Conversation around equality is uncomfortable. To begin with.\u00a0 This is not a fresh circumstance. Equality has been a core component of conflict over the ages. Race. Age. Gender. Belief. Economic state. Land ownership. Ownership of all sorts.\u00a0 It is disturbing for so many reasons. The way chauvinism shows up in all the layers of our culture is so ingrained it becomes virtually invisible.<\/p>\n
I complimented the lovely young woman at the AT & T store saying she looked very much like their national spokesperson on television.\u00a0 Laughingly I said, “Or perhaps she looks like you.”\u00a0 Her response?\u00a0 “Well, she is really OLD.\u00a0 I hope I don’t look THAT old.”\u00a0 My many decades tucked into my pocket, I\u00a0 smiled at her.\u00a0 I recognized the opportunity for affront on both sides. I’d apparently insulted her by suggesting she\u00a0 shared a “look” with a woman she\u00a0 believed to be really old.\u00a0 And since I beat\u00a0 both their ages\u00a0 added together I had the opportunity to take offense. “If you think THAT’s old…”\u00a0 Instead, I decided to be observant instead of offended.<\/p>\n
So the concept of equality is informed by so many elements, both observed and unobserved.\u00a0 I\u00a0 was raised by a bigot and an inadvertent misogynist.\u00a0 I think my father would have told you that he loved his wife and respected women.\u00a0 And yet he raised me with, “It’s too bad you aren’t a boy – you are just a waste of a good brain in a girl.”\u00a0 If a program on television featured any face besides\u00a0 pasty white, it was turned off. Unless it was Sammy Davis, Jr. who, “Wasn’t bad for a ______.” It was not until I was 11 that I learned that the n word was not the preferred way to describe an\u00a0 African American.\u00a0 I bring this up for a significant reason.\u00a0 My father has been dead for 24 years.\u00a0 His prejudice still, accidentally, informs my first view.\u00a0 A driver in a turban cut me off in traffic yesterday.\u00a0 Because he drove so close, right in front of my car, I could see the texture of his turban.\u00a0 Was it annoyance that brought my father’s\u00a0 voice to my ear, whispering, “towel head?”\u00a0 The instant I became aware of that rolling around in my brain (which took seconds, by the way) I was appalled. Ashamed of myself, actually.\u00a0\u00a0 After decades\u00a0 – those derogatory labels still float in my DNA.\u00a0 They rise up, unbidden, at unexpected moments. IF my father was an inadvertent misogynist, I have to conclude that I am an inadvertent racist.\u00a0 It is from this realization that I want to provoke conversation, thought, examination.\u00a0 {I am not pleased that an ethnic assessment of that sort comes to my thinking at any time.\u00a0 And yet, it does. It is topical as I begin to explore the nature of creating a personal path toward justice and equity.}<\/p>\n
Noticing difference is not racism.\u00a0 I am an artist.\u00a0 I noticed yesterday that there were more silver cars parked in the bank lot than any other color: 5 silver, 1 white, one blue, one red.\u00a0 That’s noticing.\u00a0 Thinking that silver cars are better than white, blue or red cars is judgement, at best, and has the opportunity to be a manifestation of prejudice.\u00a0 I wonder about the line between judgement and discernment. Have for years.\u00a0 I know there’s a line, I just don’t know where it is.\u00a0 And there’s a line between noticing difference and experiencing prejudice.\u00a0 I don’t know where that is, either.<\/p>\n
Do you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Conversation around equality is uncomfortable. To begin with.\u00a0 This is not a fresh circumstance. Equality has been a core component of conflict over the ages. Race. Age. Gender. Belief. Economic state. Land ownership. Ownership of all sorts.\u00a0 It is disturbing for so many reasons. The way chauvinism shows up in all the layers of our…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-joys"],"yoast_head":"\n