Hey America. I know you’re busy. But if you have a minute, I have a really important request: Please stop raising assholes.

I know. You’re just so good at it. It’s your jam. But seriously. It’s not complicated.

It’s not even that deep.

STOP RAISING HUMANS WHO ARE DICKS TO OTHER HUMANS.

Sorry for yelling.

It’s just that I’m tired of you. I’m really, really tired of you.

I’m tired of the parents who raised the kids who bullied this kid until he killed himself.

And these people, who buried their transgender daughter as a man.

And these winners, who cited religious beliefs to justify the rejection of the very child they brought into this world, the one who jumped off a bridge into oncoming traffic.

Your keen perception skills may have observed that I cited examples of assholes relating to sexual and/or gender orientation. Well, that’s because the asshole quotient of America seems to elevate exponentially as soon as sexual orientation and gender are involved.

Why? Who the hell knows why. Because you’re weird, America. You’re weird.

You call this hatred “Christian” and I’m pretty sure Jesus Christ, after whom your religion is allegedly formed, was pretty clear on that topic with the whole “love one another” riff.

So, you cite somebody with an inherently and openly opposite philosophy to justify yours, even though yours results in the deaths of children.

In other words, Jesus thinks you’re a dick.

pretty much

No he doesn’t. He’s Jesus. (Or was, anyway.) He’s Jesus precisely because he doesn’t think you’re a dick. Or maybe he does but he doesn’t hate you. He doesn’t hate people who don’t act like him. He accepts them anyway.

DO YOU SEE A PROBLEM HERE YET EINSTEIN?

Sorry. Again.

I, however, am not Jesus, and I think you’re an asshole, and really, really wish you would stop doing what you do, because it’s terrible, and it’s weird, and people are dying because of you. Transgender and gay people are dying because of you.

I’m not asking you to agree with their actions. If the thought of simultaneously having a penis and wearing a dress makes you want to curl up in a dark closet and weep for the plight of humanity, that’s cool. Go do that. But do it quietly. And perhaps give a little thought to the fact that clothing on a body that isn’t even yours makes you freak the hell out but you’re perfectly okay with “conversion therapy” wherein you attempt to BULLY MANIPULATE SHAME AND INTIMIDATE a separate human being into becoming what they are NOT, even though they are hurting nobody by being who they are.

You, however, are hurting a boatload of people by “being who you are,” but somehow that’s okay in your mind, even though the dude you claim to worship said “No really, I mean it. Stop hurting other people.”

Look, I get it. Those whacky transgenders and crazy gays are hurting you. I know. I understand. It just messes you right up.

Your poor little ego’s feelings shrivel up in a sad little ball and cry out into the cold, unfeeling night: “But what about me? What about my religion? You were born a BOY. Act like a BOY. That’s what I know to be true and right and good and what would happen if those lines became blurred!? OMG THE FEAR!”

I get it. That’s hard. But people are dying and therefore, fuck your ego. And your hate-spewing religion.

Oops. I didn’t mean that. Yes, I totally meant that. (And THAT is why I’m not Jesus and nobody reads my teachings 2,000 years after I walked the earth.)

Incidentally, that’s not Christianity and no, you don’t “put God first” because IF you “put God first” and GOD IS LOVE then you would, by extension, LOVE ALL THINGS EQUALLY and we would not be having this conversation.

Nope. You love yourself above all things. You love your ideas and experiences and perspectives. You love them so passionately and totally and fervently that you can’t even entertain the thought that the ideas and perspective and experiences of others are, at the very least, worthy of even a disapproving silence, let alone semi-loving acceptance. No, you love yourself so fully and completely that if somebody differs from YOU you’ve concluded there must be something wrong with them and they must be CHANGED, at any cost, to fit YOUR vision of “human.”

Wow, weird. I thought God made those decisions, being omnipotent and omnipresent and all. Huh. So are you God? You must be God. No wait. You’re not God.

YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE.

idea ^^^

And you insist on raising children. I wish you would knock that off. I wish you would stop doing your best to raise future assholes.

