Being Colorblind

I used to say it. I used to think it. I never EVER ONCE, in all my growing-up years and even into adulthood, considered that I might be part of a mindset that unknowingly promotes racism. But I was. And I said it, and thought it.

What did I say? I said that I was colorblind. I said that I didn't see color.

But of course I did. I'd have to be blind not to see color. And what I thought and said about NOT seeing it only further alienated me from the very people I thought I was allying myself with. Because guess what... THEY see it. They see it when they get up in the morning and look at themselves in the mirror. They see it when they try to wait for a bus, reflected in the eyes of those who notice them standing there. They see it when they are outside taking a walk and decide to stand in a building's overhang and wait for a friend to come out.

And for me to say that I don't see color ... discounts and dismisses their experience of the world. It makes them invisible, and let's face it - everyone wants to be seen, to be acknowledged for their existence. The color of their skin is just as much a part of them as having fingers and toes. And their skin color dictates how the world treats them, what kinds of choices they make about everyday things, how they feel about their society, and how they interact with people who are outside of their circle. It is like an insult to them when I say I don't see color.

Photo courtesy of
Alec White at Pixabay

I have learned instead to say, "I see you." I have learned to say, "Teach me about your experience of your culture." I have learned to honestly ask people what it is like to BE them. I have learned to honor the existence and the history of those who are different from me, and to be curious about it, and to celebrate what is different and unique about each individual. I have learned not to assume that just because a person has a particular skin color, that all people who have that skin color feel this or that way, or think this or that way, or act this or that way. They don't. They don't in the same way that not all white people have similar beliefs or lifestyles or political leanings. It does a disservice to everyone to pigeon-hole people based on anything they might hold in common.

While it is true that we all bleed red, that we are all the same underneath, that every life matters, the reality of our society is that people of color are treated and viewed by so many in society as less-than. The reality is that racism is rampant and it runs amok in our world. The fact of the matter is that white people, like myself, have a societal privilege in our western culture that people of color do not. And it is for this reason that I join with thousands and millions of others in saying, "Black Lives Matter."  I don't say "All Lives Matter" because that silences those whose lives don't matter in today's society.

I saw an illustration of equality versus equity a few years ago that has stuck with me. It is a three-part cartoon depicting three people: a tall person, an average-sized person, and a little person, who are trying to watch a ball game from behind a five-foot wall. In the first illustration, the tall person can easily see over the wall. The average person can see but just barely. And the little person cannot see at all. Then there were two illustrations under that one. The one on the left put an equal-sized box under each person. In this illustration, the little person could just barely see over the fence, and the taller ones had an even better view from equally higher-up. This one was labelled "Equality." On the right, in the illustration labelled "Equity," the tall person who did not need a box, was not given one. The average-sized person was given a box tall enough so that he could reach the same height as the tall person, and the little person was also given an even taller box so he could enjoy the game from the same height of the tall person. In this way, each of them could enjoy the game to the same degree.

This is a wonderful illustration of why I believe that those in the dominant culture do not need to be stroked and given special consideration. They already have the privilege of seeing the world without assistance. Those who need help and recognition should get it to the degree that they have been disadvantaged. And the history of white culture has many, many examples of the oppression of other races, especially black people (and yes, this is documented!) throughout the history of our interactions with other people who don't look like us.

From the time I was a little girl of ten years old, when I met a black man for the first time, I have been intrigued by people of color. But what I didn't know then, and what I still didn't know even as recently as ten years ago, was how difficult it was (and is) for those who are not white. We don't even think about the same things as people of color when we think of everyday activities that most of us take for granted. Going for a walk in a quiet neighborhood after dark ... going into a store in broad daylight ... walking the dog ... driving a car with tinted windows ... paying for an item by check ... waiting in the park for a friend ... all of these things we take for granted and never once think that we might not make it home alive. But people of color, and especially black people, do. Every. Day.

If recent events have not highlighted these facts for you, then it might be time to honestly investigate how best to honor people who are targets of racism in your city, in your province or state, in your country. Look for stories told by the actual people themselves, and not by white people telling their story for them.

Listen. And say it with me. Black Lives Matter.

