I have done everything imaginable to avoid writing this blog. I cleaned bathrooms, bedrooms, the kitchen. I wiped down a couple refrigerator shelves. Cleaned my car. Organized my sock drawer. Washed sheets and towels. Ordered a curtain rod from Bed, Bath and Beyond for a set of curtains I purchased 6 months ago. Tuned and played my guitar, which had gone untouched for approximately 7 years. I even caught myself weeding a couple times. No, not the fun kind. The kind where you pluck unwanted plants from the ground because they are too close to the wanted plants. A chore I adamantly avoided as a child turned into a worthy avoidance activity. Life really does come full circle.

 It’s not that I didn’t want to write this blog. I thought about it throughout all my avoidance behaviors. But I just had no fucking clue where to start. Or where to stop. Or how much I could write. Or how much I should write. Or what I was qualified to write. Or if I would offend someone. Or if I wouldn’t offend someone. I continued to ruminate over these questions, and 8 weeks later, I have no answers, but here we go.

I would like to talk about race. And with that, I will begin my list of disclaimers.

If your butthole tightened, your eyes rolled into the back of your head, or you simply felt annoyed at the prospect of “yet another” discussion about race, I urge you to keep reading. But first, take a deep breath, let that butthole relax, and get your eyes on the screen. 

This story begins in 2009. I just started undergrad at University of Colorado Boulder. It is my first semester and I’m enrolled in Physics 1001, Introduction to Journalism, U.S. History Since 1865, and Introduction to Psychology. Pretty classic first semester.

It should come as no surprise that Psychology 1001 was my favorite class. I mean, the competition was weak, but it had an engaging professor, interesting material, my brother was one of the teaching assistants, and my best friend Jesi was in the class with me. It was perfect. Jesi and I sat 15 rows back and made jokes under our breath the majority of class. One day while learning about parts of the brain, our professor cited a study where they took cats and cut off the connection to one part of their brain, eliminating their ability to feel hunger. Jesi and I locked eyes, both well on our way to gaining the Freshman 15. Quietly, forcefully, and in a loud whisper, we instructed each other in unison to “CUT IT!” and stifled our laughs the rest of class. That story still makes me laugh out loud.

One of the class requirements was to participate in research studies developed by Psychology graduate students. The first couple studies I signed up for were boring and forgettable. Probably some memory test or one testing my morals by asking me to allocate money to strangers versus keeping the money for myself. That’s the thing about some of these studies. The research topics are pretty obvious.  At least I thought so. I never read the outcomes. There is probably a study that suggests that people think they know the outcomes of studies but they really don’t…  Talk about a rabbit hole.

Anyway, I do remember one study fairly well. I sat alone in a room when a fatigued, underpaid, overworked graduate student greeted me. He unenthusiastically handed me some consents to review. I signed them without reading a word. That’s what adulthood is, after all. Blindly signing contracts. The first contract I signed was the Terms and Conditions Contract for my iTunes account. At that point, I was so dumb and naive, I believed I had to read the entire document. Otherwise some iTunes lawyer might come into my home, confiscate my burned, unedited Blink 182 CDS and send me directly to jail. But not before I received a stern talking to from my mother about burning CDs with too many swear words. That paranoia likely indicated the later development of an anxiety disorder, but that’s a story for a different post.  Two paragraphs in, unable to pronounce most of the words I read, I decided I’d rather go to jail than wait one more minute to download the newest Kelly Clarkson break up song. It was 2003. So I quickly scrolled through 22 pages of legalese and signed it. I’ve been blindly signing consents ever since.  

Once the facilitator left the room, I began the computer simulation. I carefully read the instructions. You will see White men and Black men pop up on screen. If the individual is White,  hit the “Left Arrow”, if they’re Black, hit the “Right Arrow”. You have one second to identify them, otherwise it will be counted against you”. I felt myself get nervous. Why do I feel nervous? I don’t even see color. But like, of course I do. Whatever. I have to be in the Physics Help Room in 45 minutes so another underpaid graduate student can help me understand friction. That sounds sexual, and I assure you, sex was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Just get this thing over with. 

White guy. Left Arrow. Black guy. Right Arrow. Black guy. Right Arrow. This is easy. White guy. Left arrow. I do this probably 20 times. I may have missed one or two but only when I began wondering if I had enough snacks. And if the patient graduate student would be manning my favorite table.

