Before I left for West Africa, there was a lot of talk about
Kony 2012. A topic that has
confused me and challenged me and forced me to think hard about the things I
really believe about social justice and the role of social media in social change. Because I work with young
people who are borderline obsessed with “changing the world”, the mission of
Kony 2012 immediately resonated with me. Though I clicked on it with hesitation, and really hemmed and hawed over sharing the link, I ultimately decided to do it. Kony
represented to me a campaign that would encourage young people to educate
themselves about international issues they wouldn't necessarily know about, help put a name to a place, and to fight for “justice”, a huge bulbous word with thousands of
meanings, in the face of what appeared to be such egregious acts of human injustice happening in Uganda.
Using tools of social media to connect
masses of people behind a specific issue, Kony 2012 would press systems that
local people rarely have genuine access to, systems of politics and power that appeared to oppress people, to make changes. Yes, ignorant. Yes,
oversimplified. Yes, perhaps
motivated through American white privilege and guilt. And, yes, perhaps not conducted as a local campaign, but rather by an American
tourist who found himself overwhelmed by the fear and vulnerability he encountered in his new
Ugandan friends, something I can relate to as a traveler and as an "adventure explorer". Sometimes you encounter things that
make you sick and seem to go against everything you know to be just and true. And you don’t know
what to do with yourself but start talking about it, no matter how ignorant you
may sound, or how uninformed you may be.
And sometimes that’s how things start.
Sometimes, you have to take a risk. And put yourself out there for criticism behind something you
believe in. Which is something most of us nurture
in our children. If you believe in
something, stop at nothing to achieve it.
The immediate scrutiny of this campaign as "racist" and “western imperialism”
came across to me as just as pompous as the campaign itself. The criticism went viral almost as
quickly as the video. The snarky
leftist commentary and the uppity op-eds from the bookish websites and magazines
that I, too, read daily starting pouring in and I was struck with this feeling
of defensiveness that I didn’t expect from myself, as I’m usually the one to be
critical and snarky.
But you
well-seasoned do-gooders have forgotten something critical: you too were once stupid and uninformed
and blindly passionate about something you knew nothing about. Time, age, and experience are the only
things that help you refine that passion, and tame your actions into
responsible, sustainable ones.
These are things that are learned through practice. Through watching failed reform efforts instituted by people who don't have to live the daily life, who are disconnected from the core of the real work. We, of all people, should understand the intentions of where Kony 2012 came from.
I was disappointed in my peers who so
quickly dismissed this young man’s passion as “racism” and surprised at how few
people were cheering how quickly Kony 2012 spread. How fast it became viral. How many people shared it. The real power behind these tools of media and Facebook and Twitter. Clearly, there was something powerful in his film. It hit the right notes with people. And not just young white college students. More than 800 million people watched this video in less than a week. That's powerful.
People are generally pretty shocked to
learn about what is happening in places that the Western media doesn’t talk about (unless of course something has happened to an American there). Not everyone reads Al Jeezera and the
BBC Africa everyday. Not
everyone knows Africa isn’t a country.
Fact: most people are
blindly ignorant about most of the world, not
because they choose to be, but because there is limited access to real information. Because it takes digging to find the
real news underneath America’s obsession with all things celebrity.
And now, having had a few weeks to really think about it, I
understand more why Kony 2012 was a misguided mission. How damaging it probably has been for
local Ugandans. And really for
many Africans who got lumped together in the video’s oversimplification of
“Africa”. I understand the snarky
skepticism. But I still hold onto
this notion that we have to begin somewhere. And that there is work to be done that most people don't know about. And is it really such a crime to inform people about these things?
Right after I arrived in Ghana, with a bitter taste in my mouth
about Kony, the news about Trayvon Martin was beginning to go viral, and I
watched from half-way around the world as my friends and family posted articles
and pictures rallying against the racial injustice of this young man’s
murder. I read as much as I could
download on the slow internet connection and was fed information mostly through
social media, again, impressed with the power of this tool to spread information
across the world with such immediacy. As the Facebook
posts and bloggers began to dig deeper, I watched as people began to make
connections between Kony and Trayvon.
Between racial injustice and systemic and structural racism. Between US immigration law and
Trayvon. Between white guilt, a
hunger to “fix things” perhaps not really broken in the first place and a color-blindness,
a product of privilege, that sometimes hurts people more than it helps.
