ACLU FLASHBACK.

As much as I’d like to imagine myself dressed in George Washington-esque garb, with one foot up on the bow, chin up, bouncy white curls blowing in the winds of democracy…. I confess to feeling mostly inadequate when it comes to taking up space in the world. I have a difficult time naturally being comfortable outside of my own happy home, let alone being thrust into a group of 300 strangers and forced to openly discuss the state of affairs in our country. Needless to say, lobbying sounded like the last thing on earth I would be good at. But here I digress: the ACLU  (American Civil Liberties Union) would provide childcare for the first time at a seminar in Sacramento that aims to empower constituents with tools to mold our government and change unjust laws. (Thank you, Tamara, for insisting that mothers with children are a valuable force when it comes to changing the world.)

I could take my two older children with me to a full day of training followed by a day of lobbying at the capital. I could demonstrate what I so often preach, “we can do hard things.” I could show them, and in doing so possibly fail miserably, which would be something else that I can’t shut up about: FAIL is an acronym that stands for First Attempt In Learning. I had no excuse not to do this thing. We would confidently march through those white pillars dating back 125 years, past metal detectors and armed guards, and hunt down our states assemblymen and senators so that we could figuratively and literally open new doors to express our demands as “we the people.”

I didn’t do this thing on a complete whim. This winter I had the pleasure of attending a training course by the ACLU in Fresno. I felt assured that a woman like me: white, middle-class citizen, living in a systematically white supremacist society, had a bit of a duty to learn more about the existing laws that make our society just so. I have discovered things that make it impossible for me to ignore, feel shame about, or perpetuate, what being white is. A host of books led me to seek out a new education of what history has held for “not white” people. I could contribute in this demand for justice that so many people have been fighting for, year after year, trampled constitutional right, after trampled constitutional right... way before it got cool; people who have led lives cursed by a fear under existing laws and witnessed the brutality left in the wake of lost liberties.

I have hope that a new privilege; one where I acknowledge the lives of these people who have battled hardships outside of my knowledge: Black, Latino, Asian and native people of color- will enable me to hear their wisdom and face the challenges ahead with camaraderie. These races and many others have left timelines riddled with their rights ignored. They continue to challenge this country for interpreting them as “not-white” in an attempt to end the repeated crimes against them, ones that benefit the wealthiest and the most powerful. I am aware that my interpretation of life is often rosy in comparison to those battling systematic racism. I don’t know what it personally feels like to be judged based on my race, but it is imperative that I hear the stories from those who do so that I can understand what life in America looks like outside of my white veil.

In the first workshop of our day-long training, I was able to choose between several very necessary and important topics. Some of them I felt I had a grasp on already from reading, so I made an effort to attend the workshops that offered knowledge about topics I was mostly unfamiliar with. The first workshop I attended was called “ICE out of California”. I learned what it means to be a sanctuary state, and how the law is being broken by our local authorities. Each time an officer ignores our 14th amendment, arrests “people” and detains them without due process of law, our laws become worthless. These authorities then deliver people to the hands of immigration and customs authorities (ICE), an action that is prohibited under the law.  

And I can already hear my very conservative community telling me, “If people can’t make a good decision then the government has to make it for them…” I can get on board with this if we are talking about children, which is the common analogy people make; sometimes my kids, all 4, decide that the dinner I prepared for them is not their favorite, but I demand that they eat it anyway. But parenting is an authoritative role, a dictatorship if you will. And passively defending our law enforcement by these tyrannical concepts not only undermines the battles we have fought through history to create and maintain our democracy but also allows the rights that you value as a citizen to be jeopardized.

The first step I can take to protect myself from those who would hand our rights over to a dictator is to understand the laws that are being broken; like (Senate bill) SB 54.