There were a couple more variations of this exercise, asking me to identify the race of the person, what they were holding in their hands, etc., but I will skip ahead to the last simulation. Now you will see either a White or Black man with either a bag or a gun in his hand. If it is a bag, press the left arrow. If it is a gun, you press the right arrow. You have one second to make your decision, otherwise it will be counted against you. Wait a minute. Is this study really trying to figure out if I’m more likely to think a Black man is carrying a gun? Wow. Well some of these other shmucks might mess this up, but not me. I’m not racist. Let’s do this. 

White guy with a bag. Left Arrow. White guy with a gun, right arrow. Black guy with a gun. Right arrow. White guy with a bag, left arrow. Black guy with a bag, Right Arrow. SHIT! Ok focus. Just one mistake. Could happen to anyone. White guy with a gun. Right arrow. Black guy with a bag. Right arrow. SHIT I DID IT AGAIN! KRISTY FIGURE IT OUT! White guy with a gun. Left arrow. Oh for fucks sake.

The study went on and at this point, it’s obvious what happened. When the study wrapped up, I felt uneasy. The graduate student came back in and gave me a certificate proving I completed the study. I left in a hurry, power walking to my next destination. Am I really more likely to think a Black man has a gun? I’ve never even seen a Black guy with a gun. What the hell is the matter with me?

I’d like to tell you after this study I began thinking about race differently. That I became aware of my implicit biases, actively worked to change them, and began advocating for others to do the same. But that would be a lie. What likely happened was I went to the physics help room and spent 2 hours trying to combine my knowledge of trigonometry and laws of energy to determine the acceleration of wheel rolling down a hill. Then I went to the dining hall where I ate a glutenous amount of food and washed it down with soft serve ice cream. Like I said. Well on my way to the Freshman 15.

The story continues.

About a year later, I took ETHN 2001:Introduction to Africana Studies to meet my “Humanities Requirement” for the School of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Reiland Rabaka; the most impassioned lecturer, educator, and activist I’d ever come in contact with taught the course. My hand ached at the end of each lecture. I had to write everything he said because it was all new information. And if I was ever going to get an A, I needed to write it all.

Just to get an idea of my starting point, in elementary school I learned Christopher Columbus discovered America, where he was cordially invited to a Thanksgiving feast with Native Americans and they all lived happily ever after. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, “outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” and now we are all good. Go to recess!

My high school teachers put in a little more effort to talk about racial inequity, but at the end of the day, it was the same gist. Racism ended with the Civil Right Movements. To be fair, most public school teachers in the district (and quite frankly, in the United States of America) were underpaid, understaffed, and forced to teach to the curriculum. The curriculum curated with information that would lead to higher standardized tests scores. And your students better perform well on those tests. Otherwise, you’ll get no funding for new textbooks, SmartBoards, or iPads. (There is probably another blog topic in there somewhere). So they taught from the provided curriculum. You should have seen the hoops they had to jump through before we were allowed to read Harry Potter in 5^th grade. Can you imagine what would have happened if they challenged the curriculum with more historically accurate information? 

Then I found myself sitting in Dr. Rabaka’s lecture. Never having heard any of this before. I knew nothing about African History or African people before slavery began. I mean, I distinctly remember having to learn about Chinese Dynasties, Roman Empires, and Trojan Horses (the condom and historical event). Not that I could tell you anything about those now (except for the condoms), but I know at some point I was expected to retain that information. Not to mention I knew barely anything Dr. Rabaka was sharing about the history and policies instituted in the United States since our nation’s beginning. The ways in which racism was embedded in institutions. How it still is.

It’s hard to look back and put into words what I likely thought before taking that class. I can only assume up until that point, I believed racism was a choice that people consciously made. That being racist meant making conscious, deliberate actions that harmed people of color. So as long as I didn’t do that, I was good. Constitutional amendments existed to prevent discrimination based on race. Surely, by now, 50 years later (at that time), we have identified the ways we discriminate as a culture, and eradicated them. Right? And certainly those policies were no longer being created.

As a White person living in a predominantly White neighborhood going to a predominately White school, if I decided “I wasn’t racist”, I no longer had to think about race. I could easily convince myself I would have “been at the marches” during the Civil Rights Movement. It’s easy to look at history and assume you would have been on the right side. But we didn’t have those problems now. And even if we did, I wasn’t a part of that, was I? Of course, the research study I detailed earlier tried to gently give me the hint. But at that point I wasn’t ready to hear that, I suppose.

After taking Dr. Rabaka’s class, I continued enrolling in Ethnic Studies (ETHN) classes, eventually declaring it my second major, and writing an honors thesis under a different Ethnic Studies professor. Every class I took challenged what I thought I knew about American History and race relations in the United States.

