Despite our differences, I love my Southern family. They are kind, generous, considerate, thoughtful, polite, and caring people. They have embraced our family with open arms from the first baby's cries to the four year old's neurotic excitement when they visit. They have never offered an imposition, are extremely self reliant, and have gone out of their way to offer help and much needed breaks with two young children. They have energetically shared their way of life, their passions, and their appreciation for the challenges and difficulties and general exhaustion of our current parenting phase of life. They have empathized when we've been sick, they have worried when we've been injured, and they have called to check on us regularly. And they have always been easy and cordial to be around. No one else in this world besides our parents have shown as much interest in or love for our family, and we are grateful to know that they care that much. It is knowing there are a few blessed people in this world who know us and who wake up and occasionally wonder how we are doing and if our baby has recovered from his cough, or I have recovered from giving birth, or Danny still has a job to go to, or our son is enjoying his first weeks of pre-school. It is knowing there are a few people in this world who might be sending us positive vibes on a day when the baby has managed to get his poopy diaper off before 8 am and spread it all over the carpet, or an evening when both kids are screeching and we can't get dinner on the table soon enough, and that ultimately there are a few people who will listen if we've had a rough time or it seems like everything is falling apart. We hope our families know that we are also those people in their lives, even when cultural differences collide.
You'd have to have known me over the last decade, and maybe have grown up as an extrovert with a brash California flair, to understand why I even bother stirring the pot. You'd have to have known me when my life hit rock bottom, any number of times over an extended period in my 20s to understand why I would even bring up racism, when I have a family who lives in the South who may or may not recognize the attitudes which surround them. What it comes down to is this: when you tackle the big life challenges from a young age, like losing a best friend to cancer, watching your mother go through it, then getting it yourself, when you have to stand in front of the board of Vice Presidents at your work and ask for time off to recover from getting double mastectomies at 28, when you find your husband crushed under a truck on a remote job site and have to call his parents and tell them they may never see him alive again, and then years later, when you have to explain to them your big news isn't that you're pregnant but you're getting a divorce, then you have to find ways to support yourself in an industry where your colleagues say over beer when you're the only female in the group "Yeah, I love getting good head." and look at you...you get really good at saying the difficult things out loud. What it really comes down to is, life is short so why let fear govern your speech and actions? There are so many better emotions and values by which to govern a life: empathy, kindness, excitement, gratefulness, authenticity, integrity, or strength. If I haven't learned anything from all the pain I've experienced, what was it all for? I refuse to let these life experiences separate me and make me feel vulnerable and weak. Instead, I allow them to bring me closer to those who have also experienced pain, I seek ways to empathize, and I recognize that each experience equips me to be a force for change.
I strive to be an accepting person of cultural and religious differences, but it is a fine line to walk if you aren't completely secure in your own views. And still, sometimes I enjoy the company most of people who couldn't be walking a more opposing line. We often have more in common than not and yet we live in an era when family and friends are separated by great distances, and even those who are close can feel so very far away on the other side of walls and screens. We live in an era where we can each choose our own bubble to float in. Where hateful rhetoric was once something you had to seek out with a library card, you can now choose to stream it until you're waving it in the streets. We live in a time when people don't know what to believe, but they know they want to feel relevant, they want to feel recognized, and they want to feel appreciated and have a voice. But these strong voices and opinions are developed in the bubble of our own experiences. And without others to provide context, we continue to bounce off and repel each other.
So here's the thing. I see love as providing the best version of myself in the most authentic way that I can, and with the context of my experiences which is all I have to share, which is why I categorically and vocally reject racism in all its forms in whichever region harbors it. And I am willing to listen, but under no circumstances will I embrace rhetoric that divides people by race, class, gender, or religion. I recognize that the second we all make a generalization about a group, we will meet a human being who defies all standards of that generalization, and I know that grouping people undermines their humanity. I challenge my friends and family not to be a stereotype, and to recognize when even the seemingly most benign comments can be hurtful. Racist rhetoric is not freedom of speech. It is an affront on patriotism and the principles on which our freedom was founded. Every citizen should be equally protected by the law. We should all be considering what kind of world we want to pass on to our children, and we should be using our voices and experiences to seek out common ground and condemn violence and hate. One of the most hopeful things I've seen since Charlottesville and the election of our racist sexist weak excuse for a leader of any country, is all of the people in the South coming out and standing up against evil. The first step is looking within, and recognizing attitudes which separate us from those sharing this big beautiful world. It's easy to pick holes in any argument on a feed and get riled up or offended. But it takes strength of character to eek out the heart of the matter and then look within and evaluate where we all can be better people. And it only takes witnessing how brazenly those rioters carried Nazi and Confederate flags on the streets of America to recognize there is a sickness in our society that desperately needs healing. What is empowering is knowing we can all be part of the cure.