race

I have a lot of issues with politics, I'll say that right now. I don't mean with specific politicians or policies,(though I certainly have those too), I mean with the whole system. With all the assumptions and destruction and empire and killing and greed. So I write the following not as any kind of political endorsement or criticism of anyone. It's just some stuff that's been bugging me.

I'm excited that Barack Obama is our president elect. Mostly because he's Kenyan, but also because electing an African American president is a huge deal, and a very exciting thing. (N.B. I am aware that, biologically, he is as white as he is black. He describes himself as black, so I will, too. Race is a messy, complicated, elaborate and beautiful thing that I'm not about to try to dissect here). Anyway, being in inner city Baltimore when the first black president was elected was pretty great. The only white people in my neighborhood live in my house, and I'm the only white person where I work. When I take the bus, I'm the only white person on it (this has been true of EVERY BUS RIDE except for when I've gotten on with one of my white housemates). The excitement and energy of Obama's election was almost tangible, both on election day and the day after. "We did it!" everyone was saying. "We've arrived!" they said.

And on a lot of levels, I agree. CENTURIES of struggle led up to this election. It represents huge changes in the minds of many Americans. And I hesitate to say this as a rich white girl from the suburbs spending one short year in the big bad inner city, but it's been bugging me, so I'm going to. The struggle against racism is not over. We have not arrived. The black community has not arrived. Racism is alive and well, and (I think) the election of Obama needs to fuel the fight against racism, not be a signal to slow down.

If you ask me, the fight against racism will be over when racism is studied as a historical term, not a current phenomenon. Black people make up about 12% of the U.S. population right now. We, as a country, will have "arrived" when black people make up 12% of the seats in congress, 12% of the people in prison, 12% of the homeless population, 12% of students attending college. When 12% of the people on death row are black, and when 12% of people who die in gang violence, and when 12% of police officers, teachers, social workers, doctors, lawyers, and people in the armed services are black, then you can talk to me about slowing down. When 12% of the adhesive bandages reflect African rather than European skin tones, when 12% of make-up made by cover girl, maybeline, and all the others are made to match African skin tones, and when 12% of the hair care products on the shelves at target are made for African American hair, then maybe we can talk about this so-called "arrival".

Being white in this neighborhood and at my job has been, at various times, hilarious, hard, scary, and confusing. I don't think I'll ever get used to the things men yell at me as I walk home from work (anything from "Hey! A white girl!" to "what the fuck are you doing in this neighborhood??" and worse), and I don't know if I'll ever have a good response to those things. What am I doing here? I'm living here. I'm working here. I'm trying to be a part of and build community, to learn about poverty and race and homelessness and God. I'm here to experience this place. And that's just it, isn't it? It's an experience for me. Novel. Temporary. No matter how many friends I make here, how many times I eat chitterlings, no matter how long I stay here, I'll always be an outsider. So maybe I don't have any right, saying these things about race and struggle and accomplishment. I am, in all likelihood, as much a part of the problem as I am a part of the solution. And I don't know, I don't know what to do with that. I can't help where I come from, I can't help the way I talk, where I went to school, or what color my face is any more than my neighbors and colleges and clients can help those things in their lives. But what do we do? Ignore the differences? Embrace them? Laugh at them? Try to have them explained to us? Right now I stumbled through my days, doing any and all of these things depending on the situation. None seem to fix it, none are perfect. But neither are any of us.