Perhaps you’re still confused, so I’ll make this very clear: If you are a member of a religion that rejects, diminishes or vilifies members of the human race who look, believe or act differently than you, you’re probably an asshole.

And if you are raising children and telling those children that members of the human race who look, believe or act differently than what your religion dictates are “evil,” and if you back those statements with hatred and derogatory terms, you’re trying your hardest to raise another asshole.

If you say “fag,” and you don’t mean “cigarette” in England (do they still say that?), if you get all bent outta shape when boys do “girl” things and girls do “boy” things, you might be raising an asshole.

You know what? Fuck that. This is more than that.

If you don’t outright teach your kids that all people deserve basic respect, even the little boy who dresses “like a girl,” you’re trying to raise an asshole.

If you aren’t teaching your kid to observe hatred and fight it, speak up and out and against the mistreatment of little girls who choose the identity of “John” and little boys who want to jump around with pom-poms, if you are not teaching them that personal identification is not necessary for basic respect and decency, that our job on earth is to do some good and help a few people out and not ruin lives or the earth or each other, if you aren’t making clear that these people are hurting nobody and deserve life and love and joy just like you or me or your kid, and deserve to not die hanging from ropes in their bedrooms or jumping off bridges in front of semis or taking pills or slitting wrists or sitting in their bedrooms wishing they were dead because YOU, America.

YOU INSIST ON PERPETUATING YOUR ASSHOLE NATURE because some boys want to wear dresses and it makes you feel funny.

You. It’s your fault.

Yeah, I said that. And I meant it. If you are not actively working against the bullying of people, if you are not teaching your kids at the very least a subtle love and acceptance of all people who are not harming others, even those YOU MAY NOT UNDERSTAND simply because they are, in fact, humans on this earth, you are part of the problem.

And people are dying.

And it’s on you.

And I don’t have one single problem saying it.

Stop raising assholes, America.

Get a new fucking jam.

Thumbs up, America.

In 2014 I learned that pregnancy doesn’t get any shorter even the 4^th time you do it, and the last month is still actually 349 days and the weight you gain still isn’t special. I mean it’s just regular old weight. It doesn’t just fall off.

And I learned that babies sometimes come with very little labor, and fathers can catch them in the middle of the living room, and the universe can create for you the birth you wanted but were too afraid to want, alone, with you and your husband and baby.

I learned I will have a son named Arlo.

And I learned that watching that baby with my just-made teenager will hold my gaze as strongly as when the light catches her and her hair falling just so, and the dress and jean jacket and boots, and smile, and I see a woman for a second.

Myself.

No, her.

I learned I won’t be ready for that moment, when the separation becomes essentially defined and undeniable and I start watching her like a full-grown human with all the lines of her face and the knowledge and wisdom they hold, the creases of her clothes and tones of her voice that don’t involve me. Her beauty. Her wit. I can’t believe she’s mine.

All the way down to the one lying here, nursing. The way his lips splay out, his hand pawing, the little eyes unfocused, or drilling into mine.

I can’t believe he’s mine.

They aren’t mine.

I learned again they’re never quite mine.

And I learned if you live in a home with light and air and wood floors and big old trees and your family in it, you might not want to leave very often, and this is both wonderful and dangerous (because one must get out, you know), but mostly rebuilding and energizing after that 1970s house of burglary, linoleum, drug-addict neighbors and dark.

In other words I learned the wrong house can really fuck things up.

And the right one can really make things shine.

I learned being a stay-at-home-mom is something I can do and love sometimes, and that surprises the shit out of me. Am I getting old? What’s wrong with me?

I never understand myself. That I learned a long time ago.

I learned knowing the songs at the preschool is a level of motherhood that I’m okay with, sort of, and being home every day after school when my kids get home is a gift that busts my heart open to give, when they aren’t annoying the ever-loving shit out of me.

I learned better school districts have more money to provide better services to help dyslexic kids thrive.

And I learned a well-timed nickname can heal tiny souls.

Oh Cricket, I hear you now.

I learned living down the road from your mom is like a small weekly Christmas.

And the happiest place on earth is indeed pretty damn happy. And super freaking clean.

