Opposable Thumbs and Empathy

My family and I live on a farm and raise animals. Cattle, dogs, chickens, goats, pigs…we’ve done it all. One thing that continually, in equal measures, appalls and fascinates me is the tendency for animals to attack the weak links in their herd.

If a dog gets injured or one of the other pups gets into a disagreement with his buddy, the whole pack will join in and maul him. They will literally kill their own pack-mate just because he’s sick or because he had a squabble with one of the other dogs. A pig will bite off his best friend’s tail. A chicken will peck the crap out of her own sister if her beak is a little bit wonky. For real. It’s so weird.

Another thing that never ceases to make my brain ache and my heart combust is the propensity for humans to do the same damn thing. We sense a weakness or see a mistake or a lapse in judgement – something any one of us could and probably have done – and we viciously attack.

We band together in interweb troll herds and rove along semi-anonymously with our torches and pitchforks; killing our own flock mates with our grisly words and dreadful judgement. It’s fantastically amazing how many perfect people there are lurking in the shadows of cyberspace.

I say if we’re going to behave like dogs and wage virtual war upon every infallible human out there, we might as well rip off our opposable thumbs now and start eating our meat raw.

Why must we knead salt into already unhealable wounds?

I have a whole pod of kids I spawned and I’m so, so thankful everyday that I’m only responsible for myself and them. I’m only in a position to be judge, jury and executioner for my own family. That’s it.

The choices other folks are making for their people – that’s their business. The things that happen in another family – none of my concern unless I can do something to help them. Sometimes, all I can do is pray.

Pray for strength, pray for healing, pray for protection, pray for redemption – for myself and the ones who are suffering around me.

For now, I’d like to keep my thumbs and grill my grass-fed steaks. I’m going to steer clear of rumors and sensationalism and media-induced frenzies. I’ll just sit in the quiet of the woods by my house and meditate.

I’ll ponder about what I’m doing; how I can be better, what I can do to serve the humans I’m surrounded by. The real, flesh and bone people passing me by –  not the hypothetical-judgy-hologram-selfie-filter-taking-hall-monitors out to rid the world of injustice, one Facebook post at a time.

I’ll strive and struggle to teach and model depth of character for my children; empathy, love, forgiveness, patience, kindness, tolerance and acceptance. What’s being smart or pretty or wealthy or successful worth if you’re a straight up jerk and can’t feel the feelings?

How can we be better today?

What I Know About Racism

It’s Black History month. I’m white. I’m also at a loss.

I want my children to understand and reject racism. I want to be a good person. I want my kids to be good people. I stand on my pulpit and teach them that everyone is equal and deserving of respect.

I attempt to model love and acceptance and avoidance of judgement “Because…”, I tell them stoically, “…we never know the whole story. We can’t begin to put the puzzle pieces of other people’s lives together because we’ve never worn their shoes.” Not even close.

So, we watch Selma and Loving and 12 Years a Slave and we all cry because it hurts. I wonder how African Americans feel watching these movies. I attempt to bridge the gap I feel so profoundly. We have conversations. I struggle to articulate what I want them to know because what I want them to know has no dialogue. White people don’t really absorb this stuff. We don’t usually really talk about it.

My beginnings were in the southwest corner of Virginia and I can affirm that in my childhood, racism was still alive and well. I kid you not, these were common phrases;

“Don’t put that penny in your mouth. N****** might have touched that.”

“You got any N****** Toes?” (Referring to Brazil nuts)

Even being immersed in this type of colloquy, I was raised by parents who were somewhat progressive in that time and that place and was able to dodge a majority of that indoctrination. Having both served in the military, they had been exposed to many races, ethnicities and religions and gained a modicum of understanding of equality and tolerance and what it was supposed to mean.

My mom became involved in race relations in the army and struggled to work with others toward dismantling that great divide in our country. The progress was slow and the road stony, but it changed her outlook and perspective as a poor white woman in the south.

The most far reaching effects of these experiences impacted her parenting. The takeaway for me was this: Everyone deserves respect and we are all equal. I understood that.

But it wasn’t enough.

In elementary school, we lived on a horse farm in the guest house of a palatial estate owned by a doctor. My mom managed the riding academy there. The doctor’s family “employed” a black woman named Inez. We called her Inee. Inee was, for all intents and purposes, an indentured servant.

She had lived with this family since she was a teen and didn’t know her birthday but thought it was somewhere around 1919. She was born on a cotton plantation and regaled my brothers and me with tales of peeing in her cotton sack to make it seem like she picked more than she did and how she boiled chicken feet and ate them.

Inee had raised the doctor’s kids and cooked and cleaned for the family for nearly 50 years. My mom hired her to help clean our house and to watch us when we were home sick from school. She’d fawn over us and kiss our feverish foreheads and make us soup. I may or may not have faked being sick in order to stay home and be spoiled by Inee.

