Dad and Mel and I went to Mayfair to see the X Files movie. Blah. Not worth the time, really. On the way home, Dad drove 25 miles per hour with the windows rolled down on North Avenue. And I realized that I don't feel as invincible as I once did. At 16, I wouldn't bat an eye at driving down North Ave. at 9:45 at night. I scorned people who professed a sense of unease. But now, I found myself checking a desire to roll up my windows and deftly lock my door.
I watched mid-town Milwaukee slide by on Friday night, with its condemned buildings hugging construction sites, the bars and the churches side by side, the women and men waiting for buses and clustered around cars, and I realized how much of a different world it's become.
But it's not that a new world has sprung up, underpaid and underdeveloped. It's been there all the time, I just didn't want to admit that not only was I an ignorant outsider, but also complicit somehow in its continued existence.
Now, I don't know what that means. I still don't fully understand how I have benefited from and contributed to Racism as a light-skinned woman of color. The institution, I believe, is what created this economically and racially segregated situation, and I just wonder how can I fight one and the other without even understanding my role.
Now, the guy who wrote Incognegro had an interesting point. He felt that, rather than allow himself to fall into the trap of tragic mulatto, bemoaning his fate to straddle two worlds that won't accept him, rather than victimize himself, he would turn that on its head and use his appearance for good: to fight the institution, as a race spy, as it were. Only, he set his character in a fairly easy time period. Easy meaning, fighting a racism that manifests itself in white hoods and nooses.
But what of today? What's a poor race spy to do? Who am I spying on, in this ambiguous time, when it's hip to be ironically racist. Who am I spying on, riding down the street, watching the sinister institution flow by? My dad, who won't talk to his biracial daughters about the role of race in his and their lives? Myself, the torn pseudo-philosopher obsessed with the color line? The man on the corner shouting "OJ" at us when we didn't stop to give him money for his buddy playing sax? Or the scores of white folks who squeamishly objected to driving through that part of town to get to my utopically de-segreated neighborhood nearby?
Who am I spying on, and what am I doing it for? Racism is far too insidiously elusive now to sink my teeth into. Where do we begin ripping it up?
Miscegenation isn't the answer, even when it warms my heart to watch fuzzy-headed beige babies walking down the street. Because then colorism becomes the enemy, like in Brazil, like in South Africa.
And conversation, especially these days, in the world of race forums and CNN programming and Tyra Show episodes, is beginning to feel like beating a dead horse. Too many pedants, not enough revolutionaries.
To be continued, I suppose.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
The center of my world
Claire: I would like to know what is at the center of your world.
Robbie Clark: Well, I'm 22, I guess I would say me.
A month ago, I asked myself if I could list reasons to love Milwaukee and reasons to love myself. I explored reasons to love Milwaukee for a couple weeks, but still couldn't answer the question "why should I love and respect myself?" In the conversation with Nic Wednesday night, near sobbing, I said "as an issue unto itself, I've never really known why anyone would like me." And he stopped and said "are you kidding? You're fun and smart and musical." But it's one thing to hear it and another to believe it.
I don't know why it's so hard for me to believe that people find in me good. It could be some misguided attempt at humbleness that I won't believe. And why do I keep revisiting this subject of self-love and self- respect? Because, somehow I know that until I can find a balance between love for myself and love for others, between believing there is good in me and not becoming an ego-monster, I'll have trouble with relationships. Until then, I will always blame myself.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Le sigh
In order that I don't send this as an email, I'm going to post a letter that I wrote last night and am trying not to send, because I'd rather just have a conversation, which I'm hoping to have tonight.
Of course I couldn't expect things to be perfect just because we talking briefly on Sunday. Of course we wouldn't fall into each other's arms like lovers. But that doesn't mean I didn't want to call you, it doesn't mean I didn't want to rub your head or cover you in kisses. This is frustrating. The conflicting feelings of affection and indifference and anxiety. And I want to talk to you about it, because it's such a new feeling (isn't it always a brand new feeling?)
Ach I won't say that I'm in love. That's the last thing I'll admit to; and usually only a posthumous admission. Oh, the romantic in me wants to scream Just do it! Just let yourself love me! Fuck the end of the year! We'll have that year at least!
How can I have come this far? This has been the most difficult introduction to a relationship. To have danced around the im-possibility for so long, to finally FINALLY have it happen, so easily, and to be trumped by this? Being so afraid of being hurt, so anxious about the END of the relationship that you sabotage it with the cold-shoulder? I can't bear it. You can't do that.