In October I learned some kids get taken by cancer and it’s possible to hold in your chest – the heavy, red, pulsing depths where love and rage exist – the face of a child you’ve never met but somehow watched pass on and cried when she did for her and her mother, and your boy did too, because he knew the story and was crushed too, but barely, compared to those who held her.

It’s possible to have a little girl’s face become the force that drives you to call your toddler “Cricket” instead of turn your back, or punish.

I learned about that power in living. Or maybe dying

I learned I’m not okay with the finality of The Last Child, and I’m really beginning to think there’s something seriously wrong with me.

In 2014 I learned again that yeah, money doesn’t make you happy, but damn it’s hard to be happy when you’re always worried about money. And if you find yourself so broke that your husband starts working 7 days a week to keep your family going, well shit I learned that you’ll get so fed up of that bullshit life that you’ll put together something just at the last fucking minute and I’ll be damned if that something doesn’t work and your life starts making a little sense again, and your husband gets a day off work, and a new life starts to form that’s way more like the one you’ve always dreamed of.

I learned that it isn’t that life doesn’t give me “time” to do the things I’m meant to be doing, it’s that I use my time in ways that negate the possibility of me doing them.

And that’s because I’m afraid.

And I learned once again that I never learn a damn thing until I get so uncomfortable I have no choice but to change.

On Christmas I learned that if your husband buys you a pearl necklace like the one he gave you a few weeks after you met 14 years ago, the one that was stolen in a burglary by your nanny’s meth-addicted son, you will both cry, in fact so will the whole damn family, because it’s just a necklace but it feels like rebuilding, and really kind of the same, because things like necklaces can come, and go, and it’s okay. And that’s what becomes clear.

They don’t hold spaces in the red burning mass in your chest.

Or they shouldn’t, at least.

And at the very end of 2014, about 3 days ago in fact, I learned that if somebody close to me ever gets seriously injured in an accident, it will be the banality of what I was doing that day, in that moment, at that second, that might offend me the most, or hold me paralyzed, until the reality sinks in.

I learned that a severe hand injury on the man you love and with whom you’ve built a life will shake you into a new place more than you might expect, because you realize suddenly he isn’t a fucking necklace or house, but the child lost that you hold in your deepest heart, right there in the center, living and breathing and yours, to call Cricket when necessary, to catch on the living room floor, and watch when the light falls just so, and kiss in the hospital with a breath of relief, and joy, and awe that the sheet metal fell 40 feet and grazed off a hard hat and slammed just a hand, severed the tendon of a finger not the veins of a heart, and left you here, next to me, to move in 2015 with our broken perfection of a family.

We listened to The Ramones and danced last night. Well, the kids did. We watched. Jerry said “If you get confused just listen to the music play.” I don’t have anything else sometimes, you know.

I pulled Thich Nhat Hanh’s Anger off the shelf, again, because my yelling isn’t done yet.

I cleaned up my diet today. I’m tired of my body not feeling like my friend. I’ve done it before. I’ll do it again. Maybe that’s my resolution. How clichéd.

There’s a fire raging in the woodstove and the baby has 2 teeth. The dog has finally settled the hell down. The cat still pees in my plant. I sort of want to kill her.

My mom is down the road. My brother a few towns over. My dad makes me CDs of music that formed him. My husband is reading the kids a story with one bandaged hand, while I sit back here in my room with that damn cat, lean against a few pillows and write this to you.

It’s January 1, 2015. And I’m just happy to be here.

Motherhood is continually urging me to give a shit about things I couldn’t care less about. Actually wait. No. Not motherhood. The hype surrounding motherhood. Websites, magazines, television, my damn Facebook feed.

It expects me to care about things like Elf on the Shelf, for example. Nope. Don’t care. I think it’s weird and a lot of work. “Hey kid, this creepy ass elf is gonna sit here and watch you and if you’re bad you get nothing because you’re bad bad BAD.”

Generally speaking, I’m the worst behaved person in this house, so why the fuck would I turn it into some Santa-big-brother-watchdog panopticon? Plus, they have the rest of their lives to feel like they’re being watched by the establishment. (Oh yeah, I read Foucault too, bitches.)

