Facebook Publication Date: 7/31/2020 20:07
So there was a discussion thread on the post about Jim Golden and his latest lurking that forced me to face a clench I had been avoiding since watching Lace’s latest video on the Chromebooks. The thread referenced a post in Kinfolk Kollective and their community’s response to our participation in the Chromebook initiative. I was initially very excited to head over to KK and see what they were discussing as my perspective was that I had stretched and sacrificed in my budget in order to participate in the Chromebook ask, and additionally that when I looked around in my offline life, I had deemed myself as working harder and doing more than those around me, so I was primed and ready to hear how awesome we had done and what LaSha and her community had to say. Especially since the first time I watched Lace’s Chromebook update, I had an uncomfortable response; I was outright angry, to the point of yelling at my screen. More on that in a bit.
Reading the post in KK checked my violent, cookie-seeking perspective. It was humbling to read, especially the KK community’s responses. This shifted my perspective from how above and beyond I thought I was going to it’s really just being a decent human being. Even if it felt sacrificial, it really wasn’t. It’s not exceptional. It’s bare minimum. When several of KK’s community members referenced that there is no applauding a fish for swimming, this stuck with me. No praise for what you are supposed to be doing anyway. Now to return to Lace’s video, where she herself reminded us that there is more to do, even for the group who participated in the Chromebook ask. This is why I was angry. I didn’t like Lace’s response to my “hard work” and “sacrifice”. And I went looking for the response I thought I deserved, only to be abruptly reminded of what I already knew – I had received the response I deserved, from Lace. I just didn’t want to hear it.
I went back and watched the video again with this new perspective. There was still a clench and uncomfortableness there to be worked through. Less anger but still uncomfortable. As first I thought the uncomfortable feelings were due to the others who didn’t show up. But due to work learned here, part of my praxis is when I see something troublesome in someone else, that’s my cue to turn inward and root it out in myself. While doing this, I returned to the Jim Golden post and saw Lace’s comment about hope vs. entitlement vs. expectations. I went back to the post she was referencing. I found where she talked about determining if we are coming from a place of entitlement or expectation. They each bring a different internal response and external relating with others. Entitlement is exactly what was happening in me the first time I watched Lace’s video. Because I had contributed materially, I felt entitled to accolades and acknowledgments and cookies. My internal emotion was anger at Lace’s response to our efforts in the Chromebook ask – which actually did include all those wonderful things I felt entitled to. But because her response also contained hard truths, this guided my external relating to Lace towards anger and harm. Even though, as she said, she is allowed to say hard truths, my entitlement revealed that I didn’t believe this, and I was still struggling to see eye-to-eye with her. Revealing that I am still rooting out my white supremacist belief about how Black women are allowed to respond to me. This shows how much more growing up I have to do, to come from a place of expectation instead, relating in ways in which both of us have equal footing, a two way street way of relating. And then, beyond entitlement and expectation, there is hope – hope for what might come from this type of relating and regulated internal responses. Hope that I will grow up, become reflexive at relating eye to eye with Lace and the other Black women and women of color in my life, relationships where I am giving back as much as I am receiving and ultimately being less violent and harmful.
I could have stopped there. That reflection could have been labeled by myself and others as good enough. I had downgraded my anger to just uncomfortable, seemingly mitigating the harm I had caused. But I realized that as I watched the video, I literally didn’t want to look Lace in the eye. I still needed to root out this clench. I still hadn’t moved from entitlement to expectation. So I went back and watched the video again. Lace asked, “What is the point in hanging out at a racial justice website if you don’t plan on actively prosecuting your racial justice praxis?” And I realized that I’m still hanging out and lurking at some level. I may be engaging in the space every day but I still sit on some responses for longer than I should, waiting and reading the other comments before risking to post my own thoughts. And entitlement does not take risks. My entitlement is what keeps me back from truly internalizing, because it told me that my financial engagement rendered me a pass for this level of lurking and a pat on the back for doing the bare minimum. It wrongly told me that I was participating as asked, so I was done. Also, because I’m not seeing eye to eye with Lace, and I’m putting myself in the top position of the top/down dynamic, my participation is actually conditional on her compliance to my entitlements and even expectations. And to use Lace’s words, this is straight up supremacy. Much like the larger community participation here, I’m not personally at 100% participation and the participation I do have is conditional on how Lace responds. So I don’t want to hear her remind me that I have more work to do. I would rather rest in my complacency with my racial justice box checked off. I’d rather pat myself on the back and go take a nap. Because I’m a white woman, so I’m tired, even though I haven’t made it 2 blocks into a 26 mile run. I haven’t even stepped out of the driveway really. And also, this is predictable behavior to Lace and the other Black and brown women that are watching. Even in my attempts to hide it, it’s not actually hidden. I had thought that Lace would not know about my violent reaction to her video unless I admitted it. But that’s not true – she knows without me directly saying it. It comes out in ways that I choose not to think about, in what I say and don’t say, how I say it, what I choose to do or don’t choose to do. As Lace has taught me, white folks are so predictable. What made me think I was any different? Oh, that’s right. Entitlement.
