Working for Change

Now that so many examples of systemic racism are being aired, I am - like so many white people - having to face my feelings about not knowing how bad it has been.

But that's the thing about systemic conditions.  We are a part of those systems and when they work to our benefit, we don't realize it until it is pointed out to us.

Over and over again, white people are being held to some kind of account.  Not that most of us had anything at all to do with implementing those systems.  But we also need to see them for what they are.  We need to accept the fact that we haven't seen them precisely because they are set up in our favour.

Our feelings can be harnessed to bring about actual change.  That discomfort you may be feeling?  You can use that to energize yourself to support those who have been suppressed.  Once you know better, do better.

There are many people who have been educating about racism and how the systems in place work.  It is not the responsibility of your black friends to educate you or justify their lived experience.

We are not innocent here in Canada and we also need to work towards changing the system so that it is equitable for all.

Someone on Facebook posted the comment that there are no white people in the Bible and asked white people to sit and think about that - take all the time needed.

Jesus was from the Middle East.  All the disciples were also from the Middle East.  If you believe in Jesus, then you have to accept that as the truth it is.  If you call yourself Christian, then you need to follow the teachings of Christ.  Not the later interpretations.  Not the current 'prosperity christians'.

There is literally nothing in the bible about white people being 'better' than people who are not 'white'.  Because there are NO white people in the Bible.  Take all the time you need...

Pause

Today I am pressing 'pause' for me.  I woke with a roaring sinus headache.  I am wooly-headed and emotionally raw.

There are many pithy comments that completely sum up what needs to happen. 

You cannot drink from an empty cup.

If the masks come down, put yours on first before you try to help someone else.

A choir sustains a long note by allowing individuals to drop out to take a breath, then take up the note again.

If you find yourself empty, you are allowed to stop and re-fill.

If you cannot breathe, you are allowed to stop and take a deep breath.

Today I need to concentrate on a complex pattern and I need my focus to be on that.  So I am going to get dressed and go to the loom.  And fulfill the commitment I made to weave these 'samples' for another weaver. 

You are allowed to rest.

Pandemic Diarist

When I started this blog in 2008 I was still grieving for my brother who had died very suddenly in February of that year.  I was dealing with medical issues of my own (adverse drug effects as it happens) but was finally seeing improvement.  I was dealing with survivor guilt (my brother was six years younger than me, well loved in this town - it should have been me, not him).  I had to figure out a way to - I don't know - justify? - my continued existence.

So I called the blog Weaving a Life.

Now, here we are in the midst of a deadly pandemic.  I have been writing this blog, two or three times a week (on average) until suddenly people were being faced with physical distancing, dealing with cancelled plans, postponed classes (which may or may not also be cancelled), dealing with isolating themselves from friends and family.

And I had this platform.

Over the years I have written about weaving and how I have been dealing with my life.  I have had to self-isolate on several occasions, so this wasn't new for me.  It was just different because everyone was having to do it.

And so I paused my weaving content (mostly) and have been writing about what is happening in the world right now.

As a child I wanted to write.  Tried to write, with little success.  In school I did ok with essays, but when I wanted to express my inner most thoughts the poetry I wrote was juvenile (I was, after all a teenager with all the angst that entails) and my fiction was formulaic.

I set any dreams I had of writing aside.

And then I chose weaving as a 'career'.  A life, if you will.  I began writing class hand outs and then magazine articles.

A student called me a storyteller and I had to agree.  I had found my story.  The story of textiles.  How they were made.  It seemed I truly did have a knack for words - they just weren't the ones I had expected would resonate with other folk.

And now, here we are in 2020 in the midst of a pandemic and I have a platform.  Someone once challenged me to use my platform to speak up and out about things happening in the world.  I saw how many people were struggling, so I chose to press pause on the weaving content here and move it over to my ko-fi account, and focus on hopefully helping people get through this time, as best they can.

If you came for the weaving content, I hope you will stick around for the pandemic diaries.  If not, I understand.  Hopefully we can all get back to life (more resembling) normal soon.

How the Light Gets In

Broken things.

I have been monitoring the situation in the US, not because I can do much - or anything, for that matter - about it, but to bear witness.

Yesterday was a tough day for me.  I struggled to come to grips with what I was seeing and how hopeless and helpless I felt.

I watched Mr. Trudeau struggle to say something when asked for his reaction and felt...the same.  There were simply no words.

