When everything started with Ferguson I wasn't going to talk about it. When people started protesting I wasn't going to talk about it. But you know what, with all that's happening at the moment I think I really need to talk about it.
When most people look at me they don't think, "Oh, she's a latina" or "she's mixed-race" because I look pretty ethnically ambiguous. I grew up comfortably middle-class in a liberal white bread suburb, and because I didn't look different enough for most kids to see me as "other" I wasn't really aware of race until I got older. Of course, I also thought it was completely normal to have tostones and pasteles along with roast beef for Christmas dinner.
However, as I got into my teens my mom started telling me stories about growing up in segregated military bases and having to sit on the upper balconies in movie theaters and having to use different drinking fountains. It was a hell of a shock to me to think that my mom had been subjected to such insanity and the idea of anyone being treated differently because of their race was just unthinkable to my Edmonds bred mind. The reality of her experiences were so foreign to me that I really had trouble processing them at all, let alone with any kind of relationship to my own ethnicity. The only times I've ever had someone call my ethnicity to attention were when I was in all Hispanic neighborhoods and people spoke Spanish to me too quickly for me to understand - hardly a problem. I've been lucky enough never to have faced prejudice because of the color of my skin (for religion, lifestyle, and fashion choices sure, but never race).
My incredible good fortune along with my six of one half a dozen of the other genetics makes talking about race really hard. Which side of the fence am I on? My mom always called me heinz 57 sauce because I'm a mix of so many different things. I always just called my ethnicity "slush." I can certainly talk about white privilege because I grew up having it. Although I am a Latina (my genetic need to feed people to show my love can attest to it), I feel like claiming my heritage is disingenuous because I never really suffered for it (unless you count some oddly skewed cultural views). So if I stand up to speak against racism and inequality, where I am standing? No, you don't have to be oppressed to speak out against oppression but it still feels really weird, like I'm claiming something that isn't really mine. Being mixed race makes thinking about race really complicated, let alone talking about it.
So what does all that mean for me as a Pagan? It means I feel an incredible amount of sympathy for the issues faced by Pagans of Color, but that I feel like a bit of an imposter going to things like the Pagans of Color Caucus. While I'm certainly not an activist by any definition, I feel like it's my responsibility, as someone who just needs to spend some time in the sun to be obviously ethnic, to speak out against injustice. As Pagan and an animist I see these renewed (or I suppose not renewed, just spotlighted) prejudices to be incredibly harmful not only to those who suffer them directly, but for everyone whose energy is poisoned by them. As a Pagan I believe that nature is a living thing to be venerated and respected and that such incredible injustice and suffering can only be blasphemous to the sanctity of the earth. That means I have to stand up and do something about it, but what?
What can I do to help with this enormous, culturally systemic problem? How much of my own upbringing is part of the problem? If I can hardly think about my own race how am I supposed to stand up for someone else's? Beginning to see the big problem here? If I were a healer I'd probably start doing daily workings to change the energies that fuel the problem - but I'm not. If I were an activist I'd go to protests, hand out leaflets, and get in people's faces - but I'm not. I'm a shadow worker. That means I tell bald truths and bring people out of their comfort zones. That means that I can't lie to myself about my own privilege and prejudices.
So this is me being really, really honest. Talking about race makes me uncomfortable because I'm uncomfortable with my own race - because I have a really hard time determining what it actually is. But in times like these I need to get over my own issues in order to help others. Seeing people lose their lives because an authority figure was scared of their race is utterly reprehensible. To see those authority figure let off without penalty makes me sick. As an attorney the utter miscarriage of justice is incomprehensible to me (I mean seriously, just read the laws). As a human being the entire situation makes me despair. Something about how we are educating people in power and how we are training our law enforcement officers is wrong.
