hard conversations

I sometimes speak with schoolboys and girls about my son. I tell them he is the best person I know. Not because he's my child. Not because he goes through hell and comes out the other side. But because he doesn't have a mean bone in his body. Calvin loves everyone no matter how fat or wrinkly or dark or skinny or disabled or poor or old or conservative or devout or liberal or ugly or American they are. He makes me want to be a better person every day, and yet I fail.

At a dinner party, I squabble about stories I feel are at best unconscious or implicit bias and at worst bigoted tropes being tossed around the table. Heart pounding, I struggle with whether to say something. Recklessly casting my doubts aside, I dive.

"Now might not be the best time to tell you I am Jewish and Black," I say, which everyone knows is false. I'm trying to make a point, condemn what I find offensive. Immediately, I regret my timing and reaction, my stinging words ruining what is meant to be a fun-filled evening and weekend.

I try to explain my perspective, recounting a time years back when I'd ignorantly used the term "White Trash," thus offending someone, not because she was poor—the comment was not meant to describe her—but because the term is an ugly slur for folks simply trying to eke out an existence. I hadn't before thought it offensive, but realizing with newly-opened eyes my affront, I apologized and have never again used the term. Then someone at our table defends the slur, perhaps to make me feel better, saying that anyone—White, Black or Brown—can be trash. I fiercely insist that human beings aren't trash, silently recalling the dehumanizing rhetoric of despots in describing good people as scum, rats, snakes, infestations. I think of the pathetic detention of refugees in our own nation. Tyrants and fascists seek to malign, blame, shun and eliminate those they deem unworthy. I think of Calvin. The conversation splinters.

I want to ask why being poor and underserved makes someone garbage. I wonder who in our circle, including ancestors, might have been considered as such, wonder how they were treated. I question if judgment is righteous when what it condemns sounds like bigotry. Rather, is the criticism of prejudice prejudice itself?

Still, I regret my initial timing and response, not because my reaction is at once deemed judgmental, but because I hurt someone I love very much. I did not consider fully the goodness of those I chastised. In doing so, did I aggrandize myself? I fear I was too hasty and harsh in my appraisal.

In a hurried moment after dinner I again attempt to address my reaction. First, I apologize for my folly. I want to describe White privilege to someone who has succeeded in the face of great adversity. I don't contest the hard work of anyone, their rising above neglect and conflict, their beating the odds, their ability to shine so brightly when so much of what they have come through and surrounds them is and has been hardship. These truths are evident. But they are not sole truths in existence. What I want is the time and space to say this:

If our names were Ashanti or Trayvon instead of names like Jennifer or John, we might not have gotten that prized interview, that job, that promotion, that apartment, that loan, that house in that nice neighborhood. We'd likely be making far less and paying far more than if our skin were whiter. Our net worth might be ten times less than those of our White contemporaries. If our boys were Black rather than White, depending upon where we live, they'd be three to six-plus times more likely to be pulled over, ticketed, fined, arrested, incarcerated, sentenced—perhaps even shot—for the same infraction as their White counterparts, or for having committed no infraction. If we were Black or Brown, we'd more likely live in food deserts, get subpar educations, drink tainted water, get inferior medical care and insurance, if any, receive less pain management, and be more likely to die in childbirth or languish behind bars. And if our Black children survived, they'd be far more likely to face punishment and detention for the same behaviors as fair-skinned students. If we were Black or Brown, we'd be far more likely to be the victims of predatory lending and voter suppression, far more likely to be thought suspicious, to be stalked in neighborhoods, to be convicted of crimes we didn't commit. It is truth that in this nation white skin affords a smoother, safer path through life and to prosperity than black and brown skin does, which is not the same thing as saying it is necessarily easy.

Later, someone uses the slur "dumpster divers" to describe homeless people, going on to say the majority of them choose to live on the streets and therefore don't deserve her charity. She says, essentially, that reverse racism is a thing. These notions are myths, easily disproved with the slightest scrutiny. For one, prejudice does not equal racism; racism is prejudice plus power (think 400 years of slavery followed by Jim Crow, segregation, state-sanctioned denial of civil rights, the War on Drugs, and current-day voter suppression and mass incarceration all backed by White authorities or, as a friend said, bigotry empowered by the system.) But I don't have a chance to debunk, which is frustrating and regrettable. I'm left wondering why the destitute so often garner contempt rather than compassion.