#BLM #ISeeYou

Never again

“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”

– Terry Pratchett

When we think of the atrocities of WWII - the concentration camps, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the internment camps where Japanese North Americans were imprisoned - two words come to mind: NEVER AGAIN. I was reading yesterday of an atrocity that spanned several decades in our own country, in the words of those who had survived it: the First Nations people. In the residential school system, generations of First Nations children were ripped from their parents (some of them without the parents' knowledge or consent, some at the threat of their parents going to jail) and treated shamefully, in an effort to assimilate them ... to make them into white people.

What if some military or political power were to give police the authority to come into your home, take you and the things you hold dear from it, and give you to prison wardens who stripped you down, called you filthy, washed your hair with kerosene, shaved your head, took your clothes and gave you ill-fitting shoes, burned all of your sports equipment, took your phone, your musical instruments, your credit cards, your jewelry, everything that distinguished you as a person, gave you a number and called you by nothing but that number, fed you substandard food and made you eat it, and beat you if you spoke your mother tongue? What if this went on for years before you were allowed to return to your family? The equivalent of that is only the beginning of what happened to these wonderful, peaceful people.

Reading the accounts of what happened in the victims' own words powerfully reminded me of reading Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning (you can look it up and read it free online) where he described what he went through in the Nazi death camps upon arrival, and then on a daily basis.  He spoke for millions who could not, whose voices were silenced.  He helped to expose the atrocities motivated by fear and hatred.

Isn't that what racism is: fear and hatred gone wild?  That it happened here ... that the spirits of those children were sucked out of them - their way of life and even their own language called demonic - this is Canada's shame. 

I'm sorry, folks, but an official apology from the government, nearly a hundred years after the fact, just does not make up for the thousands of lives, families and communities that were destroyed, the very fabric of their way of life (family, connection with nature, traditions) unraveled.  It does not give the stolen spirits of those people back to them.  It does not restore their lost heritage, nor the way of life they were brainwashed into rejecting. 

 

Photo "Dreamcatcher" courtesy
of Serge Bertasius Photography at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

The nightmare isn't over for First Nations people just because some white man in a three-piece suit said, "Sorry." The way we silence the monsters is to let people know how horrific those attitudes are: the ones that led to daily spiritual and cultural atrocities. The attitude that "white makes right." The attitude that "Christian values are the only ones worth espousing" and "these people are savages."  And oh, my favourite (not): "It's for their own good." It was wrong. It was wrong then and it's still wrong now.

There, I've said it.  I'm a white, Christian, "civilized" (whatever that means) person and I KNOW that what happened was wrong.  I KNOW that every day for multiple generations, there are adults who wake in cold sweats from nightmares about "that place." There are grown men who question every move they make: am I allowed to sit here, am I allowed to go to that place, am I allowed to talk to this person?

Knowledge is power.  I freely admit that I was ignorant.  I didn't know that I didn't know.  And although it was painful, I had to educate myself.  I went to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada website and I started reading one of the many documents available there  (link).  I confess that I was only able to get through half of it - it was very emotional for me.  The language is easy enough to understand, but the stories themselves - first of how life used to be, and then of how life changed forever - broke my heart. 

Perhaps the reason that some Canadians have a hard time with immigrants coming into our country is because our own ancestors carried out the very thing that they fear the newcomers will do: destroy our way of life, take over our land and make us into second-class citizens.  The difference is that we whites hold a position of privilege ... and we therefore have a responsibility to use our power for good.  Not evil.

Never again.

Acceptance - the royal road

I learned a new word this week: "microagressions." These are tiny, almost subconscious ways in which aggressors mistreat those they target, based on a belief that the other person is 'wrong', 'misguided', 'stupid', 'lazy', 'over-sensitive', or whatever. This is usually the case when aggressors have prejudged someone on the basis of his or her race, religious belief, lifestyle, appearance, gender identity, etc. These microaggressions can come out in the workplace as increased scrutiny (careful examination) of the quality of someone's work (over and above what would be done to another person in the same job), a dismissive attitude of what someone says or contributes, or even just a raised eyebrow (indicating the aggressor doesn't believe what the person is saying). 

