I am proud to be an American. I love my country, and I think it is the best place for me to live. I know that freedom is a fundamental element of our history and our present. I also know that freedom has not been given equally to everyone. I used to believe that I couldn't be proud of my country or a patriotic citizen if I acknowledged or decried any of the issues that existed throughout our history and still exist today. Yes, I acknowledged slavery, "but that was over a hundred years ago, let's get over it." Yes, I acknowledged racism, "but it's so rare and most people aren't racist today, let's get over it." Or so I thought.
I was raised in the dichotomous mental concept of good and evil. Something and someone was either good or evil, never both. Or if they were both, "that was a while ago, let's get over it." And maybe they still had a few issues, but we could only acknowledge the small ones and maybe excuse them with "they're working on it" or "that has nothing to do with me." Because yeah, the KKK exists, but I'm not part of it!
Recently, I've learned to love my whole self and recognize the actions or choices I make that I might not wish to make as beautiful too. Even though I've gained 30 pounds in the past year or so, I do not hate my body or my eating habits as I once did because I understand that I was doing the best I could at the time to stay alive. I also have begun to trust my heart and realize that the things I do are always done with the intention to express the maximum love possible. Thus, I need never feel guilt or shame when considering the choices of my past, even as I am able to look at them and decide that I need to make better choices in my future. After all, if I am going to continue living and growing, my ability to express love should only ever increase! This allows me to grow instead of being stuck walking in circles because I cannot acknowledge or accept that a choice I made in the past might be less than one I would wish to make now. Before, I couldn't acknowledge when I did anything "wrong" because "wrong" meant "evil" which made me bad, which meant I wasn't good. This led to a whole host of self-loathing issues and the inability to grow. I had to stand and staunchly defend and justify a position I held or anything I did and reject anyone who tried to point out other perspectives because to acknowledge that someone else's perspective might also be valid would be to deny myself or call myself evil.
The same thing is happening in America today. Some people think we cannot acknowledge systemic racism because to do so means we don't love our country. "Get out if you don't like America!" is a phrase I've heard quite often. It's one I used to say! But allowing kids to be kept in what amounts to concentration camps is beneath us as a nation, and refusing to acknowledge that it's happening or that we can do better means that kids will continue to be kept in cages.
I teach junior high kids. I don't consider any of them evil. I see behavior issues every day, and though some kids are a thorn in my side, I would never call them a bad person. I remember one time I had a boy pick up another boy, who was about the height of a fourth grader even though he was in eighth grade, and swing him around in a circle. I told this boy to stop doing that. "But he likes it, Miss!" the boy said, and the shorter boy nodded.
"I don't care if it's his favorite thing ever, I asked you not to do that," I responded. The first boy promptly picked the second boy up and spun him around again. I asked him to stay after class.
"Kid," (I used his actual name) I said, "What does it make me think if you do the exact thing I just told you not to do?" I asked him in our little impromptu conference.
"That I'm a bad person?"
"No! You're not a bad person! I don't believe in bad people! But I do think that you must not care about what I say. Next time you do the exact opposite of what I say, you'll get detention." He agreed and went to the next class.
I am not sure what his takeaway from the conversation was, but I hope it was that he is not a bad person, but that he needs to consider and respect when others tell him something he doesn't know. (He never swung the other kid around again, so... win?) As an adult, my thoughts were on the safety of the boy and the other kids in the room if things went wrong, the disruption to the learning process happening in my classroom, and a whole host of other things that this thirteen-year-old wasn't thinking about because he didn't have that perspective yet. All he wanted to do was have fun. Did that make him a bad person? Absolutely not. It just meant there were things he hadn't considered yet. He had the potential to consider more and to learn by listening to others. I wanted him to grow.
We can love ourselves and also acknowledge that there are areas in which we could grow, gain perspective, and make different choices. We can love our country and acknowledge that there are still issues like systemic racism and segregation that need to change. Perhaps if we don't look at America as good or evil, but rather as a wonderful nation that is capable of more love than it's showing right now, we can help it reach its full potential.
As a white person, there are things I do not understand about the everyday life of POC. I never thought about being afraid of police officers and having to teach your kids how to respect them and go to them for help, but also how to avoid being shot by them for looking suspicious. I never thought about how I might need to dress to walk around certain stores or neighborhoods so that I looked like I belonged there. I never considered these things because I didn't have to. Does that make me evil? No, but it does mean I need to listen to other perspectives, grow, and expand my capacity to love.
"I don't see color" is a phrase that means "I don't want to see the problems POC face."
"If you hate America so much, why don't you move to ____" is a phrase that means "If you acknowledge the problems America has, you must not love your country."
