There is no change without discomfort
I have vacillated on posting this week. I considered putting up a black square in solidarity and proclaiming the blog ‘on mute’ through June 7th. However, I’ve also read a lot of postings saying this isn’t the advocacy that’s needed. We’re needed to boost the signal, not just go silent and watch. I considered offering my blog up to someone else and asking them to tell their story. Or maybe several people. But that didn’t feel right either. When I turned it over in my head, it felt like asking exhausted people to do more work. Writing something myself seemed like the most difficult thing to do, and usually the difficult thing is the right thing.
I like to get things right. I like to make people happy. I’m not a pushover, but I do tend toward ‘let’s all get along’ rather than ‘I will fight you.’ For the ten years that I’ve engaged in social media, I’ve made it a policy to avoid anything political in that platform. My view was always that I would rather have these discussions with people in person, where they couldn’t hide behind a screen when they said the things they said. I had seen too many Facebook posts that had degenerated into arguments and people ‘unfriending’ and ‘blocking’ each other without changing anything else. The algorithm made it so everyone was even more divided. You are lumped more and more among those who think like you. This isn’t new, this is something we’ve all been aware of and griped about for years.
Right now, the only interaction we have is social media by and large. If you back out of the conversation online, you back out of the conversation. I decided not to back out anymore.
But how to stay in? How to contribute enough without saying too much? I began reading. On Sunday, I had long conversations with two friends on the phone, then began reading everything. Especially personal stories. Long bits. Things with additional documents linked. It was enormous. I felt like I should say something. But what to even say? I would begin to comment, then erase my comment, many times. It was almost like editing a book for the first time. Often the first draft of a story includes a lot of unnecessary background. The reader doesn’t need it, but the writer needs to get it out. I would write a long comment, realize that I wasn’t adding anything, but that I needed to process these thoughts on my own, then delete it and keep reading. I made myself stay in. I wanted to take a break, but I didn’t think that was fair. I stayed in. For the first time in years, my Facebook feed said, ‘you’re all caught up!’ several times.
On Sunday evening, Dean and I were sitting on the back porch. Just slumped over dinner. Exhausted by what was going on. Our neighbor hailed us from over the fence. He asked if we had seen ‘all the craziness downtown’. We said yes. We told him news of what was happening in Chicago. I had noticed earlier that I hadn’t seen them all day. They have a large family and usually there’s a few of the kids playing in the yard. I asked him if they were doing okay. He nodded and said “Yeah, we’re okay. Just trying to watch some movies.” I remember thinking that sounded good.
On Monday I had virtual interviews. One lady popped up on my screen smiling happily. I thanked her for coming. I said that before we started, I understood that it had been a rough weekend and asked if she was okay. She said yeah, she was mostly okay. I asked if she was okay to talk about work stuff right now and offered to reschedule if she needed to. She said no, she needed to talk about work stuff. So we went ahead. She killed the interview. I had a few more the next day, but she was by far the top candidate. I offered her the job afterward.
The fitness center that I manage is opening and I’m trying to make that happen safely within everyone’s timeline. When I’m not doing that, I’m reading. I’m listening. I try to see if anything makes me uncomfortable and then I ask why. One of my friends from grade school posted ‘when was the first time you had a gun held on you?’ and I read all the answers. Some from people I knew and some I didn’t. I couldn’t believe all of the dumb reasons that these kids (seriously, one of them was nine in his story) had been perceived as threats. My friend, the original poster, was the same kid who showed me how he could hitch his glasses up the bridge of his nose using just his ears during yearbook class. (Read: we were big nerds.)
I thought about my neighbor, watching movies with his kids, and my new hire, killing her interview. I know that they have been dealing with this forever. They’ve been getting things done and going on, with this in the background, forever. It’s us that are now getting to sit with it. Even if you were aware for the most part, that systemic racism was around, if you’re not a POC, you have always had the luxury of … forgetting about it for periods of time. So we don’t deserve a break right now. We need to do better. Stay in it. Keep reading. Keep finding those uncomfortable spots and dig them out. Have the conversations. There is no change without discomfort.
In a way, I think the pandemic is good for this. There’s no, “look! Sports!” or “Hey! Big New Movie!” to distract those who might take comfort in distractions. This is the thing that’s happening and you have to either willfully close your eyes, or look at it.
One of my big worries about writing something this week was that I was going to get something wrong. Inadvertently say something inappropriate. Is it even appropriate for me to write from my perspective right now? I considered this and came to the conclusion that perhaps because I’ve been so ‘generically inoffensive’ for the most part, maybe a few people would read this that might have otherwise turned deaf ears to what’s going on right now. And maybe they’ll ask themselves a few questions. Maybe they’ll ask me a few questions and start a conversation. Or just try to see another perspective, just a little. Or maybe not, and maybe writing this was totally inappropriate and I should have been quiet. But the best thing I can do is to try. And if I mess up, I’ll feel bad, I’ll find out why, and I’ll try again and again until I get better.
Nothing I write is going to be adequate. But I think that not writing anything would be worse.