But here’s the thing: I also could not possibly care less if you use Elf on the Shelf. No really. I can think of fewer things less relevant to my life than whether or not humans make a flour snow angel with a plastic doll on their kitchen floors.

So when I read some article expounding on the pros and cons of Elf on the Shelf, all I think is WHAT THE HELL WHO CARES? And then all these parents growing irate, yelling and screaming and name-calling. Get a fucking hobby.

But the worst is when somebody comes up with a “new issue” that must be addressed. A new one. A new concern. Something serious. Something The Super Conscientious Mother discovered and is now writing about to inform the unenlightened masses, the implication being, of course, that if you’re a conscientious mother, you too will be concerned with this issue and change your behavior accordingly.

Behold, I give you, “Why we should leave the smaller gifts to Santa.”

Look, if it’s made into a meme, it’s real and important. Share that shit and be The Conscientious Mother.

Yes. That’s right. We all have different incomes, and since Santa isn’t real (sorry to bust that one to you if it’s news), rich parents may have Santa brings lots of stuff and poor parents may have Santa bring not much stuff and then the kids go to school and talk about what they got from Santa and the poor kid says “OMG mom Johnny got lots and I got nothing and now I’m sad.”

And so, obviously, we should all make sure Santa brings socks. Because Santa’s a dick. Damn it. You see? This is my problem. I care so little about this nonsense I can’t even be serious about it.

Here’s the Facebook status update about which the aforementioned article was written: “Not all parents have a ton of cash to spend on making their kids [sic] Christmas special, so it doesn’t make sense to have Santa give your kid a PlayStation4 [sic], a bike, and an iPad, while his best friend at school gets a new hat and mittens from Santa.”

Look, if some kid got a Playstation, a bike and an iPad from Santa, they’re a fucking Kardashian and our kids aren’t going to school with them. And “big” is relative, right? I mean I grew up with a single mom and every year we had one “big gift” and one year it was a fish tank and I thought that was about the coolest thing I ever received in all my damn life because I was kind of used to small.

And parents buy kids the big gift that makes sense in their family, right? I mean you don’t really have to spend that much money to get a kid a gift that rocks their world. And seriously when does that conversation even happen? Kids go back to school 2 weeks after Christmas and this happens:

Kid one: “What did you get for Christmas?”

Kid 2: “Tons of shit nobody needs. What did you get?”

Kid 1: “Tons more shit nobody needs.”

I’m paraphrasing, but isn’t that pretty much how it goes? For real if your kid is old enough to decipher between parent gifts and Santa gifts, inquire and assess how it goes down at his homie’s house, then come home and pontificate about the inequalities of Christmas morn, your kid is old enough to find out that Santa lives “in the heart.”

George believes in Santa wholeheartedly. She also claims she has a “weiner shooter” and was relieved to finally become an ironworker officially (see photo to the right), so she can “help daddy with his work.” 

Her next favorite gift was a $5.00 bubble blowing machine I picked up on Groupon.

And yeah, maybe there’s some jealousy and maybe there’s some sad with the older kids. I see how the Santa fantasy potentially result in a kid’s hurt feelings, but I gotta level with you here, the only response I have to something like this is “Oh give me a fucking break.”

Maybe I’m a horrible person. Maybe I’m a self-centered ass with no concern for the pure hearts of innocent children. But I have no interest in bulldozing the path in front of my children to attempt to save them from the pain of reality. Some people are rich. Some aren’t. We aren’t. And if that requires a conversation about The Fat Man and why he brought Phil a WiiU and Rocket a $90 robot, well then I guess that conversation happens. And better yet, what if the Bastard Red-Suited Unequal Distributor of Resources triggered a conversation about being grateful for what you have? For being happy for others? For truth, perspective and empathy?

Maybe we talk to our kids about jealousy, about the ego’s attempt to control and take and get more. Maybe we talk about the way we think Stuff will bring happiness, the never-ending process of “As soon as I get this one thing I’ll be happy.” And how it never works. Let’s talk about capitalism and consumerism and materialism and waste (which I fully support during Christmas, FYI)! Really, the possibilities are endless.

Or maybe we just say “Yeah, I don’t know kid, I don’t know why that happened, maybe Santa’s something of an asshole.”