Being irrationally afraid of someone because of a lack of understanding or empathy is the beginning of a slippery slope of fear and violence. We are all human beings and need to be treated as such. Being treated as a human being with thoughts and feelings should not be based on your race, gender, orientation, religion, or any other factor. Are you a human being? Yes, then you have the right to live your life. Where is the difficulty in that? So yeah, I pretty much hate this.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
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| Little ol' me |
However, as I got into my teens my mom started telling me stories about growing up in segregated military bases and having to sit on the upper balconies in movie theaters and having to use different drinking fountains. It was a hell of a shock to me to think that my mom had been subjected to such insanity and the idea of anyone being treated differently because of their race was just unthinkable to my Edmonds bred mind. The reality of her experiences were so foreign to me that I really had trouble processing them at all, let alone with any kind of relationship to my own ethnicity. The only times I've ever had someone call my ethnicity to attention were when I was in all Hispanic neighborhoods and people spoke Spanish to me too quickly for me to understand - hardly a problem. I've been lucky enough never to have faced prejudice because of the color of my skin (for religion, lifestyle, and fashion choices sure, but never race).
 |
| Me with my Panamanian/Puerto Rican mom and my Russian Jewish dad in 2003 |
My incredible good fortune along with my six of one half a dozen of the other genetics makes talking about race really hard. Which side of the fence am I on? My mom always called me heinz 57 sauce because I'm a mix of so many different things. I always just called my ethnicity "slush." I can certainly talk about white privilege because I grew up having it. Although I am a Latina (my genetic need to feed people to show my love can attest to it), I feel like claiming my heritage is disingenuous because I never really suffered for it (unless you count some oddly skewed cultural views). So if I stand up to speak against racism and inequality, where I am standing? No, you don't have to be oppressed to speak out against oppression but it still feels really weird, like I'm claiming something that isn't really mine. Being mixed race makes thinking about race really complicated, let alone talking about it.
So what does all that mean for me as a Pagan? It means I feel an incredible amount of sympathy for the issues faced by Pagans of Color, but that I feel like a bit of an imposter going to things like the Pagans of Color Caucus. While I'm certainly not an activist by any definition, I feel like it's my responsibility, as someone who just needs to spend some time in the sun to be obviously ethnic, to speak out against injustice. As Pagan and an animist I see these renewed (or I suppose not renewed, just spotlighted) prejudices to be incredibly harmful not only to those who suffer them directly, but for everyone whose energy is poisoned by them. As a Pagan I believe that nature is a living thing to be venerated and respected and that such incredible injustice and suffering can only be blasphemous to the sanctity of the earth. That means I have to stand up and do something about it, but what?
What can I do to help with this enormous, culturally systemic problem? How much of my own upbringing is part of the problem? If I can hardly think about my own race how am I supposed to stand up for someone else's? Beginning to see the big problem here? If I were a healer I'd probably start doing daily workings to change the energies that fuel the problem - but I'm not. If I were an activist I'd go to protests, hand out leaflets, and get in people's faces - but I'm not. I'm a shadow worker. That means I tell bald truths and bring people out of their comfort zones. That means that I can't lie to myself about my own privilege and prejudices.
So this is me being really, really honest. Talking about race makes me uncomfortable because I'm uncomfortable with my own race - because I have a really hard time determining what it actually is. But in times like these I need to get over my own issues in order to help others. Seeing people lose their lives because an authority figure was scared of their race is utterly reprehensible. To see those authority figure let off without penalty makes me sick. As an attorney the utter miscarriage of justice is incomprehensible to me (I mean seriously, just read the laws). As a human being the entire situation makes me despair. Something about how we are educating people in power and how we are training our law enforcement officers is wrong.
Being irrationally afraid of someone because of a lack of understanding or empathy is the beginning of a slippery slope of fear and violence. We are all human beings and need to be treated as such. Being treated as a human being with thoughts and feelings should not be based on your race, gender, orientation, religion, or any other factor. Are you a human being? Yes, then you have the right to live your life. Where is the difficulty in that? So yeah, I pretty much hate this.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
Eloquent as always. I think the biggest issue in all of this is that people are forgetting that the human race, most all of us, can be traced back to genetic eve. Genetic Adam is a bit more difficult as it's more difficult to trace male genetic markers. "Heritage" and "culture" is not the same as "race". To embrace cultures different than our own only enriches us. To explore heritages different than our own only reveals how similar we all are. And to understand that we all look the same with our skin off, all you have to do is google "Body works" and look at the images. We are the HUMAN race.
ReplyDeleteWell said :)
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