I go see Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird. I know the story well. I watch the cast of characters—Whites, Blacks, fathers, lawyers, judges, motherless children, maids, innocent defendants, witnesses, poverty-stricken victims, abusers, Klansmen, heroes. Bob Ewell is a poor, White, drunken, racist, deceitful, bullying, abusive, widowed father of eight, and yet I wince when Atticus Finch says he's better than Ewell. I know what Atticus means. But contempt is no virtue, and so I find myself pitying the loathsome offender, but I physically ache for the innocent and doomed Tom Robinson and his family, who are Black, and therefore shackled in most every way imaginable.

I exit the theater making my way through crowded, misty streets thinking about the play and mulling over my earlier exchanges. These are hard conversations, requiring space and time and trust and openness and humility and listening. There are unknown truths we must all unearth, but best with love, respect, acceptance, tenderness, understanding and forgiveness. I close my eyes and think once more of Calvin.

Photo by Michael Kolster

regarding calvin

As my boy sleeps in my lap, in his bed, in our bed, on the couch, I hear the birds chirping outside. I feel the rumble of passing motorcycles and cars, see students strolling down the sidewalk. A week of school has come and gone, yet my boy remains sick at home. In my arms, we rest and pass the hours.

Yesterday, while on the couch together, Calvin looked right at me. This gift is rarely granted, and I found myself luxuriating in his pool-blue and yellow-flecked eyes. I did not take his gaze for granted; it's so rare that I see him look at me—almost never, it seems. But sometimes, when I put my face smack-dab in front of his, he does regard me. As a baby, if memory serves, he used to do it more often. I remember the day he got his glasses when he was a tiny eleven-month-old. It was like I could see the world flooding into his eyes—eyes which before had likely seen only shapes and colors.

Now, for whatever reason (autism, visual fields, seizures, drug side effects) Calvin usually disregards or looks at me peripherally. His eyes jerk and rove from his nystagmus. One eye often turns in, a phenomenon that, vexingly, his former ophthalmologist regularly denied, explaining it away as an optical illusion. No matter how confident I was of my son's eye-drifting or tugging-in (I'm the resident expert in observing Calvin closely) the doctor still rebuffed me.

Tomorrow, hopefully, Calvin will attend his first day of high school. He'll be greeted, fed, diapered, and escorted by a teacher and a staff who have rarely, if ever, worked closely with him. My anxiety is high, afraid he'll choke on food he doesn't chew well, fearful he'll fall off balance on the stairs or run into a door jam like he did this morning. Michael and I understand that Calvin, due to his poor vision (which glasses don't fully correct), his lack of coordination, and caregiver overconfidence or undervigilance, is a walking disaster, an accident waiting to happen. My hope is that the folks at school will regard him closely, will see what he sees and what he doesn't.

Calvin's first day with glasses when he was eleven months old.

some of the best americans

On Monday, it felt like winter still had us in its grip with near-freezing temps and sheets of sleet driving sideways in bitter wind. Yesterday there was a hint of spring, though the crocuses which had emerged last week were pummeled by the rain and suffered badly in the frost. It was quite a rare start to spring vacation which, because of extra hours caring for my non-verbal, incontinent, uncoordinated, restless, seizure-prone son, is never vacation for me. But I shouldn't complain.

Calvin makes it hard for me to write when he is home. Though I try, I'm not as able as I'd like to squeeze out a few sentences between diaper changes and feedings and shadowing him around the house. Often, when I can't seem to focus or find time to put down my thoughts, I wind up reading dribs and drabs of the New York Times and other news. Beyond the stunts which never cease to come out of the current White House, plus the Mueller investigation and the Syrian atrocities, what was troubling to me this week was the arrest of two African American men at a Philadelphia Starbucks. Their crime? Doing exactly what the rest of us do when sitting and waiting for a friend to show up for coffee: nothing.