We can aspire to more without hating who we are or where we've come from. We can acknowledge the less-than without saying we are evil. We can do better. What we cannot do is continue to avoid and hide from the problems that are happening in our country right now, because to do so will cause the same thing to happen that happens when we suppress our traumas and feelings: a massively unhealthy explosion at the worst possible time. Still, I believe we can do better... and we will.
I was raised in the dichotomous mental concept of good and evil. Something and someone was either good or evil, never both. Or if they were both, "that was a while ago, let's get over it." And maybe they still had a few issues, but we could only acknowledge the small ones and maybe excuse them with "they're working on it" or "that has nothing to do with me." Because yeah, the KKK exists, but I'm not part of it!
Recently, I've learned to love my whole self and recognize the actions or choices I make that I might not wish to make as beautiful too. Even though I've gained 30 pounds in the past year or so, I do not hate my body or my eating habits as I once did because I understand that I was doing the best I could at the time to stay alive. I also have begun to trust my heart and realize that the things I do are always done with the intention to express the maximum love possible. Thus, I need never feel guilt or shame when considering the choices of my past, even as I am able to look at them and decide that I need to make better choices in my future. After all, if I am going to continue living and growing, my ability to express love should only ever increase! This allows me to grow instead of being stuck walking in circles because I cannot acknowledge or accept that a choice I made in the past might be less than one I would wish to make now. Before, I couldn't acknowledge when I did anything "wrong" because "wrong" meant "evil" which made me bad, which meant I wasn't good. This led to a whole host of self-loathing issues and the inability to grow. I had to stand and staunchly defend and justify a position I held or anything I did and reject anyone who tried to point out other perspectives because to acknowledge that someone else's perspective might also be valid would be to deny myself or call myself evil.
The same thing is happening in America today. Some people think we cannot acknowledge systemic racism because to do so means we don't love our country. "Get out if you don't like America!" is a phrase I've heard quite often. It's one I used to say! But allowing kids to be kept in what amounts to concentration camps is beneath us as a nation, and refusing to acknowledge that it's happening or that we can do better means that kids will continue to be kept in cages.
I teach junior high kids. I don't consider any of them evil. I see behavior issues every day, and though some kids are a thorn in my side, I would never call them a bad person. I remember one time I had a boy pick up another boy, who was about the height of a fourth grader even though he was in eighth grade, and swing him around in a circle. I told this boy to stop doing that. "But he likes it, Miss!" the boy said, and the shorter boy nodded.
"I don't care if it's his favorite thing ever, I asked you not to do that," I responded. The first boy promptly picked the second boy up and spun him around again. I asked him to stay after class.
"Kid," (I used his actual name) I said, "What does it make me think if you do the exact thing I just told you not to do?" I asked him in our little impromptu conference.
"That I'm a bad person?"
"No! You're not a bad person! I don't believe in bad people! But I do think that you must not care about what I say. Next time you do the exact opposite of what I say, you'll get detention." He agreed and went to the next class.
I am not sure what his takeaway from the conversation was, but I hope it was that he is not a bad person, but that he needs to consider and respect when others tell him something he doesn't know. (He never swung the other kid around again, so... win?) As an adult, my thoughts were on the safety of the boy and the other kids in the room if things went wrong, the disruption to the learning process happening in my classroom, and a whole host of other things that this thirteen-year-old wasn't thinking about because he didn't have that perspective yet. All he wanted to do was have fun. Did that make him a bad person? Absolutely not. It just meant there were things he hadn't considered yet. He had the potential to consider more and to learn by listening to others. I wanted him to grow.
We can love ourselves and also acknowledge that there are areas in which we could grow, gain perspective, and make different choices. We can love our country and acknowledge that there are still issues like systemic racism and segregation that need to change. Perhaps if we don't look at America as good or evil, but rather as a wonderful nation that is capable of more love than it's showing right now, we can help it reach its full potential.
As a white person, there are things I do not understand about the everyday life of POC. I never thought about being afraid of police officers and having to teach your kids how to respect them and go to them for help, but also how to avoid being shot by them for looking suspicious. I never thought about how I might need to dress to walk around certain stores or neighborhoods so that I looked like I belonged there. I never considered these things because I didn't have to. Does that make me evil? No, but it does mean I need to listen to other perspectives, grow, and expand my capacity to love.
"I don't see color" is a phrase that means "I don't want to see the problems POC face."
"If you hate America so much, why don't you move to ____" is a phrase that means "If you acknowledge the problems America has, you must not love your country."
We can aspire to more without hating who we are or where we've come from. We can acknowledge the less-than without saying we are evil. We can do better. What we cannot do is continue to avoid and hide from the problems that are happening in our country right now, because to do so will cause the same thing to happen that happens when we suppress our traumas and feelings: a massively unhealthy explosion at the worst possible time. Still, I believe we can do better... and we will.
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