I really meant to start 2021 with a light-hearted post about sofas, or decluttering, or sweatpants. We’re all frayed and we deserve some fun.
I could have done it, even though my long-distance best friend died this past Saturday. She was diagnosed with glioblastoma in May on her 60th birthday. Despite surgery, chemo, and radiation, the standard of care, as they say, she never recovered her health. She leaves behind five children, a grieving husband, her mother, two sisters, me, and my son, for whom she was a sort of second mother.
But I still could have written something about warm socks. Liz was a private woman, and would not care about public notice. I could have said only privately that she was one of the great loves of my love. Because she was. Oh, my friends, I wish that you would have someone like Liz in your life. Faster, brighter, funnier, more inventive, more glorious than anyone and most of all, if and it’s a big if, if she loved you, there was nothing like being loved by my best friend Liz.
I met her when I was 34 and she was 30, as I walked by her house carrying my son on my back and pushing my daughter in the stroller. She ran out to talk to me, and never gave up. We were best friends though our divorces and remarriages and her move to Belgium and return to New Jersey. She phone-called me through my commutes, through twice-weekly visits with my mother in memory care, and my long, long drives to Southern California to settle the estate. I would almost say she talked my current self into being. I was never funny before Liz.
No one would have called her easy, but she was worth it.
Still, I could have stayed silent. Today the only reason I’m not writing about the daphne odoratas about to bloom is that last Wednesday a lot of people from around the United States gathered to hear our President speak and then many of them walked en masse to the Capitol and entered and five people died. Liz would agree with what I am going to say. She wasn’t a “woke” person, but she had an enormous and real heart.
I am guessing you have read all you can stand about Wednesday’s events. So if I can tell a personal story?
I grew up knowing racism was bad. My mom taught me, early, my father too, but I thought “racism” simply meant being prejudiced against people of other races. I thought racism was a personal story itself. As I got older, I learned that I too, despite my intent, had racist biases. I worked on myself. Recently, as Black and Brown scholars and historians of all races have told the stories of American history that I never knew, of wealth created and wealth stolen, I had come to understand that American racism is systemic, not just personal. But I still thought of it as something nigh-on unconscious, buried, working in subtle and often indirect channels. No.
White supremacy is the point.
Bear with me. Please. America, a country I love with all my heart, was built on slavery and in its construction established systems to keep an unjust share of value of the labor of Black and Brown and Asian people in the hands of we who are White. Why do I say this? The events on Wednesday proved to me, finally, that police treat White people who protest violently about their feelings of having been harmed differently than anyone who protests violently about Black lives mattering. And many Americans believe this is not only OK, but good.
Let me leave that there. I can only tell you that it’s been a hard road coming to this understanding. I keep denying what I hear, I find myself chanting silently “not all White women,” and protecting my feelings of virtue. I know not all police, I know not all who attended Trump’s rally were involved in the violence. It doesn’t matter.
Here, let me set fire to something I hold dear, for the cause. You know how proud of I am of my ancestors? Gouverneur and Lewis Morris? From a slave-holding family, they came to advocate against the practice, and their descendants fought as Union soldiers. But, when the Black Lives Matter demonstrations erupted across America I researched more extensively. Let me now introduce you to John Carnochan. Born in Kircudbright, Scotland, he arrived in Savannah, Georgia in the early 1800s, married the daughter of a well-established citizen, Harriet Putnam, and moved to Florida in 1820 to build a sugar plantation and plant Sea Island cotton. With 60 slaves.
He died in 1841. I think Florida proved challenging. But in 1850, his wife, Harriet, still held 35 people as chattel.
So it doesn’t matter if it’s “not my fault.” It doesn’t matter if “people in those days didn’t know.” The fact is that my good fortune, my privilege, if you will, includes a history of injustice that I now have an opportunity to help heal. Only you know, slave-holding family or not, if your own history requires your participation in what we do next.