“California Senate Bill 54 effectively makes California a “sanctuary state” by legalizing and standardizing statewide non-cooperation policies between California law enforcement agencies and federal immigration authorities.”(Federation for Fair American Immigration Reform)

This is the current law, regardless of any federal lawsuit that aims to attack our states attempts at establishing very standard rights for undocumented immigrants. Other bills such as (assembly bill) AB 450, and AB 103, are also included in this attack. We often acknowledge that the system is flawed in our state and our country when it comes to handling the lives of the 11 million immigrants living here. These bills are attempting to make strides to correct those flaws. It is “unfinished work” an ACLU veteran named Korina explained to me. She is not fighting with an unrealistic goal to fix all the injustice in our world but to continue chipping away at it. Demanding rights for all people is her walk in life now. She may not see the benefit of her unremitting determination, but she is well aware that the struggle is worthy.   

When other people suffer under the law of our land, we all suffer. Doing nothing about this issue is leaving a clear path for those who would ignore the rights of others. We are mothers, capable of empathizing with a woman who is ripped from the clutches of her children, slandered as a “criminal” without any due process of law, and detained while she awaits deportation. It is a nightmare to imagine. When others call her an “illegal” or a “criminal” we know she has a different name within her family. We know how needed she is and valued she is for her role as a caregiver. The deficit she leaves when local authorities assist ICE in yanking her from the community like a weed is not available jobs for citizens or less criminal activity. The void left when we allow people to be nothing short of kidnapped is a vacancy filled with anger and hurt and massive shortcomings for those who depend on her.

“Alejandra Galacia, 35, said she hardly left her home, not even to buy groceries, the week of the ..arrests. The Lamont resident said she worried about being separated from her three young daughters.” (Andrea Castillo, New York Times)

History has so much to offer us when it comes to unjustly marking someone as a villain without first trying them in a court of law. Our country has made this mistake over and over. The 14th Amendment reminds us that we have rights as citizens, but also that any “person” in this country is entitled to respect under the law:

“...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Our communities across this state and others are standing idly by while a precedent is set; one that tells undocumented immigrants that they should be afraid, that reporting violence, or criminal activity in their own lives, will likely result in them being torn from their families. How can this fear make us safer? One day of lobbying won't save the world from tyranny. This battle continues every time I speak to another citizen who narrowly defines a group of people as “illegals”. And while our federal laws and state laws continue to conflict, I will reach out in my community to volunteer, and speak up for those who cannot.

If you feel like your own voice has a passion and purpose, I full-heartedly recommend looking into joining the ACLU. I also recommend talking to someone who disagrees with your views because it's easy to get tunnel vision and forget that usually we as people are not as polarized as we think we are (thanks, Dad.)

-Emily

 “From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbor’s rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own”

-Carl Schurz

WHAT’S IN A NAME? Letting Labels Get the Better of Our Curiosity.

It’s easy to call the things we don’t understand “weird”.  It’s natural that when we aren’t accustomed to a person, or a place, or a thing, suddenly a feeling of apprehension may rise up inside of us. Often times when a situation gets weird, what it really becomes is something we have yet to understand.

I fall prey to relying on my ego like any other well-meaning human. I get nervous and my armpits start sweating when I’m forced to openly deal with situations that unfurl outside of my comfort zone. Thankfully, crows feet and stretch marks advance with wisdom. I am at least aware of this universal fear; being the last one to know, or worse, being totally wrong about something in the face of others. This shame that accompanies a lack of knowledge thwarts me from moving forward, prevents me from asking questions, distracts me from actively listening to an offered explanation, and ultimately halts me from being the best version of myself. I should be proudly demanding a better understanding of the world around me, not shrinking from my duty as a lifelong learner.

Unfortunately, our egos seem to retaliate at the first signs of humility, throwing out an obstruction to block the concepts that we haven’t collected enough information about. Instead of displaying the vulnerability necessary to learn something new, we resort to quickly labeling something: “That is so gross…” “He seems really strange...” “You’re weird...”  What we are really sharing about ourselves with these statements is that we haven’t yet learned anything necessary to make an honest judgment. The ego says, who cares, say something quick. And out comes the least bit of knowledge we have; “Whoa, what a freak…”

All these labels got me thinking about prejudice; those thoughts that determine who or what someone is based on an accumulation of brain garbage: like bottom of the pyramid jokes, about sexism, race, or disabled people; “harmless” and oh so foundational for all the “real” hurt that we condemn at the apex level. I can’t make it through an 80’s family movie now without pausing multiple times to explain to my kids why someone would find domestic violence or overt sexual objectification entertaining, or why people of color are demeaned into portraying one type of character over and over. These were the movies that raised me. It takes effort to peel the labels away and see things for what they truly are.

