What have you changed your mind about over the years?
At some point in December 2018, I saw an advertisement on social media about StoryWorth, a company that is being used by families to record their stories and histories. Each week, StoryWorth will send you a question to be answered. At the end of the year, the company will compile the responses and send you a hardcover book containing the stories. I thought it sounded like a great idea (actually, I wish the idea had been mine)! I wanted to capture and preserve stories from my 81-year-old mother and 91-year-old mother-in-law to share with our family. Fortunately, both are indulging me in this endeavor!
The questions are often thought provoking and not ones that I. would have thought to ask. For example, this week’s question is the title of this blog post. I thought it was particularly apropos given the news about photos surfacing of Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring wearing “blackface” at parties when they were in college. As I understand the details, Governor Northam initially admitted to the incident, then backtracked and denied it. It was reported that in an attempt to get ahead of the story when he learned photos of him in blackface also existed, Attorney General Herring publicly stated that he had “dressed up in wigs and brown makeup” to emulate rappers they listened to at the time. As a result, there have been calls for the men to resign.
Should they resign? I don’t know. I also don’t think my opinion, as a white woman should be considered. I’ll leave that to my African American friends to consider and will defer to their opinions. They are the ones who have suffered generations of racism and oppression.
Are Northam and Herring racists? Again, I don’t know. I do think it’s possible to do stupid things when you are young because it seems harmless and others around you are doing it, and then look back years later and cringe at those activities. I haven’t heard an apology from Northam. What I’ve heard are excuses. Herring did admit to “ignorance and glib attitudes” in his explanation.
There are no “blackface” incidents in my past, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t done or said things that have been hurtful to friends who are of different races/ethnicities, religious beliefs, gender orientation, etc. And, right now, right here, if I haven’t done so already – I sincerely apologize. I have changed my mind about many, many things throughout the years!
I’ve changed my mind because my knowledge and exposure to others with different backgrounds have increased significantly. I spent the first 18 years of my life in rural Oklahoma, attending an all-white school and all-white protestant Christian church. My ideas and opinions at 18 years of age were shaped by those experiences. There were many good things that came out of those experiences. Most of the values I still hold today were instilled in me at home, school, and church. But, some of the things I was taught have also proven to be wrong. And, I’ve discovered, there were many things we just weren’t taught.
Last week during a conversation with my sister, we talked about our shared desire to “keep learning” and “keep improving ourselves.” So this month, I’m attending Black History Month lectures. When I think way, way back to what I learned from textbooks about black history when I was in elementary, junior high, and high school, it was about slavery and the Civil War. Blacks were portrayed in chains working in the cotton fields on plantations. Sure, there were some historical black figures like Frederick Douglass or George Washington Carver that may have gotten a few paragraphs in a history book. But, I wasn’t taught anything about the Africans who calculated and built the pyramids, the sphinx and the obelisks (the Washington Monument is modeled after this). I wasn’t taught that calculus, trigonometry and geometry can all be traced back to African scholars. Why? Let’s be honest – the answer is probably that blacks had no say in what was published in textbooks. There’s an African proverb that says, “Until the lion learns to read, every story will glorify the hunter.” True.
When I hear people wonder out loud why we need Black History Month or Black Lives Matter, it honestly tests my ability to show “grace” to people with different opinions as Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers talk about on the podcast “Pantsuit Politics.” When I hear whites complain that blacks today have no right to complain “because they have it so much better than their ancestors,” I think about Ku Klux Klan members chanting “You will not replace us” at the riot in Charlottesville, Virginia less than 2 years ago.
As a child, I listened to church leaders praise missionaries who traveled to Africa to save the souls of the savage Africans. I was taught that Africans believed in witch doctors and practiced Voodoo. Yet, many of the alternative medicine methods practiced by traditional African healers, is now being studied scientifically and has been proven effective in treating such conditions as diabetes, high blood pressure, and even AIDS and Ebola.
The more I learn about African culture and black history, the more I’m convinced that “Black Panther” is not a fantasy!
I shared the words on a poster that hangs in my best friend’s church in a previous post, but the words worth sharing again.
The world
in which you were born
is just one model
of reality.
OTHER CULTURES
ARE NOT
FAILED ATTEMPTS
AT BEING YOU;
they are unique
manifestations
of the human spirit.
Wade Davis
Yes, I’ve made mistakes over the years. But, I’ve tried to learn from those mistakes. Often, it has meant shifting my viewpoint on things. My friend Mary Ann frequently uses a Maya Angelou quote when she gives presentations, and I’ve started taking it to heart. "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." I think there’s a lesson there for all of us.
