Happy New Year – Susan X Jane

I’m a big fan of new beginnings. The more jaded among you may say that January 1 is just another day—random if we were to be honest. The sun and stars don’t recognize the new year. Not even every human culture celebrates the new year on January 1. But right here, we do. We are cyclical creatures: birth, life, death; spring, summer, fall, winter; eggnog, more eggnog, never drink eggnog again. So the new year finds us making promises, buying new gym shoes and tidying up our life for the new year to come. The number one resolution is to become healthier. If you’re like most people, you have indulged a bit in all the culinary joys of the holiday season. Maybe you’re looking more like Santa than a snack. Perhaps you’ve raised too many glasses. So it’s gym time, veggie trays instead of lasagna.

Healthy living is hard to do in a world marked by injustice. Looking back on the biggest challenges of the last year, racism has to be near the top of the list. From the ridiculousness of BBQ Becky and Permit Patty to the sublime white nationalism coming from the White House, America’s struggles with racism were front and center.

The daily drip of terrible stories felt overwhelming and unstoppable. ‘Stay woke’ isn’t just a catch phrase, it is a real challenge to remain conscious under such an onslaught of daily micro and macro inequities. It is easier to limit our focus to ourselves, to stop paying attention to the ongoing injustice around us and retreat into a narrower consciousness. It is not hard to turn your self-care routine into a self-segregating wall, tuning out too long to stay awake, settling back into the comfortable routine of focusing on getting the bag, treating yo’ self, and ignoring the dumpster fire that rages across cable news every day. This not-normal world is becoming the new normal. We’re settling in to watch our country burn like it’s a Netflix special—put on your comfy pants and pass the popcorn.

Just like too much eggnog, tuning out of the resistance will leave you foggy and full of shit. Turns out, lactose and systemic inequality are not natural or healthy for humans to consume. So a new year is just what we need to clear out the fog and recommit ourselves to creating a better America. Just two years ago at this time, we were measuring our heads for pussy hats and painting signs for the Women’s march. We’ve come a long way since then with active and difficult conversations about racism and transphobia both in the women’s march and our country, and we still have so very long to go. Time to fire up the knitting needles and stab them into the white supremacist patriarchy. Like your health goals for 2019, it’s good to start with truth beyond the myths of conventional wisdom and a few tips to get you started.

Myth #1 Racism has always been around and will always exist

False. Racism is a man-made social construct, and as such can be dismantled by humans. Race as we know it—black, white, Asian, latino—is a modern construction. In fact, the printing press, fireworks, and Christmas are all older than racism. We didn’t always have race; it is not inevitable that racism continues forever. We can dismantle the system of racism in America.

Myth #2 Racism is the fault of bad racist people

False. Racism is a system that is used to structure power dynamics and is maintained in our culture by laws, rules, cultural norms, and interpersonal dynamics. Each of us in America lives in this system. There are many behaviors of well-intentioned people that perpetuate this system. We all have the responsibility for working to change rules norms and practices that confer power in ways that are unjust: we can educate ourselves, vote, speak out, listen, support, lead, confront, and collaborate with others to change the social structures that perpetuate racism.

Myth #3 Racism is perpetuated by old people; when they die so will racism

False: People of all ages can and are racist. This picture alone from Charlottesville reminds us of that. Proud boys, white nationalist groups, white terrorists all count young people among their members. Racism is not generational. The heated battles over race take place on many campuses across America; racially motivated violence plagues schools across the country; white nationalist organizations continue targeting youth for recruitment. Racism is not going to die out unless we kill it.

Myth #4 Racism is a problem for people of color

False. Racism in America negatively affects all Americans. People of color are the primary victims of racism in America, and white people are systemically advantaged. But the impact of racism extends to all the people who live within its system. Unfair systems of advantage keep our nation divided, hurt people in marginalized groups, and prevent all people from experiencing the benefits of a unified population. We cannot know what we could have become if we chose the best leaders, and rewarded the brightest minds, not just the whitest minds. With massive challenges ahead like climate change, we will need to be a country united to battle challenges, striving to make America the country it said it wanted to be.

Like dieting, there is not a shortcut to ending racism. Even if we all decided today that we would like to end racism, the laws, policies, norms, and practices all need to change. That takes effort. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try—we can see from the daily news headlines that we have to try or surely the new normal will become future terror. We need to build a system that is fair and equal, one where each person is truly free to pursue the life they choose. Ending racism is a life-long pursuit, and like any healthy lifestyle change, it can have long-lasting positive effects on us and on those we love.

So let’s pledge to work with dismantle racism right where we live. You don’t have to be a professional organizer to take on the job of tackling racism. You don’t need superhero skills to make a difference. Whatever your skill level you can take regular action where you are with what you have. Let’s start slow:

Research—ideas about race are shifting as our knowledge about history, culture, and science expand. Pick a book, article or even a video to help you learn more about what race really is and how it operates in the US. Educating yourself is a good action to start with, especially if you haven’t learned about race in a while. Got a great read? Share it along with this article or in the comments.

Do your own personal survey—how inclusive is your world? Studies show the majority of Americans spend time with people of their same racial group. Be aware this week of the kinds of people that you surround yourself with: who is in your home? your town? your workplace? Examine the vertical relationships you have—who are your peers, and who are people with less and more power than you? Journal out your own environmental scan and look for places where you can grow.

Set your intentions—It’s not enough to dislike racism. We have to be clear with ourselves about what it means to be anti-racist. Do we want to just send hopes and prayers, or do we want to take an active role this year to address the issues of race in our own community? The new year is a good time to affirm our commitment to justice. If you’ve been unplugged, tune in. If you were drifting into the new normal, wake up? Add antiracism to your list of 2019 resolutions.

