Breaking up with white people
A breakup of a long-distance, open relationship I went through speaks directly to my post-election pain. While in the relationship, I often…
A breakup of a long-distance, open relationship I went through speaks directly to my post-election pain. While in the relationship, I often spoke of my need to feel like an integrated part of my partner’s life, and not an add-on or afterthought. If I brought these concerns up, they were heartfully addressed and worked through each time — my partner was a wonderfully understanding person who tried very hard to correct problems. Still, that fundamental-ness that I needed to feel wasn’t there. It often felt as if I were presented with a schematic of his life, and asked how I could fit in. If I asked for changes to the schematic, we’d work through them, together. But I wasn’t part of the schematic-building to begin with.
When I broke up with him, I pointed this out; he offered that he’d tried very hard to meet my needs, but that I had expectations that he couldn’t live up to. I understood this, yet found it all deeply disappointing. I was, in the end, not seen by him until I made myself loud and seen — and by then, I was too much.
This feels representative of the fundamental fight that social justice movements — Black Lives Matter, intersectional feminism, immigrant rights, indigenous justice, queer liberty — are having with the traditional white liberal mainstream. We want to be integrated within the fundamentals of this movement, not made-room for as we can be accommodated. We are currently afterthoughts: decorative, sparkly beading added to the fabric of liberalism when necessary and useful.
If any of us call out white liberals on this, we are told that of course our needs for justice are important and considered. But it’s clear, by statements being made by stalwart Leftists about working with Trump’s economic populism, our people are not at the table to begin with. I was just in a meeting this week discussing the class war, and a woman of color mentioned the racism of the Trump platform. An older, badass white organizer who I adore said, “Well, put aside the racism for a second” as a way of introducing a point. We interrupted him: She can’t put aside the racism. She lives it every single day. Which means, in the end, we can’t either. I’m not sure he understood.
Asking social justice movements to untangle our fundamental analysis of how the current culture abuses us every single day is impossible. It’s asking us to separate hydrogen from oxygen so we can really get on top of what it means to be wet.
I understand the need that large groups of people feel to reach out to frustrated working white people — women, particularly — to see why they feel the way they feel. I’ve spent most of my life doing that, coming from rural conservatives, interviewing them, asking them, suggesting other ways of thinking. This is valid, difficult and useful work; not only do I think it should happen, but I think it can happen without selling out or ignoring all of our communities on the left.
But: we can’t begin to understand people who don’t think like we do without taking stock of whether we ourselves are all walking the walk. Right now, white liberals and progressives are largely not, and we must have a reckoning.
I’m here to say from the middle of the reckoning process that I feel more whole, more loved, more supported in my understanding of the world than I ever have before. I feel challenged every day, and I’ve learn to welcome that feeling along with the fear I have of being or doing something “wrong.” I also feel like I’ve probably lost influence with important white people, because I’ve become a thorn in their side, a complainer, a raiser-of-constant-questions. I get dismissed more. I get invited to less things. But I’m whole, or getting there. That’s worth the price, believe me.
Come join me.