The exchange with my brother continues, and once again, I find I am inspired to examine my own thoughts and opinions in order to understand and express them more clearly.
I had claimed that he and I have no idea what it is to be a POC in this country. Which isn't completely true. Certainly we have ideas about what it might be like. But Bro objects to my saying that we can't truly know what it feels like to move through the world with black skin. He contrasts my avowed inability to imagine that with my sympathy/empathy for the situations in which Palestinians live. (This conversation about the Oscars has grown branches and twigs and leaves.)
It's true that I have been to Palestine, or what used to be Palestine. I have had conversations with Palestinians, visited some of them in their homes and orchards, seen the spent tear gas canisters and rubber bullets lying about, seen the walls and barbed wire and check points, the Israeli solders patrolling the streets with their rifles. I have read books written by Palestinians, Israelis, Americans, and Brits about life in Israel.
Still, I continue to assert that I don't really know what it is to be Palestinian, what it is to be black, what it is to live the life of the oppressed, because even if I could imagine it fully and deeply and truly, I could also stop that imagining and go back to my safe, un-oppressed life whenever I choose. I can't possibly know what it is the live an oppressed life and not be able to get away from it.
I used to think about what it would be like when my mom died. I could easily make myself cry with those imaginings, they were so vivid and emotionally powerful. But when she did actually die, it wasn't like anything I had imagined, and that was mostly because I could never leave that state of grief, couldn't get away from it, but had to live with it all day every day. And even this is not a completely analogous situation (the difference between the imagined and the actual), because grief eventually fades.
Barbara, I have followed your conversation with baby bro with interest. I think you hit the key in this post. We can empathize. We can imagine and visualize, but we get to "go home." You are brilliant and compassionate and I love and admire you more than I can say.
ReplyDelete"...we can't truly know what it feels like to move through the world with black skin." Exactly. You cannot. And even those of us WITH Black Skin have a hard time imagining SOME of how it feels -- those of us with relative privilege who have never been confronted by some of the oppressive, denigrating, horrible acts that others have experienced.
ReplyDeleteI have moved through the world with relative ease in comparison to many of my brothers and sisters. BUT that doesn't change the fact that folks who are racist or unthinking haven't said things or behaved in ways, well-meaning or not, that have reminded me of this: I am just another Black person to them, not Annis. They do not know me and don't care to.
Now that I'm older and see a broader picture of the world as it is, I understand why my mother always insisted I walk in a store with my hands behind my back, that I always get a receipt and a bag for the goods I've purchased; why she taught me not to point my finger at people or walk into yards uninvited. Any perceived infraction could have caused me/us grief. White people may intellectually get this, but their guts will not know how it feels.
Hugs,
xoA