If I Ran the Zoo…
When Racism Strikes at Home
So over the
summer (in July to be precise) we, somewhat reluctantly, attended a family
reunion at my parent’s home. It’s an annual affair that always leaves us
feeling as less than part of the family. Let me explain. Ever since I married a
not-white man it’s been evident that my dad’s side of the family is both racist
and privileged. We frequently have to listen to Obama-bashing, Islamophobic,
homophobic, and anti-immigrant rhetoric and this year, when one of my aunties
saw my two-year-old son wearing a Spiderman shirt with a hood, she exclaimed
“he looks just like those fucking Mexicans!” Which was followed by another
auntie remarking, “do you mean the ones who live next door to you?” As if it
wasn’t bad enough that they were comparing my son to “fucking Mexicans” they
were doing it right in front of my husband. And when they noticed him sitting
there they changed the subject to how Donald Trump is going to save America
from illegal immigrants.
Jesse didn’t
tell me until afterwards, and needless to say I was furious, and deeply, deeply
hurt. I can not emphasize enough how painful this was for me. To have the
people who I have loved my entire life speak so disparagingly about my son, and
to do so right in front of him, and my five year old daughter, and my grown
husband, all of whom are Anishinabe,
or the original people. To them we are all immigrants and those “fucking
Mexicans” are all family.
I posted a few
Facebook status updates about the incident and, really, that’s where the fun
began. The privileged responses from my dad’s side of the family fell into four
categories – support, denial, shaming, and blaming. My mother and two of my
cousins reached out with sincere support and offered words of repentance. My
father was silent. One of my uncles said that I should “consider the source” as
if my husband was telling me a lie, and that such a thing could never happen in
our family, and that I must be smoking too much weed – the trifecta of denial,
blaming, and shaming. It was a clear indication that my husband was never a
welcome member to their family, and that my marriage to him excluded me from
being a part of their family too.
Several
cousins inquired as to why Jesse didn’t say something immediately – expecting
people of color to confront and correct racism is the epitome of white
privilege – and shamed me for pointing out both the racism and the privileged
response. It’s also insulting to white people because it implies that we (yes,
I am a white person too) are too stupid to recognize racism and correct it
ourselves. Let’s be clear anyone should be able to see that how that woman spoke
about my two-year-old son was not appropriate, period. Not to mention it’s not
appropriate to speak about strangers that way either, lest we forget those “fucking
Mexicans” are actually human beings who are deserving of the same dignity and
respect we seek for ourselves.
Many offered
excuses or justifications that implied that Jesse may not have heard correctly,
and that I owe the family the benefit of the doubt. As if he couldn’t hear them
sitting six inches away from them, I mean literally, he was sitting right next
to them! And better yet, a few of my cousins who weren’t there asked me to
disassociate the posts (in which I tagged every single one of my family
members; we are a family right?) since they weren’t there and didn’t want
anything to do with the situation. They were polite, and privileged.
The next step
I took was bold, and perhaps extreme, I blocked them all from my social media
spaces and moved on with my life like none of them exist, even the ones who
offered their support with few exceptions: my mom and dad, and my cousin Kate,
who to her credit is also a Jerow, and while wasn’t specifically supportive
wasn’t wholly offensive or privileged in her response either. After I did this
literally nothing in our lives changed, except I didn’t see the frequent and
offensive social media posts from that side of my family.
In the ten
years since I’ve been married to Jesse not a single one of them have ever made
an effort to connect with us in any meaningful way, not even when we come to
family events. They can’t, won’t, and haven’t put their rhetoric and hateful
views on hold for even a few hours so we can be part of this family without
reserve. No one ever calls, no one ever visits us, and no one makes arrangements
to see us when they come to Madison. My cousins even organize an annual
gathering in Madison every year and literally have never invited us, ever. The
closest they’ve come is a text message two weeks prior telling me they can
“keep me in the loop” if we want to be included, like I have to opt in to being
a cousin in this family. Well, I’ve opted out, not just from being a cousin,
but from being a Van Lieshout. When I got married I changed my name like most
women do, and my family quietly wrote me out of the story, all the while
convincing themselves that it was the “mystical brown man” who took me from
them.
No one on the
other side of this story believes in white privilege, nor do they think they
are racists or that they’ve done anything wrong, and because they are white a
vast majority of people will believe them. I don’t believe I’ve done anything
wrong either, and because I’ve broken with the white privilege narrative the
vast majority of people will not believe me, and because Jesse is not white they
won’t believe him either.
Here’s my
perspective on the entire situation: I can’t protect my children from every
single privileged, racist person out there (and we all know there are plenty of
them) but I can protect them from the people I know to be privileged and
racist, and to be so towards them directly and to our family generally. And so,
because I’m white and also carry the invisible knapsack of white privilege (see
the quintessential article White
Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, by Peggy McIntosh by clicking here), I’ve
chosen #14 from the list of Daily Effects of White Privilege presented
by McIntosh:
14. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people
who might not like them.
It’s really
that simple. To me, this is life and death and these are my children. I’m all
in. As a Native American my son is ten times more likely to be killed by the
police as white men – a higher disparity than for any other race. One in three
Native American women are raped in their lives, compared to one in five of all
women. These are the realities of the world I must send my children – my son
and my daughter – out in to, not as adults though; they will face the
structural racism and implicit biases that leads to these statistics now, and
from their own privileged and racist family members. Did I mention to you how
deeply painful this is for me? I’m a white woman and have never been subject to
racism directly until I became a parent and I was shocked and saddened that it
came from those people who I’ve spent my whole life loving, but I’m not sorry
for cutting them all off. If they aren’t racist themselves, they are at least
privileged enough to distance themselves from this situation and our family at
a time when we are hurting from the pain they’ve caused.
And I thought
that was the end of the story.
A few weeks
ago I was at my parents house, which frankly no longer feels like a
socially-emotionally safe place after the incident and subsequent response, and
my brother and his wife were there, which wasn’t completely unexpected. I’m
still deeply hurt by the way we were treated, even though the treatment was
also not expected, considering the research on the matter which indicates this
is exactly what happens to white people who disrupt the privileged
infrastructure of a family, or of our society as a whole (I kind of wish that
weren’t a true statement, but really, it’s in the peer reviewed journals all
you have to do is look). I ignored them both, as I would ignore anyone else from
that family if I saw them. This week I received a letter in the mail, with no
return address, which Jesse inadvertently opened; it was from my brother’s wife
demanding some sort of apology. And last night, when the cousins were having
their annual get together, I received a text message from my brother
instructing me to “fix my crazy” and “make atonements” for my wrongdoings which
have caused too much discourse among our family. Of course, its “my crazy”
causing the discourse, insulting someone’s two-year-old son was totally
appropriate and a mental health condition is the real problem.
Did I mention
that I’m not sorry?