While taking Nellie on a brisk walk yesterday, I tried to form sentences in my head from my feelings about this nation's ongoing problem with bigotry and racism—the unconscious kind, the implicit kind, the blatant kind. I reflected first about the scores of adults who stare and frown at Calvin in the grocery store, both overtly and subtly attempted, as if afraid of him, repulsed, or both; they have no idea what a sweet, pure and affectionate soul he is.

They only see that he is different.

I then turned my thoughts to race, recalling the moment I first heard a black man—one whom I loved at the time—tell me that (White) society had taught him to fear people like himself. I remembered when a dear friend, a college employee, told me that a White man had driven past shouting "nigger" out the window, telling him to go back to where he came from (Maryland?). I recalled my mother, years ago, assuming that the tall, smart-dressed Black man emerging from a luxury car must have been a professional basketball player. She then cursed me when I rejected her bias by suggesting that he might be a banker, doctor or lawyer. I recounted the time a neighbor told me with certainty that the dude in a hoodie crossing the street to ask for a cigarette had dubious intent. I've had friends embarrassingly gape and remark over a bartender's attractive bundle of dreadlocks. I've heard white folks insist, most erroneously, that the disproportionate rate of African American people in prison is because they are more prone to commit crimes, rather than believe empirical evidence that People of Color, particularly Black people, are more prone to be swept up, stopped and searched due to racial profiling. I've heard White people tell me that African Americans need to "get over" slavery, completely ignorant of the fact that the shackling of Black people never ended, only morphed over decades from slavery into other forms of systematic oppression such as Jim Crow, segregation, discrimination at every civic and societal level, and today's mass incarceration. I've seen too many videos of innocent, unarmed Black men, women and children being beaten and shot by police. I've heard so-called patriots condemn Black athletes' free speech. I've heard too many harrowing accounts of innocent Black victims and their families. I've read numerous op-eds such as one written by Charles Blow, an African American journalist whose son, while walking from the Yale library to his dorm, was accosted by a gun-wielding college police officer. I've schooled myself on our sordid history of Indigenous genocide, slavery, and oppression against People of Color. I've listened to Black people tell their stories. I know them and love them. I trust what they say.

As I trudged over thawing tundra onto gravel and gritty asphalt, I thought further about ignorance and bigotry and how the two are inextricably linked like bitter Maine wind and rain in April. Then I remembered something one of my brothers told me years back just before my move from Seattle to San Francisco.

"I can always tell when someone is gay," he said with a straight face.
"Except when you can't," I retorted.

The concept I offered him seemed to completely escape his grasp, but that was not surprising to me. I wondered if and doubted whether he knowingly had any dear, gay friends.

A similar kind of ignorance, though perhaps more dangerous, is no doubt shared by too many Whites when it comes to race. Many of my White brethren—likely without personal experience—think they know Black people, their motives, their desires, their values, their hearts, their souls. The only notion some White people have about Black people is the racist shit they are fed from watching FOX news and television shows like COPS and listening to folks like Rush Limbaugh. They choose to hear the racist political propaganda and false narratives about welfare queens and drug dealers. They swallow the bigoted and biased media portrayals of innocent Black victims depicted as thugs and perps. They don't know, befriend, love, listen to or believe Black people because of a deep-seated fear or hatred stemming from ignorance.

In the wake of the Starbucks arrests—which brought to mind the mistreatment of Blacks during the Woolworth's lunch counter sit-ins of the 1960s—I heard White folks resort to the same old lame and harmful platitudes: insisting that there must be something more to the story (implying that the Black men in Starbucks must have committed some offense); maintaining that the police officers had zero choice but to arrest; claiming that the men were somehow trespassing, should have bought something or left—something White folks are rarely if ever expected or asked to do.