As a mom, my job is to fill in the blanks a handful of times a day as my children discover new things and inadvertently quiz me on them. My prejudices become discriminations once they are out of my head, acting as a guide to my kids. My first defense against foolishly labeling things is to harness enough strength to get vulnerable. Channel your inner Brene Brown and give other people in your immediate vicinity courage to do the same. Say bold things like “I know nothing about that” or “I am open to learning about that”.

Prejudice is a sneaky F’er. It can disguise itself as well-meaning; like telling a kid who's worked hard to achieve something that he or she is “smart”. It’s a compliment that adults once dished out to us as children, and we now feel compelled to do the same. My son labors through long division, and gets the wrong answer, and starts over, and fails again, and through tears and my insistence, he tries again. He has the right answer now. And my prize to him is this label; “you are so smart”, an empty compliment that’s got negative consequences down the road.

Later, when he is without my praise, and the world around him gets unclear, or complicated, will he remember that I told him over and over that he was smart? His ego will have grown with his size, and he may choose to rely on what I told him instead of identifying and dealing with confusion. He may refuse the lesson, or the struggle to understand, based on all that he already knows because he’s “smart”. “That looks lame” he may say, about some kid performing a monologue; about a girl asking him to dance at Sadie Hawkins; about a backpacking trip to the desert with some friends... Smart people know things, they don’t actively engage with new concepts that look challenging. Being smart is a full-time job, and if it’s the nicest compliment someone has given you, why wouldn’t you work against trying new things or ideas in order to keep being the same old smart?

What I needed at his current age was someone to glorify failing. If someone had demonstrated that wrong answers lead to right ones, that being good at one thing doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of struggling towards victory in other areas, I would have been less likely to throw in the towel on so many things that I was curious about. I could have had the liberty to try the things that only my heart knew I wanted. Imagine a grown up not complimenting a young girl on how pretty she is, or how strong her brother is, and instead asking them with positive vigor, “what challenged you most today?”

How can we get past our first line of defense, our ever ready egos, and respond to new situations with carefree curiosity? Let’s be baffled and enthralled and let labels have the day off. What if we placed more value on wondering? I am attempting to parent by harnessing the magic of learning. It’s painful sometimes, addressing the plethora of things that I don't know. I am grateful each time my quest to understand leads me to ever more brilliant questions. I strive to be a student of life and hope to give you permission to do the same.

-Emily

THE HARDEST THING- Our Unique Struggles are Shared Triumphs.

What is the hardest thing that you have ever done? I once tried to answer this question. I think it’s obviously motherhood, but since that is never “done” it feels like a misnomer. There are plenty of hours left that will fluctuate between failure and triumph on this thing that feels like an endurance triathlon. My strength gives out, but I find a hand reaching down to pull me out of waist-deep mud: another competitor in the hardest-thing-you’ve-ever-done race, willing to share my struggle so that we can both make it through another hour.

I attest that this is the heart of all triumph; I am a badass, home-birthing mother of four: couldn’t have done it without my husband, his faith in me, his strength and love: my mother-in-law, supporting my living children so that I could focus on the ones I was pulling from the birth water: my sister, holding my hand as I laboured, representing our shared history, our shared future, validating my heart for all it knows and feels.

Maybe that is the hardest thing we'll ever do; allowing that hand to pull us out of the mud. Or taking command when we recognize there is a loss of offered hands and resorting to shouting from the mud, “Fuck! I’m stuck! I need somebody to pull me out!” How are we to know that anyone will offer a hand? It’s a moral struggle, that inability to thrive in a given situation and that hope that someone has got to give a damn.