I am resolved. Pick your work, your role, your course of action. Sturdy Gals are born to do grunt work. Sturdy Gals don’t need to preserve unrealistic hoohah about greatness. Sturdy Gals always hope and can’t help but believe. Let’s get going.
Have a good weekend. Such is still possible. It’s better to know the damage than not.
57 Responses
Ah, loss. A dark thing. Hold to the light, keep it burning.
@Annie Green, Thank you. I find I do have to keep looking at it, the temptation is to sturdily look away.
As a history major, I know the power of the past. I will also say that I am the daughter of immigrants, my father was Scottish, my mother Irish, who fled England in the 1950s due to rationing. They were white and welcomed with open arms. I say this because we share this burden of how to face and combat the institutional racism in this country, no matter when our feet touched these shores, either 1855 or 1955.
@Claire Johnson, Thank you. I am glad you see your responsibility this way. It takes compassion to do so.
Such needed reasonable words during an unrest such as now, is greatly appreciated and admired. I thank you for being real.
@Lucille Dacanay, Thank you. Thank you for your long-term efforts to communicate and foster peace of spirit.
Oh I am so very sorry about Liz. I’ve been reading your posts for so long, I remember when her husband had you visit her in Belgium. You must hang on to the good memories, as I know you will.
Feeling superior to others is not a good thing. For whatever reason. Ancestry, wealth, education, social status. Least of all race. We are all human. If God doesn’t show partiality, why should we.
I do hope you can have a good weekend, under the circumstances.
@MaryAnne, Thank you so much. I will never forget her. And remember she and I went to Paris on that trip? https://lisacarnochan.com/2010/05/eating-in-paris-is-not-like-eating-in-other-places-some-people-talk-to-you-some-people-dont-2/
What a wonderful tribute to your friend. She sounds like a bright and shining star. I am so sorry for your loss.
And YES. So much work to do, personally and system-wide. It is shocking to see what a large percentage of people are willing to justify and how hard they work to perpetuate the illusion that this is somehow patriotic and right and fair. It’s like seeing an ant and thinking, “oh, look an ant got in”, and then opening the cabinet and finding them swarming the pantry.
@Renee D, She was on fire <3. And I never fail to be astonished by how even the smartest people, sometimes especially the smart ones, manage to find articles and "facts" to justify what they want to believe.
The worst moment for me, among so many, was the photo of a policeman taking a selfie with one of the rioters. Inequality indeed. I worked in the Capitol for years as a young woman and knew which offices to avoid since sexism was rampant, but this was a real attack on our democracy.
I too have slave owners in my family history, and even though they lost everything in the civil war that knowledge has influenced my teaching and community work for decades and will continue to do so for as long as I can.
@Lynn, Thank you for being so aware so early, and for working in the Capitol. The selfie was like having a bandaid ripped off.
I thought of you this morning and wondered if you would come back from your holiday hiatus to post after this week’s events. I didn’t know about Liz, of course. I am so sorry. Those early motherhood friendships are deep and important, and you’ve mentioned before how frequently you talked.
I’ve known for a long time about my privilege, having grown up middle class, educated, relatively trauma-free. It wasn’t until the last 10 years that I began to understand how much of that was due to being white. (The GI bill and federal housing policy for starts. The ability to enter the country and to attain land. The ability to walk around freely without being suspected of anything, for me and my sons. Etc.) Still trying to understand how to rectify all of this, and I see and support the economic sense of reparations now. I picked my work in November 2016 and am sticking with it but continue to learn and adapt the work.
@Cathy Baird, Thank you so much for thinking of me, even though we’re all turned upside down in so many ways. You are ahead of me in understanding and I thank you. The more of us catch up, the better.
Oh, Lisa, I am so sorry about your friend. I remember you posting about her several times over the years. What a loss.
I have also been conscious of racism but until this past year it did not occur to me that I had any responsibility. I am a good person and not a racist – right? My eyes are open now. My ancestors were Irish immigrants during the potato famine, so I don’t have slaveholders among them, but I don’t think that makes much difference. We have all benefited from being white and (at least) middle class, at the expense of others.
