[Laura Berwick]

Lace asked me to run this post from my Facebook wall here, and encouraged us to take it to the groups to discuss as well. This is what I wrote this evening, after something over 24 hours of… pondering? meditating upon? stewing over? yesterday’s violent disruption of our democracy.

—

Don’t think that, because I haven’t said anything yet, I don’t have opinions and feelings around yesterday’s attempted coup. I am… far from shocked. I am not even surprised. I am LIVID. Yes still. I’m working on it.

I am devastated that a woman was shot. I do not want, ever, to learn that the death penalty has been meted out, at all, much less without a trial and full recourse to the law. I am DEEPLY thankful that there weren’t more serious injuries than there were.

I am… I would have once thought of myself as inured to the sight of the Confederate flag. But I’ve become more deeply disturbed by it over my decades of life, not less. To see it being born through the halls of our Union’s capitol building… felt like an absolute GUT PUNCH of an insult to our nation and democracy.

Y’all, some of yesterday’s violent rioters were armed. Some had explosive devices. They set out to harm people in order to thwart an election even the administration’s election security personnel called safe and fair. An election that failed to secure the electoral vote, this time, for the man who has NEVER won the nation’s popular vote.

Something that strikes me as more and more true as my life goes on is how deeply and abidingly I loathe and despise hypocrisy.

Four years ago I was told to “get over it” when my preferred candidate, who won the popular vote, lost the electoral vote to DT. I guarantee some of yesterday’s seditionists told some snowflake to get over it four years ago.

I was challenged as to how I could condone people who were BREAKING WINDOWS of EMPTY SHOPS, y’all, over the umpteenillionth KILLING of an unarmed Black man by police. I guarantee those of yesterday’s terrorists who went armed and carrying zip ties into the Capitol building to disrupt a joint session of congress performing tasks necessary for the survival of democracy just clutched their pearls for that poor Starbucks.

I watched the footage of peaceful protestors being violently cleared from the street they were blocking so DT could take his picture at the church, while cops yesterday posed for selfies with traitors trying to seize the capitol building, and directed them to the restrooms upon request.

Every since Kaepernick first kneeled, I have seen meme after meme about how horrendously disrespectful silently kneeling during the national anthem is to everything from the cloth being waved to the veterans who defend us to the very nation. I guarantee that the person who lofted the Confederate flag in the halls of the Capitol, and the one who worked to replace the US flag with one bearing DT’s name, decry the horrible insult of… kneeling.

I am FURIOUS, still today, at the utter hypocrisy on display. At people who have never bothered to cultivate an ounce of self-awareness, or look one inch beyond their own selfishness and self-centering. Have they been fooled and used? Sure. But grown ass adults have a duty to question, challenge, and NOT be used. Dereliction of that duty is a choice. A choice that is the more comfortable option, I suppose, when you can blame and dehumanize someone else rather than recognize your own mediocrity or the failure of the systems you grew up being taught were exceptional.

I was taught all of that. I didn’t stop learning and questioning, and now I know better. Is it easy or comfortable? No. Is it my absolute responsibility as a human on this planet? Yes.

I have more thoughts. But I haven’t really teased them out clearly. I’ll just end with this…

It’s not over. DT was never much more than a symptom, a catalyst, an occasional boost. White supremacy still girds, underpins, and holds together the laws and customs of our country. That doesn’t stop now, or on January 20. We have a chance to walk a clearer path toward a better America for EVERYONE here. But we still have to walk it.

So that’s where I’ll be.

Discussion

[Rebecca McClinton]

Poignant and powerful, Laura. My favorite part was “grown ass adults have a duty to question, challenge and NOT be used”. That one comment reflects so much…the intentional toddlerhood, the offending from the victim position, the passivity. There can’t be even a day I stop critically questioning and challenging both myself internally and my community systemically. That’s what grown ass adults do.

[Laura Berwick]

A friend of mine commented on my wall that he wished he could show my post to Trump supporters, and that they would just finally get it, though he recognized that was unrealistic. I feel like my response to that spoke a lot to my work here, at Lace on Race. I told him…

“the very first thing that one would have to do… and it’s hard… and I know, because I had to do it at several points… the first thing they would have to do is admit they are wrong.

“And the more deeply and harmfully wrong I’ve been, the harder it is to own up to it and begin fixing it. And there’s a temptation to fall off the other side of the bed and wallow in the guilt and shame of being so horribly, horribly wrong, which is STILL self-centered and completely unproductive.

“So you have to be able to say you were really really wrong, and you have to have the spine to make it right, no matter how embarrassed or ashamed or sick of it you are.

“And that takes more guts than I think a lot of people are willing to have when their other option is to just slither away and keep their mouths shut. I know I have been so tempted to just keep my mouth shut sometimes. But I can and will do better. And I’m really fortunate in that I’ve surrounded myself by people who INSIST upon better.”

This… this is exactly why we do what we do here. Not to make us white people more knowledgeable about racism therefore enriching our lives. To kindly and lovingly show ourselves where WE. ARE. WRONG. And to accustoming ourselves to owning it and fixing it.

