I think one of the hardest parts of my job is not being able to turn off.
I was organizing years before I even knew it was a thing. I mean, who doesn’t want to fix something that is affecting their life, right? And I’ve always been that person whom strangers share their business with in the checkout line; it’s a gift I’ve inherited from my mom.
The one thing I wasn’t prepared for was the fact that now I see inequity just about everywhere, whether it’s based on socioeconomic status, race, or gender, to name a few.
I understand the meaning of “woke” more than I ever thought I would. Granted, it’s become a joke in certain circles of mine, but the truth is that I am awakening. Take, for instance, the fact that a local polling place is located in the city building. Not a big deal, right? I mean, I have walked through those metal detectors several times with no trouble, but, when a friend of color pointed it out to me, I immediately felt like an ass for not paying attention to it before. Here’s the truth: my privilege as a white woman allowed me to not notice the problem.
Able to Be an All-Star
Let me give you another example: My daughter gets to attend All-State Choir this week. We see this as a huge deal, and I enjoy being asked to chaperone. However, it always leaves me with mixed feelings. On one hand, what a fantastic opportunity! My daughter will meet kids from across the state and will get to study under an accomplished director. She’ll have the opportunity to understand that anything you do well requires great amounts of practice. We’re blessed.
Blessed? How? Because we have a car that can travel to Charleston; because I have a job that’s based out of Charleston so I don’t have to call off; and because we have money for gas and food. The truth is, if the hotel room wasn’t covered then it wouldn’t be possible without help from others.
And then there’s the fact that for the past three years, as we’ve sat in the audience watching her sister, my daughter has pointed out that there have been less than 10 children of color on stage. That’s an inequity as well. Schools from all across the state send students to All-State, and there have been less than 10 kids of color. Not to mention the kids who might not be able to participate because they can’t afford the trip.
It seems as if everywhere I go, the reality of how inequitable our world is jumps out at me, leaving me sometimes tired but also determined to continue to point this out when I get the chance. I don’t do it to hurt anyone’s feelings or to throw accusations at their character, but, rather, as a way to open our eyes to see things from a different angle.
Some Don’t Realize
If you read about white privilege, for example, it’s not saying that you haven’t had to suffer in life, but it is saying that you didn’t have to suffer more or solely because of the color of your skin (refer to the polling place bit above). Things aren’t harder for you because you’re white, to put it simply.
I have the honor of knowing a pastor who served on the staff of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. At a workshop about race a couple of years back, what he said struck such a deep chord within me that I remember it to this day. He stated that Dr. King wasn’t assassinated over civil rights because he had already led the battle to win those. He said that Dr. King was assassinated because he was about to lead the strike of sanitation workers demanding fairness, and it was that threat which determined his death.
The idea of thousands of working-class folks joining together to demand equitable and safe work conditions was too big of a risk that would have cost the government millions of dollars, and they simply weren’t having it.
Lessons of MLK
It will soon be 52 years since Dr. King was assassinated, and I find myself wondering how far we’ve really come in that time. We still live in a society where the working-class holds the greatest burden. We still live in a society that is segregated except, as told to me by an organizer who’s been at this for decades, they’ve taken down the “Whites Only” sign from the window and replaced it with a menu so we wouldn’t even want to sit at the counter if we couldn’t afford to eat.
I wish I had the answers. I like to think that I am using the spaces made available to me, like this one, to help start conversations. Maybe one day we’ll realize that progress is sometimes messy and uncomfortable and that’s okay.
Maybe one day we will all be able to fully live our own dream. And until then, we need to stay woke.
Onward,
Amy Jo