One of the best explanations of the need for reparations was by Marianne Williamson. I did not support her during the primaries, but she is a smart and thoughtful woman who was belittled by the media.
Michelle Obama’s book contains a history of her family for the last generation or so, and the thread of racism, denied opportunities for careers and financial gain, and systematic exclusion runs through it, although she does not call attention to this but just tells the stories in a matter-of-fact way.
It is not clear to me at this point what I can do about it. I guess I’m waiting for someone to point the way.
@Marie, Thank you. It is a loss, one I have in now way absorbed. I keep waiting for her to come back. I too feel as though my eyes have been opened, or that scales have fallen, either way. I do not think we have to wait for the way to be clear about what to do. I don’t think anyone knows for sure. I do think that if we all bumble around together in the direction of love and justice we will get there. That we should all do simply what we can do.
If
I am coming to the conclusion that no one of us can undo the past no matter how hard we work. Yet, in each righteous step we take there is some bit of movement in the right direction. I have tried and failed many times to save the world.
I have come to privilege through marriage and inheritance.
The burden of slavery is on all America and does not reside with you as an individual.I say this to you as a daughter of a Holocaust survivor who could not be held solely accountable for her horrific acts. She is but a cog in a very large puzzle.
Lisa, it goes without saying that I am so sorry for your loss. I don’t think I have ever had a friend such as you describe. Luci
@Luci, “The burden of slavery is on all America and does not reside with you as an individual.” And this is true for us all, I believe. I don’t know that many people have friends like Liz because she was sui generis. Thank you.
Oh Lisa, I’m so very sorry for your loss. I’m lucky to have a friendship similar to yours and losing her would be like losing an arm. It’s been a horrible week; having you back is a bright spot. Thanks for sharing with us.
@Leslie K, I hope your friend and you stay safe and connected for many, many years. Thanks for being here.
I too have ancestors deeply immeshed in the Confederacy. I also have a direct Cherokee lineage and one from the Mayflower. I really, really am not capable of finding a sense of fault or guilt for my background. I don’t know the hearts of my ancestors, and broad political brushwork isn’t helpful to me in trying to understand who I am. I do know when I was 14, I came across Ghandi’s biography, and my fascination with non-violence began at that age. Through privilege and happenstance, I was later able to meet with MLK and be personally invited to join his Poor Peoples Campaign In Washington DC, which I did. Often I was the only white person in the room, in the hall, on the street. I’ve spent my life fascinated by the practice of love overcoming hatred, decency in the face cruelty. Lisa, you’re one of my sources for continuing compassion and grace in these rocky, raging times. Thank you so much, Dear, for your light.
@Bronwyn Black, I do not think any of us need to feel guilt for our ancestry. Only the desire to heal, which you do. Thank you.
Oh, Lisa, I’m so sorry about Liz. We all need a friend who never gives up on us, and to be that friend to others and the world as well. I wish I could put my thoughts and feelings about our current situation into such eloquent words as you do. Thank you for another beautiful post, full of love and meaning. <3
@Jess, Thank you. “We all need a friend who never gives up on us, and to be that friend to others and the world as well.” Your eloquence is a balm.
I’d welcome anything you have to say about warm socks, but this week’s post hits so many other deeper notes. Thank you. The way forward is surely easier when we share our stories. Since the horrendous George Floyd murder, I (a gabber) have been in reading and listening mode. May I recommend the book Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson? Thanks for the wonderful reflections, perfect way to launch into this important new year!
@Sarah, The way forward has to be easier when we share our stories. I haven’t said anything about Liz’s illness here until now, because she was so private, and I might never have said anything but Wednesday’s events burned up my filters. Her death, despite the illness, was a surprise with little notice when it came. Now that I think about it, my feet are cold this morning even in my Glerups, but it might be emotional, all blood having gone to my heart. xoxox.
