I have met the enemy and she is me.

I have met the enemy and she is me. 

I’ve known this for a long time.  I can’t remember the first time I realized that I perpetrate injustice in the world regularly, if perhaps unknowingly and/or ignorantly.  But I been knowing it long enough to know better.  And of course because I have this awareness, I’m also gratefully and painfully aware of the horror that I experience when I figure out how I am participating in and creating injustice and oppression, reifying hatred and bigotedness.  I know this. 

But GOD it sucks to find it out again.  And because I’m lucky . . . .

I have met the enemy and she is me. 

I was taking Norah to daycare last week.  It was the first day of summer and the first day of daycare.  Certainly a bitter sweet day. During the school year, Norah ordinarily rides a bus from school to daycare on Thursdays and Fridays and I ordinarily pick her up on these days, as close to the pickup time as possible because I’m me and I can’t get my shit together.  Or rather, I have shitty boundaries at work. And at home.  Whatever—not the point.  
Because Norah only attends daycare two days a week, because she rides the bus to daycare, because I am usually the last parent there to pick up the last child, I have really no working knowledge of who goes to her daycare.  Or who their parents are.  In fact, Melissa and I were recently remarking that we only know a few of the daycare teachers because I have a unique and tiny subset of self-diagnosed social anxiety where I don’t like to meet Norah’s teachers or daycare providers or parents of her friends.  I think I’m afraid of homophobia, but again—not my point today. 

Norah is prepared for this day, which she is mostly dreading.  I have done my best to give her as much control over it as possible since she's not getting to sleep late and watch TV and do all the things she thinks kids who don't have to go to daycare are doing.  SO she's wearing whatever she wants (dirty clothes she slept in last night) and she's going full on "natural" because she surely doesn't want me combing her hair this morning.  She has a small Rubbermaid container full of LOL dolls and their accompanying junkie things.    Perks of being a kid and having a semi-lazy, semi-empathetic mom who understands sometimes you just want to be dirty and nappy and surrounded by LOL dolls.  

When we arrive at the daycare, she bolts out of the car and runs to the door, where we have to wait to get buzzed in.  As we approach, she much faster than I, we encounter another adult and child combo waiting to be let in.  I don’t recognize them and in my extreme ignorance, I assume it’s because they’re new to daycare.  The child is in her tweens/early teens (this daycare takes kids through 8th grade).  She’s got brown skin, darker than Norah’s.  She’s holding a basketball under one arm and has the stance of someone who knows how to play basketball.  (I look like a dork when I’m holding a ball of any kind so I recognize the Other.) She’s wearing athletic shorts and an old worn-in clearly favorite T-shirt  Her hair is in a kind of messy bun/pony tail combo.  She looks sleepy.  The adult is older than I am, but not by much—maybe he’s in his early 50’s.  He’s got peach skin and he’s balding and wearing glasses.  He’s wearing typical white dude business casual clothing, a yellow polo-type shirt tucked in to his khakis with a brown belt and some 50 year old man loafers.  He’s got on a name badge for work.  He looks impatient and they both look like they don’t know how to get in the door.  I push the intercom button and tell the disembodied voice that it’s Norah, Lisa and “some others.”  What an odd way to say that.  I don’t know why it came out that way. 

We all step inside and I stop at the unattended desk to sign Norah in.  Norah has bolted off behind me, without saying goodbye or anything, which is typical for her and me these days.  I tell myself she’s lucky that I am laid back and don’t insist on huge goodbyes and displays of public affection, which she has lukewarm feelings about.  As I’m turning to leave, without speaking to anyone at the daycare to confirm they know she’s here, I see that the “others” who arrived when I did are giving one another a hug, like a sweet and tender hug. 

And I’m surprised.  


As I’m walking out to my car, in the 145 seconds it takes me to get to my car, here are my thoughts:

How weird that they are hugging.

Why are they hugging?

Why do I think it’s weird?

I guess it’s because he’s obviously some child care/foster care/social worker type of dude dropping her off for the first time at this daycare.  He didn’t know how to get in.  She wasn’t helping.

I guess I assumed she wasn’t happy to be here.  She looked kinda grouchy.  She hadn’t combed her hair.  Her clothes didn’t look fresh.  I mean they didn’t look dirty, but she looked like she rolled through the dirty clothes on her way out the door. 

No judgement here.  If I was going to daycare when I was 14, I’d be going in my dirty clothes too.  Especially if I was a foster kid and new here at this kinda lame white churchy daycare. 

He seems maybe out of touch about what that experience might be like for her. 

But MORE IMPORTANTLY why is that professional dude giving his client a hug?  Fiftyish professional social worker types know not to give young adolescent girls hugs.  It’s questionable all the way around.  People get confused.  It feels like risky behavior. 

Not that I don’t do risky.  Of course I do.  And how cool that they have the relationship where he can provide her with that support when she’s getting ready to do something shitty. 

Wait a minute. 

Why do I think he’s a social worker/probation officer/family home worker? Why do I think she’s a foster kid?

Oh my God. 

Because he’s White? Because she’s Black? Because he’s dressed professionally? Because she’s dressed ratty? Because he’s got a name tag on? Because she hasn’t combed her hair?

I am the shittiest human being on the earth.  There could be lots of back stories that explain “the others” and there tender hug here on the first day of summer and the first day of daycare.  What a giant loser I am for telling myself that age old racist bullshit story about who people are.  Kids look like kids.  Parents look like parents.  They all come in different shapes and sizes.  He was probably her dad.  That was the kind of hug a dad gives his daughter.  Maybe after his weekend.  Don’t go there.  They probably have a very happy and connected intact family.  I’m such a bitch. 

I mean, look at us.  Probably somebody could think the same thing about us. 

And then I get in the car.  And I look at myself.  With my professional clothes and my dorky old lady glasses. And my stupid white lady bob.  And my name tag. 

And then I picture my sassy pants daughter this day.  In her ragtag dirty clothes that she slept in last night. With her VERY nappy hair that I haven’t brushed in days.  And her toys all packed in a Rubbermaid bin.  Appearing to be all her worldly possessions.  And her running off without a single moment’s thought of “I love you Mommy,” or “Bye, see ya later!”  And me without a single moment’s thought of “I love you baby,” or “Have a good day! I’ll try not to be the last parent today!”

And me turning and walking out the door consumed by my petty and stupid story telling. 

And it occurs to me that Norah and I are the mirror image of that man and his daughter.  Only we fit my dumb ass story so much better than they did. 

Here’s the point. 

This is what white privilege looks like.  It’s telling yourself stories about who people are in the 145 seconds it takes you to get to your car.  Or to pull your gun out.  Or to grab your purse closer.  It’s the stories we tell before we think we’re telling stories. 

It’s the assumptions we make.  Based on the nothings we see. 

And it’s the absolute self-absorption that is required to miss our own culpability and participation in these stories. 

I don’t know who that man is and who that child is.  And I don’t know what their relationship is.

I do know that the story I told myself was the same asshole story that leads police officers to hold a person at gunpoint for trespassing while he is picking up trash on his own property; or that leads police officers to tackle a teenage girl at a swimming party because they think she is fleeing the scene of a crime; or that leads a teacher to assume that the clowning kid in the back is threatening bodily harm, which leads to a felony charge by the school resource officer. 

These stories are deeply embedded.  We have to pay attention to what we are thinking, even when we aren’t really thinking anything. 

I’m sorry, so sorry, for my prejudice and bias and shittiness.  I will keep trying every day to do it better.  But I will also have the balls to acknowledge when I am part of the problem.  And I am a part of the problem.  Fuck me.