Also, even if I were currently participating at 100%, running the full 26 miles, taking into account my late arrival to this work, I am working from a deficit, making up for time lost to willful ignorance. I may have participated in the ask this time, but how many asks have I seen and heard from Black and brown people and I turned my back on them and ignored them because I was unwilling to lay down my own comforts and privileges to even see their humanity? That’s it. The ask is to be seen as a human. To see eye to eye. This realization did stir some new emotions – more clues to dig under and regulate. There is guilt, shame, and regret – of the many harms and deaths I have caused by my unwillingness to unarm.
Again, I could have stopped here. But I had only moved from entitlement to expectation. That’s not the full journey. Now it was time to dig into hope. So I returned to the video again. Yes, again. If you are counting, this is now the 4th time I needed to return. Because I realized that I needed to apologize to Lace for the harm I had caused. So I did apologize but I knew that my nice words meant nothing if I didn’t repair the damage done. I wasn’t sure how to do that, how to even fully name the damage, so back to the video for me where I located the name of my harmful behavior – a fully informed choice to hoard resources. While I may have chosen to participate in this action, there are commitments I have made that I’m not seeing through. There are ways I have learned to mitigate the harm of Black and brown people, but I’m not deeply invested enough to change and uproot my problematic beliefs. I’m violently and willfully choosing my own comfort over Black lives. I have become a well-read racist. I have learned of my weaponry and armor of white supremacy, but I won’t lay them down. I’m clinging to them out of fear. I’m afraid to actually live out the praxis I’m forming here and stop pretending. And for that to be revealed and brought to the light.
As Radha addresses in her Carrot Cake post, I’m resource hoarding – my comfort, my time, my financial resources, my mental blocks. When Lace referenced the financial engagement here as giving a tip, that’s exactly how I’m hoarding my financial resources. I’ve committed 10% of my income to supporting Black women. That’s the socially acceptable minimum for a tip. And I usually tip more than that in a restaurant or delivery setting, so I’m not even tipping Lace in the full amount of my usual praxis. The focus point is not to get stuck on how much percentage I should do now, but focus on why I thought paying a minimum tip to Black women for their work that I’m consuming was enough without paying for the full price of the meal first. And then tipping above and beyond. Because that’s the harm in white people’s actions (including myself) – I throw a small amount of money at what makes me uncomfortable in an attempt to make the discomfort go away. And usually not a significant amount of money. And again with the focus still being on my comfort and maintaining my resources.
This speaks to what Lace said in the video, treating her nourishing meal like fast food. Cheap consumption. So my focus now is the harm that I’m causing by operating from a narrow frame of payment and consumption. Framing minimal financial engagement as enough justification to slosh about and misnaming my consumption as authentic engagement. Thinking I could repair my consumption by throwing money at it when I actually needed to stop consuming and truly start engaging. Still with financial engagement and also by leaning in to the meal and the people who prepared it, letting the nourishment take root, growing up and growing in (learning how to contribute to the making of the meal without overtaking and wanting to make it my way) so then I can repay by growing out. Seeing the true value of the meal and taking a part in the making of the meal. This is more authentic repayment and repair. Stop approaching our space as a place for my consumption but as an authentic community in which to meet everyone eye-to-eye. This will still involve increased financial engagement. The addition is my changed perspective from consumption of cheap, processed food to partaking in homegrown food made with expertise and love and care that I take part in growing and cultivating. True engagement with more respect for Lace and the community and fully living out my values and convictions.
As Lace said in the video, Show up. Live it out or walk away. She is okay with me walking away. She doesn’t actually need me in the way that I think she does because I haven’t been safe, resilient, reliant, or committed to the work with resolve. Understanding this is my first step to repairing the harm I’ve caused. And then deeply investing in true change to my praxis and subsequent actions. Moving on the spectrum from entitlement to expectation to hope. And not just my hopes. But Lace’s hopes for our community – an authentic community that shows up in visible, reliable, and unwavering ways so that ultimately we become a community that people of color can trust, rely on, and rest in.
By community member/contributing writer Shay Roberts
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