But seriously. All this bullshit hovering and helicoptering and clearing and bulldozing and setting up and protecting and making just right, how does that even make sense? At what point will somebody make the maintenance of my kid’s happy feelings their life’s work? They won’t.

How long will my kid live on earth before he feels jealousy? Before she realizes some people are better off than her? And what good am I doing them by running around like a bored squirrel on meth making sure nothing ever hurts them?

None. I’m doing them no good. How the hell do you prepare a kid for life by protecting them from life?

I want to protect my kids from danger, from real, permanent pain. That’s my job. That’s my work and I fight like hell to make that happen.

But a stab of jealousy? A realization of the difference of incomes? A momentary feeling of I’M NOT GETTING WHAT’S MINE? Yeah, sorry kid. That’s life, and it sucks sometimes.

Sometimes Santa’s a dick.

Now let’s go see how this robot works.

Arlo wants to know why all he got was a fucking teething ring.

******

Do you want to get back into writing? Maybe you write shit in your head all the time but never “put pen to paper?” If so you should probably join me for my first 2016 Writing Workshop.

One spot left in January morning session. February evening session is the only evening session I’ll offer of this workshop in 2016 (too many batshit kids in the evenings).

Email me with questions: info@renegademothering.com.

Or just sign up.

I love Christmas. I love all of it. I love the gifts and the candles and the lights. I love the horrible music. I love the movies and eggnog and excitement and decorations. I’m slightly pathetic about the whole thing, actually. But it doesn’t matter how much I love it.

I’ll probably ruin it anyway.  Chances are good, at least. The more important the day, the more likely I am to fuck it up with my questionable behavior.

I made an infographic to visually summarize this phenomenon.

But this year I thought I’d give my family a nice, clear, fair warning about how I’ll probably ruin Christmas. I’m thinking this might help.

So here we go.