Spirituality calls upon an almighty. We were never intended to make it alone. We can’t. We need a savior. If there is not a tangible hand to grasp onto amid the hardest thing you have ever done, you have forgotten god. Usually, a “He” has been there all along but you just had to trust that help would be provided if you went through this third party first. “He” is like a broker that can distribute the goods if you will invest in “Him”.

I think it’s okay to acknowledge this mode of thinking; this belief, and use it to your own advantage. Yes, we are not complete. We are not perfect or able to do it all alone. Here are other humans. Here, even, is a god that looks like a human, to wean you off the idea that you can do it alone. This is Jesus. He is a dude. But look how if you put your faith into fellow humans, you can do hard things! Call it a miracle if you want to, or an example that you can use to love your neighbor, and in doing so, love yourself.

I want to meet “god” or “spirituality” on a two-part exchange. I know the bible says it can’t be done, but maybe that’s open to interpretation. “God” is my neighbor, the one that I have to trust will pull me from my muck. I can no better trust without fear of rejection, that an invisible deity will save me, than a flesh and blood relatable human walking the same earth. I feel more compelled to ask this fallible human, with a face, and a reality that won’t be encrypted in forgotten customs and misinterpreted languages.

The hardest thing I have ever done in this respect is trusted that I can meet god in the eyes of people on this earth. I have lived through abandonment and struggled with self-doubt. I have walked in shoes that I didn’t feel I deserved to fill. I have made the mistake of believing that I was better than other people, lost in a facade where no one could understand my tiny, complicated world. But I experience freedom from all of that when I connect with another person. I trust that life is cruel and wonderful, that every unique person has a story unparalleled and that this life has prepared each of us to assist someone else who is struggling.

Perhaps the hardest thing, before we can cultivate trust in our fellow humans, is the hell of going inside; pulling up that hardship that you faced; using how the cruel world molded you to fit the missing piece of someone’s solace. This is a daily hell because all of us have experienced pain and sadness. I struggle still to offer my hardships as pieces to other’s triumphs. I reflect on a world where terrible things have marred our existence. We are only human, and it is reliable that we will fail to extend that hand, or fail to find the courage to grasp the hand that is extended.

I know that god is in each one of us. If I fail to acknowledge that; If I forget that I am worthy of meeting that god in other people, I will continue trying to do the hardest things on my own, and never succeed. Sharing the struggle is real. And sharing the triumph is the greatest thing I have ever done.

-Emily

GENDER SPLINTERS.

Photo credit to @tribedemama and @jakobland. See full Instagram post here.

I feel apprehensive about liking this pic. Not at first. Initially, I think it’s a woman; she is lounging back in the picture, long lean arms stretching out reveal tufts of hair in her armpits, like delicate air plants peeking down. She has a full mouth and eyes that are focused straight at the lens, daring me to glance down at the exposed nipples protruding from her tank top all askew. I look, but no boobs. Just little round flesh beads on a flat chest.

I am confused that my immediate reaction is envious. Then, like a shield, defensive. She is not a woman. She is a man feeling like a woman.

I try to retrace my steps like I have misplaced what’s important. Let me go back to solve this mystery of envy. Not having boobs? Is that it? Or, being able to carelessly free those little flesh nubbs for the world to see? Is it because nipples on a set of pecs don’t have to engage with gravity, be pulled on by the mouths of four babes and stretched to extremities upon birth as the deluge of milk fills them? To not have breasts means freedom from the hopeless struggle to maintain what my victoria's secret bra only knows; my boobs aren’t shaped like this once I’m naked, and free from the restrictions I allow to rule me, my woman body: full high breasts; being beautiful and confident as I march around the world as an ideal, and then reaching behind me as I walk through my bedroom door to unhook the restraints there, lashed around me in the form of lace, confining my bosom to not be what it is. I pull the black bra expertly out through my shirt sleeve and fling it away from me across the bed. My mammory sexobjects relax back against my rib cage. Deflated of all they were moments ago.

