If there’s one thing that people who know me can tell you: I’m white. Seriously white. I recently took a DNA test through Ancestry.com and learned that I was even whiter than most people thought. I’m WHITE: Eastern European white, former Communist European white, Scandinavian white, British Isles white, Central European white, with a mix of New England white. The only diversity I have is the Native American background, and 4% Pacific Islander.
This is true. I don’t know where the Pacific Islander comes from, but I have to believe it’s a crazy story. One that probably involves a lot of rum and a certain amount of sea shanties.
My formative years were spent growing up in Wyoming and Montana, with a family who was deeply racist and bigoted (in the name of Jesus—hallelujah). As I’ve said often, I grew up in an Evangelical family, and—not hyperbole—the movement was created from racism—even according to the man who helped create it: Frank Shaeffer. I heard the “n-word” as an adjective, a verb, a noun, a common household name, and every other word in a sentence. Even though my family was pretty much white trash, they still felt superior to “them damn…” Which means I grew up poor. So poor I couldn’t even afford the bootstraps to pull myself up.
Why I didn’t follow in their footsteps I don’t know, but I’m grateful. I do have theories though. First, I was different (though I could hide my difference). I’ve heard my uncles and cousins threaten to “shoot any faggot” that ever stepped foot on their property. So I learned early on how to hide that. But they also threatened to shoot any (insert racial group here) that stepped foot on their property as well.
In Wyoming, I went to school in Riverton, which was amid the Shoshone and Arapaho Native American reservations, so living there I was taught I was supposed to hate “Indians.” There was also a heavy Hispanic presence there and—the whites hated them too. So racism was a way of life for me. Or so it would seem. But I was drawn to the Native Americans, to the Hispanics, and other outcasts—I think mostly because I felt like an outsider myself. And I’ve said this often, I wonder if it isn’t that which saved me from becoming all-out racist like my family members.
Note: I realize I’m playing fast and loose with the words ‘racist’ and ‘bigot,’ but I simply don’t have the time to suss out all the details. Still, I am aware that racism is a system from which I benefit, and bigotry is a way of looking at others, for which I have had my moments.
Because of all this, I had to create a different God. One who loved me as an outcast. When I read the Gospels, I was drawn to how drawn Jesus was to the outcast. So “my God” was both powerful but predisposed to the outcast, and therefore not tempted to prove he had power to anybody but himself. In fact, he was willing to suspend his “wrath” until much later in hopes that his enemies would “repent.”
So when I saw the video that Donald Trump posted, then took down, and is now trying to pretend doesn’t apply to him of the man yelling “White power!” it brought back those wonderful days with my family listening to them hate on everybody who was different than ‘we’ were, even though we were so disgusting we would never have managed to live up to the very standards we set for others to follow.
I know that guy who yelled “White power!” I know him intimately. I grew up with him. He was my uncle. He was my cousin. I had to bite my tongue around him (for fear that he meant what he said when he said he’d shoot me). And I know I despise him, and just about everything about him, even though I know I’m supposed to love him.
And that’s my heritage. That’s where I come from. That’s how I could have turned out if… God knows what… but I’m grateful something got through to me. That I can see the ugly in me means a lot, even if that ugly still seeps out in so many ways.
I’m white, but I’m not a “powerful” person. In fact, if I get ten comments on a Facebook post, that’s a lot to me. This is how I know power doesn’t come from color. I’m white. If “white power” was true, I’d be trending, going viral, having my ass kissed by God. Nor does power come from might, or muscles, or popularity. Gravity is one of the most powerful forces in the universe, and we don’t even realize it’s there most of the time. Lightening is powerful and yet it never once says anything about what it can do. It just does what it does. Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, electricity—powers so powerful we even devote millions of dollars trying to understand them. They don’t tell us they’re powerful. They don’t need to. They’re secure in their “power.” The sun doesn’t brag about its position in the sky. The earth doesn’t tell us how much of our lives depend on it. They just are.
So when a white man yells “white power,” he’s coming from a place of fear, not power. And Jesus seemed to see this when he dealt with God. Even at the very end, when he was being falsely accused, he “opened not his mouth.”
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
Isaiah 53:7
Jesus had the power to just be him. He had the power to “shut his mouth” and realize what was God’s will or him, or to speak out against the powers that be who oppressed the poor. Very few of my white relatives know how to do this. It takes “fear” to yell out “white power.” And fear is rife among Evangelicals at this moment. Which means, we have a slight advantage. Because we understand the fear that ignorance brings. But we must tap into those resources… which is not easy. We ask the hard questions, we challenge ourselves to be kind even in the face of insurmountable evil, and we “hope.” Something inside of us believes there must be a way to save the human race—despite all evidence to the contrary.
I don’t think it’s “love,” I don’t think it’s “peace…” I think it’s “hope.” Hope that some day we will be able to overcome racism and bigotry and hate (before Climate Change does us in), and recognize (and save) our species.
To be clear, whenever I talk about racism to my friends, they always ask, “How do you know you’re not racist?” To which I respond, “Because I know that I am.” As a racist, I understand how racism works (to a certain degree) and then I can see myself behaving in that way, and then I can catch it—try to correct it. I can see my own insecurity and realize that I’m making sweeping generalizations based on looks, not humanness.
We are a species. Neanderthals disappeared… Why? Good question. Almost everyone of us has Neanderthal DNA. It’s fun, and even comforting, to think we’re superior to all other creatures, but nothing on earth supports that. We exist at the will of Earth, and it fights hard to protect life—while at the same time to destroy life.
We survive as a species, or we don’t survive at all. Earth, the Solar System, the Universe… sees nothing else, and neither should we.