Thank you for naming it. I have the same feelings about my white privileged family who built their wealth and lives in America on the back of slaves. Not my fault, but my legacy. Every day I resolve to do better.
@Carol Bradford, “Not my fault, but my legacy. Every day I resolve to do better.” Such a good way to sum it up. Learning not to shift blame when uncomfortable is so important.
Thank you for this.
@Bitsy, You are very welcome. Thank you for reading.
Dear Lisa, deep sympathies on your loss. Here I was, hopeful for a better 2021 as we left 2020 behind. I am in deep sadness for this world, so many who are suffering and continue to. I live in a nation that was literally stolen from it’s inhabitants. First they bludgeoned the people, took away their language, took away their children and tried to banish every bit of their culture and now wonder why we can’t achieve reconciliation. There is a documented phenomena known as Generational Trauma. Proud of my British origins? Hardly so. However, I am grateful to be born into my skin, as it was a genetic lottery. Being black/brown/asian/disabled/poor/abused whatever, could have been any one of us. It was nothing we did that deserved to be the way we are. We are born into a legacy from the past that we had no say or control over, we can only live this lifetime with a better understanding as hopefully, human-kind becomes more evolved – some sectors, at least.
@TJ, Yes, generational trauma is real. As is a phenomena called “weathering,” in which the stress of being Black in America has been shown to take a true physical toll on people. I agree, it’s about evolving. Because if we are the dominant species, capable of changing the course of our planet, how can we justify that if we don’t continue to become more compassionate and just as a society?
To good friends! It’s a joy to have them and I hope that you will hold all that was good about your friend in your heart until you meet again.
@RoseAG, I am in the time of recreating her in my heart. Thank you.
Please accept my deepest sympathy on the loss of your friend.
As to the rest of what you write, yes. We don’t need to be descendants of slaveholders to have benefited from systemic racism. My immigrant ancestors were welcomed into this country because they were White and Northern European. My grandparents and parents were able to get mortgages and build stability (not wealth, just stability) because they were White. The fact is, it is not enough not to be racist, as Ibram Kendi explains, as that means we’re not actively opposing racist behavior. Rather, we have to be anti-racist – to observe, understand, and call out racism when we see it, and then to take action. The events of this week vividly bring that home.
@MJ, Thank you. And I think many often underestimate the worth of our sheer stability as white Americans, the degree to which our broad community forms a net behind our backs.
I too had family who owned slaves – 25 of them in Virginia where tobacco plantations were common. However, that is where the resemblance ends to your history, Lisa. After the Civil War, the fate of the children (including my great grandfather) who grew up on the plantation did not involve riches. Some of the girls went into teaching, but in general many of the whites in the area descended into poverty or near poverty. My great grandfather was one of the youngest of the children who grew up on the plantation, and he ended up as a poor farmer with seven children. My grandmother was not allowed to attend her last year in high school because the family couldn’t afford to buy both her and her younger sister a pair of shoes.
So, I can’t relate to the idea that all descendants of former slave owners are still privileged today.
Moreover, if you want to talk about victims, (EDITED BY LPC FOR DESCRIPTION OF VIOLENT CRIME) hurting people is not a uniquely white trait – it’s a human trait.
Lastly, I would like to point out that whites are no longer at the top of the food chain. It’s a strange kind of white privilege when those we are told are oppressed by white privilege, are actually earning more on average than whites. Read this to understand who is earning what – https://quillette.com/2020/12/22/a-peculiar-kind-of-racist-patriarchy/ In the U.S., Indian, Taiwanese, Filipino, Indonesian, Pakistani, Iranian, Lebanese, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Israeli, Korean, Syrian, Vietnamese peoples on average earn higher incomes than whites on average. The narrative hasn’t caught up with the fact that whites are no longer at the top of the mountain.
I know people have their world views, but I wanted to present a different perspective that comes from a totally different experience.
Correct me if I’m wrong but impoverished Whites, during Jim Crow (or now) , had it 100% better than impoverished Blacks.
