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Waking - My Personal Journey to Not Having My Head So Far Up My Own Ass (Part 1) [1]
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Date: 2023-05-16
You should read this book before you aren't allowed to.
I’ll never be “woke”… But I hope I keep waking. This summer, my church (College Park Baptist Church, Greensboro NC) is reading Clint Smith’s 2021 book, “How the Word is Passed,” which is an engrossing and enlightening book that provides (in the author’s words) “a reckoning with the history of slavery across America.” It is not a screed or a rant. It’s the author’s observation about visiting seven places with different ties to slavery. The book gets better (and more hard-hitting) with each chapter if for no other reason than the cumulative weight of what you’ve read becomes impossible to shuffle off. It contains many hard facts that are easily verified but unknown to most Americans because they don’t fit the preferred narrative of American exceptionalism. But the real strength of the book lies in the questions Smith asks of the average people he meets and how he puts things together. Once I began it, I literally couldn’t stop reading it. I understood a little more about the ongoing experiences of black Americans, and a little more about how we got here. But I couldn’t escape a couple questions. First, what has my role been in this poisonous legacy? How have I fit into this? How have I benefited from it? How am I still benefiting from it? Second, what role am I going to make for myself going forward for however many days I have left? How can I make a difference? Honestly, I still don’t have the answer to either of those questions. And I’m not sure I’ll ever have a perfect answer to either. That’s why I’d reject the label, “woke.”
I mean, what does “woke” even mean? Obviously, it’s a form of “awake.” But what does it mean to be truly “awake,” and awake to what? I think it means to be awake to the racial injustices all around me. To truly understand all the ways that race plays itself out in our society. To really see ALL the ways that black, brown and native people suffer under a pervasive system of racial oppression. And to fully grasp—and be willing to reckon with—my own privileges and my own part in the system. If that’s what woke means—or is even close to what it means—I don’t see how I can ever get there. Not because I don’t want to get there, but because I don’t think woke is a place; I think it’s a process. So, I’m not woke, but I am “waking.”
For decades, I’ve had these recurring dreams. I wake up and realize I’ve slept through some extremely important thing. A college exam, a law school exam, an important trial, a flight. Sometimes, it’s not even about a real thing; just my unconscious creating some proxy for my stress. In the dream, I “wake up” terrified. I frantically do everything I can think of to fix the problem. But it’s no use.
The worst part is that it always seems so real. The dream works as a nightmare because while I am in it, I am certain that I am awake….
But I am still asleep…
I only think that I woke up.
Many times over the last 59 years, I have experienced something that gave me a totally new insight into the racism all around me. Each time, it came out of the blue as a total surprise. As if I had discovered a door in my house I never knew existed to another room I didn’t know existed. At first, I would think, “Aha, now I know what there is to know.” But then something new would happen that would show how little I really knew. I can never know how many hidden rooms are in my house and I’m sure I’ll never find them all. Ultimately, I can’t be “woke” because I don’t know what I don’t know.
But I’m trying. I’m trying to be as awake as I can be. “How the Word is Passed” made me do an inventory of my own stuff. To remember and examine the many moments that worked to rouse me from my slumber, even if I remain not fully awake. I want to share those experiences, both to bear witness to them for my own growth and to (just maybe) help others along their own journey. This cesspool of racism in which we live is a toxic trap for EVERYONE. But racism is an artificial and unholy edifice constructed by humans, and by we humans, it can be deconstructed brick by brick. Maybe not in my lifetime, maybe not in my childrens’, “but let us begin.”
I’m going to relate MY story—I speak only for myself. Maybe some things will resonate with you, maybe they won’t. But I am certain that I am not the only white person who has seen racism and their own privilege—or who could have seen them if they were willing to open their eyes. If nothing else, I hope my white brethren will look back through their own stories with a critical eye.
A few things before I dig in and bare my soul, though. I'm not going to be talking about “people of color”—I’m talking about black Americans. This isn't to deny or diminish the racism that all peoples of color encounter. But the reality is that different groups experience racism differently. The black experience is unique. No other people in this country had their humanity reduced to property in the Constitution. Other minorities (e.g., the Irish, the Italians, Eastern Europeans, and now many Latinx) have been able to become "white" as the concept of whiteness changed. The one group that could never become "white" are black African-Americans.
And I will be talking about "blacks," not “African-Americans.” I apologize to anyone who sensibilities this offends. However, this word choice is intentional because the slavery and continued oppression African-Americans have faced was, and is, a circumstance of skin tone only, and not of continent of origin. The children of Sally Hemings and her owner, Thomas Jefferson, were all born in America, not Africa. Their heritage was more European than African, and but for the servitude of their mother, they would have been born free as American citizens. Instead, those six children of our third President lived their lives enslaved because of the levels of melanin in their skin.
Except for famous people involved, I will change names. For black people, I have changed their names because they are people, not props. They didn't ask to be in my story and they are entitled to their privacy. (I am reminded of James Baldwin's searing indictment, "I am not your negro"). I've changed the names of white people for two reasons. First, my purpose isn't to call anyone out. This is my story, not theirs. Second, most of these things happened many years ago. I know what they said or did at the time, but I don't know where they are at now on their own journey. Who knows. Maybe they are waking, too. Here's hoping.
In his book, Clint Smith says: “I think that history is the story of the past, using all the available facts, and that nostalgia is a fantasy about the past using no facts, and somewhere in between is memory, which is kind of this blend of history and a little bit of emotion…I mean, history is kind of about what you need to know…but nostalgia is what you want to hear.”
My goal is a history, but I know that, inevitably, it will become a memory. Because it’s MY history, and it would be impossible for me to entirely separate my memories from my own emotions of that history. But it will not be nostalgia. In all things, I will endeavor to be as honest and accurate as I can. But I am sure that some specific details will still be wrong. These things happened over the course of over five decades, going back to when I was only four. Every one of the experiences I describe had an immediate impact on me, but they were all unexpected and I wasn’t taking notes. But I will do my best to be a faithful narrator.
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