Is this a ploy, I wonder? So craft, you draw me in, and tell me that you like me so much, but can't - is this your way of getting me to say I'll do anything?
I still love like a little girl. Even though I pretend that I'm untouchable, that I don't believe, I still have this wild belief that happily ever after is possible. That wishes on stars come true. Irrationally, I believe, and want you to believe, taht we can make anything happen.
Of course I couldn't expect things to be perfect just because we talking briefly on Sunday. Of course we wouldn't fall into each other's arms like lovers. But that doesn't mean I didn't want to call you, it doesn't mean I didn't want to rub your head or cover you in kisses. This is frustrating. The conflicting feelings of affection and indifference and anxiety. And I want to talk to you about it, because it's such a new feeling (isn't it always a brand new feeling?)
Ach I won't say that I'm in love. That's the last thing I'll admit to; and usually only a posthumous admission. Oh, the romantic in me wants to scream Just do it! Just let yourself love me! Fuck the end of the year! We'll have that year at least!
How can I have come this far? This has been the most difficult introduction to a relationship. To have danced around the im-possibility for so long, to finally FINALLY have it happen, so easily, and to be trumped by this? Being so afraid of being hurt, so anxious about the END of the relationship that you sabotage it with the cold-shoulder? I can't bear it. You can't do that.
Is this a ploy, I wonder? So craft, you draw me in, and tell me that you like me so much, but can't - is this your way of getting me to say I'll do anything?
I still love like a little girl. Even though I pretend that I'm untouchable, that I don't believe, I still have this wild belief that happily ever after is possible. That wishes on stars come true. Irrationally, I believe, and want you to believe, taht we can make anything happen.
Monday, July 21, 2008
What Does Your Community Look Like?
Last week, on the blog Racialicious, Latoya Jackson posted an open thread, asking readers to comment on her question What Does Your Community Look Like? I wasn't going to respond to it, but it wasn't because I'm not interested. It's more that I wasn't willing to examine myself, to put my communities and socializing under a microscope like that. Because who knows what I might discover; or worse - what I might overlook.
I go through stages in my community-building. At times, I lay back and hope that relationships will happen to me. Usually though, I find that I can't quite get what I need out of these interactions: probing conversations, the intelligent give-and-take, intellectual intercourse, as Alanis Morisette put it, I believe. This is when I end up feeling stagnant, lonely, and resentful of other people and their communities. This is when I end up going out and seeking communities.
It's hard, especially in Milwaukee, I've found. Because this city is too big to be small-town, and too little to be big-city. Because it's hard to break people out of the segregated barriers that are so distinctly drawn here. Because Milwaukee is such an odd mixture of Midwestern friendliness and frontier-town suspicion. A lot of times, (and I'm guilty of this as well) you'll meet someone and really hit it off, and maybe even exchange contact information, but because hanging out with that person would require a complete redefinition of our community-based identities, these potential relationships fizzle out. Too often, I think, we let our communities define who we are and who we'll grant our time. Yes? No?
So, what does my community look like? Distressingly small, usually.
Until last month, a large component of my commuity included, or centered around, my mom. With her, my 57 year old, Midwestern WASP of a mama, I bought groceries, perused fabric stores, frequented restaurants. This part of my community was tiny, including at most my mom, my sister and me. We saw many people, but didn't interact with them much. Insular but dynamic. But my mom has moved to St. Louis recently, and this part of my community doesn't exist anymore, not the least of which because I cannot afford to do some of these things without her financial assistance.
So I've been feeling isolated, broke and lonely. Lacking community. And lacking a community by which to define myself. The lost, post-college, 20-something period of my life in full swing.
At work, my community is an odd one. Non-profit offices always have a strange make-up. My boss is a 60-something Jewish woman, and her relative equal (the only permanent male in the office) is a 40ish southerner. Working down in building stories and seniority, there is my immediate superior, who is maybe 30, married, with a recent baby, white and from Texas. There is a half-Jamaican, half-Salvadorian 20-something, a Greek 20-something, two African American 20-somethings, me (a biracial 20-something), a 60-something white Midwesterner, a 30-something white Midwesterner, and that's about it. We're a pretty feisty and nerdy group (music dorks, every one), with a huge satellite of children who we serve as music educators and administrators, professional musicians and music teachers, wealthy board members and donors, and all the other expected non-profit usuals. I eat my lunches with the two girls closest to me in age and situation, but have yet to spend much time with them socially outside of the office. There is a barrier there; we may get along at work, but would we get along with each other's friends? I have yet to find out, and that bothers me.