Those who feel subjugated as a result of microaggressions lose motivation (they're going to find fault with what I do anyway, so why even try?) and may even succumb to physical illness more frequently as a result of significantly increased stress.

Microagressions are particularly problematic in the helping professions, where there is an inherent imbalance of power. Counsellors, pastors, doctors, and nurses (among others) are held to a higher ethical standard and yet ... abuses occur every day. Patients are not believed, their legitimate symptoms "gas-lighted". People in pain because of a specific problem are turned away (or worse yet, turned into a personal project to "convert") when they reveal a totally unrelated lifestyle not considered acceptable by the helper. It happens every day!

The more I study counselling, the more I realize that the key to becoming a good counsellor - indeed, the key to becoming a better person - is acceptance of other people, regardless of how different they are from me, my thoughts, and my beliefs.  This is much more than just "love the sinner, hate the sin." It goes WAY beyond that fallacy.  It involves a deep-seated belief that every single person has the right to be who they are and feel what they feel. That belief is HARD to cultivate... but it is crucial.  If it is not there, I could turn into (or perhaps continue to be) a microaggressor. 

People who habitually commit microaggressions rarely see their behaviour as aggressive or prejudicial.  They usually consider themselves to be wonderful, caring people ... and they may be in some contexts ... but there is this huge blind spot that obstructs their ability to accept that the other person has just as much right to be there as they do.

I have been the target of microaggressions.  The perpetrators were simply acting on their core beliefs, based on their own chosen lifestyles, that (for example) all short people never become adults and should not be taken seriously, that all fat people are lazy, ugly and stupid, that all Christians are crazy bigoted right-wingnuts, that all depressed people are suicidal, that all civilians (or non-professionals) are ignorant, and so forth. It's probably not obvious to anyone watching, and certainly not to those who have acted on those beliefs, because they cover it up with a veneer of civility and respectability.  Yet ... it exists.

Photo "Conflict In The Office" courtesy of
franky242 at  www.freedigitalphotos.net

I've also watched people commit microaggressions against others without them even realizing it, and I have seen the results in their victims ... who feel as though they have just been bullied, but can't quite put their finger on how.   All they know is that they feel belittled, condescended to / patronized, and made to feel powerless .... like the person who makes a mistake at work (due to a misunderstanding) and is not called into the supervisor's office to chat one-on-one, but is confronted about the mistake in front of his or her co-workers.  The co-workers (not being the ones under attack) can easily identify the conversation as one that should have been conducted in private. Why wasn't it?  The microaggressor (for whatever reason) believes that the person in question does not merit that kind of consideration ... whether that belief is on a conscious or subconscious level.  Often the victim's feelings don't happen during the encounter but afterward, after the shock of the (usually verbal) assault wears off.  This is how bullies get away with bullying.  Talk about feeling ambushed!  Not to mention vulnerable, helpless, trapped, and a whole host of other unpleasant things. 

Those feelings (though unpleasant) are VALUABLE because they are the brain's early warning system: danger, danger, danger!  They can lead you and me to recognize when such things are happening and to speak out against them, so as to do something to stop them from happening again.  Nobody has the right to be treated like a disposable person, a worthless piece of junk.  NOBODY. 

And truly, acceptance (valuing the other person as a person, with the same rights as anyone else) is the key.  It is the royal road to creating a safe place where non-judgmental, non-aggressive conversations can happen.  It is much easier to create that safe place when two people are on a par with each other, where one does not hold power over another, where one is not more qualified than another.  However, it becomes far more difficult (yet still equally as important, if not more so) when there is an imbalance of power. 

Raising awareness is only the first step in addressing this problem.  I've used the example here of a co-worker with a supervisor, but this could apply to pretty much every arena where there is a perceived difference in the level of power two people hold.  People in positions of power or influence MUST learn that the fact that they hold more power makes them more accountable for the way they treat those who have less ... or none.

How to make bad things worse

"I see you're looking better than you were a couple of days ago. I wanted to stop by and tell you."

You should have stopped there.

I should have let you stop there. I was vulnerable and needed to talk to someone I trusted, not this perfect stranger to me. In the whole time I've known you, we've only had one conversation - a year ago.