As he spoke about our own problem with racism, I knew that he was correct.  Even he has foot dragged on implementing measures that would assist the aboriginal communities.  Even though he is not actively trying to kill Canadians, he needs to address the wrongs that have historically been present ever since white people arrived on the shores of this continent.

But the stories coming out of the US got worse and worse as the day went on and finally I had to go to the studio and get away from it all.

Me and my white privilege, sitting at the loom thinking.  Feeling.

Artists tend to say or show what other people cannot find the words for and eventually Leonard Cohen's lyrics came to me:

Forget your perfect offering.  There is a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets in.

And I thought about the Japanese methods of mending broken things.  Not to erase the break, the crack, but to show that the object had at one time been broken.  And mended.  And maybe even made more beautiful as a result.

We have an opportunity right now as a society.  We can look, open eyed, at the state of the world and we can choose.  We can choose to see systemic racism and how we have been conditioned to punch down instead of up.  We can choose to address the inequity that underlies our systems.  We personally may not be guilty of setting these systems up, but as a white person my life has not been made more difficult by the colour of my skin.

It is far beyond time that human beings stopped letting the level of melanin or the shape of someone's eyes or nose be the determining factor in whether or not that person is 'worthy'.

If you are white and not sure where to begin, I will recommend again that you Google Jane Elliott.  I have linked to a video on You Tube previously - it isn't hard to find.  Listen to what she has to say.  Ask yourself the question - are you willing to be treated like a Person of Colour is treated in our society?  If not, why not?  If not, then you know that they are not treated equally, equitably.

Let us mend our society.  Let us make it more beautiful by how we mend it.

Edited to add link to Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's blog

Hobson's Choice

a choice of taking what is available or nothing at all.
"the regional council must decide whether a private toll bridge is better than no bridge at all—it's a Hobson's choice"

Many people are, right now, faced with a Hobson's Choice.

Do they join the protests against racism and oppression?  Or do they stay away?

The fact that the demonstrations are happening in the midst of a deadly pandemic make this choice incredibly difficult for some.

In many ways people of colour have been faced with a raft of Hobson's Choice all of their lives.

Take the lower paying job, or go jobless.

Take the lesser education, or nothing at all.

Take a lower paying contract, or nothing.

Take grudging respect as an entertainer or athlete, or nothing.

Take a life of privation and disrespect or...get killed because of the colour of their skin.

So, do people go out in a pandemic, stand for hours in the sun (or rain), get tear gassed or beaten?  Live with the fact that lives will continue to be lost - stolen from them - or potentially catch the virus?

Some white people are criticizing people about endangering society by potentially spreading the virus.  But for some people there is only one choice.  Or rather, there is no choice other than Hobson's.

Demonstrate or nothing changes when the pandemic is over.  Because pandemics come and go, but racism seems to live on forever.

When I was a teenager watching the 'race riots' (as they were labeled by the media of the day) I fully expected people of colour to be in a better place by now.

I see that I was wrong.  My whiteness assumed that justice would prevail.  

As I aged, I began to recognize my privilege as a white person in a society where the benefits were heavily weighed in my favour.  

A couple of years ago I began re-tweeting posts by POC.  No comment - just handed their words to my platform (as tiny as it is).

If you are white and do not understand why people are marching, look at the statistics.  Look at the video on line of police overstepping their authority.  Beating people.  Attacking journalists, even those credentialed by their own police departments.  Hurling verbal and physical abuse at medics, injuring people on their way to work at essential jobs.  The same people hailed as'heroes' just one week ago are being 'arrested' and in some cases severely injured.

Then ask yourself - is this right?  Is this just?  Or is this Hobson's Choice?  Speak out?  Or continue to be oppressed?

Ties that Bind

I don't remember when Jacqui gave me the little pincushion.  Needless to say, I use it.  I use it a lot.  It is small enough that it fits into my small travel box where there is just enough room for a spool of thread and my small sewing scissors as well as the pin cushion.  So in addition to using it at home, it has traveled many miles with me as I have taken textiles to be hemmed as hand work in the evenings.

It finally wore out from all the times pins have been stabbed into it - the fabric disintegrated in one corner.  Since Jacqui died last year, I have kept it beside me in my box of threads and such for hemming in the evening while I watch tv.  And when I use it, I remember my friend, feeling close to her.

But.  It has worn out.  It was time to replace it.  But.  This one was made by a friend, now sadly gone.  A visual reminder and remembrance.

During this time of pandemic, a time that isn't going to pass any time soon, where masks are going to be needed and the recommendation has become common to wear a non-medical mask, Mary offered to make masks for Doug and me.