Just ask Emmitt Till……oh wait.
@L. N., Lori, I understand the story you want to tell. I do. I understand that not every family who held slaves became rich. In fact, John Carnochan got involved in a notable land deal failure, and died 20 years after he moved to Florida. Several of his children died young. However, one of his sons, John Murray Carnochan, was able to find his way to New York City, where he became a notable surgeon and married into the Morris family, who were one of America’s founding families. THAT is the opportunity that no Black man would have had in that era.
I ask you to consider this. Your family was unfortunate. I am never happy about someone else’s suffering, whether I agree with them or not. I am very sorry that you grandmother could not attend school. Women often bear the brunt of poverty. But I don’t think it’s possible to look at America, above the level of individual families, and come away convinced that Black Americans haven’t suffered more than White Americans, for centuries.
Oh, my goodness. A very eye-opening post, Lisa. Racism is such an insidious beast but today you have shone a light on how deep it runs. Good on you for calling it out because we can’t change what we don’t acknowledge.
My condolences for your friend she sounds amazing. Be kind to yourself, you have had a rough time lately.
My deepest sympathies for your loss. A true friend is a rare treasure..Thank you for your thoughts..
Lisa, this post is vast… I am so sorry you have lost your friend. I have not had this experience but the thought that it could occur fills me with unthinkable, though momentary grief. I can’t imagine what you are going through. BTW the storming of the Capitol really made it clear to me too, in just the same way. I’m don’t know if I’m shocked by being shocked or by not being shocked enough. (I’m sorry, that doesn’t even make sense, but at this point I am not able to connect the dots clearly.) Please stay as safe an well as is humanly possible given the loss of your dear friend, the global pandemic and the end of America as we have known it. xoxo
@Kristin, Kristin, it does make sense – in fact, that’s a perfect description of the disorientation many of us feel after recent events, culminating on Wednesday. The open and blatant attempts to invalidate the votes of people of color, persisting against all facts and logic, until it culminated with the assault on Congress greeted with white-glove treatment of racists and anti-Semites. I feel that I’ve been blind for years (although I considered myself aware of social justice issues) and suddenly glaring lights have been turned on.
Dear Lisa,
I am so sorry for the loss of your best friend. You were fortunate to have known her. Hold on to the memories.
Thank you for your compassion and understanding of White privilege. It’s hard for someone who has that privilege to comprehend what is like for someone who lives without it.
Finally, be kind to yourself at this difficult time.
@Jane, Thank you so much. And it is hard to comprehend, until, it seems, it’s pushed in our faces:(. I can be kind to myself and also hard on myself, I think, if that makes sense.
Oh my dear lovely Lisa. Huge sympathy for the loss of your best friend. As I get older, I realize that good friends with whom we share long histories, and whose quirks click with our entirely other set of quirks, are rare and precious, precious, precious. There is no good time to lose a golden friend. Right now is particularly difficult. I send my support and my genuine love for who I know you to be. I hold your hand.
At the beginning of the #blm movement (I think, time is so strange in this year) Spike Lee was interviewed by (again, I think, my brain is stressed) Christiane Amanpour. His eloquent description of a country built on genocide of its Indigenous peoples and slavery was perfectly and forcefully put.