"Thanks. I was struggling earlier this week, things have really been stressful. Thinking I'd be much better off if I just wasn't here."

Bad choice of words - she will think you mean something more than what you're saying. What I'm thinking of is stress leave, not "checking out." Oh what's the difference anyway. I just want her to go away. I wish she would just go away. I'm tired, I want to go home and get out of this awful place.

[condensed version of the repeated 10-minute tirade that followed] "Oh my God, Judy. You need help. You need to get help right now. I mean, call your doctor first thing Monday morning. I'm serious, get him to prescribe some antidepressants. I mean it! and I'm checking up on you on Monday to see if you've called him." 

Back-pedal. Let her know that is really not what you meant. AT ALL. 

Photo "Portrait of
Pointing Male" by
imagerymajestic at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

"Look, I would never commit suicide. Really. But I understand how some people can think that way."

Oops, I recognize that look. Oh crap, she's getting on her white horse and going to save the day. No-o, that's that LAST thing I want. All I want to do is get away from here, to go home, for her to shut up and leave me alone.

"No, that's way too close to the line. You've GOT to get some help. Talk to a therapist, are you seeing someone? you have to see someone." 

Oh great, now she's ordering me around!!! Why doesn't she just go away? Can't she see how stressed out she's making me? How can I get out of this? Maybe a little humour?

[By this time my head is in my hands as she rants on and on about how she was depressed and how she got help and that I need to do the same.] 

"So," I joke, "if I kill myself, THEN will you leave me alone?" 

This attempt at humour only adds fuel to the fire. Her reaction only shows how little she knows me. More and more she convinces herself that I'm in imminent danger and that she has to "save" me. Will she NEVER shut up?? 

[Finally I decide to be straight with her because beating around the bush isn't helping! I hate confrontation, but she's backing me into a corner. And when I am backed into a corner, I go on the offensive.] My voice raises; it is clipped and stern. "Listen. You are treating me like I'm two years old, like you have to be my savior or something. It's making me very uncomfortable, and I want you to stop this, and leave me alone."

She doesn't leave me alone. She goes on the defensive for a while, then turns around and attacks again, same pushy attitude, same ordering me around, same heavy-handed control stuff as before.

And she promises (sounds like she threatens) to check in with me on Monday. Which makes me not want to go there on Monday. Or any other day, if she was going to be there in my face all the time.  As a matter of fact, I hadn't started to consider suicide - even in jest (and it WAS only in jest) - until she started ranting about it. And now I was fantasizing about how many ways I could force her to shut her mouth!

You see ... how much better it might have been for her to say, "You look better today, you looked ill earlier in the week." and for me to say, "Thanks, I do feel a bit better," (which I DID until she started jumping down my throat) and left it at that. But no-o. My guard was down - I was tired - and discouraged - and vulnerable.

And what she actually said to me had the exact opposite effect than the one she wanted. Instead of giving me someone to talk to, she made me not want to talk to her about anything, because she'd only try to control my life and my thinking. Instead of making me feel like I was supported, she made me feel like I was being attacked, assaulted, and harassed. Instead of me knowing that I was cared for, I ended up feeling like now I was going to be her "special little project" and that I'd never be out from under her microscope. 

She may indeed have "meant well"... but her attitude and her actions were way over the top, and more of a hindrance to any help I might have been considering. I felt like someone who complained of a sniffle, suddenly being forced to go to the hospital and hooked up to an IV and a respirator.

Overkill. There's a reason they call it that. It's what makes bad things way worse. 

Shoulds and Oughtas - Let the Walls Come Down

Remember the festive spirit that was present when the Berlin Wall came down?

The crowd cheering and roaring, the symbol of their captivity and oppression toppling before their eyes? it's a scene one doesn't easily forget. Some were yelling their heads off, some were throwing rocks at the wall, some were weeping, their faces in their hands. All great reactions to the tearing down of a thing that had been there all their lives, something that held them back, something that separated some of them from their loved ones, something that represented imprisonment, inhumanity, persecution, limitation.