Fast forward to my teenhood when we moved to a diverse suburb of Denver, light years away from a tiny southern town where there may have been one student of color in my school. Maybe. I honestly can’t remember.

The school system I attended in Colorado was 85% “minority”and over half the student population received free lunch. I knew poor. I knew loving a black granny intensely. I did not know diversity.

I got myself in trouble.

I had never had someone tell me I could not sit in a certain place at lunch. But it was a thing in my middle school. White girls couldn’t sit at certain tables in the lunchroom because there was a group of black girls who sat there and it was their table.  

I ran my mouth.

“I don’t see your name on this bench. I can sit here if I want to,” I declared in my southern accent.

The extent of what I considered racism to be was a story my aunt told me, who lived in Mississippi. The black folks only shopped under cover of night at the Jitney Jungle for fear of being harassed or worse.

I couldn’t believe these girls had the nerve to try and boss me around and I let them know how I felt. Not in the context of you’re black and I’m white, rather “we’re equal and we can all sit wherever we want because this is America.”

I was threatened all the time. “The white girl who runs her mouth.” I think my best friend was terrified to walk home with me for awhile because I caused so much trouble. There were slap fights, hair-pulling and stare-downs. Apparently I was the only one stupid enough to question the hierarchy.

I did not compute the silent understanding that the white kids had with the black kids at my school. We were to keep to ourselves and not question the flow of nature there. They got on the bus first. They sat in certain places at lunch. They were the boss.

High school was better. Maybe we were all older and more mature. Maybe I learned the pecking order and what was expected of me. We all tolerated each other fairly well – black, white, Asian, Latino.

My boyfriend was Mexican but my friends were mostly white. I also dated a black guy for a short while. My main friend group was referred to as the “White Boy Cracker Crew”.  A gang of sorts, I guess. I don’t know how that moniker was birthed. I was questioned regularly about this dichotomy in my life. I had no answer.

Then my family uprooted to rural Minnesota for my senior year. A whole new landscape of culture to navigate and learn. Most curious to me, were the boys who draped confederate flags across the back windows of their pickup trucks and shouted things like, “The south will rise again!”

“Um, I think maybe ya’ll are confused. You were born and bred in the NORTH. Far north.”

The only diversity we knew in Minnesota was the children of Mexican migrant farm workers who came to school during harvest while their parents were working the fields and then were gone as quickly as they came. We didn’t know where they went. There were occasionally some black or brown kids filtered through foster care because there was a children’s home somewhere in the countryside near our school.

Fast forward a few more years. I’m married (to a white guy) and living in north Texas. Not as colorful as Colorado, but plenty of multiculturalism. We lived in a mostly white neighborhood with a few Mexican and black families sprinkled in. My husband and I both got jobs at a major, well-known company who is celebrated for their dedication to diversity and the workforce was beautiful and varied. Seemingly, someone from every race, religion, creed, lifestyle and ethnicity was represented.

The black girls hated me again.

From day one in my training class, I was in the minority as a white woman. I don’t think I did anything wrong, but I’m not sure. They rolled their eyes at me. They ignored me at worst and tolerated me at best. I wanted them to like me so bad. I tried hard. Probably too hard. I vexed myself into a frenzy trying to convince them I didn’t see color. They did not appreciate my efforts.

Jump forward a few months and I’m pregnant. I begin to show. The black girls love me.

They open doors for me.

They smile and make eye contact.

They bring me donuts.

They call me ‘Lil’ Mama’.

What the hell?

My boss was a black man who had pretty much not even been aware I existed and suddenly we were chatting all the day long and he was going out of his way to make allowances for me to pee and have extra breaks so I can feed my baby belly. Did I need a stool to put my feet up?

I reveled in having friendly relationships with black folks again. They revived fond memories of Inee loving me. It made me curious why it wasn’t like that all the time. Why couldn’t we love like that even when I’m skinny and white and not carrying a baby? What could I do to convince them I wanted to be like that all time?

What had changed?

Now I have six kids. We live in rural, backcountry Texas on a farm in the middle of nowhere. It’s rare to see a black person at the grocery store in our town, but there are lots of Latinos. When I do see a person of color, I go way out of my way to smile at them and send a subliminal message to their heart, “I see you and you’re welcome here.”, because that’s how I feel. Sometimes, I think I overcompensate. I wonder if they’re thinking, “Why is this idiot smiling at me like a lost fool?”

We homeschool our kids and they’ve never been to public school. I’m scared every day that I will fail them – in too many ways to count, but especially in terms of racial intelligence. I know most white kids are racially underdeveloped and I want to find out why. I want to be the change, right? Right.