And it seems Trayvon Martin has become something even
bigger in the last few days. Maybe because the case is as
blatant and obvious as can be to anyone with eyes and ears, and this has become
a vehicle for exposing thousands of narratives about people’s real racial fears. Or maybe because this was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
To call Trayvon Martin a symbol of
racial injustice would be a gross underestimation of how common Martin’s story
has become. And not just because of this one case, but because Martin seems to have broken the chain of silence about the
hundreds of thousands of others that happen everyday to Americans who aren’t
white. Trayvon has triggered honest
dialogue about what's really happening in 2012. About what our
supposedly “post-racial Obama” age is all about. And here's a hint: it’s far from post-racial. And we’re far from an age of racial justice.
Traveling through West Africa as a young white woman seems to be an almost perfect
setting for thinking about racial injustice. Just that sentence made me want to gag a little. Spending my afternoon in a castle built by the Portuguese
in the 1400s, with slave dungeons that shackled thousands of human beings to
each other at a time for hundreds of years, couldn’t be a more fitting setting
to think about institutional racism.
To think about the power of colonialism and western imperialism. To think about fear and vulnerability
and what can go wrong when masses of people pursue actions they don’t fully
understand. To try and put Kony and Martin in context.
To think about how
power can water down reason and judgment.
How someone can blindly support things that are at their roots evil and
wrong without even knowing it. How
you could be a business man in New York City in the late 1700s, unknowingly
supporting the capturing of thousands of Africans to be enslaved, by buying and
importing his cane sugar from Cuba, and investing his money in a ship he was
most likely unaware would be filled to the boughs with human bodies along the
slave trade triangle. Or perhaps
we’ve given him too much credit, and he did know. How you could be an American housewife who employs a young
black woman to help you raise your children, not because you think you can’t do
it alone, or because you’re participating in slavery, but because the culture
of your time says you have to do this.
You have to hire this woman.
And that she isn’t your peer.
And that she doesn’t deserve to be paid well or have access to the same
systems you do. Or perhaps we’ve
given her too much credit. And she
did know.
These are the systems that were built by our country. These systems that so many of us have
fought against for more than a century, and probably will continue to fight against for many more.
And to not acknowledge that the foundational backbone of modern America
has been built on the economics and structural deficiencies of slavery, is a
painful form of ignorance and bigotry, perhaps more deadly than a young black
man being murdered because he’s young and black and a potential threat.
I think about racism a lot. Perhaps its because I encounter it so frequently in my work
and in my travels. Or because I
work at a private liberal arts college where topics about racism and social
injustice are daily conversations I have with my students. Maybe its because of the way I
was raised and the community I grew up in, and thankfully, the open-mindedness
of my family. Or its because of
the many interracial relationships I’ve been in over the years, and the way
I’ve felt when we hold hands in certain places or kiss in public (or the way my partners have been treated for dating a white woman). Or the way I watch my loved ones
grapple with racism in daily actions—going to the grocery store, going to the
mall, eating in restaurants, going on vacation—and I can’t ignore it.
Being in Ghana, and Togo, and Benin, places a realness for me to what it feels like to be
a racial minority. I feel the heat
here of being white. I carry the weight of my ancestors actions, something every white person should experience at some point in their life. I feel the insecurity of
being one of few with my skin color, a skin color that has literally raped the continent of it's dignity and grace.
For being put on spot to represent my race—and my country—that
everything I do is distinctly “Caucasian” and “American”. I'm Obroni. Yevu. White person. Foreigner. Outsider. "Other". And I see the damage we've done to these communities. The beauty and strength of the African people and their traditions and the ways the "white man" overrode it, made it shameful, and built new structures and rules that made African people subordinate to white people. Made the religions and practices of the white people superior to the religions and practices of the African people. Not just physical slavery, but mental slavery. We colonized people's minds, not just their communities.
Which is hard to stomach upon re-entry into America. Watching the little video in customs welcoming people to the land of opportunity, knowing full and well most of the poor immigrant families I know struggle for respect. Struggle for legitimate work. Struggle to be seen as peers. As equals.
And knowing just how exhausting it is, for two or three weeks at a time, to feel as though I've been held accountable for everything the "white man" did to Africa (which is perhaps more my own mental infliction than what is really happening), I can't help but translate my experience as the norm. Which is something I hear a lot from my
students of color back in the States.
That they’re such a minority on campus or in their workplace or in their faith community, that they are asked,
everyday, to represent their entire race. That they’re put on spot to be the
voice of "Black" or "Latino" everyday, and in every class, and how its utterly exhausting to
feel so alone. And so
misunderstood. And so
representative of “other”.