While she was at it, she also included a pin cushion.  We had talked about my Jacqui pincushion when Mary was visiting in January and she agreed that it was time to retire Jacqui's.  That it was worn out.

And so I now have another pin cushion, made by another friend.

It is another point of connection between people.  Jacqui making my first pin cushion, Mary, seeing the need for a new one, knowing that I would value and appreciate it.  Making a very special pin cushion that I could use to retire the old one that I valued.

Knowing that I had reached the stage of mourning that I could give up Jacqui's.

The ties that bind are sometimes small but powerful.  It doesn't matter the skin tone.  What matters is the love that is expressed, sometimes ephemerally, sometimes physically.

We are all human beings, descended from common ancestors.  All lives matter, including the brown ones and the black ones.  All of the oppressed ones.

This morning I read a powerful essay by Hannah Blank.  Out of this time of turmoil and unrest, I have found some eloquent voices that I would not have seen previously.  Strong voices.  Compelling voices.  Voices that call for equality and equity for all, not just some.

Someone commented yesterday that it is possible to be 'racist' and be against 'racism' in large part because racism is so bound into our culture and systems that we don't even realize that we ARE racist.  I have, time and time again, stumbled against the wall of my white perception and only slowly begun to tear that wall down.

I have much work to do to continue this work of opening my eyes to see the wrongness of the systems that benefit me, simply because of my whiteness.  I am a work in progress.

But I also recognize that we are all tied together, by our humanity, and somehow, some way, we need to recognize this and work on it, to the best of our ability.

Nice

Most people think they are 'nice' so when someone tells them something they have said isn't nice, they don't take it well.  Because if they are nice, they don't say 'not nice' things.

Jane Elliott has been an activist for human rights for a long time.  If you don't know about her, I strongly suggest taking some time to watch this

The first time I saw it, I was chilled to the bone - that discrimination can so easily be taught, to the point of demonizing someone else.  There are other examples of how people become dehumanized - I won't include them here.  Rest assured, they exist.

If you are white and object when the term white privilege is used, think about what that term means.  And why someone might suggest that you, personally, benefit from white privilege in North American society.

Someone once said:  No one is saying that a white person doesn't have a difficult life.  What they don't have is the colour of their skin making their life even more difficult.

During this time of Covid-19, people are pointing out that we may all be in the same storm, but we are riding it out in different boats.  Mine is pretty secure, but others?  May be leaking, might be rudderless, might not be much better than a raft.

We are at a crucial stage right now where many of the inequities of society can be examined and maybe even changed to improve things for everyone.  But it seems that some folk are determined to grab all the 'pie' they can and deny any for those 'others'.  Why?  You can only consume so much 'pie' and then what?  It goes bad?  You throw it away?  Why not share it in the first place?  How much 'pie' does one person actually need?  (I'm looking at you, every billionaire in the world.)

Corporations are grabbing all the financial resources they can.  I forget which big business just recently went bankrupt - after paying their upper management millions of dollars in 'bonus' money.  They get a 'bonus' for navigating their business into bankruptcy?  Wow.  In the meantime their employees get...nothing.  Airlines scooped up millions in pandemic funding - and then refuse to refund money on tickets people like me have paid for and are unable to use.  And then they announce employee layoffs, once the money is into the pockets of their share holders and upper management.

If you are white and want to break out of your bubble, there are lists of resources available on line.  You might read some political science, like James Laxer.  He has written extensively about Canada/US relations but also the history of North America.  Which is not pretty by any stretch of the imagination.  Also Ziya Tong's The Reality Bubble, especially the section on social 'bubbles'.  But there are so many more.

I am constantly surprised at how many white people have no clue about the history of their country.  I am constantly surprised by their 'surprise' at how the US and Canada (and many other countries around the world) were shaped by the very notion of white privilege, the 'white man's burden' (if you don't know what that is, google it) and how discrimination and oppression has shaped the culture we currently live in.

While I may not be personally responsible for this history, I can change things going forward. 

Over the weekend, the protests about the death of George Floyd raged all across the US.  White people can help change things in many ways.  One example was in acting as a 'white shield' to protect black people from the actions of militarized police.

The police appeared to also be targeting journalists, two of whom were shot in the face and were blinded.

In Canada we have similar dynamics at work so we must not be 'smug' about how 'nice' we are. 

As it was said in 'my' day - if you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

What can you do to help everyone in this storm?  (Hint - if nothing else, you can vote for politicians who are not demonizing or in some cases actively trying to kill their electorate.)