My roommate is multiracial, and she and I have been friends for many years. I have excused myself from her community of friends, however, because it's largely Academic and small-town White, two things that make me profoundly uncomfortable because of a feeling of being constantly at odds with their views. My sister's community is more diverse in sexual orientation than my own and that of my roommate, but that is her community, one that, again, I just don't feel completely comfortable in. So, my own? My own community outside of work? I've been seeing a musician, who is 6 years my elder, and Mexican; and he knows everyone, it seems, in the world. Through him I have met a great many people, mostly musicians, mostly people of color, diverse in gender, race, sexual orientation, but perhaps unsurprisingly, not in occupation.
My neighborhood is one of the most diverse ones in the city, with many mixed couples, people from wealthy and middle class and low-income backgrounds, people from all over the spectrum, and when I go to a public events in the neighborhood, I'm always delighted to see all the different kinds of people. But this is the hardest thing for me to accept in my community. Because people seem to talk up Riverwest as a Utopia, and I have never trusted a Utopia. Because Riverwest may look pretty awesome and colorful, but it's terribly impermanent, almost like a college campus; it's like everyone's passing through. Which means that everything has the potential to change, and nothing seems to last, including friendships, initiatives, businesses. I don't know, I may be terribly wrong here; I'm still investigating this place I love to hate.
I don't know yet how I would define my community, or how my community would define me (and sometimes I think the latter is the question that obsesses me the most). For the Midwest, I would say it's fairly diverse, but it's also fairly hypocritical, just like the Midwest. It drives me crazy, for good and for bad.
I go through stages in my community-building. At times, I lay back and hope that relationships will happen to me. Usually though, I find that I can't quite get what I need out of these interactions: probing conversations, the intelligent give-and-take, intellectual intercourse, as Alanis Morisette put it, I believe. This is when I end up feeling stagnant, lonely, and resentful of other people and their communities. This is when I end up going out and seeking communities.
It's hard, especially in Milwaukee, I've found. Because this city is too big to be small-town, and too little to be big-city. Because it's hard to break people out of the segregated barriers that are so distinctly drawn here. Because Milwaukee is such an odd mixture of Midwestern friendliness and frontier-town suspicion. A lot of times, (and I'm guilty of this as well) you'll meet someone and really hit it off, and maybe even exchange contact information, but because hanging out with that person would require a complete redefinition of our community-based identities, these potential relationships fizzle out. Too often, I think, we let our communities define who we are and who we'll grant our time. Yes? No?
So, what does my community look like? Distressingly small, usually.
Until last month, a large component of my commuity included, or centered around, my mom. With her, my 57 year old, Midwestern WASP of a mama, I bought groceries, perused fabric stores, frequented restaurants. This part of my community was tiny, including at most my mom, my sister and me. We saw many people, but didn't interact with them much. Insular but dynamic. But my mom has moved to St. Louis recently, and this part of my community doesn't exist anymore, not the least of which because I cannot afford to do some of these things without her financial assistance.
So I've been feeling isolated, broke and lonely. Lacking community. And lacking a community by which to define myself. The lost, post-college, 20-something period of my life in full swing.
At work, my community is an odd one. Non-profit offices always have a strange make-up. My boss is a 60-something Jewish woman, and her relative equal (the only permanent male in the office) is a 40ish southerner. Working down in building stories and seniority, there is my immediate superior, who is maybe 30, married, with a recent baby, white and from Texas. There is a half-Jamaican, half-Salvadorian 20-something, a Greek 20-something, two African American 20-somethings, me (a biracial 20-something), a 60-something white Midwesterner, a 30-something white Midwesterner, and that's about it. We're a pretty feisty and nerdy group (music dorks, every one), with a huge satellite of children who we serve as music educators and administrators, professional musicians and music teachers, wealthy board members and donors, and all the other expected non-profit usuals. I eat my lunches with the two girls closest to me in age and situation, but have yet to spend much time with them socially outside of the office. There is a barrier there; we may get along at work, but would we get along with each other's friends? I have yet to find out, and that bothers me.
My roommate is multiracial, and she and I have been friends for many years. I have excused myself from her community of friends, however, because it's largely Academic and small-town White, two things that make me profoundly uncomfortable because of a feeling of being constantly at odds with their views. My sister's community is more diverse in sexual orientation than my own and that of my roommate, but that is her community, one that, again, I just don't feel completely comfortable in. So, my own? My own community outside of work? I've been seeing a musician, who is 6 years my elder, and Mexican; and he knows everyone, it seems, in the world. Through him I have met a great many people, mostly musicians, mostly people of color, diverse in gender, race, sexual orientation, but perhaps unsurprisingly, not in occupation.