On both sides of the wall before it came down, people went on with their lives and while they were doing so, some if not most of them probably justified their lifestyles. On the west side, people knew some of what was going on, on the other side. They'd heard the gunshots, they'd harbored those who had escaped, and they knew there were probably thousands of people on the other side of that wall who desperately wanted to get out but were afraid to try. Yet the ones in freedom were powerless to do anything to get them out. The decision had to be made by the people on the east side.

On the east side, there were those completely satisfied with the status quo, espousing the rhetoric of the government of the day. Others couldn't stand the oppression and risked their lives to leave. Few made it; the others were held up as an example of what happens to those who try. But there were still others (and dare I say these were the majority) who didn't want to risk life and limb to escape - yet they wistfully looked at that wall and wondered what life would be like if they were ever to be able to see on the other side.

I am going out on a limb here and saying that in many ways, the modern church is like living on the east side of the wall before it came down. Regimented, oppressive, judgmental, protectionist. Those who dare try to get out of that mold, the mold expected by the religious powers that be (I say religious deliberately), find themselves ostracized, stripped bare and crucified by the same people who say they espouse the teachings of Christ. But mostly, there are hundreds if not thousands of people who see the limitations, who despise the rules and regulations, and don't dare try to escape because they see how the ones who try to break free are treated. They want to be free. They hate what the church has become. Yet they have nowhere else to go. They know that only Jesus has the words of eternal life, and they are afraid that by "quitting Christianity" as one lady put it recently, they'll lose the only reference point they'll have, and will endanger their eternal soul. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The good news is that long ago, before we ever got in this horrible predicament, Jesus DID tear the wall down. The Bible tells us that the dividing wall that kept us from God was torn down when Jesus died on the cross. The veil of the Temple, six inches thick and several hundred pounds, that stood between the holy place and the most holy place - representing separation from God - was ripped from the top to the bottom as soon as Jesus cried out, "It is finished!" (From the Greek tetelestai, which means "accomplished" - in the sense of an unbreakable contract being fulfilled.) Did you get that? From the top to the bottom.

God Himself tore down the wall.

Relationship with Him trumps rules and regulations, the shoulds and the oughtas. It is about this life of intimacy, this life lived every moment in the Spirit of God, that Jesus said, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink! He who believes in Me, as the Scriptures said, 'out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water!' "

He comes to live inside of us when we claim Him as our personal Rescuer - the only way for us to approach a holy God. He forgives us. He makes us pure before Him. He loves us unconditionally. Passionately. Deeply.

The more we realize this, the more our gratitude overflows back to Him. It changes us on the inside...and overflows into a two-way love-relationship with Him: a oneness that can ONLY happen through the Spirit of God. Such a life can only be lived from the inside out, flowing from our trysting, our intimacy with Him. We love Him, the Bible says, because He first loved us. So, in response to His great love, our "return" love bursts out toward Him, overflows all over us and all over the lives of those with whom we come in contact.

In the context of that kind of intimacy, we don't need to "try" to live the Christian life. It's not something we have to put on like someone would put on a sweater. It is the inner glory, the love and the joy and the peace that clothe us from the inside, where He lives, where He loves us beyond our ability to comprehend, where we can't help but love Him back.

The question that gets us from behind the wall to where He waits for us is this:
Do we trust Him?

Are we willing to let go of everything we've leaned upon, all the s'postas and the gottas, all the stress we unnecessarily place on ourselves (as if it were up to US to save, heal, fix, and rescue everyone) - and give ourselves unreservedly with complete abandon ... to Him and Him alone? to turn our will and our lives - all of it - over to His loving care? Warts, failures, hurts, anger, pride, resentment, bitterness, fear, insecurity and all? just as we are?

It truly is a leap of faith. I'm not talking about "leaving the church." I'm talking about "embracing Christ" - walking in intimate relationship with Him.

I won't lie to you. It's a scary step. But His question still remains, perhaps as yet unanswered. "Will you trust Me?"

With that question hanging in the air, turn up the volume and listen to this story about a "Cosmic Cowboy" told in the 1970s by a man named Barry McGuire. Hear the call of Jesus in it: "Will you trust Me?"

Isn't it time? He's the only way out.
Go ahead ... jump.