Complicity

Hey there, friends. First of all, I hope you are having a wonderful Litha (the official date for the majority of cultures is June 20th, for context whenever you’re reading this)! If that’s not your thing, enjoy the summer solstice and the amplitude of sun. :)

I was hoping to have something up about witchcraft and its various forms and practices by Litha, but, instead, I want to address something that’s been weighing heavy on my heart. This time of the year—the summer solstice, or Litha—is all about balance of the light and the dark, about the synchronicity of opposing elements, about how we must acknowledge both sides to grow and be whole. This celebration also falls near Juneteenth, the day I’m writing this. With the social media fervor surrounding the recent Black Lives Matter resurgence starting to subside, I don’t want the movement to fade. In order to do that, we, as white people, must first come to terms with how we have been complicit in perpetuating racism. We must face our own darkness.

In the hopes that it will help you confront, address, and talk about yours, I’m going to talk about some of my own. I’ve been doing some soul-searching in my past weeks of listening and learning. So, here’s my darkness. Here’s some of my complicity. Please note that this is only the beginning of coming to terms with it. This is only the beginning of an eternal education and reflection.

I consider myself to be a kind person. I’m empathic to a fault: I absorb everyone else’s feelings, and I tend to take on maternal and/or therapeutic roles. I enjoy doing that, though it can be exhausting. I’ve always been an open-minded person, someone who loves deeply and with immediacy, someone who cares probably too much. I’d argue that that’s a good thing, for the most part. However, it’s also been a powerful weakness. Most importantly, it’s blinded me to my own complicity in a system that holds so much darkness within it.

I am not a racist, and never have been. I have not been actively antiracist, and haven’t been until recently. Because of this, I have been a part of the system I so despise. I have been perpetuating racism in implicit ways.

In a scene study class I took a few years ago, white women were routinely asked to play Lady Thiang in a scene from The King and I. Fearful of authority and trusting those educating me, I said nothing, just shifted uncomfortably in my seat every time it went up, knowing that this was wrong. Fellow students who did speak up tended to be brushed aside.

A former teacher continuously corrected a black student on his way of speaking, calling his accent, his idiolect, incorrect. On occasion, it turned into something like berating. I said nothing. I didn’t adhere to the roiling of my stomach every time it happened.

In a production I was in years ago, a white man played an Indian character, singing in the character’s native language and attempting to portray their culture. At times, it became a caricature. I said nothing. It was a combination of fear of speaking up and plain ignorance of how horribly wrong that was.

I saw a production of Hairspray in which several of the black ensemble members were played by tanned white performers. I was young. I said nothing, even though that struck me as so very odd. (The actors have since spoken up about this, acknowledging their own ignorance and complicity, so that is certainly a step forward.)

I was in a performance group that had certain hair requirements, as we all had to look uniform. Several times, the director would make commentary about the hair of the black girls in our group. It differed, going from microaggressive admiration to passing judgment on how it didn’t look like the white girls’. This didn’t happen in my presence, but I was told about it by one of my black friends in the group. While I brought up complaints about that director later (this person was quite toxic in general), I never brought up their racial microaggressions. I didn’t think it was my place.

At a previous retail job of mine, a customer once told me, “Oh my, you have such beautiful white skin,” placing the emphasis on the color. She had recently been helped by a BIPOC coworker of mine; I caught the gist of what the customer meant. I bit my tongue. I said thank you. I ignored the odd feeling, because I didn’t want to lose my job.

I have come across countless incredibly racist posts on my timeline, from people I have loved dearly. Though their ignorance and learned cruelty ignited a deep rage, I stayed silent. I was terrified of burning bridges. I didn’t see the point of sparking Facebook arguments, as what good would that do? I rationalized in every way, shape, and form. Still, I had ire and impatience and disbelief pulsing through my veins. I didn’t listen to it.

In an even smaller way, as a reader, my bookshelf is not diverse. I read largely white, female authors between the ages of nineteen and thirty-five, whether they be classics from centuries past or contemporary literature. While I’m proud that my shelf is majority female, I’m ashamed of the fact that there are very few BIPOC authors contained within. I’ve been unintentionally narrowing my view, and, in turn, not supporting non-white authors. That, in itself, contributes to systemic racism, as it is inhibiting and effectively silencing BIPOC voices.

These examples are only the beginning. I’m sure I’ve been complicit in ways beyond those, and will have to discover what those were/are and confront them as they come. It’s been painful, I’ll admit, painful in the sense that I’ve had to fight defenses coming up, painful in realizing how much I’ve been unintentionally contributing to hurting others in the past. It is not easy to learn the bad parts of yourself, even as a person who is already incredibly hard on herself. It is not easy to confront your darkness and begin to remedy it.

I’m determined to be better. I’m determined to read more, listen more, speak out more. I’ve gotten better at remaining calm in escalating circumstances; I’ve made it so that defenses don’t arise anymore, though anxiety and hurt likely always will. That’s a very human thing.

There are two major things I’ve learned from speaking to, listening to, and reading the works of my black friends and colleagues, though: 1) how much I don’t know and how important education is; and 2) that you must do something, even if it’s imperfectly. I’m going to make mistakes. As a perfectionist, as someone who fights the fear of failure every damn day of my life, that makes me nauseous. I want to do it well. But I will make mistakes, and, though those, I will learn and make it better. That’s what we have to do as a nation right now. That’s what we have to do as a world right now. That’s what we have to do, each of us, as one singular person right now.

And there’s the lightness. Both existing as one.

And as we confront our darkness, we will create more light. We just need to be unafraid of the dark, and be willing to do the work to turn on the light.

It’s your turn to start, friends. I’m here as a resource, and to provides resources, if you need.

I love you all.

Black Lives Matter.

~Rhiannon~