Our Modern Day Scarlet Letter
The Soil for Injustice… is always Ignorance.
I can still remember the day I fell in love with literature. I was fortunate to grow up in a community that attracted amazing teachers. In high school, one of my teachers had a Master's from Stanford. Our sports coaches were prior college athletes.
My American Literature teacher had a Ph.D., was a world-traveled Indian woman whose husband made millions and she taught for fun — to have something to do during the days. Her education was vast and her culture and experience brought an insight into the learning that was unique and very intriguing to me.
Having come from a very non-cultured, non-worldly, religious, and patriarchal background, I wasn’t used to an educated, worldly, cultured woman in my life. A woman who loved literature and learning so much that she chose to spend her days in a high school full of obnoxious, mostly privileged white teenagers. I don’t wish that on my enemies.
I was never a reader before high school. The words didn’t flow for me as they do for some. I often would get distracted and have to re-read paragraphs as I’d get to the end of a page and realize I have no idea what I just read.
The book, The Scarlet Letter isn’t commonly the impetus to a love of literature. But something about the story of a girl who simply falls in love and is publicly “crucified” on a daily basis for her sins…struck a chord with me. I am grateful to my Literature teacher for bringing her story and Hester’s to life for me.
I don’t know if it was my dissidence with religion, or the budding feminist in me (not even knowing what feminism was, even in high school), I fell in love with Hester Prynne. I love how literature can do that — make you care about someone you’ve never met. In fact, someone that could have lived 100’s of years before you.
I was rooting for her. I wanted her to live her truth and live with love and joy in her life. I was taken by the injustice of her circumstances…the soil that grew from the ignorance of her situation. I wanted to fix it. I wanted it to be exposed to the injustice that it was.
Why is it that when we read about the many incongruencies of our past that we can now see it so clearly for what it was? So obviously wrong now but so normal then, these people actually lived their daily lives with this horrific epistemology.
This blatant and obvious ignorance just seems silly to me, not to be trite but something so senseless and so avoidable, I just have to say it’s silly. Back in high school, there was no way that my young mind could even understand that people were that ignorant, my young mind thought, “this has to be a joke”.
As I reflect back on this time in my life and re-feel these feelings I can’t help but think. What are the “silly” things we still do today? The things so ridiculous that years (hopefully it won’t take 100’s) from now people will look back and say, “there’s no way people really thought that or did that, especially to other people — their fellow humans.
These thoughts really made me think while trying to understand what my African-American friends and fellow humans were trying to express with the Black Lives Matter Movement.
It’s easy to point out things like slavery and racism as abhorrent but what about all the ignorance that follows these once held beliefs? It might be obvious to say you’re not racist and of course, slavery is awful and I’m embarrassed that it was part of our American history, but years from now will I say, “ I can’t believe I crossed the street because I saw a black man approaching”? Or that I was upset that people had to get violent to finally be heard — to make a change?
My historical hero, Martin Luther King Jr. had a next-level perspective on making change. I can’t agree more with his sentiments on nonviolent action.
“We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts.”
Those acts did persuade, FINALLY! In the 1960s the Civil Rights act was barely passed. I think we can all agree that now 60 years later we look back on the famous march on Washington and MLK’s speech, as some of the GREATEST accomplishments of our country! I can’t hear or read his profound and life-changing speech without being immensely moved! The Civil Rights movement and his speech, was 100%, the greatest use of our democratic freedom. To be able to take action — to speak out for our freedoms is what makes our country the greatest.
But what’s mind-blowing now is to look back to 1965 where, in the midst of the Cold War, a plurality of Americans believed that civil rights organizations had been infiltrated by communists, with almost a fifth of the country unsure as to whether or not they had been compromised. CLICK here for the data. The witch hunts of McCarthyism even attached themselves to the civil rights movement.
What looks so obvious and beautiful now, at the time, was seen as an attack on the social norms.
By attacking and attaching what we don’t understand to something like communism, that all Americans agreed was wrong, Americans then used fear to take control of something that made a lot of Americans uncomfortable.
How embarrassing now to think that many Americans, maybe some of our ancestors equated freedom for all to communism. It was an actual attack on their own freedom because people don’t like feeling uncomfortable. They thought you’re different from me, you don’t look like me, think like me, or believe like me.
When Words Fail
A child hits not because it wants to hurt someone. A child hits because of frustration. Because they don’t know they have a “voice” — they do not know which words to use, or maybe that voice keeps falling on deaf ears.
When I hear my little daughter hit her older brother (which seriously has maybe happened 5 times in her 7-year existence) I instantly take her side because I know it so rarely happens. She has finally, just had enough. She was too overpowered and frustrated that she couldn’t think of another way in which to make the teasing stop.
Because she is so young, she lacks the maturity and experience to know how to communicate and advocate for herself in a better way. By no means am I condoning her actions or incentivizing her to repeat her actions but I do understand being so frustrated that you default to an action that solicits a more reactive response.
I’m sure every mother can relate with asking their kids, very kindly, to make their bed, and then on the 5th time you finally yell, “If you don’t make your bed, you’re grounded.” Instantly my kids get moving and the bed gets made but my child responds with, “Mom, why are you so mad?” And I say, “I wasn’t mad the first 4 times I asked you” It doesn’t make my yelling a good solution but man does it sure, and FINALLY, get a reaction. Although these are trite examples, I think we can all relate.
