Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 45

I would like to open today's post with a quote that a friend of mine put on Facebook yesterday. I don't ordinarily go on Facebook, Gentle Reader, but from time to time I will receive an update from someone and if I want to respond I do it by email. The less those bastards at Facebook have on me, the better! It looks like someone thinks their words are too precious to be copied, and I am unable to copy and paste this quote, so I will type it out in full: "I want my friends to understand that 'staying out of politics' or 'being sick of politics' is privilege in action. Your privilege allows you to live a nonpolitical existence. Your wealth, your race, your abilities or your gender allows you to live a life in which you will not likely be a target of bigotry, attacks, deportation or genocide. You don't want to get political, you don't want to fight because your life and safety are not at stake. It is hard and exhausting to bring up issues of oppression (aka get political) The fighting is tiring. I get it. Self-care is essential. But if you find politics annoying and you just want everyone to be nice, please know that people are literally fighting for their lives and safety. You might not see it, but that's what privilege does." This is a quote of unknown provenance. I am imagining that the person who wrote it to be a very angry African-American woman with a postgraduate degree. Just hazarding a guess (emphasis on hazard!) We know this very familiar narrative about white privilege. There is something magical about this formula of being a white male that grants you access to corridors of status, power, wealth and privilege that no one else on earth can hope to enjoy. I think this is partly correct. However, no one says anything about certain white males, such as me, who stay poor and underemployed all our lives and if we are lucky can at least live out our final years in government-subsidized housing. True, our percentage is significantly lower than it is for aboriginals and people of colour. There are a lot of historical wrongs that need to be addressed in order to confront and dismantle this legacy of historical white supremacy. A lot has changed already and is changing yet more. I have noticed over the years growing numbers of people with Jewish, South Asian, and particularly East Asian heritage, coming into higher and more privileged positions. For example, here in my dear privileged little Canada, both the mayor of Calgary (our fourth-largest city) and the leader of one of our major federal political parties, the NDP, are men of South Asian heritage, respectively Muslim and Sikh by religion. As well there is a growing proportion of women, two of whom are premiers of the provinces, Alberta and Ontario. Close, but no cigar. Women still feel unsafe on the streets and in the workplace. People of colour and aboriginals are still being racially profiled and harassed by the police. Okay, but here is a cypher they are not sharing with us from the Hallowed Halls of Politically Correctdom. All those unfortunate conditions apply equally to the poor, and it isn't going to matter what their race or gender is going to be. I know this because it has happened to me. Throughout my teens and early twenties I was routinely harassed and profiled by police. My offence? I looked like a hippy. The harassment occurred again in my early forties when I was desperately poor and recovering from homelessness. I understand, and accept that some, maybe a lot of, people of colour are going to hate and distrust white people, especially white males in positions of power and influence. But I, for one, also marginalized and discriminated against, only wish that some of those people would be a little more perceptive and careful about whom they choose to target with their hate. Such as the young African man who robbed me at knifepoint in Amsterdam. And the two huge African Americans visiting my city who menaced, bullied and threatened me on Robson Street because I was wearing a bandana on my head. And the well-dressed and very grumpy African-Canadian (maybe American), who, twelve years ago or so swore violently at me when I tried not to inhale his secondhand smoke, swore at me even more menacingly when I tried to tell him "Dude, it's nothing personal, I just don't want to inhale any smoke", then got really ugly when I wished him a Happy New Year (it was New Year's Day). Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut. Or maybe someone really defaulted in their responsibilities of how to nurture and role model for each of those men when they were kids. But you know something else, Gentle Reader? I don't buy this business that being black or aboriginal makes you automatically innocent. This is going to make me sound like a conservative rightwing reactionary, but right now I really don't give a you-know-what, because I actually believe this. Race does not give anyone a pass for bad behaviour. We all make choices. When someone decides to threaten another person's life, rob them, threaten their safety, they are choosing to ignore the humanity of their targeted victim. Even if that targeted victim happens to be a white male. That's right. Sometimes it just comes down to basic ethics and morals. Hating, harming and threatening others is a moral choice. It is a choice against doing the right thing, and no amount of social restructuring nor dismantling systems of injustice are going to do a damn thing to change this. Yes, our social conditions and structures that we live under play a significant role in our life outcomes, and in the choices that we make. But there are also fundamental moral and ethical choices that we are all very capable of making, and intentionally default on, concerning not harming other people, and this covers everyone: white, black, brown, aboriginal, male, female, queer, straight, trans, rich and poor.