Where white kids are told in a very sanitized way, “We’re all equal,” brown and black kids are being educated on where to put their hands when they’re pulled over and how to talk to police so they won’t be misunderstood. They’re being schooled on how to interact safely with authority figures while white kids are being told “police are safe and find one if you need help.”

Meanwhile, over here, I’m inadvertently teaching my kids that we never discuss politics, money or religion. Oh…and also racism. Because that’s bad. Everyone’s equal. Everything is awesome. The end. Except that’s a lie because we talk about all the nitty gritty at our house – just not with people outside the family. Because we might offend someone with our ignorance and white privilege.

So how do they learn? How do I teach them? It’s like I’m only teaching them addition and then expecting them to successfully complete calculus equations out in the world.

We go to a homeschool co-op and I remember being surprised – and super happy – on our first day when there were more than just white people there. I went home and reported to my husband, “There are black families there! Multiple homeschooling black families! And the dads are there, too.” Then I considered what that exclamation might be translated into by my kids, those families, the world. What is my dialogue saying?  

My eyes start to slowly open to my biases, my stereotypes, my racial intelligence – or lack thereof – and all the things I don’t know or understand. Because I am a white woman. But I want to understand.

As the co-op has grown, so has the patchwork of humanity in its membership.  Miscellany in race, abilities, conditions and beliefs abound. Word has traveled that there is unparalleled human variety in our group and it’s exciting. Unusual, but exciting. Let’s face it, the homeschool demographic is typically very homogeneous. But in our group, we all work together with a common bond and goal of giving our kids the best education we possibly can and embracing our differences is at the helm of that collective. It’s incredible to experience.

As I age and strive to cultivate intelligence and wisdom and understanding, I struggle to make my devotion to loving all people more than just rhetoric. I fight to put action behind the desire. I push to release my own personal biases and experiences and put on the shoes of other people so I can try and process even just a tiny part of their truth.

I don’t know the answers. Most times, I don’t even know the questions. But I’m going to keep asking anyway. Even if I sound stupid. Even if it looks insincere or contrived. Even if everyone is sure I’m just privileged and naive.  Even if I clam up and appear like a deer in headlights when race comes up in casual conversation.

I’ll keep reading the books and watching the movies and documentaries with my family to try and figure out where the missing pieces of the puzzle are hidden. I’ll keep the conversation flowing with my kids about why there’s not a white history month and how by being intimately acquainted with history, we can change the future.

I like to imagine that I might have been courageous enough to walk across the Pettus bridge with Martin Luther King –  that I am that kind of person. But I don’t know if I am or not.

We’ve come a long way, but even I know the journey is far from over and the complexities of racism are a deep, deep chasm. I’ll keep plowing through calculus with my kids even though I was only taught addition. I wish for those fluent in the high level “math” to help those of us who aren’t. I pray for their patience. I believe most of us want to learn, but the learning curve is steep.


13 Years Alive

In honor of Hannah’s accomplishment of surviving for 13 years, we fed giraffes. It was transcendent.

Its long, purple giraffe tongue might have changed her life.

She also had a little chitty-chat with a chimp.

Teenage Dream

Happy birthday to the one with musical laughter, an enormous heart, the responsibility of an 86 year old man, possessor of a rapier wit and who likes to whistle and sing all the day long.

You brighten my day and bring joy everywhere you wander. ❤️

Today was a 13th birthday celebration of the Dallas Zoo to feed the giraffes, lunch at Cheesecake Factory and a small stop at Costco for things like broccoli and trash bags.

You can bet yer booty I’ll post on the rest of the magic later…

McDirty’s Trip

Daddy took the big kids to Six Flags so Mommy had to calm the underage masses with rubber chicken nuggets and ice cream sundaes at McDirty’s.

There was a grown woman with a hickey and that bothered me. But the kids had a great time.

Of course there were pictures taken of my little nuggets. They’re not made out of rubber and soybeans like the Mickey D’s kind, though.

Turddlers

Here’s your Sunday Twin Fix. 👯‍♂️ Turddler /terd•ler/ noun vulgar slang A toddler who is a turd. Does not listen. Emotionally unstable: bossy, messy and very impulsive. Synonyms: wild hyena, squirrel on crack, angry hippo, honey badger, noise covered in … Continue reading

The Box Pusher

Dear Male Humans,
Ok, men. I’d like to paint a little picture for you. An analogy, if you will. Let’s compare family life to a box.
Everything is in the box – your house, your job, your wife’s job, your marriage, the kids, the dogs, the grocery shopping, school, church, your health, her health, the kids’ health, the neighbors’ health, the extended family, the cat, the cars, the broken toilet…all of it. Continue reading

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