To say
I understand that feeling because of my collective eight or nine months worth
of time spent in West Africa would be grievously ignorant and would be
dismissive to the experiences of Black Americans who fight this fight every
single day of their life. But to
say I’ve become more empathetic to the exhaustion and to the overwhelming
emotional toll it takes to be representative of a group of people would be true. And to say I think white people have really fucked over a lot of people of color would also be true. And it's like a reflex for so many people. Racism is something they can't even hear in their voice, or in their hushed tones. In their reflections on what happened today on the city bus. In their accounting of what made them fearful.
My work and my travels have opened my eyes to the subtle
(and sometimes not so subtle) racism that exists in everyday life. And I guess I can’t ignore it anymore. I can’t pretend it doesn’t exist. Because that’s part of the crime of
Trayvon Martin. So many of us see
it, everyday, and we never stop to challenge it. We never stop to question the police. Or the store manager that follows the
only black man in the store. Or
the group of black women who get chastised as being too loud when they’re just
eating lunch together and having a good time. We walk away,
shaking our head, but remaining silent. Partially because we know we'd be dismissed as the liberal white girl who dates a black man and thus thinks she "gets it". But partially because we're afraid, too. Afraid of what will happen next.
There are days when I feel as though I’ve come full circle
with my own racial identity and awareness over the last ten years (and days where I feel like I'm just starting to "get it"). Which is not
to say that I don’t still have my moments of ignorance. That I don’t still say dumb things
sometimes or find myself in places where my privilege and my race aren’t
painfully obvious as tools for my success. But I feel like I’ve made a lot of growth over the years,
despite where I started on this journey in rural Western North Carolina. I can’t even count anymore the number
of times I’ve found myself a minority, or I’ve found myself in uncomfortable
conversations about race and class, conversations that don’t always end well or
leave me feeling good about myself.
Situations where I’ve had to challenge myself to see beyond the surface,
and to question the beliefs and value systems that have been handed to me as truth
as a member of the white middle class.
Times when I’ve had to risk the acceptance and understanding of my peers
because of something I believe is truly wrong and unjust, or because I’ve been
given a rare internal access point to what life in the other shoes feels like
(something I don’t take for granted, nor assume is comparable to actually being
in those shoes on a daily basis).
And then there’s the frequency with which I see racial injustice. Which is daily, if I’m being honest
with myself.
In the States, I consider myself an ally for my students,
colleagues, and friends who struggle with having their voices heard. Which has been a spot I've earned through years of relationship building and trust-making, not a
spot immediately granted. I’ve found myself in
a career that indirectly supports a lot of people who are victims of
institutional racism. Who are
products of a system that could be challenged as having done more harm than
good, now multiple generations deep in Welfare-supported families and school
systems that have never truly educated their children because of the color of
their skin, and the lack of money in their pockets. And I’ve been blessed to be let in to some intimate circles in these
communities. A place not all white
folk can find themselves. I’ve
been accepted as honest enough to trust and privy to conversations that not all
white people get to hear (and not all white people could stomach to hear). And smart enough to keep quiet when I
need to keep quiet, because that's part of the trust-building and the relationship making. And yes, these
communities have transformed into complex, deeply misunderstood places. The “inner-city”. The “ghetto”. A place many
people talk about but few have truly stepped foot inside to see what’s really
happening there.
Movies and the David Simon’s of the world have taken great
pains to accurately paint the picture:
broken-down systems that tangle incestuously underground and become hopelessly broken,
and no one seems to care except the little kid waiting to be fed a
government-subsidized lunch in a cafeteria infested with rats and cockroaches. And people have mostly stopped there. They’ve seen the movie. Or the television series. They don’t need to know more. They don’t care about the corner store
that has stopped selling breakfast to kids so that they can perhaps attempt to
make it to school on time. Or the
group of retired neighborhood leaders who have decided to sit on their front
porches every day from 2:00 to 4:00 pm to ensure the “school bus”, the
multi-block walk most kids take from school to home, is a safe walk. Or the group of religious leaders who
raise money to send groups of kids on trips around the world so that they can
attempt to be competitive with their suburban and private-school educated peers
when they begin to apply to college.
These stories don’t generally make the front page of the Baltimore Sun. But when a group of black boys beat someone up on the
public bus, it’s in every media outlet.