My neighborhood is one of the most diverse ones in the city, with many mixed couples, people from wealthy and middle class and low-income backgrounds, people from all over the spectrum, and when I go to a public events in the neighborhood, I'm always delighted to see all the different kinds of people. But this is the hardest thing for me to accept in my community. Because people seem to talk up Riverwest as a Utopia, and I have never trusted a Utopia. Because Riverwest may look pretty awesome and colorful, but it's terribly impermanent, almost like a college campus; it's like everyone's passing through. Which means that everything has the potential to change, and nothing seems to last, including friendships, initiatives, businesses. I don't know, I may be terribly wrong here; I'm still investigating this place I love to hate.
I don't know yet how I would define my community, or how my community would define me (and sometimes I think the latter is the question that obsesses me the most). For the Midwest, I would say it's fairly diverse, but it's also fairly hypocritical, just like the Midwest. It drives me crazy, for good and for bad.
Friday, July 18, 2008
35th and FDL
Seriously. Somestimes I'm a genius.
When I wait for the bus on Humboldt, there's a bus that passes by frequently. It's always empty and the front display says "35th & FDL." While waiting for my #10 bus, I will often see many of these 35th & FDL pass, and usually I get rather annoyed that this line is so frequent, and there I stand, waiting for my stupid 10 bus.
This morning, I was waiting in the rain for my bus, and I saw two 35th & FDL buses pass, and before I had the chance to get annoyed, I had an ah-ha moment. (Another wrinkle produced in the brain!)
35th & FDL is not some lucky bastard's busline, which they have infinite chances to catch. This is not some unfairly frequent bus that taunts you as you wait.
35th and FDL stands for 35th and Fond du Lac. That's where the buses go to take naps. The bus station. They're going back at the end of their routes. They're empty because they're going home.
Wow. I'm sharp.
When I wait for the bus on Humboldt, there's a bus that passes by frequently. It's always empty and the front display says "35th & FDL." While waiting for my #10 bus, I will often see many of these 35th & FDL pass, and usually I get rather annoyed that this line is so frequent, and there I stand, waiting for my stupid 10 bus.
This morning, I was waiting in the rain for my bus, and I saw two 35th & FDL buses pass, and before I had the chance to get annoyed, I had an ah-ha moment. (Another wrinkle produced in the brain!)
35th & FDL is not some lucky bastard's busline, which they have infinite chances to catch. This is not some unfairly frequent bus that taunts you as you wait.
35th and FDL stands for 35th and Fond du Lac. That's where the buses go to take naps. The bus station. They're going back at the end of their routes. They're empty because they're going home.
Wow. I'm sharp.
Friday, July 11, 2008
They keep the temperature at work set to 65 degrees!
I've finished all of the complicated tasks at work, and it's only 11:30. If I could figure out a way, I'd sneak out and spend the day, oh, packing or singing or making granola.
I've spent the last three weeks at Nic's house, eating, sleeping, doing (free) laundry, kissing... Sometime last week, I started feeling agitated, like I need to spend some time at my house, I need some time to myself. I insisted on spending time at my house, then, and have found out a few things. One: my house now seems like a stranger's house, I've been away so much (two vacations in 4 weeks), and two: I don't need that time to myself, not really. Because as soon as I start spending time alone, I start freaking out about silly things.
Or maybe that's the PMS sneaking in.
And anyway, I finished reading my book, which was rather disappointing. BUT, I've checked out ANOTHER graphic novel from the library. This one is Incognegro, by Mat Johnson. When I finish it, I'll probably write something detailed about it, because it's about racial passing in the 1930s.
But now, to work!
I've spent the last three weeks at Nic's house, eating, sleeping, doing (free) laundry, kissing... Sometime last week, I started feeling agitated, like I need to spend some time at my house, I need some time to myself. I insisted on spending time at my house, then, and have found out a few things. One: my house now seems like a stranger's house, I've been away so much (two vacations in 4 weeks), and two: I don't need that time to myself, not really. Because as soon as I start spending time alone, I start freaking out about silly things.
Or maybe that's the PMS sneaking in.
And anyway, I finished reading my book, which was rather disappointing. BUT, I've checked out ANOTHER graphic novel from the library. This one is Incognegro, by Mat Johnson. When I finish it, I'll probably write something detailed about it, because it's about racial passing in the 1930s.
But now, to work!
Monday, July 7, 2008
Crumple
I'm feeling a little crumpled today, because Monday is like a sudden stop at the end of a rough and surreal collection of weeks.
Whatever that means.
Whatever that means.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