1. I’ll probably stay up too late the night before wrapping the fourteen thousand seven hundred and fifty three gifts I bought for the kids because when I was a kid we were pretty broke, and my mom every year said “This Christmas is going to be small, kids,” and I smiled and felt a little pang but didn’t show it, but then on Christmas my big brother and I woke my mom up and trotted into the living room and the gifts were tumbling over themselves in a massive insane heap and it didn’t feel small at all. So now I do the same, and it’s shallow and materialistic and unenlightened but I couldn’t possibly give fewer shits about that. I freaking love it.
2. But because I stayed up too late I’ll be irritable and you’ll be bouncing off the walls so I’ll probably snap at one of you. I’ll snap at you as I watch you in your Christmas pajamas and think about the next gift I have for you, that one you’re not expecting, because I know you’re just going to love it and it’s the little ones like that make my stomach flutter and Christmas becomes the same as when I was you. I’ll snap and feel immediately terrible and apologize and think “You can’t do that! It’s CHRISTMAS!”
3. I will for sure say something stupid though. Once I opened a gift and said the first thing that came to my mind and it was the wrong thing to say and it made my mom’s face fall and I knew I ruined Christmas then.
4. I’ll probably say “tits” at the Christmas table and regret that immediately too. On the way home I’ll ask Mac why I always have to sit by the classy people in the family and he’ll say “Right. That’s the problem. The seating arrangement.” And then he’ll tell me it’s not a big deal, Janelle, and I’ll be vaguely grateful it wasn’t an F-bomb.
5. My mouth ruins a lot of Christmases.
6. I’ll probably overbook the day because rather than learn from mistakes I like to keep doing them over and over again a few hundred billionty times because you never know it may work this time and then when we’re all wrestling ourselves off the couch and into nice clothes I’ll probably ruin Christmas by being angry and frustrated and kicking myself because I want to stay home and swore last year I wouldn’t do this again. I’ll wonder what the fuck is wrong with me.
7. No. We’re staying home this year. I WON’T RUIN CHRISTMAS THAT WAY, KIDS.
8. I used to ruin Christmas by drinking too much. Once I ruined it by not even showing up at all. There was one when I found myself alone for a moment in the bathroom after all the gifts had been opened and as I was getting up from the toilet after peeing I thought for the first time that my kids would be better off without me and it was my first and perhaps only real thought of suicide and it was shocking in its anticlimactic nature and the smoothness with which it passed through my brain. I thought about it like I might think about an item we needed from the grocery store. It was matter of fact and plain and clear. In that it terrified me. I went outside and watched my son who’s now 9 ride around on his new Hot Wheels in his footed Christmas pajamas. I poured some whiskey in my coffee and didn’t die.
9. I’ll never ruin Christmas by not being there again.
10. I’ll eat too much and practically bust out of my clothing though and that won’t ruin Christmas but I’ll feel like a cow.
11. I’ll get mad at you for not looking at the camera.
12. I’ll forget your tights. I always forget the tights. Damn tights.
13. I’ll yell, probably, because really JUST LOOK AT THE FUCKING CAMERA FOR 12 FUCKING SECONDS KID. And then I’ll bribe you with See’s Candy and win at parenting.
14. At the end of the day I’ll probably go out on the patio with your dad and I might start blaming him for the ways Christmas was ruined because that’s easier than realizing I ruined Christmas by being overtired and cranky and the stakes are just too high. And I’ll want to stop but I won’t because there was his pain and my mom and brother and I and my dad, and my grandmother who’s gone now, and the way I used to wrap presents for her every year, and the ache in my gut and brain and eyes to see her again and the wrinkles in her hands and tell her goodbye, mostly, or even thank you. And there are those thousand Christmases of them and me and you and those to come and I’ll feel it all right then. Through the lights strung on the porch that you hung badly. I got a little mad when it happened (because the neighbor’s are perfect) but laughed when I realized poorly hung Christmas lights are a fucking family tradition at this point. It’s our Griswold moment.
15. And I’ll ruin Christmas when I lie down at night and think of you the oldest kid in your bed and you and you and look down at the baby, 6 months old, and watch him nurse and know he will be you, the first, 13 years old, so close to gone. And I’ll shut my eyes with the memory of snapping at you as we sat around the tree. And I’ll wish I could go back there. This year’s gone already. Next will be later still. Further still.
16. I’ll ruin Christmas because it’s never enough. I’m never enough, for you. For this. How could I be? How could I be the light to make a day perfection? The mother bustling about the tree. The one with the gingerbread and sugar cookies. Oh these stakes are just too high.

Damn you, Christmas. The perfect, ruined day, every year. You just keep getting better. In my mind, my heart, you get that much better every year. And you, kids.

I can’t wait to see your faces.

When I was 14 or so, I asked my grandmother why we didn’t have a “white club” at school. I don’t recall her response, but I do remember feeling particularly smug and vaguely angry that there was a “Latino” club and a “Chinese” club but not a “white” club.

Oh the unfairness! Oh the disparity! Why do we celebrate their heritage but not ours?

And I didn’t think about race again, at least not much, until I dated an African American man in college and a stranger whispered “nigger lover” in my ear one night as he walked by us in a grocery store. I was shocked. My boyfriend was less shocked.

I concluded the stranger was some strange exception of horrible racist creature. He was, after all, approximately 97 years old. (Well, 70, but he appeared 97 to my fresh young eyes.)

And then, a few months later, when my boyfriend’s roommate took me aside and asked why I have to “take a good black man who was in college,” when so many black men were incarcerated. I concluded she was crazy. And mean.

She hurt my feelings. Poor Janelle.

Beyond these few moments, and a couple others, I didn’t really think about race. Well, I thought about how people made arguments “about race” when clearly they were not. I mean why do they make race an issue? It’s not an issue. I never see it.

Oh yeah, I had America all figured out: If ya work hard, you get ahead. And if you don’t get ahead, it’s because you made bad decisions. And if you get arrested it’s because you’re breaking the law, and people who break the law are more likely to be black. Obviously. That’s why they’re always getting arrested. (How’s that for some cyclic logic?)

I knew this to be true because:

1. America was awful to black people but that was fixed during the Civil Rights movement;
2. Therefore, we are all on equal footing now and if you don’t succeed it’s because you aren’t trying.

I learned it in school. It was fact. School teaches the truth.

