No Such Thing as white

I am usually very respectful of my elders. Actually I usually get along with them better than I do people my own age. They have been my mentors, my heroes, my friends. I think that is why it hurt so bad to see so many of them change with the election of Obama.

Growing up in Montana I admit that I heard racist jokes. I heard them at family gatherings, in school, just about everywhere. I don’t know why they always bothered me but they did. It isn’t like I had friends of a different color or anything. Something inside me just always knew it was wrong.

Inauguration day 2008 will always be special in my memories. I cried as I watched it. I felt like a part of history. It felt like sun breaking through dark clouds, like at long last we could move forward as one people and start to really work on the things that mattered.

The bitching started right away in my extended family. People I had felt so loved around my whole life now put my teeth on edge. It was like they were so incensed by the fact that they couldn't control everything that all rules of kindness and decency went right out the window. People I have thought of as kind and considerate turned into flowing fountains of bigotry and hate. It was directed definitely at the President. MY President. But it overflowed onto everyone who was slightly different or poorer. It was as if I woke up in a family of people I didn't know. One argument stands out in my mind. My 80 year old aunt was railing about the poor situations we white people now found ourselves in.  I couldn't believe she could even say that with a straight face but she believed herself to be in genuine peril. It made my stomach turn. Finally I guess I had heard the “white” thing just one too many times. I interrupted her mid-sentence, blurting out “there is no such thing as white!”  She bit right back “I am white!”  “No you aren’t “, I corrected her. You are German/Russian American. There is no such thing as a fucking white person. They don’t exist. You can be French/German/Italian/Swedish/Norwegian/etc. etc etc. There is no race called “White”. So white power or white oppression or whatever you follow the word white with is all made up bullshit, floating between your ears!”

I wish I could tell you some wonderful story about how we had a deep conversation that changed everything. Lying doesn't fix it though so I won't bother. But it changed something inside me. It woke me up to what really lurks around me. It reminded me that no place is safe from shallow thought and petty jealousy. It reminded me how dangerous the illusion of control can be. The truth is there is no control. The truth is none of us lives in a “safe” space because everything could change in an instant. The future cannot be known or predicted. The only thing I can change is me. I can embrace the possibility of life, quit trying to cling to control, and let go.  Embrace life. The possibilities are endless. And it leaves me truly free.

So spew your hate and superiority. Bitch about all the made up stuff and conspiracies that float around between your ears. I am going to go on and embrace humanity. All of it because they are my sisters and my brothers. And those people that you fear and mock, they will be my family. They already were anyway. I just woke up enough to know it.