to say that the stewardess refrained from apologizing and failed to serve the woman her snack or a complimentary beverage.

A few minutes later, the woman across from me spoke up. “Can you believe what just happened?” She and her friends were flying in from Switzerland. “Does this happen a lot her?” I nodded my head slowly. “Sadly, it does.”

What I didn’t say, and write now, is I’d never before witnessed such blatant racism carried out by an airline employee, nor had I seen such a clear vendetta enacted. Surely, it couldn’t be that they were punishing the woman for choosing to leave her seat at an inconvenient time?! No, they felt the need to make this woman feel like a third-class citizen. Why? Because of the color of her skin.

How often have these two stewardesses done this to other passengers of color? How many other stewards and stewardesses act in a similar fashion? How do the men and women of color who work for the airlines feel when they witness such actions? (Or is this behavior only displayed when the crew is all-white?

Falafel 5K

I volunteered the other day for the JCC’s “Falafel 5K” as a course marshal. They gave me a corner to monitor and this strange little red vest. The signs were clear, with arrows leading the runners down hill and through the dogleg onto the home stretch. It was shady, my spot in the middle of a quaint neighborhood. Before the racers arrived, I chatted with two couples, introduced myself to an elderly lady and her elderly dog. About fifteen minutes after the start time, a cop car with flashing lights came around the corner followed by the lead runner, who spit and grunted as he loped past. The next two runners, close behind, were equally preoccupied (what was I expecting, pleasant hellos?). The fourth runner, the race’s lead woman, yelled out to her son who was apparently waiting for her on the porch. He yelled “Go, Mom!” “Love you!” she called as she huffed down the hill. Runner number twelve, also a woman, was running barefoot. The boy had come out from behind the fence and joined me on the stone wall. “What’s she protesting, anyway?” Then a thick clot of tired-looking 5Kers wheeled into view. “How much longer?” one weary man asked, his gait stiff and awkward. Claps from the couples on their porches. After about five minutes the slow runners and the ones who had started walking were all that was left of the race. One old man asked me how far he had to go. “You’re close,” I told him cheerfully. “You lie,” he hissed. Then the last walkers and one mom pushing a newborn in a stroller. Finally, my son Avery and his three friends strolled into view, chatting and laughing. The trailing cop car inched behind alongside an 80 year old man willing himself forward. When this strange little parade floated by (high-fives from the boys!), I gathered up my things, took off the annoying vest, and sauntered all the way to the finish line.

Marginalia

At the back of a paperback pulled off the shelf, I find a few fragments of marginalia jotted years before. I have no recollection of writing these lines. Notes toward a short story? He asked her to meet him in a strange city, at such and such a hotel, on the last Saturday of August. She hadn’t promised she’d come. But, if she did, he was sure it meant that everything they’d shared-—all the unspoken glances and sparks between them—- would bloom at the designated moment she walked into the hotel lobby. Is this an attempt at fiction or simply wish fulfillment? Have I been leading a double life? Either way: how strange to find this shadow version of myself, no longer alive, sloughed off like a coat of snow. And then, on the back page: They’d done all they could to salvage it; there was nothing left but to untangle their libraries.