It has been a hard week. I’ve been (obsessively, feverishly) reading American political news and between the news about the Texas anti-abortion nonsense becoming law (in addition to other states) and the not-guilty verdict on the George Zimmerman trial, I’ve been feeling all the feelings: anger, outrage, exhaustion, sympathy, empathy. And! There was an earthquake here in Wellington on Friday—a small one, but still, not good for the anxiety. Fear and sadness, again and again.
I’ve been thinking about access to healthcare services and what it really means to be pro-life. I’ve thought about what I would do if I got pregnant since I don’t ever want to have children. I’ve been thinking about my white womanhood and my own implicit biases and racism, about which I used to have to write papers on that, back in social work school, but about which I rarely think about anymore because so much of my world has become so homogenous since I left my job in public health almost a year ago. I think about what Trayvon Martin’s family must be going through this week. I think about all the pro-choice activists on my Twitter feed—don’t laugh, that’s how I got all my news on that issue, among many others—and how exhausted they must be. I think about what it would have been like to be a (white woman) juror on the Zimmerman trial. I think about my home state, where only certain people, apparently, can stand their ground. I read Obama’s statement on race today, I cannot understand the people who call him Racist in Chief for just talking about race.
I think about privilege, and ally-ship, and what I do to own one and enact the other. I think about living in New Zealand versus living in the States, and how I most certainly did not move here for political reasons—I didn’t move to Canada either of the times Bush was elected—but sometimes I feel like I’ve dodged a bullet by sort of accidentally making my life here, in another deeply flawed country on the other side of the world from the one my passport says I belong to. It’s the best of times and the worst of times over there the same way it is over here, the same way it always is, but it feels so scary now, right now, right this minute. I read the internet all day and all night, it seems, all the opinions and experiences and emotions, and I try to bear witness and understand what is happening, my part and the parts of people I love in it, and I very often fail at both these things.
A good friend of mine is constantly telling me not to care about this sort of thing because it’s too upsetting. I often laugh at him and tell him a) obviously I don’t care that much or I would really be freaking out and b) he may as well tell me to stop breathing. But it’s one thing to care, and it’s another thing to do. In the end all I can do about anything—about my actions, my participation in our societies, my prejudices and assumptions and ignorances, is to educate myself, and to adjust my behavior. Constantly, for the rest of my life.
The education is ongoing, but one very concrete step many of us can take is to support organisations that do anti-sexist and anti-racist work. This time around I’ve chosen The Trayvon Martin Foundation and Lilith Fund. What else do you suggest?
Comments
4 responses to “Ongoing”
Just keep voting, and encourage all Americans you know to do the same thing. The amount of people our age who don’t vote is Not A Good Thing. Use your American citizenship if you have it, people!
Voting, learning, educating… all excellent things. But I’ll also propose a different tactic as well.
Not that I’m advocating ignorance or head-in-the-sandedness or “la la la la la I can’t hear you” fingers-in-the-ear-ness, but I find that it’s very very easy to get sucked into the negativity and feel helpless/hopeless/angry/frustrated if I spend too much time ingesting media (whether it be TV, other news sources, blogs, social media, online videos, etc.). Unless said media is silly cat photos or videos.
Sometimes I have to forcibly disconnect myself from it all, and read for pleasure – a novel, a work of nonfiction (though lately I’ve ended up with too many of those in the “things that piss me off about the world” genre, so I need to be careful to also read about fascinating people, or interesting journeys, or cool science, or other stuff that inspires me or makes me curious) or watch a movie, or watch a goofy TV show (lately The Mindy Project has been making me smile).
Sometimes, just stepping away can help with that perspective that while yes, we are in many ways a mess, we are also in many ways beautiful.
I try to focus on making my little corner of the world a better place to be in. I’m pretty cynical about my ability to affect big change on a big level most of the time, but I do believe that if we live our life, and make our sphere, the way we envision the world, those ripples will spread.
That doesn’t mean that other people should act big…just that my talents are probably better used small scale.
And clearly this is an idea I need to learn to articulate better!
I’ve taken to supporting The Girl Scouts of America as well as Planned Parenthood and Donors Choose. That last one is on the basis of truly believing that if we can just educate all our kids well surely they’ll do this stuff better than we have been doing.