my own chautauqua

In the 1990s, in a newsgroup on Usenet, I met a some people who engaged in what they called “combat prose.” I was in my 20s, very newly sober, and everything in life was exciting. We were all writers, some well-published, some just there for fun. Combat prose was about brutal take downs of your (writing) enemy. People would debate or argue and their words showed their prowess in writing skills and, as far as I was concerned, their cruelty.

Once, one of the most rage-filled of them all IM’d me on AOL. It was thrilling and scary. His persona was a hard core biker dude. Like, I’m talking an outlaw biker. I was just starting out life as an adult; I hadn’t seen much of the world. I had posed a question about combat prose while I was considering why I didn’t engage in it. This persona — many of the people there didn’t use their real names — gave me some insights into the why of it, and what makes someone skilled in that kind of writing. In this newsgroup, there were some who were clearly well-known and he was one of them. I felt like I was chatting with a kind of celebrity. We didn’t talk much more back then, but he would come to my defense if I accidentally got mixed up with some of the other combat prose people.

A few of us, probably many of us, moved on to blogging in the late 90s and early 2000s. (That’s when I started this blog.) It was a great time for a writer (and reader) like me who loved processing ideas with writing and learning about other people through their words. Several of us got to know each other quite well in those years.

The combat prose guy who messaged me back in the 90s became an unexpectedly good friend of mine. It’s hard to make clear how unlikely it is that we became friends. I was as politically left as I could manage and I believed in the ultimate good in everyone and he prided himself on his right-wing conservatism. His persona was a cruel, tactless, misogynistic racist. His real self had some qualities in common. He wasn’t cruel as a friend, but his values were about as polar opposite from mine as anyone could imagine.

In our friendship I learned a lot about myself. For example, I explored the complicated truth that being an antiracist doesn’t mean shutting the door on racists in my life. We would debate via blog comments or email after email with conviction and passion. We learned from each other. That includes some changing on his part when it came to his racism and misogyny as I saw it and as he told me. We definitely both changed.

When people say online relationships aren’t “real,” I know this isn’t true. The relationship I had with this online friend was deeply meaningful for many years and he will always have a place in my heart. Online relationships are just as real as offline relationships, they’re just different.

I’m writing this today because last night I learned that he died. He died after his motorcycle crashed. No one else was hurt. The man that I knew would have chosen that way to go. There’s no way to share this kind of news that isn’t abrupt, so I’m just stating the facts. Stating the facts. He would’ve liked that.

This week I am up in the mountains of Maine all by myself. No children, no parents, no pets. Just me. For many reasons, and the worldwide crises (googling “crisis plural”) is definitely among them, I may post a lot of small posts on this here web log. Just a head’s up, especially for those of you who get my posts by email!
Here’s where I am (heart emoji x a thousand):

Listening to the podcast “Our National Conversation About Conversations About Race” (or, “About Race”) I was cringing. I felt my body seizing up. The white guy, Tanner Colby, was embodying exactly what the other co-hosts were describing as infuriating and exhausting about white people. It was the episode called “Will you be my black friend?” (As of 9/2021 the links have expired.) And OH MY GOD I felt so much empathy for the co-hosts who were people of color. It was surreal, though I know it happens all the time. I’ve done it, for sure. The people of color were talking about their experiences, and the white person was saying, “But look at it the way I see it and feel differently about it!”

The conversation was about how, since #BlackLivesMatter began and especially since the Presidential election, white people are waking up on some levels to the realities of racism. Many are seeing how bad it is, how bad it’s been for a long time. So, the people of color on the podcast were talking about how white people would tweet at them, email them, talk to them at parties, all wanting to talk—to learn—about race. I had empathy for the lost souls (the white people) wanting to do better. I want to do better in that same way, and I’ve done what the co-hosts were complaining about.

When I was in college, I went to a workshop called “All Whites Are Racist,” put on by Tony Harris. I’ve written about it before, but I’m not sure I’ve written about the experiences that followed. There were two pivotal moments in the months following the workshop that were the cornerstones for the inner work I’ve done with my own racism.

The first was in a meeting for the group that brought the workshop to campus. The group was called “Society Organized Against Racism,” or SOAR. My campus was mostly white people, and there were several of us white people in the group, but more than half of the members were people of color. I had never been in such proximity to so many black and brown people. I was excited that I was going to be a part of this group that was fighting racism.

We were talking about plans for the group. I’m not sure what exactly we were talking about, but, I clearly remember one exchange. I was pleading with some group members, “How can I stop being racist if you won’t help me understand it?” I wanted to understand. I felt it made complete sense to go to the source: people who have been oppressed by racism every day of their lives had knowledge I felt I needed to stop being racist. And that’s really what it was about at that point. I wanted to be a better person. See? It was about me.

I’m forever grateful to the woman who seriously lost it on me. I don’t remember her exact words, but her meaning was “oh my god I am so tired of people like you, don’t expect me to fix you! it’s not my job!” I think I even cried. Yes. White women’s tears. (If you’re not sure why it was so bad that I was emotional in that emotionally heavy conversation, check out that link or google “white women’s tears.”) I needed that kick in the pants to start realizing it wasn’t about me and my feelings, that racism was much bigger and more than how I felt as a person.

The second turning point moment was also a SOAR-related event. We went to another college for a conference on racism. In the workshops, I was one of only a small handful of white people in rooms full of people of color. I was hyper-aware of being white. I was also hyper-aware that this must be something like what the black and brown kids on my college campus experienced all the time. Always not the dominant race in the room. Wow. Wow! The interpersonal skills required to be a part of that would be omnipresent and overwhelming. I became keenly aware of the psychological energy required simply to be in a room full of people where I was the “other.” I felt immense empathy for the students at my college who had to deal with that every day. I began a timid understanding the reality of what must be required for people of color to survive in the white world that dominates every facet of our society.

I haven’t written much about those earlier days of my own awareness because I don’t enjoy writing things that might seem like I think I should be applauded. I’m nowhere near “done” with my own work on racism and what I’ve done so far is not noble. It’s human. But, when I see people just starting out in their own awareness, I want to help. I want to say, look out! are you expecting a complete stranger to help you feel better, to help you feel less uncomfortable just because they are black or brown? That, right there, is part of the problem. Do you see? Can you see how you’re looking at racism in terms of how uncomfortable you feel and how that means you’re making it about you?

I think my racism story part 2 will be about feeling uncomfortable.

In the late 1990s, I began posting what I then called a “weekly column” or “web essay.” Long story short, I called the column “It’s All About Me! (the column).” These days, I’m not so convinced sharing my personal experiences will be of interest to others. Not because I think they are uninteresting, but because the www is flooded with post after post written by people who find themselves interesting.
I’ve missed writing about my experiences, though, on the ultra-personal level that personal blogging allows; my newspaper column must relate to current events and I must keep the readers in mind. I know that sharing my experience can benefit others, if only because they might feel less alone in their own foibles and peculiarities. But I also know that these days, we all need a lot of emotional energy to stay strong in the fight against fascism and I don’t want to add to the noise.
Posting here on this personal blog with very little traffic, I think I can play with those old experiences of sharing my stories and reaching readers while also not taking up any spotlight that should be shining on other voices. Maybe I can do some good without doing any harm.
 
 
 
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these dots and words are meant to keep the wordpress ads away from my post :-)