You know I’m half Indigenous (Duwamish/White Earth Ojibwe) and half White (Irish, French-Canadian, German), and grew up aware of overt and covert racism because my parents lived it. I’m in awe of the way they got their points across about racism to us without unnecessary drama. They kind of stood back and just let us see. My dad used what I now understand was a Duwamish storytelling method from his oral culture. As many people have noted, being mixed race can be difficult because in some way you feel you have to choose one over the other, or always feel split. In my case, because my dad was himself traumatized in ways I didn’t understand, I didn’t get as much time with either of my tribes. I feel that lack. Also, unlike some of my relatives, I inherited my mom’s pale Irish, freckled skin and I don’t think people can see that I’m Indigenous. The other day I asked a friend why Louise Erdrich, who is less Indigenous than I am in the literal sense of ancestry, not of tribal affiliation and understanding and ritual, and was more connected to her reservation relatives, looks more identifiably Indigenous, and he answered she dresses in that manner. I think the same is true of others. The tribes are very different, so which one would I dress like now? I note that often the tribal pieces a person wears are not from their tribe, but are, for example, from the Southwest. All this is a long way of saying how confusing these kinds of things can be. I look White, but I identify as Indigenous, but no one really knows unless I say. That put me in the position throughout my life to hear the racist things said, and because of my childhood and personality, I always chose to speak up and say No, That is wrong, That is racist. I still miss the feeling of Indigenous connection and legitimacy that I haven’t quite figured out how to obtain. I continue to work on it.
The thing the #blm movement has brought out most clearly to me is the aggressive intentionality of our country’s racism, and even though I grew up knowing this through my dad’s experiences, I understand more clearly now the reality of existing while black that is inescapable. I remember my surprise that Michelle Obama agreed to let Barack Obama run for president. All I could think of was what a target he and she and, most especially, their two girls would be. I worried for their safety.
I was watching the NPR News Hours when the insurrectionists arrived at the Capitol. The obvious difference between what these people were allowed to do and what the #blm people were allowed to do shocked me and broke my heart. Michelle Obama spoke to this in her statement about the day, and I agree with her.
I would say, with sadness, that what I have known for years, but have to keep learning over and over again, remains true: I myself am racist in the unconscious ways woven into out culture. If I see a young black man and a young white man, do I see them differently? Do I make different basic assumptions? I think to my surprise that I do. I have to keep noticing and teaching myself to do it differently. Each action that gets us closer to an acknowledgement of that problem we carry and how we solve it, helps us be more unified. What happened at the Capitol sickened me and let me know as did Charlottesville and so many other events recently, that we need to remain aware and open.
Despite it all, and in honor of my optimistic dad, I remain optimistic. It is a devastating time, but I think we can do better, and I think enough good people want to do better. I hope we can change hearts and minds.
Take very good care of yourself. Grieve when you feel like grieving. I honor you and your friend.
Dear Lisa,I’m so sorry! Loosing such a friend is a true mourning,one feels as one looses a part of oneself….
The horrible happening in US is heartbreaking,such a divide-we’ve lived with something like this here and I hope with my whole heart that it will not last so long….
As for guilt-who knows what was in our far,far family history-the moment we are living in is now, and in this “now” there is an opportunity to do good
Dottoressa
2 things – I am so sorry for the loss of your friend . At our age there isn’t the time left to make new ones at that depth and longevity . I have 3 left who have known me for more than 40 yrs and yes I am now getting anxious about their health !
Secondly I am myself Eurasian but pass for white so I am very grateful for Katherine James’ input . I have had similar experiences to you wrt what I get to hear and also these problems about clothes ! Dressing the way I might like to has led to aggressive confrontations with women of African descent who have told me how much they hate seeing a ‘white woman in a sari!’ . So I don’t do it now . I have also heard a lot from white women about the ‘richness of my cultural heritage’ . Which is frankly , drivel . Having grandparents who spoke 4 different 1st languages is not rich . Having at least their second language be Afrikaans is worse . I don’t speak it but have the terrible accent which means that liberal whites have always attacked me as an apartheid supporter and closet fascists have confided in me ….
Dear Lisa,
Thank you for your cri de coeur. I am so sorry for the untimely passing of your best friend. Nothing reminds us of our mortality like the death of our contemporaries. And it is particularly cruel that we cannot mourn fully under the pandemic restrictions.
Many of us remain shaken and distressed by the invasion of the Capitol Building…a rude start to what we all wanted to be a hopeful year. Clearly democracy is not for the complacent. My parents left the turmoil of post WWII China. They believed in America with the fervor immigrants hold in their hearts. It was not easy but they never regretted that decision. My brother graduated from West Point and I from Wellesley. I continue to nurture that belief but know we must work to make the promise accessible and real to all.