When a young black man kills someone in front of the Nordstrom in the
County, everyone begins to cluck and shake their heads in unison about how
there is nothing sacred anymore.
When a young black woman beats up a transgendered woman in a McDonalds,
it makes national news.
Which is where things get ugly. Where Kony 2012 becomes western imperialism, and not a plea
for social justice. Where Trayvon
Martin becomes representative of all the racism that happens in everyday life
because Americans genuinely don’t acknowledge black suffering as a part of the
human experience. Which is woefully ignorant. The same kind of ignorance that says because we have a Black president, that we no longer have race issues. Because we don’t
acknowledge that these things happen every day, in every community. We treat this as an exception. And we fail to ask the most critical question: how do the people who live there really feel? What do the people want? How do the people want to move forward?
Our most painful racism is our lack of desire to know more
about each other. To dig
deeper. To really understand the
people and the places that suffer the most. Our willingness to swallow stereotypes and to perpetuate
myths without ever stepping foot in a place we’ve dismissed as broken. To label all Africans as suffering, or
hungry. To label all inner-city
black teenagers as thugs or criminals.
All Muslims as
terrorists. All Latinos as lazy
and stupid.
And then we have our struggles with organized social
justice. In an age of social media
and technology, we are perhaps most ignorant about how to effectively enact
social change without behaving like colonizers. Or imperialists.
We’ve forgotten that at the root of injustice, is a person or a group of
people who are victims. People who
are being oppressed. And that
oppression is never simple. Or
easily stopped. And that,
internally, personal agency must be employed in these communities to really
begin change. Change can’t be applied
from the outside. It must be
nurtured from the inside. Layers
upon layers of heavy corruption tangle the mess and it’s damn near impossible
to find the real cause of a problem, or to identify one person as the perpetuator
and one person as the solution.
Which
is where I struggle the most, professionally, to understand how to best help my
students who are so passionate about helping others. Who are so out-spoken about social change. Who are so ignorant about what’s really
happening in the world, but so blissfully charged to do something anyway that
it’s hard to stop them. How to
teach them to work from the inside.
To understand a community inside and out before suggesting solutions to problems
they’ve interpreted through the lens of “outsider”. To burst their bubble.
To ruin their dreams of being a solution-maker. A peace worker. A
white savior.
Like many of my Facebook friends over the last few days, a
dear friend of mine posted a picture of himself in a hoodie in solidarity with
Trayvon Martin. This friend is a
loyal leader in his community, and someone who supports the young men in his
neighborhood with a passion that can’t be tempered. He is steadfast and loyal to these young men, no matter what
happens to them. Even when they
fall victim to the system and become a statistic. And he’s an internal as you can get. He’s lived in the neighborhood his
whole life, and understands what these boys are up against. He understands the power of
stereotypes. The power of these stereotypes to lead these young men directly to the alley to buy a handgun from someone. The power of these stereotypes to sling on the corner. The power of these stereotypes to build a pipeline from a middle school directly to a juvenile detention center.
Next to his picture
he wrote, “Prepare for War. Pray
for Peace”. I was struck by his
comment. Simple words with a lot
of meaning. We are preparing for
war. A war that actually has already
begun. And has been raging for
years quite silently. A post-racial
Obama age war. A war on
assumptions. A war on
ignorance. And yet we are praying
for peace simultaneously. Wishing
we could close our eyes and tap our heels and find ourselves somewhere else, where
we don’t have to worry about our young black men being shot for being
young. And black. And male.
We are in a unique time in history. Just this morning I woke up to this
article and this
piece and this
one I’m finding myself overwhelmed and nauseated. I don’t quite know what to do with myself. How to make sense of it all. How to take my next step. Short of turning off the computer and
going deep in to the woods, bathing in patchouli, raising goats and becoming a
potter, to hide like some crazy person.
Which is not really the solution, I don’t think.
And as I sit here and process where I’ve just been for the
last few weeks, in places where the colonial structures are literally still
such a part of the fabric of everyday life, I feel particularly lost. And afraid. Afraid that I live in a country that so narcissistically places
itself superior to these places—the civil unrest in Nigeria and Senegal and Uganda,
the fighting in Israel and Palestine, the ethnic wars between Middle Eastern
countries—and yet here we are, fighting our own silent wars against our very
own citizens. And patting
ourselves on the back for our great leadership in the world. For our citizenry. For our community service.
And I’m not sure what else to do. But prepare for war.
And pray for peace.
