Speaking Revisited

Resurfacing Out Of Silence

Late last May I wrote a brief post for my blog site confessing that I feel constrained to speak my opinions freely, and why, and resolving to write more often with less dithering over the perfect polish for my words. It felt freeing and hopeful to put that out there, a public blow against my perfectionist paralysis, and I was filled with energy and all the best intentions for following through. In fact, I immediately launched into writing a piece about my conflicted feelings on mask-wearing.

Two days later George Floyd died beneath the knee of Officer Chauvin and the world caught fire.

Overnight, opinions on mask-wearing went from being one of the hottest topics to feeling like a frivolous, self-indulgent concern. Racism, racial justice, policing, and white privilege suddenly and wholly consumed the news cycle, the blogosphere, and social media…which meant for me, being white and comfortably middle-class, the opportunity for speaking out of turn had just rocketed into the stratosphere. Unless, of course, I stuck to the obligatory script of white guilt and privilege, which isn’t my script. (But even had it been, it still bore the risk of revealing “racism” by “centering whiteness”—i.e. speaking too soon, too long, too certainly, too emotionally, too…anything.) So rather than expose myself as insufficiently sensitive to the requirements of the moment, I retreated.

Now I’ve resurfaced, and at a moment when George Floyd’s accused killer has been found guilty on all charges and a new Minneapolis area police shooting has reignited the flames of outrage, protest, and riots. This time, however, I am not stepping back.

A lot has happened in the past year, not least of which is that I have read a lot, watched and listened a lot, and gained useful perspective. Retreating into silence amidst the pressure of America’s racial reckoning (well, let’s go with upheaval—reckoning sounds optimistic, like we crossed a threshold towards progress) served to connect me to voices and information I might otherwise have missed. These thinkers and their ideas have expanded my understanding of race relations and the issues and tensions they foster and stem from, and perhaps most productively, have underscored the fact that when it comes to views on the plight of black America and people of color generally, the range of opinion within those populations is far more diverse than is typically acknowledged in mainstream conversation. It has highlighted to me the truth that there is no such thing as a person who speaks for the black community, no matter the color of their skin, just as there is no such thing as a person who speaks for women, no matter whether she was born with internal, egg-producing gametes. This might sound like a stupidly elementary observation, but given the ever-increasing reliance on arguments from authority in framing the conversation around race, grasping it fundamentally shifts the floor of the debate space.

The end result of my personal studies was that, by wading into the waters of Critical Race Theory enough to gain a clearer appreciation of its origins, arguments, strategies, and influence, by taking a deeper dive into the mindset of black Americans who don’t buy into the claims and aims of Black Lives Matter et al and are pushing back, and by seeing white liberals and conservatives step forward to join hands with them and each other, and with all people concerned about the stifling intolerance and ferocious binary absolutism being proselytized under the banner of Social Justice and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, I have found my path forward. I have been inspired by their willingness to stand against the fracturing tenets of “Wokeness,” with its perverse morality that preaches tribal identarianism. Their moral courage has clarified for me that my heartfelt desire not to add to the aggression of this world will not be realized if my silence only affords aggressors more space to intimidate and manipulate, to cow and conquer.

There is a lot more that I could say on this topic and about my path to this point, but I don’t want this to be a lengthy post…more of a checking in, a heads up. So I’ll sign off with two screenshots from a couple of Instagram accounts I’ve been following. Both are quotes from intelligent, strong women—one past, one present—who met/are meeting their moment in time with courage and a clear voice. Through these words, they speak for me. And yet I share them with the explicit recognition that not all their words would speak for me. I don’t offer these women as oracles or exemplars and I am not concerned about agreeing perfectly with their every idea and viewpoint. But that, itself, is a useful point: I have found common cause with them in the truth of their particular words here and I don’t need to approve of their every utterance for me to honor wisdom when they speak it. It is enough for me to hold it gratefully, to amplify it for the good it might do despite any differences we share. We humans don’t all need to be on the same page to learn from one another, to endorse and uplift each others’ valuable insights. We can give each other credit where it’s due, and foster our disposition to do so.

Until I chime in again: Namaste.