And then, graduate school, and Professor Lee.

Oh, shit.

“Not all white people are white supremacists, but all white people benefit from white supremacy.”

WHAT THE WHAT?

She made us repeat it like a mantra. At least 3 times. I read Tim Wise’s White Like Me and bell hooks and David Roediger’s Wages of Whiteness and learned how our economic systems benefit from racism and we read about the history of American immigration laws (have you ever read them?) and colonialism in the Philippines and elsewhere (yes, America has colonies but we call them “territories”), and we read about redlining and white flight (ever wonder how black people ended up in urban centers?), and we read some DuBois and Omi & Winant and literature by people of color and all of the sudden I realized I had been fucking lied to.

I understood America through white eyes. I understood the world through the mainstream, polished glasses of a nice clean history of “we used to be bad now we’re not the end.”

Go team.

I discovered I was white.

“Not all white people are white supremacists, but all white people benefit from white supremacy.”

She wanted us to see that as individuals, not all white people are bigoted. But she also wanted us to see that every white person – whether they are bigoted or not – benefits from the racially structured hierarchies in America. They benefit from racism.

Yes. Even me. Even though I am not “racist.”

How? And she explained whiteness. She explained that “white” is the standard. White is the background against which difference is measured.

In other words, it’s “white” until further notice. It’s “white” until proven otherwise. It’s “white” or it’s the “other,” and it has nothing to do with actual numbers, percentages of “minority” population. It has to do with power. It has to do with the culture of power. What do I mean? If a comedy film features a white family, it’s a comedy. If it features a black family, it’s a comedy for people of color. Think about it.

White is the standard. And I’m white. Therefore, I am standard, and that benefits me.

When I walk into a room, I don’t fear that I’m representing my whole race. I have never acted badly then thought to myself “Oh shit, I sure hope they don’t hate all white people now.”

Or, in other words, even though pretty much every Columbine-type-school-kid-murderer is white, I’ve never developed a distrust for white, socially awkward high school kids.

A few do not represent the whole.

“Privilege is passed on through history.”

Whatever. I grew up POOR!

But then I thought about how, in the late 1940s, my grandmother was the first woman editor of the University of Washington’s newspaper. After she graduated, she and my grandpa bought and ran small newspapers in northern California. The family business they built employed my family members for 40+ years.

In the late 1940s, black people were not allowed to sit in the front of the bus.

How can I deny that my grandparents’ access to education and economic success did not materially affect me in a positive way, directly, through my father? I thought about the loans my parents were able to take with financial backing from my grandparents, and how that benefitted me. My life. My quality of life. The neighborhoods we lived in. The schools we attended. My cultural knowledge.

“Why don’t we have ‘White History Month?’”

Because White History Month is every month other than February, asshole.

Oh, shit indeed.

“The culture of power determines which version of history is told and retold.”  

Prior to the Women’s Rights Movement, women were stuck in the home while men went to work and supported them. But then women were liberated and able to get jobs working outside the home.

Right?

WRONG.

White, middle to upper class women were “stuck in the home.” Women of color have ALWAYS “worked out of the home.” In fact, women of color were probably working in the homes of the white women about which our history is written.

So one of the most oft-repeated, trusted narratives about American history erases the history of women of color. It is dead fucking wrong. It isn’t even kind of right. They are erased. Non-existent. Unseen.

They are Chapter 10. They are a chapter that ends with “but then Martin Luther King, Jr., and all is well.”

They are Chapter 10. I am chapters 1 through forever, and every day I cash in on that fact, whether or not I support the systems making that happen for me.

I realized the reason I had never thought about race was because I was of the privileged one, because I didn’t have to, NOT BECAUSE RACIAL DISPARITY DIDN’T EXIST. I didn’t have to think about race because I was having a fundamentally different life experience than people of color. But I could ignore them, because of my privilege.

I was able to hang out in meltin-pot, “post-racial” land because the structures of this society allow (and encourage) me to “not see race” while continually feeding me narratives about “equality,” “multiculturalism,” “color-blindness” and “ghetto urban lifestyles.”

