Cosseted by our Bubbles

 

Once again I was reminded of how cosseted we are by our reality bubbles.  Even though I have worked consistently to break mine down, I still bump into a preconception that makes me realize that I really have no personal experience about what people from a less privileged group *in my society* wind up dealing with.

We build our reality bubbles as a form of 'protection', without ever realizing what we are doing and when you live in a society based on the notion that some folk deserve more privilege than others, it can be hard to see when you belong to the privileged group.

But I learned how to read at a very young age, and I read everything I could get my hands on.  Perhaps that gave me more sympathy or empathy for those outside of my privilege, but I became aware of the inequities of our world at a young age.  I was too young to feel I had any power to change anything, so I floundered around, not knowing what I, personally, could do to change things.

In my family we had a very interesting dynamic.  My mother would volunteer to help others while denying that we were also 'poor'.  We wore the veneer of 'respectability' hiding the fact that we couldn't afford things that others could.  My parents worked very hard to appear to be more 'well off' than what we actually were.  In her mind, she belonged to the privileged class, not the part that actually could have used a hand, now and then.  We wore this facade all through my childhood.

Don't get me wrong - my parents worked hard for what we did have, and while my brother and I didn't get everything we wanted, we got what we needed - materially.  If we wanted more, we had to find odd jobs to earn it, which we both did.  My brother and I were no stranger to working hard.

But what we did not have were the obstacles that other people labour against.  Our white skin gave us that tiny edge over others.  

I left the church when I was 16 for a number of reasons.  Even though my mother made sure that both of us kids got good church 'learning', attending Sunday School and then church when we were older, I began to see that the 'christian' churches were rife with all sorts of attitudes that didn't sit right with the actual teachings of 'our lord and saviour, Jesus Christ'.  Other religions also had philosophies of merit, many of them in keeping with the actual tenets of christianity.  I realized that I could still practice the teaching of JC and Buddha and Mohammed, and so on without ever going into a church of any sort.  So while I still call myself a 'christian' it is because that was the philosophy I was raised in, and given I studied to join the church as a full fledged member at the age of 12, I probably knew a lot more about the bible and the tenets of that religion than many of the other seats set in the pews of a Sunday morning.

My high school social studies teachers were amazing for this liberal leaning person.  I had had a really good teacher in grade 6 that began to break open my reality bubble, and high school began to crack it open even further.  

We learned about the internment camps in our province and elsewhere during WWII, imprisoning Canadian citizens of Japanese, German and Italian descent, just because they *might* be 'enemies'.  We learned that many of the Canadian-Japanese were invited to return to Japan, even though some of them had lived here for several generations, some of them not even speaking Japanese...right before the atomic bomb was dropped.  We learned about the impact of fossil fuels on the atmosphere - yes, we knew, even then, what could happen if we didn't curb our appetite for O&G products.  We learned about the Two Solitudes in Canada - and then the teachers pointed out that the First Nations people must be quite bemused at the two 'white' cultures in Canada telling each other to go home if they didn't like it here.  We learned about the Indian Act, and the kidnapping of First Nations children to be indoctrinated out of their culture and into ours, but never accepting them as fully acceptable.  And I began to see the casual racism against any person who wasn't 'white' enough.  

The past few years have seen the casual racism in so many places (not just here, no, not by any means just here) and I, once again, feel powerless to change anything.

So I do what I can, when I can.  I acknowledge that I live on unceded territory.  I accept everyone as fully human, never mind the colour of their skin.  I promote people of colour when I see them offering their work/talent online - be they athletes, entertainers, artists, writers.  

I accept that sexual orientation is none of my business and that people should be able to be who they are without my judging them.  Who they love is none of my business because love is love.

I feel awkward claiming to be an ally so I don't, because I don't know that a person can make such a claim for themselves.  What I do is try to be open and welcoming to all.  But I don't put up with casual racism when I see it anymore.

The challenge for me right now - is to *see* it.

I am a work in progress and I keep chipping away at my reality bubble.  If I slip, I apologize.  I will continue to work to do better.  "Do the best you can until you know better.  When you know better, do better."  I think Jesus would approve of that message.