Because we choose to be grown ass adults. And I get that it isn’t fun. And I get that we can feel put upon by it, because that’s a first-line, pre-thought, gut-level response. We have to choose to go deeper. And Lace, and the admins, and all of you walkers, pull no punches and still spare no love in your expectations of me. As it should be.

[Christin Spoolstra]

This reply of yours is the one that’s been in my head the past 12ish hours. We’ve had difficult conversations around repair in LoR; we KNOW it’s hard. It’s also necessary. I’ve been struggling a lot with the intersections of softening, kind candor, demonization/polarization, eye to eye relationship, and being vocal and supportive of those on the other side of the power slash. I want to keep the door unlocked for those willing to do that repair work but worry that my desire to do so is softening. I want to show my support for those who are being harmed and stand up against the beliefs and behaviors we’re seeing but worry that I will isolate people into a shame spiral or a further entrenchment. I know that everything comes back to the relational and I need to shore up my relationships and move forward with the North Star centered, so I’m not looking for hand holding or anything, just sharing about where my thoughts have been swirling.

[Christina Sonas]

I’ve been catching up on multiple posts today and so the threads of them are coming together. Bringing together this comment with Julie’s post about love and faith, I can recognize that contemporary Christian evangelism has gone very soft on repentance. (For its adherents — they are blessed — while repentance is demanded, usually very punitively, for those outside.) Much emphasis instead on being the predestined. Combine that with authoritarianism, which also cannot be wrong, and it’s quite the storm. I will continue to mitigate the harm I have caused and perpetuated, seen others cause and perpetuate, on Black and brown people, to repent and repair and reform, and to show my commitment to that mitigation by also lessening future harm from myself and others through white supremacy.

[Rebecca McClinton]

(cross posted to facebook)

I read your comment as I was starting work this morning and have thought on it all day until I could return to it now. So true, the very first step (and ongoing step of the journey) is acknowledging, and owning being wrong. Not to a place of shaming from the victim position, but as a call and conviction to action, repair, and taking the next step.

[Catherine Seaver]

Laura, this is really powerful and gives words to so much of what I have been feeling. I too have been furious at the utter hypocrisy. It is so difficult to look at myself/ourselves, our whiteness, and the systems we’ve been taught to believe in and realize that we and they are wrong, broken and so infused with white supremacy. But it is the only way forward. And we must walk forward.

Over the last four years as I’ve watched DT I have kept noticing that his is a total refusal to look at himself, to do the hard work you talk of here. To grow up. It is painful to be a grown-ass adult. But doing the hard things consistently, reliably is a requirement if we are going to even begin to walk towards our North Star of reducing harm to Black and Brown people.

[Christin Spoolstra]

I shared this yesterday from your personal page, Laura, without additional community other than my signing on to your words. And I’ve been thinking a lot about why I’ve been struggling to verbalize what I’m feeling, thinking about your comment on your personal page about how this is requiring people to admit they were wrong in a big way and also thinking about a comment Danielle just wrote in the Bistro about stereotyping “those racists” and how that still dehumanizes and restricts eye-to-eye work in pursuit of the North Star. My recognizing that I have not been able to contain my slosh has prevented me from acting. This is unacceptable. I spent some time seeking out commentary/reactions from people on my facebook whom I know are supportive of him, trying to break down the straw men and false equivalencies. And every time I went to respond, I found myself full of snark or hyperbole, basically wanting to virtually shake the person to their senses. Yet I KNOW that would be a disservice to the North Star. I KNOW that would entrench them further and further justify their dismissiveness and/or hatred toward those who do not agree. So, I remained stuck. Stuck is not an option. We’re either moving forward or retreating backward, as Lace says. This is a thin, lumpy line to walk: to stand firm in truth and justice with kind candor and call it what it is while also keeping the door unlocked and the invitation standing for those wanting to initiate repair. Just because it’s hard does not mean I’m exempt. I means I need to pick up my pace.

[Leah Gallo]

I found myself at this lumpy place often, especially now. It’s required a lot of breathing and writing and re-writing and still I sometimes miss the mark. I find myself going back to what I’ve learned here repeatedly, eye to eye. I’m still sloshy though and I have not yet found the sweet spot.

[Emily Holzknecht]

Leah, thank you for naming what Christin wrote “a lumpy crossing”. Many of the terms in this community feel so natural to me now and the lumpy crossing one I am still trying to orient myself with. Having you name Christin’s description as a lumpy crossing gets me a little closer.

[Christin Spoolstra]

Thanks, Leah, for pointing out the writing and re-writing. I yearn for the day I can be more reflexive in my responses, but when slosh is high, taking the time to stop and breathe is necessary. And, Rebecca, I feel very similarly about swinging which way my slosh goes; definitely true that we need to be constantly looking out for both.

[Rebecca McClinton]

I’m learning new things all the time about how my slosh comes out. I was engaging with someone on my page yesterday and in reading back today I felt like my comment to him was firm, but maybe also too kind, too worried about trying to keep him engaged. Sometimes I can slosh from the perspective of being too reactive/wok, and then other times slosh from being a people pleaser. If I only look for one of those I miss the other and visa versa.