I spent a lot of time in graduate school in the library, writing at a computer. Like, hours. Whole days. When I had to pee, I would ask the person sitting next to me to watch my stuff so I didn’t have to pack it all up and carry it down the hall to the bathroom. I did it a 100 times.

Once I looked over at the person next to me and my first thought was “Oh you can’t ask him. He’ll steal your stuff.

He was a young black man wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt.

I was sickened at myself. I was horrified at my response. There was absolutely nothing different about him from the 100 other people I didn’t hesitate to ask, except he was black.

I realized that not only do I benefit historically and presently, every day, from the color of my skin, I have also internalized cultural narratives regarding blacks and whites that manifest whether or not I support them.

“Hey, would you mind watching my stuff for a minute?”

But what now?

Does it mean my grandmother’s accomplishments are less badass? Nope. Does it mean I do not “deserve” success? Nope. Does it mean that I am a bad person? Nope.

It means that we live in a highly racialized society rooted in a history of discrimination and that we have a long way to go. It means that watching “The Help” and feeling bad is not enough. Sentimentality is not action. It means that I have had an advantage over people of color. Yes, always. Yes, no matter what. Because even if you’re poor and white you can join the culture of power by learning the walk and talk. But you can’t change your skin color.

From the day I was first introduced to this “other story,” I couldn’t get enough. Not because I’m some sort of saint or conspiracy theorist, but because I was curious. I was interested out of a sense of shared humanity. And I was fucking angry that I had been swindled. I wanted the truth. Or, I wanted a fuller picture. I wanted more sides.

That, my friends, is pathetic in its privilege.

I learned in graduate school what every person of color knows through life experience. I learned in graduate school that we weren’t “fixed” during the Civil Rights movement.

But when this information was presented to me I felt a sense of relief, because I think deep down I always knew something was terribly wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I don’t understand the white rage I keep reading on the internet.

Just another dead thug.

He got what he deserved.

Run over the protestors. They’re making me late for work.

STOP PLAYING THE “RACE CARD.”  

I don’t understand it. What’s at stake, people? What’s at stake in accepting that racism exists? Or even entertaining the thought? Are people really so stupid they can’t fathom that other people might be having a different experience than they are? Is it really that hard to comprehend that something can exist EVEN THOUGH YOU DON’T PERSONALLY SEE IT?

(Although you’ll see your privilege if you’re willing to examine your life honestly.)

Why the hell are people so unwilling to listen?

Let’s think about this for a moment. A whole community of people are saying this exists. Data shows racial disparities in economic, education, justice, and healthcare systems. Basically, ALL OVER THE PLACE. Unarmed black boys and men are killed without recourse. Repeatedly. The comment sections of these crimes are riddled with assholes shouting “Good. One less loser.”

Still people claim “Racism doesn’t exist.” But here’s the thing: The only way you can discount the words, lives, efforts and voices of hundreds of thousands of people is THROUGH THE RACISM YOU CLAIM DOESN’T EXIST.

You can only ignore them if they’re aren’t worth hearing.

You can only ignore them if they’re liars. If they’re just looking for a handout.

If they’re not human like you.

You can only ignore them by using the very narratives you claim aren’t happening.

And let’s be honest, we can only ignore them because it’s easy, because we’ll never have to walk a day in their shoes, and it’s just so much more pleasant to turn away, look away, focus back on our lives.

But the sand is getting skimpy and our heads are showing. At this point, if we’re not part of the solution we’re part of the problem.

I’m using my voice to talk to you. I’m using my voice to talk to my kids. But it isn’t enough. We’re looking for places to volunteer. I’m looking for actions I can take.

We’re at a crossroads. This cannot go on. We’re crushed under the weight of hatred, history, silence, violence, bullshit media and the insidious defense of systematic unequal distribution of resources, and at some point, none of us will be able to breathe.

It feels small and pathetic to be one person in this mess. I feel stupid and vulnerable and slightly insane to be writing this here, now. But fuck my feelings. Fuck feeling uncomfortable. Fuck the nonsense that keeps us quiet and content and cozy in our little post-racial dreamland.

They can’t breathe, and I’m breathing just fine.

And that is precisely the problem.