life experiences

NaBloPoMo Nov 1st, 2007 Off t o a good start

Well, now that I'm properly warmed up (from my several days of daily posting), I think I can get into the spirit of NaBloPoMo properly. Go, November!

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Well, one thing I have been thinking about....

I think on prejudice and how that impacts lives and distorts views. I feel a little disgruntled that my own experience tends to be discounted. Yes, I am a straight, middle-class white girl. It doesn't mean I haven't experienced pervasive hostility and prejudice. I think I do have some insight into minority experience from my own experience.

Some ways that I am or have been a minority:

I belong to a minority religion. And I'm talking something like 2% of US population, here. Nothing freaky. It has a long and respectable lineage, but living in the Bible belt, well, it's sometimes not pretty. Even among my own family, we've gotten crap. Some family weirdnesses in my extended (non-southern) family when I was a child can be attributed to the fact that my family was different, that my parents insisted on going their own way. So both my mom and dad have gotten grief from their own families; I and my sisters got the inevitable trickle down. Hell, even my husband got some grief from his family when he first started dating me (of course, they think that yoga is the devil's work, so you can see what we're working with).

Even some friends have had some weird ideas about what it means to be a UU. Sometimes I have to educate people; sometimes I brush them off. Sometimes I give them the evil eye back. Sometimes I run into some ugly assumptions, even among friends. It hurts my feelings, dammit. Some friends have made flippant remarks, and I feel like I have to set them straight. You can't throw everybody into one pot. Once I even had an uncomfortable run-in with a new member. She asked me if one of my opinions was "because I was a UU." I was irritated and snapped back that being a UU had nothing to do with my opinion. You might as well ask me if my opinion was because I was a white person. One of THOSE people. Give me a break.

Okay, enough about that. I should save some for another post, huh?


What else? Some things that impacted me strongly in my youth:

I have a strong intellectual curiosity.
I had the double whammy of being considered both very intelligent yet an under-achiever.
I have unusual coloring.
I am highly sensitive (see Raising the Sensitive Child).
My family reads. Books! *gasp*
I tend to look at things differently than other people. Well, that's a biggie. *snark*


Okay, so these don't seem so bad. But each of these added to the pile of characteristics of 'unwelcome and strange' and made my life hell as a child.

I was shunned and harassed all through school with a few respites. (It must have peaked in 4th and 8th grades because I've blocked most of it out.) Some of that was no doubt the "teasing" that "everybody" experiences. (insert sarcasm here) Huh, that's funny, because it left me with deep emotional scars that shaped and stunted three-quarters of my life, vestiges of which still haunt me today. Yes, I have talked to a therapist. More than one. Why do you think I am in such great shape these days? :) That and because of the love and support of my husband. :) We have been great for mutual healing as well as all the usual glue of a strong relationship.

One little story to illustrate the impact on my old life: When I was in high school, I had such poor self-esteem that when one of my class-mates once asked me a casual everyday question about a school project, I was knocked back on my heels in amazement. He asked *me*! Like he was asking a *normal* person! I could not believe it. It felt good, but I was in shock. Because for me, the norm was being treated like an outcast. Obviously, it made enough of an impact that I remember it to this day.

A therapist once asked me, "but why did they tease you?" (a question that infuriates me now) Who knows why, exactly? And really, lady, I don't think I need to answer for other peoples' bad behavior. Who knows WHY people act like asses? Like racists? Like homophobes? Like shits of human beings? Does it matter WHY? Do we even need to worry about motive? Maybe sometimes, but I digress...


Reflecting on many of these experiences and their impact on me gives me some sympathy for the impacts of, say, racism. People can makes you feel like shit, like you are worthless and can't do anything. No matter where you go or what you do, if people treat you like less than who you are or capable of, it's incredibly hard to stand up and feel you are lovable and capable, as one teen-pop-project called it. It takes so much more energy to accomplish anything, fighting uphill against the negative aspects of your surroundings. If my own experience left me with scars, what happens to people who are still living such pervasive circumstances every day? You get stronger or you wither... You need support from people who do not discount your experience.



And then I've noticed things that shifts my perspective again.

Such as when somebody burned a cross in a nearby community.... I was part of the white contingent in the community that helped to organize vigils and a push-back response saying no, we will not accept this racist act in our community. A pretty good cross-section of the city came, but a much smaller percentage of blacks and latinos than who live here. But we felt pretty united, those of us who were there.

There I met and talked with a local woman who I admire from online, who blogs on black, LBGT and political issues. I remember I said several times-- Things like this don't happen here. Not in *my* community (I was thinking of my region). This (this being the big ugly racist act) is NOT MY town. And she was quiet. She didn't correct me. Me, the well-meaning white liberal.

It wasn't until later from reading and thinking that I realized how shuttered that view was. Just because it hadn't happened to ME or you, recently or ever, didn't mean that other people did not experience a pervasive racism. I was chagrined to realize that yes, people in my community experience racism and prejudice, yes, All the Fucking Time. It's not just the young men in gangsta-chic; it's the young Latino mother, it's the black professional, it's the international child, it's the average person, it's us. In MY town (my experience), I don't often experience overt racism. But in my town, I need to acknowledge it. It was time for me to get my while liberal head out of my butt, sort to speak. *heavy sigh*


So there's the individual experience and there's the societal experience.

I think what saved me, what saves a lot of people, both from ones own traumatic and deadening experiences and ones understanding of others experiences, is being around others who understand, others who "get it," others who know the pain and frustration... and who have ALSO learned ways of making their way with strength and grace and patience, and even with anger and humor.

Again: You need support from people who do not discount your experience.


What I don't care for is the pushing and the shoving... after all, everyone is on their own path of experience and hopeful enlightenment (speaking non-religiously). As Michaelangelo was attributed to have said: Ancora Imparo: I'm still learning.


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