[Amanda Swartfager]

Even when I can contain the slosh and actually meet someone I disagree with eye to eye and feel heard and also hear them, I have an “after-shock” slosh that occurs later where I want to call a like-minded friend and either congratulate myself or elevate myself. For me, the slosh comes out somewhere, at some time. I can see it better now and call it out, which usually makes it go away, but it’s still there in ways I never thought of as “slosh” before.

[Rhonda Freeman]

I want to share a short story of the relational space courage this space has offered me. I for a DoD contractor, with many retired military members, and people who have stated publicly they voted for Trump. On Wednesday, one of my co-workers of this type called, at 3 pm, in the middle of the riot to talk about work. I gently, but clearly, explained that I had no interest in discussing the concern that he had because the Capital had just been overrun by the people who had come for the Trump rally. He said that it could not possibly be true and tried to keep me in the conversation. At that point, I even had the courage to say that it was absolutely true and I was shocked that there wasn’t nearly as much security as when we were having the BLM protests that were peaceful. I was shocked when later that evening he texted me and apologized. He stated that he wasn’t aware of what was going on downtown and it was very disturbing. I know this seems tiny, but in that relationship, it was huge. I am not sure that I am riding in the car with him, but maybe, he sees the car. Maybe stating my truth – the truth – quietly and clearly makes a difference one person at a time sometimes? Maybe if he rides in the car with me, a little less harm will be done to brown and black people…

[Emily Holzknecht]

I agree with you. That was huge.

[Leah Gallo]

(Cross posted from the website):

Oh wow, I just wrote something long and rambling on my own page trying to tease out the same thoughts but you’ve done this So Much Better. I am appreciating how much more of yourself you have injected into this and how important that is for the relational. I have so much work to do to be a more effective advocate. I am grateful, for you, and Lace, and this space.

Personalising and Pivoting. Hypocrisy. So much of racism comes down to hypocrisy and double standards like many of the examples Laura calls out above. I know I am hypocritical in so many ways. Even as I’m shouting from the tree tops I’m giving myself carve outs all the time for failing on anti-racist actions big and small (I’m tired, I’m stressed, I don’t have time to do the research, I can’t find something so I give up). I am working towards complete alignment. Values lived inside and out every second of every day.

[Clare Steward]

It’s very easy and very tempting to distance myself from the people who were behaving in such violent and treasonous ways….To place myself above and better than…but, I am reading post after post from Black and Brown people calling us wp in to take a long hard look at reality and what we have allowed to play out. Post after post calling us in to holding up a mirror. As a grown ass woman, I cannot lean on the excuse that I’ve been indoctrinated to think, feel and behave a certain way… must openly acknowledge that what I’ve been fed, after a certain point, I’ve chosen to swallow. Your response in your fb page to your friend about admitting being wrong but keeping that admission from catipulting into shame is what’s on my mind as I internalize. Being ashamed leads to turning away from repair and the work required.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by  Clare Steward.

[Emily Holzknecht]

Thank you for your fury.

That is such an important point to not revel in the death of a terrorist, that that is a version of the death penalty.

Hypocrisy can be so alive in white supremacists because reframing is so foundational to white supremacy culture. Anything they do will automatically be better than anything the Other does in their eyes because of reframing. And now I’m going to say it another way, because I am also socialized into white supremacy culture, it is likely that my auto response is to think anything I do is better than anything the Other does in my eyes because I am used to reframing too. Losing strategies to try to show the logic or lack thereof in reframed comparisons will not work. But winning strategies and kind candor might and lessening and mitigating harm to Black and brown people perpetuated by white people like me and by white supremacy requires me to challenge the hypocrisy within the reframings.

[Christina Sonas]

Fundamentally, hypocrisy is what Lace insists that we address in ourselves: the divergence between our ethos and our praxis, between our professed ethos and our hidden, true ethos. White supremacy causes much hypocrisy in me; I am not separate from the insurrectionists in that respect. So I will continue walking here with a sharp hoe, rooting it out.

[Laura Berwick]

Yes. My work here has been, like, a masterclass in recognizing and rooting out my own hypocrisy, which is definitely one reason it took me a long time to really formulate what I wrote. Because I did have a lot of extra stuff like contempt and disdain and self-aggrandizement growing in amongst the more righteous anger, like weeds. It was a lot to process. It was just… a lot. But it’s my job to do it.

[Amanda Swartfager]

I appreciate your words, Laura. I think I was looking at the insurrectionists as less than me, aggrandizing myself since I’d never be storming the Capitol armed and waving a confederate flag. But seeing myself as different and above this behavior limits me from seeing all the ways I am complicit in white supremacy. I’m storming the Capitol when I don’t speak up against racism every time. When I don’t contribute to causes even though I have the money to do so. When I’m not meeting people eye to eye and start keeping score. When I’m making excuses for myself, other white people, or businesses to hide my complicity.

[Christin Spoolstra]

Exactly this. It’s so tempting to externalize and I need to always remember that I am a part of perpetuating the harm on Black and Brown people.

[Author]

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