I am so sorry for your loss. I am old – 74. Six years ago we decided to sell our home and move into a condo, downsizing. We lived in a beautiful mixed neighborhood. I told my husband that in moving, I would not live in a building that had no black people living in it.
I’m so deeply sorry about losing your best friend Liz. I can’t talk about last week’s events as I feel we’re still in the midst of them….Beautiful post as always.
@PecanLoaf
You evidently didn’t see what I wrote (NOTE from LPC: I deleted this because it used more violent language than I support here) about the attempted murder of my stepsister and the murder of her boyfriend.
Dead is dead, regardless of which race commits the murder. I guess my family tragedy was inconvenient to the narrative, and so the story is gone. (NOTE from LPC: As I said above, the deletion had nothing to do with “narrative” and everything to do with the voice, intent, and community on this blog.)
My comment wasn’t meant as a denial of the black experience. It was intended to show that not every family who had slaves held onto a fortune. In fact, many in my family’s county fell into poverty.
It was a great sorrow to my grandmother that she missed her last year of high school because of mere shoes. Shoes! The poignant thing is that when she had children of her own, she was insistent to provide them with the best shoes she could, even if it meant skimping on something else.
@Lorri, As I said above, poverty is painful, across all races. In additional to finally unpicking our systemic racism, it is my hope that America strengthens the safety net for all who are poor, hungry, ill, and unable to engage in our democracy or economy. But here’s how I see it. Even though I’ve faced all kinds of distress as a woman, have been harassed, dismissed, mocked, taken advantage of, paid less than my colleagues, I still know it was worse for Black Americans. I hope you might eventually understand that too. Your family’s pain, which, again, I hear you, is not negated by an acknowledgement of what people of color have lived through.
60……..to young!
I AM SO SORRY TO HEAR THIS………….
IT’s all a BIT MUCH THE NEWS OF THE NEW YEAR AND All…………
YOU wrote a beautiful piece.
EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE NICE TO EACH OTHER.
IT’s NOT SO HARD especially with a SMILE!
I am so sorry about the loss of your friend. On the national front, I am ashamed that this event happened and painfully aware that had these people been non-white the outcome would have been terribly different. The systemic racism of our country is not acceptable, and this has been a very hard year for me as I have learned and been forced to absorb the ways in which my WASP view of my country has been turned inside out. I have always been opposed to racism, but it is only recently that I have become so much less to the ways that systemic racism has benefited me at the expense of others. Good fortune is not acceptable if it is built on the backs of others. I cannot help my DNA, I cannot help my ancestors, but where I’ve been fortunate to benefit from a system that limits the options of, and harms others, I need to stand up and say no. I am determined to not close my eyes and do what I can.
I knew that I had relatives that owned slaves, although I am not them. I know that I have relatives that go to great lengths to justify the slave holding of our ancestors, but I am not them. But I do live in a world that oppresses others. As a friend said, you are either racist, or you are anti-racist. I am an anti-racist and recovering racist. I cannot be anything else because I grew up in this world.
I have recently learned that I have many 3rd and 4th cousins who are mixed race, and who are descended from those same, shared, slave-holding ancestors. This is very upsetting to some members of my family, who refuse to discuss it, but I do not understand how these cousins are any less related than the acknowledged (racially acceptable) cousins. I cannot bear to live in a world where they have fewer options and to do nothing.
I am sincerely sorry for your loss. Liz was a beautiful soul. She will be missed but will live on in the hearts and minds of many. I agree entirely, we all, without exception, have much work to do to make the world a better place.
Dear Lisa,
Just a short note to send my condolences to you for your loss of Liz. I recently, shockingly, lost my husband (both aged 53 and it wasn’t covid) and am grappling with grief as a sturdy gal. The current events and our family part in history also reverberate in my brain and I am struggling to make sense of any of it. Your word, help. Thank you.
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