The monastic appeal; also race, fear, hope

I am sitting in a study carrel in the graduate library at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I am staring out the window as I type this, watching occasional streetlamps and headlights swim in a sea of pitch black. Silvio Rodriguez is singing La Familia, La Propiedad Privada y El Amor in my ears. This was the music that tracked me down from a kitchen in Oaxaca, Mexico to a kitchen in Northfield, Minnesota. I’ve written to some of you the oddness of being in this new place. The monastic appeal of holing up in a study carrel and dissolving, or focusing strongly and purely, on some Important Ideas. I’m writing about del.icio.us right now, which is raising some interesting questions about how social systems collectively remember and make sense of our shared past. For an introduction to some of these ideas, Clay Shirky wrote a nice piece on social bookmarking and the ontologies of the web. I’ll try not to say “ontology” too often.

In a similar vein (on the social memory/sense-making tip), I’ve been thinking a lot about racism, white fear and how we remember things. That is, the stories we tell ourselves about the past. And the present, for that matter. I believe that white folks in this country learn to be afraid of many things – many people. First and foremost on that list would be black folks. That’s why Husayn’s reflections on raising his daughter make me so happy. For that matter, Audre Lordes’ essays – an account of raising her son and her insights on fear generally – went a long way toward teaching me how to be in a world that confers unearned privilege upon me.

I was sitting in the Center for African American Studies library, listening to “After the flood” from This American Life. In this interview, Denise Moore provides such a crystalline example of what white fear does to our country. I want you to read the transcript of her interview. She really describes the humanity and the pain of being on the ground in New Orleans. And as I’m sitting there, listening to her, I think about the story that our nation told itself. About how white America is prepared to see black people.

“And that’s why I got so mad because they’re calling these guys animals. These guys. That’s what got to me. Because I know what they did. You calling these people animals?”

In the second act, Alex Blumberg interviews some folks who try to walk out of New Orleans and are actually stopped from entering predominantly white, wealthy Jefferson Parish. At gunpoint. By police officers. Because they heard what happened in the Superdome. Because all of these white men with badges and guns had told themselves a story about what poor black people do when times get rough.

Some of you might have been able to tell them what poor black people do when times get rough. (Scrape by. Help each other out.)

And they were so afraid, these gentlemen on the bridge, deep down in their hearts. I believe that our souls recognize the injustice of the world. Our souls recognize that something is deeply wrong with the balance of power in this country. And I’ve seen enough privileged people get scared and defensive, that I wonder if our souls know, deep down, that things can’t last this way. If we hope to make it through, we need a new story. Those police officers guarding the bridge into Jefferson Parish were telling themselves a broken story. A story in which black people were “animals.” That story, that fear of black people, replicated and multiplied through many layers of authority and media, stopped us from standing by our brothers and sisters in New Orleans.

I am hopeful that we can raise our children to be brave in the world. Racism will still exist, and it will still infect us, but learning to be brave in the world goes a long way toward allowing those of us who are given privilege to start telling ourselves a new story.