Envious? Yes. Fuck yeah. If I wasn’t expected to have a rack, I could have hated myself less, could have spent the valuable time wasted on obsessing over my boobs in comparison to perfect boobs, and instead thought about what field of science I would like to someday major in. Without tits.

I could sit here shirtless in my front yard, feel the warmth on my bare skin without any of the shame or judgment or rule breaking.

Okay. So the defensive feeling is protecting me from these thoughts. This human born a boy will never know the displeasure that the expectation of breasts are. He can enjoy all the feminine posture in this picture, and not have stars hiding his societal-owned nipples on Instagram. Can I move on from this thought? Can I allow that he has struggled in ways that I cannot fathom, to experience being a woman?

How much is a man able to try on being a woman, like a silky blouse caressing softly against his skin, one that he can take off when it confines his movement?  Does he know the struggle that each girl endures to fill the form that is expected of her? Not just my body, my mind, my dreams, the pure rapturous expectations of my own that were stolen from me as I grew and admitted silently that I could never fulfill, never come to fruition, this wholeness of human form. Unattainable for me. Make it less. Hide it away. Shave it off. Conceal it. Pipe down. Stand up straight and quiet and submissive.

And the impression I make?... with my hairy legs, and my overgrown mess of armpit hair, my opinionated thoughts manifesting into words, my careless adoption for fashion and makeup? “Who does she think she is? A man?”

Can I be a woman, please? Can I be this woman? Without a campaign or a soapbox, can I just exist as a complete entity without disgusting those around me?

And now I might be starting to get it. She has asked himself this same thing. She hasn’t walked in my bare woman feet. She doesn’t know MY struggle. But she knows hers: and it is every bit as arduous and even more condemned; to be born to rule the world, to make a mythical ‘help-meet’ from the sinew of your very own rib, and still to choose to follow what is written on your heart; beating there beneath the prairie of your flat landscaped chest.

I must admit that you have something I want, person that I only know through one Instagram picture. Maybe this surprises you, or perhaps you have come across many white privileged woman complaints. But you have also helped me to understand that we both want some of the same things. And it isn’t just looking like a goddess owning the room; it’s respect: an acknowledgment, that choosing to be something other than what the world expects of you is complete bad-assery, unabashedly brave, and deserves focus by a larger majority unwilling to consider that. Maybe we are in this together, because I feel stronger knowing that others are boldly facing obstacles about their identity, and rewriting what a human can be. So, I guess what I really feel is gratitude. Thank you for helping me get there.

-Emily

DIGGING UP WHITE ROOTS- HOW HISTORY GREW MY MIND.

I would like to propose that we create for the American people a month dedicated to white history. I know... Morgan Freeman says history is history, but I can’t help but feel that white people need some special emphasis, like a dedicated 30 days out of an already white year of history, to explore the inception of what a white race is.

Our eyes come into focus as we sift through the very familiar stories of a collective past. We unveil those tarnished gems that many have not heard. The revived luster of this forgotten history could illuminate the dark corners of those bleached hearts; ones that may beat even as this sentence is written, or as it is read; stories responsible for stripping the common, pink color once present in all of our collective chests.

Let’s start with the impressive narrative of our nation; it is an account claimed predominately by the pale hands of Englishmen. Our history was written by European colonists. They documented the stamina required to create a country, ensuring that future Americans would always be aware of the labor involved in tinkering and thinking; lofty hobbies when one isn’t confined to toil and starve.

The great ideas of the past are enshrined by god-like descriptions of Christian men. Valiantly our forefathers wrote rules to a game that they could win. While writing our constitution they determined that a future America could perhaps live without slavery; but the idea of abolishing it would not even be open for discussion before twenty more years of free profits had been extracted from the lives of their current enslaved people. The framers conspired and compromised and created a country, while the most severe foundational work was achieved by nameless humans called servants and slaves.

