Losing my hat and sense of worth
Learning to live with the consequences of a painful past
I am listening to poet, performance artist and activist Stacyann Chin tell stories from her past and I am smitten with her words, her way of being, her honesty. The audience surfs her stories like waves, sometimes we tear up with sadness, other times we are lost in bubbling laughter. Toward the end of the night she reads some of her poems. As a queer person of color she is no stranger to the harms that white supremacy culture perpetuates and her words illuminate the dysfunction and pain.
Then it strikes me: “I am white.” I, sitting here in my white skin, in a mostly black crowd, represent colonization, pain, oppression. And in this moment, I do not want to be white. I want to pull my whiteness off like stinky hiking socks. I do not want to be the settler, I do not want to be this white. I want to be a human being, I want to be the color of belonging.
Looking back at this experience, I was feeling shame. We often talk about white guilt, but my experience is different. Brené Brown has helped me understand the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt says, “I’m sorry. I made a mistake.” Shame says, “I am sorry. I am a mistake.” The “mistakes” of dehumanizing, exploiting and oppressing people over centuries cut deeply into me. It is not something I can brush of with a, “Sorry, we did some bad things,” which would be guilt. More accurate to my experience is the feeling of shame that says, “Sorry, we failed you. We failed to care for you. And I feel rotten about that, I feel like a moral monster.”
Instead of standing around making small talk, I head for the anonymity of the book signing line where it is socially acceptable to turn your back to people. Stacyann takes her book from me, and uses an orange sharpie to sign her name. I have an urge to tell her that I am from South Africa (she mentioned visiting there), but instead I express my gratitude.
Around me people mingle and eat sliced cucumber and tuna dip and my belly begs to join them. But my insides have turned into a monolithic block of shame surrounded by a moat of unworthiness. There is no space for cherry tomatoes. There is no room to manufacture small talk.
I decide to leave. Halfway home I realize I’d left my hat behind. My first thought is to forget about it. Hats don’t matter anyway. But this is my most beloved winter hat constructed of discarded woolen jackets, lined with olive cotton and knitted triangles where it wraps around my ears. I turn around reluctantly.
I think about my wish for redemption, my hope to shed this boulder of shame. I wish it was as easy to reclaim my humanity as it is to go back for my hat. As if one day you notice that a great part of you has been soiled by systems of oppression and you can simply go back in time and find your innocence and sense of belonging neatly folded under a seat. And you can cover your cold head and walk into the confusing darkness of a city, warmed with a sense of connection and held in the hope that we can make it right together.
I think about my desire to tell (or should I say “confess to”) Stacyann that I am from South Africa and that I lived under apartheid. That it was my people who tortured Winni Madikizela Mandela, whose activism was celebrated this evening.
I imagine the best scenario: Stacyann listens and says, “I am so glad you are here tonight. I know you and your people have caused much harm, but this is a new day and you get to write a different story. I can tell that you are working on a better narrative.”
In my imagination, I smile at her and say, “Yes. Yes I am.” She gets up from behind the table and we hug each other. The stone of shame crumbles under the acceptance of a painful past and the recognition of our shared humanity. A sense of spaciousness opens inside me. My gaze, my heart, my hands turn outward as I walk into the social hall of Braddock Library. I eat cherry tomatoes and cucumbers. I hold the tiny black baby. I hug a friend and I am unafraid to ask how she is doing after her recent police incident. Our lives flow into each other. In my imagination I belong. I belong not despite my past, but also because of it. Because I understand its harm, because I am working toward healing and because I know that despite it all, everyone of us is worthy and we all belong to each other.
When I get to the library where the event was held, the cucumbers and tomatoes are packed into plastic containers and stand stacked at the door, ready to go. I retrace my steps through the auditorium, restroom and social hall. Most people have left. I leave for a second time, empty-handed. When I get home I tell the hats on my hat stand that we lost a buddy.
I stand in front of my bathroom mirror. I can’t depend on other people’s words to restore my sense of worth and belonging in this world. “Hannah,” I say as I look into my weary eyes, “Hannah, I am glad you are here tonight. I know about all the terrible things in the past and how they inform the present. But this is a new moment and you are writing a different story. Remember that you are a good human. You are a gooood human. You are a beautiful soul. Keep doing your work, keep showing up for justice, keep caring for all the bodies in the world.”
The next day I share this experience with a friend. She says, “Maybe this feeling of shame is what helps us create a world where no one needs to feel ashamed. A world where we can belong because of our past, our skin color, our abilities, because of who or how we choose to love or worship, a world where all people can live with dignity and have their needs met.”
Shame is a poor foundation on which to construct a better world, but it is part of the territory we need to trek through toward wholeness. I’ll write more about transforming shame into accountability and action and about cradling our feelings of unworthiness in the spaciousness of love. Oh, and I must tell you — a friend of mine found my hat!
If you want to receive email updates from us at Fit Associates (that will include more writings on this topic and as well as other news) please sign up on the link below.
