Strength and security isn’t a constant for me. I don’t even know how much of those things I have. They may be fleeting. I have moments of fear, faith doubt anger.
I’m not one of those people who supposes that I would be heroic if I were living like those people who do those things. No. If I were White, I would be perpetuating whiteness unaware of my bias. I would be like most White people in this country. If I were a liberal, I would touch black people’s hair until someone told me not to. It would be a hurtful and demeaning act and I would be right there, hurting and demeaning Black people.
I would not survive the causes and conditions for this behavior.
I can spot this behavior because my head is above the waters of the sea of White supremacy that this country is continually baptized in. The causes and conditions of my upbringing found me disavowing authority because the place in my family was, for several reasons, one of isolation.
Here is a letter that I wrote. It was the final straw for the culture of whiteness that I chose to live in. I believed was my only choice. I chose this because, at that time, that is what my level of awareness had me chose.
Whatever the intent of the Tuesday transition meeting, it landed as a tribunal. I hold myself responsible for looking into my own heart. I need to fellowship expressions of feelings and needs with my own people.
I have witnessed people here claiming victimhood while they practice the narrative of white supremacy. I am only human in my reaction to that. The dominant narrative does not recognize my humanity. It seeks to destroy me.
In this meeting, one case that was brought before me was when Ignacio claimed victimhood after entering into a POC space. (to Ignacio) You entered our space and did not explain yourself. It fell on me to defend our space. Then, you denied your guilt. You denied my personhood by challenging my right to have a POC space. You negated my healing work in this world by staying. I know white people when I see them. When I look at you I see a personification of whiteness. You tried to deny that reality. I defy the lie of white male supremacy when you replied to my statement, “Spain is in Europe, isn’t it?” by asking me “Don’t you know?”
I haven’t felt any other means of defense and now you ask f or me to remove it. It isn’t my responsibility to forgive you for this.
Anyway, I don’t believe in writhing in guilt. It doesn’t solve anything. I also don’t believe in condoning ill treatment. One day soon, I will find the answer to this dilemma. Maybe it is letting things go and focusing on intentions.
You may read my manuscript if you want an example of how patterns of misogyny and internalized oppression implant themselves in a colonized people. There is a scene where little Jamie witnesses violence perpetrated against his caretaker. I hope to break this cycle in my lifetime.
I don’t actually know the details of what happened to my father that caused him to sit in his big chair with his lips pursed. I concocted a possible scenario. I fictionalized the accounts since heaven and earth would not move my father to tell me about what made him who he was. So, here I sit writing because I find myself in a position that echos the surroundings that I was brought up in.
By one set of appearances, I am living in a state of peril. By appearances, I have a few days left at a hotel where I and all of my stuff resides. By another standard, I live by strength undefeatable.
“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.”.
Helen Keller
And, oh yes, I had COVID last January. It wasn’t serious, no coughing or fever, but I was drained. And I walked a mile today for the first time since I tried to hike two weeks into catching COVID and had to stay in bed for a week after because I wasn’t ready. Peace.