Time and again I see Black folks' immense capacity for tolerance, forgiveness, resilience, patience, wisdom, charity, honesty, humor and resourcefulness in the face of hatred and bigotry. It makes sense; without these qualities they may have not otherwise endured this centuries-old White winter grip of bitter oppression, victim shaming, punishing, tormenting, threatening, arresting, incarcerating, defaming, scapegoating, torturing and killing of their Black brethren. Their stories are not the stuff of fiction. These wrongdoings and atrocities against Black people are real. Black folks, most who are decedents not of immigrants, but of human beings captured and caged like animals, shipped like cargo across the Atlantic and sold into slavery, their families ripped apart, are some of the best Americans. It's time the rest of us treated them so.

Indivisible, photomontage by Susan Partrige

the best remedy

Patience is the best remedy for every trouble.   

—Titus Maccius Plautus

photo by Michael Kolster

friendship

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Calvin and our friend Ellis

intuition

If you’ve ever seen the film Six Degrees of Separation you’ll know what I mean when I say, “I dated that guy.” In the movie, said guy is played by Will Smith, a young man who, to quote IMDb, “an affluent New York couple find their lives touched, intruded upon, and compelled by.”

The truth is that I was in a five-year relationship with the guy before I got smart enough to dump his sorry ass. It still boggles my mind that I stuck with him for as long as I did given the overt messages coming from some family and friends that he was a loser and not to be trusted. But I guess the reason I did is this: I am an inherently trusting individual, always wanting to focus on the good in people. But I’ve since acquired a bit of healthy skepticism and a sharply honed intuition that helps me in matters particularly related to my non-verbal, seizure-plagued, developmentally delayed son, Calvin.

The dude in question was, in all honesty, a smart, handsome, charming, funny, talented man. The problem was that he was never quite what or who he said he was. For whatever reason he spent his life trying to be what he was not; lying about his education, his travels, his accomplishments, his family, his virtue and loyalty, his age—you name it—and, as in everything, I eventually learned that he was also a deadbeat dad.

The day finally came, six months after I had confirmed—by his confessions—what I thought was the lion’s share of his deception, when I decided to call it quits and move out of our shared studio apartment. After all, he’d even been lying to our therapist. I remember wondering how I would do it. Where would I go? What would be in store for me? How would he react? Would I even care?

I took the day off from work, cried when four of my dearest friends showed up to help me move out all of my stuff. I slept on my sweet co-worker’s couch for a month, probably stacked up all of my boxes in her back room. I left my stereo behind and the fifties chrome and Formica table with its red vinyl chairs. But I took all of my CDs, which for years I’d been pathetically labeling with red dot stickers, so I'd know which ones were mine, in preparation for this day. I forgave him his debts, which were many. Then I started from scratch and, after a cathartic week's long float down the raging Colorado River in the Grand Canyon camping under a full moon, I began living some of the happiest, most productive, energizing and successful years of my life.

And though I'm still aghast that I stuck with it for so long I’m mostly just thankful that I made it out of the relationship virtually unscathed. One valuable thing I took with me, though, was a heightened intuition. I had learned in an instant—the moment I confirmed the first lie causing all five years of our relationship to flash before me—that my suspicions had been right all along. That in all the times when I wanted nothing but to trust, just as my gut felt things didn’t add up—and in the face of a man telling me I was paranoid while projecting his fears and blame onto me—I had known the truth and yet had doubted myself. But with the absolute truth exposed, my squashed sense of intuition inflated in a blink, like an indestructible helium balloon on the end of a hissing valve: big, shiny, bright, floating, fearless, like Jeff Koons’ stainless steel Rabbit.

This ironclad gut instinct has served me well, has saved Calvin from countless unnecessary tests, pain and discomfort. It has guided me in knowing what to do with his drugs when there are seemingly limitless options with little to no hard and fast evidence or studies to guide me in my decision-making. It has helped me when reason and logic are lost in a sea of treatment options, numbers, doses, seizures, weights, side effects and symptoms. It has helped me see through false friends, opportunists, manipulators, liars, phonies and bullies.

Mostly, though, I learned that just because one person who I thought I loved and who I thought loved me failed me miserably I could still trust someone with all of my heart and soul. Just ask my husband.

Rabbit by Jeff Koons