Experts say the average New Years resolution lasts until about January 17, but not us baby. I’ll be here with ideas and inspiration to keep you working to build a more inclusive world all year long, so be sure to follow me here and across my social at #inclusive2019. I hope you will keep thinking, learning and acting to end racism in your own life, so we can meet here same time next year to usher in 2020 with clear vision and loving communities. Stay woke.

As a kid, I had problems–bullying, a little racism, typical teen drama. Sometimes when I would complain to my Dad he would impassively ruffle the pages of his newspaper and ask:

“Are you dead?”

Was he not listening to the blow by blow I just sobbed out? What does being dead have to do with anything? I would always spit out, “No,” with a pout. I knew what came next.

“Then you’re fine.” He would offer from behind his paper. Case closed.

What kind of bullshit was this? Could he not see the angst and pain my personal battles were causing me? Didn’t he care? I remember feeling that the simplicity of his answer was cold in light of the hard world outside our home. As with all good lessons, only later I came to see I had it backward: the world was cold and he was helping me create a hardness inside me to protect against its chill.

Later, in my room, gnashing my teeth in anger at the exchange, what would make me most mad is that I could not deny that he was right. No matter what anybody had said to me, no matter what emotional knots I tied myself up in over my battles, I was in fact, not dead, I was still here. In the end, when I got out of my feelings, I found myself still alive.

Over time this taught me no one’s taunts had the power to kill me, only to weaken me by pushing me off my mark, bending me out of integrity. Bullies were strongest when I let them push my buttons when I tried to go tit for tat. The fear and anger I felt as a result of their harassment only clouded my ability to respond. Acknowledging that I survived each challenge I faced helped me see I could not control the actions of other people but I could control myself. I could know that I was strong enough to face whatever was put in my way. It was not really about being fine, it was about knowing that I had the power and fortitude to keep going and keep moving, motivated by a deep faith that I would persist. I learned could thrive amongst difficulty. Knowing this gave me the control I needed to face my bullies with courage and composure.

Over time, I began to ask myself that same question in times of difficulty. When I thought I could not go on when the pain and misery of the world bent me out of integrity I would perform a quick gut check: am I dead? No? Then keep it pushing. I cannot control every monster but over time I learned I could control my own demons. This is the key to staying in the fight, to living to fight another day.

Sometimes the world seems too much to bear. I remember this time last year, seized with fear and uncertainty at the prospect of a Trump presidency, at a country set to explode. And then 2017 came. And we did blow up.

This year was a raging dumpster fire beginning to end. A year of Trump driving America right over a cliff–killing Obamacare and net neutrality, defunding science, tax breaks for the rich, the immigration ban, appointing unqualified judges and championing racism and sexism and classism as patriotic values. The country I love is on fire. The world is teetering on the brink of chaos. Our best hope seems to be a man with a rocket ship to Mars. The details of 2017 read like a list of signs of the apocalypse right out of several Hollywood movies.

And yet, we are not dead.

Even stranger, I feel wildly optimistic. The ground is razed and I’m in a mood to build. See, here’s a little secret I learned about the apocalypse. The end is never the end, only a new beginning. The word apocalypse comes from the Greek apo–un and kaluptein–to cover–to uncover, to reveal. An apocalypse isn’t an end, it’s an unveiling.

In the purest sense of the word, 2017 was a true apocalypse. America had long slumbered in a self-congratulatory slump, shoving a big foam we’re-number-one-finger in the world’s face while racism and sexism seethed unseen beneath the mainstream’s gaze. Globalization turned us into a nation of consumers, too proud to realize we were slipping behind in the knowledge economy. The untreated virus of white supremacy weakened our country for centuries and the only treatments rendered were to deny, destroy and disempower communities of color. Patriarchy kept one boot squarely on half the population, capitalism kept both boots on us all. With all that going on, we were too busy buying shit and numbing out to the pap of spoon-fed pop culture to notice.

Then came 2017: the rise of the alt-right. The blossoming of the new black civil rights movement. #Me Too. And Trump, Trump a pimple that exploded in all the ugliness beneath America’s skin. There are no more secrets here.

As a wise man once said, “if you don’t know, now you know…”

The scabby underbelly has revealed itself, disallowing us the ability to ignore the contradictions at the heart of our country, contradictions that threaten to tear us all apart: if we are the land of the free, why are we chained in debt? if this is the home of the brave, why have we ignored those who stand up to speak truth to power? if we are all created equal, then why are we so unequal? Can we ever be a more perfect union?

As painful as this year has been, we can see plainly what our country is. Gone are our rose-colored glasses, numbness turned to rage and fear. The trick now is to not let the emotions of these times cloud our ability to think clearly, act cooperatively and build towards a new vision, not just defend against the daily onslaught. As difficult as it is to be woke, it is the only way forward.

The apocalypse is an end only to the status quo. The upheaval is real, the chaos of old structures shaking to their core terrifying, but hush your fear and look for the opportunities to build. Channel your anger to weather the upheaval. The apocalypse ushers in a new time, the next paradigm. Don’t get lost in the distractions while new powerbrokers make new rules. The resistance is working, too, each of us in our own way. We have the knowledge, the technology, and–I know with every fiber of my being–the human compassion needed to build a better world, more perfect than our forefathers could imagine.

So on this first day of 2018, I offer you this gut check: if you are reading this, you’re not dead. You’re still here. And 2017 was a bitch, so that’s really saying something. Strap on your helmet. Like Elon Musk’s rockets, we have explosions at each stage, shedding a firey ball of flame across the sky, but I assure you we are ascending. As we jettison the lies we had come to depend on, we will be free to evolve past our imperfect past. As long as we don’t burn up in the process, we are entering the wider universe. We are transforming into something more.

Tag: Happy New Year

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