Our African American friends and neighbors have had enough and they FINALLY want to be heard. It doesn’t make the looting and of course hurting of others, a good solution to the problem but man did it get us to finally LISTEN. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. At some point, the only thing that gets people to take action is making them uncomfortable.
How do we get better?
Why does it take this extreme measure for us to respond? Racism isn’t anything new, in fact, it’s never gone away. Isn’t that even more disturbing of a question? After all these years, and we know through to our bones how horrible it is, we still are stuck in our biases.
This should cause us to pause. Maybe we still have some work to do! This is what the movement is trying to bring to light. So maybe it’s going to take us, white people, to actively work on our racism. And by racism, I mean, the racism we didn’t think we had.
In Ibram X. Kendi’s book, How to Be an Anti-racist one of the most enlightening things he taught me was NOT everything I’m doing wrong as a white person, but rather, how I can be a better human. When we label people as racist, it’s so damning and career-ending that we can’t even have a conversation about it.
Instead of being so afraid of our shortcomings, we need to allow a space to say, “Wow, you’re right, I never noticed that blind spot. I now see how that can be identified with being racist.” That doesn’t mean I hate black people and am actually racist.
We need to allow room to identify our blind-spots, in a safe space so that we can see where we as non-black people fall short. When we are allowed a space to be vulnerable to our shortcomings we then can feel safe to change them. When people are supported instead of damned, we have now created a healthy environment for learning, changing, growth, and betterment.
Perfection vs Growth
How do we balance perfection and growth? If we demand perfection, we WILL get it through cancel culture but is that the goal? I prefer growth every day of the week. Perfection is just compliance — it’s obedience. No thank you! Instead, I hope we can pass on to our future generations a space for clunkiness, for messy, and for mistakes.
Why are we so quick to judge, to taking a side, and to having an opinion? I don’t give 2 craps about opinions anymore. Tell me when you’ve been wrong and you were willing to humble yourself, and not know the answer? Let’s sit in that space more often. Let’s ruminate in thought and listening and learning.
Let’s create an environment where people can ask dumb questions as Meaghan Kelly did about Black Face. Instead of just labeling her as a racist and ending her career maybe we could have taken the opportunity to teach her and everyone else who might have the same ignorance. Perfection is a mirage! It’s overrated!
Educate your Ignorance
I’m advocating for education. I can by no means pretend I know what it’s like to live the African American experience, to walk in the shoes of an African American person, or like one of my favorite quotes from To Kill A Mockingbird
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it’’.
But what I CAN do is LEARN and LISTEN.
Be willing to read and know that there is so much more we can learn. I’m embarrassed to say that it took me until my 40’s to learn about systemic racism. I’m ashamed that I didn’t know all of the governmental controls VOTED into policy to again keep its proverbial thumb on the African American community — to keep them down.
I hear different white people express how their life was hard too, they too didn’t have parents at home to help them get into college, why should the black community continue to get a hand-out. Especially after reading Michelle Alexander’s book THE NEW JIM CROW, I am appalled at the ignorance.
Please remember every time you walk into a room, you as a white person are not preempted by your skin color. That’s important! You don’t have a “scarlet letter” that lets people instantly judge you and unfortunately condemn you, as you walk in every room.
I beg of you to educate yourself. READ The New Jim Crow, How to be an Anti-racist, and The Color of Law to start! Alvin Toffler said,
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn”.
You will learn in THE NEW JIM CROW how mass incarceration is just the modern-day Jim Crow. Repeatedly our government has had multiple opportunities to correct the problem of racism but has chosen to do the opposite and actually created “the war on drugs” as a ruse in order to justify mass incarceration, creating the new racial caste system resulting in a new method of social control. Alexander is so fair balanced in her argument because she exposes how these biases and controls are perpetuated on the backs of many leaders, white, African American, and even the African American race relations leaders.
In THE COLOR OF LAW, you will learn that racial segregation in housing wasn’t merely a project of southerners in the former slave-holding Confederacy. It was a nationwide project of the federal government in the 20th century designed and implemented by it’s most liberal leaders.
Our system of segregation was not the result of a single law that consigned African Americans to designate neighborhoods. Rather scores of racially explicit laws, regulations, and government practices combined to create a nationwide system or urban ghettos, surrounded by white suburbs. (from THE COLOR OF LAW preface)
In HOW TO BE AN ANTI-RACIST, you will learn that we all have biases and even racism that we didn’t know we had. Be willing to go there and admit your shortcomings. It’s the first step to not being a racist.
What I Learned
What I’ve learned through all of this is that I have a whole lot more to learn and that starts with shutting up and listening. I’ve noticed that EVERYONE has an opinion and maybe it’s time to not spout that opinion and just ask some questions so our African American friends and neighbors can tell us how to Get Better and Do Better. OR, better yet — our friends have communicated with us through amazing books, read them, and educate yourself today!
PLEASE SHARE! “When you learn, teach. When you get, give.” Words have power and make change only when they’re shared :)
