Sankofa Processing #3

Trying to encapsulate thoughts about Sankofa is like playing one of those video games, where just when you think you've gotten a handle on things, the game pieces start multiplying, and spill over the top again.

One thing that was reminded to me on the trip was the fact that I'm an external processor, and have to either talk things out or write things out a couple of times before I'm satisfied with them. It's been helpful to talk things out with a couple of friends the last few days.

In The Color of Fear, Victor tells David that he expects people of color to act like him, talk like him, be like him. David is continually coming at things from a one-sided viewpoint, never stopping to consider that other people, other people groups, come at things from a different viewpoint than his.

In her paper, White Privilege, Peggy McIntosh suggests that the people with the power, the advantage, the privilege, want to level things out by trying to raise others up to their level rather than giving up some of that privilege and power. Again, they're coming at it from the wrong direction.

Similarly, I've been wondering if instead of deciding, "I'll treat all the people of color I come across just like my White friends and acquaintances," one should decide, "I'll treat my White friends and acquaintances just like I treat people of color.

Can we do this? I don't know.

The fact that I have friends - good, trusted, loved, intimate friends - who are different ethnicities than me does not mean I've "gotten over" my ingrained prejudices. Now and then I am disgusted to realize that I'm profiling as I walk down the street. Who's a gangbanger? Who's just a thug? Who can I ask for directions/change/to take a picture with my camera? Who hates me because I'm White? Who is a working man/woman just like me? Who...

Notice none of those questions were directed at myself... Do I make more pay for doing the same job as him/her? Do I have a lower mortgage rate than him/her? Am I looking at a man coming home tired and dirty from a hard day of work and assuming he's homeless?

The thing with ingrained prejudices is that they're ... well, ingrained. Deep. Hard to dig up, hard to root out.

But we need to do the hard work. God help me. God help us.