 Black History is American history. Deeply entrenched in this too often unexamined story is the birth of an institution that we continue to  brush off as a long begone belief; that “white people are superior to those of all other races, especially the black race, and should therefore dominate” (first definition given for ‘white supremacy’ with a Google search). This measly definition sets the stage for any half decent human in our society to shun the very idea. ‘I don’t “feel” that way, therefore my conscience is absolved from giving any further thought to the matter.’ But what unresolved issues surface when we read a complete definition of white supremacy?

“...an historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent; for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power and privilege” (Sharon Martinas 1995 CWS Workshop)

This definition is packed full. Without history, we can never get all of its contents out of the bag. What nations were exploited? What historical figures were oppressors? Who were the beneficiaries of this privilege? What have we internalized from our history?

At first I asked myself, what wealth and power did I have while my mother was waiting for the food stamps to arrive? We were car-less and often homeless. I couldn’t wrap my head around any extra that my whiteness had given me.

I remember vividly what the stereotype towards twentieth-century, ragged white, welfare kid, felt like. I was poor, but I could get my dad’s side of the family to buy me an authentic Stussy T-shirt, and during recess, when that well-to-do kid reached in my collar and flipped out my tag, I could have a victorious moment basking in what it felt like to be a whole person. Not being poor was an attainable dream  It was something I could work hard to change and prevent that stereotype from attacking me in the future.

Now imagine that I can’t alter my poverty. Let’s pretend that poverty is a skin color and no matter what I do; the clothes I wear, the goals I obtain; a whole society only sees the poverty of my skin. Generations of children grew up with this stereotype called racism. It hacked into who they were, and who they could become.

But let’s get back to being white. This “Institutional racism” that you hear about has been around since the beginning of our great nation. It is credited with taking a motley crew of immigrants and renaming them “white”.  In this way, our ancestors who struggled (but chose) to sail to a land not native to them; who lived by the skin of their teeth, and died to give birth to new ways of thinking; were promised a monetary gain in the form of a thought:

‘You may be poor as your lawmakers grow rich on your labor; you may toil so relentlessly that you and your children and your children’s children will be unable to attain an education; you may not have the means to afford a voice in determining the laws of the nation you die for, but as consolation, you can be white.’

And the rest is white history, written through each decade with a firm grasp on the so called prize of superiority; while the majority of white Americans were poor, disenfranchised and uneducated, twenty percent of the American population was considered ⅗ of a person; the white American owned his squalor, whether it be in the north or the south, while at the same time black Americans were coerced into “the largest and most rapid mass internal movement in history” (Nicholas Leeman, 1991).  A thirsty White American, poor as she may be, could still drink from the same fountain that her wealthy lawmaker drank from. While each class shared the common watering hole of the rich, segregation ripped across the hearts of black men and women and children.

Our own Supreme Court denied any discrimination with ‘separate but equal’ policies, in Plessy v. Ferguson. This was the precedent for the next 60 years. Finally Brown v. Board of Education declared, “To separate [children]... solely because of their race, [causes] a feeling of inferiority...that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone…”

These are the words from our own Judiciary system, recognizing that the damage done to black Americans would be insurmountable to mend; that the unwillingness to embrace the history of a people who built a nation, would not be undone, even 60 years later with the exultant election of a president whose skin was brown.

White supremacy lives like a silent floating cell, passed down through generations to each person who has never known better and as such, cannot do better. To me, February is a moment to focus on learning and teaching a history that hasn’t become mainstream. I don’t agree that to end racism we need to stop talking about it. Sorry Morgan Freeman.

Talking about race is scary. I hope that by celebrating black history with emphasis this month, and with passionate interest for the rest of my life, that my kids won’t feel that fear. I live in a society where no one has ever judged me for my skin color. I don’t have to fear that my children will be detained (or worse) by the law based on their skin. When I drive by 3 consecutive streets in the town of Oakhurst named: Black, Spook, and Hangtree, I can identify that if I had black skin I would be tormented by this. There was a time where those streets meant nothing to me. But I know better now.

-Emily