Introduction to American Indian studies exposed how oppressive, ignorant, and simply incorrect it is to teach that Columbus “discovered America”. A land inhabited by hundreds of thousands of people upon his arrival. In fact, Vikings landed in what is now North America 500 years prior to Columbus. I learned that Native children were ripped from their homes and forced to go to “Boarding Schools” which essentially forced the abandonment of their Native culture, in order to adopt dominant White culture; which in turn left many feeling they didn’t belong anywhere.

I learned how concepts like the “One Drop Rule” justified enslavement and Jim Crow Laws for Black people. Because if they had just “one drop” of Black blood, they were considered “Black”, which equated to a lower class of human. And the same “One Drop Rule” was used in reverse for Native peoples. That even if a Native person had “one drop” of White blood they could not qualify for any programs meant to benefit/serve as reparations for Native peoples, because of course in that instance, they were considered White.

In a class called African American Women’s Happiness, I learned the politics of hair. Inequity of wages for particularly Black women. The shockingly low life expectancy for Black Transwomen.

In Race, Gender, and Science, I read a book called “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”, highlighting blind allegiance to Western Medicine. Despite the success of Eastern medicines in other cultures for hundreds of years.

I could go on, but in sum, I left those 4 years of college with a much different understanding of racial politics in America. I started looking for graduate schools in counseling that focused on multicultural competency. I wanted to make sure my education stayed on the right track. I wanted to further my understanding.  

I felt the counseling program I attended at Towson University did a phenomenal job highlighting multicultural competency and social justice as a part of a counselor’s responsibility. Two years later I graduated that program with what I believed to be an even deeper, more nuanced perspective of intersectional discrimination in this country.

Then I entered the work force as a counselor. Equip with what I thought was a satisfactory knowledge of social justice, multicultural history, and counseling techniques. While at work, I attended the mandatory diversity trainings on race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. When working with clients, I did my best to approach the client from a culturally relative perspective; taking into account the individual, their culture, and their environment. Outside of work, I identified as a progressive person. Engaging in conversations about diversity when presented with the opportunity. But almost exclusively with likeminded individuals. Don’t want to rock the boat too much. I am a “9” after all. (Shoutout to all my #enneagramfans). 

Fast-forward a couple of years. It’s spring/summer 2020. Everyone is wearing masks. Hair care products, razers, and make-up sales are at an all time low. At least as far as my finances are concerned. Some people are working from home. Some people are laid off with no idea when they will go back to work. Small businesses are terrified they may never be able to open their doors.

Then the video of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder is released. Then Breonna Taylor, a Black female medical first responder, is killed by police in her own home. Then George Floyd was murdered by a police officer who knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 48 seconds. The Black Lives Matter Movement takes over the news cycle.

And here I am. Being called to action to support what I believe to be “the right side” of history. I go to the protest in the city I live in (again, predominately White). I post some things on Facebook and Instagram. I try to engage in conversations with loved ones about my support for the movement, encouraging participation. But I still found myself with a strange feeling in the pit of stomach. And through writing this blog for the last 8 or 10 weeks, I think I’ve put words to what my gut was trying to tell me.

I’m mad at myself. I’m embarrassed. Feeling shameful to be honest. Because since leaving academia in 2016 to present day, I have become complacent. I reference the knowledge I learned in school. I attend the mandatory trainings at work. Do my best to remain aware of my previously identified biases. But I certainly have not gone out of my way to learn more. I continued to pat myself on the back for what I previously learned, as if I have reached an acceptable level of “anti-racism” and need to go no further.

So when I caught myself scrolling through Instagram, seeing post after post sharing relevant historical information, calling people to action, and sharing deeper roots to the racial injustice in American, I could no longer ignore my sense of shame. That despite being warned about the dangers of complacency and the pervasiveness of White privilege, I was contributing to the problem. My White privilege allowed me to feel comfortable in what I knew. Allowing me to disregard any responsibility to learn more.

So now what.

For starters, I re-commit myself to my own education. I will pick up books written by people of color. I will read them. I will read them often. Starting with 5 books by the end of 2020. Hold me to it, if you feel so inclined.

I will listen. Not just to the people that think like me. That’s the easy part. I will listen to people who don’t. Historically, this has not been my strength. I catch myself in conversations with people I love and respect, but who may not think like I do, and I tend to either shut down or become angry. I feel myself getting frustrated they don’t see things like I do. As you can imagine, those conversations go poorly. I do not get to feel frustrated because as a White person, I have been in that place, and I will likely be in that place in the future. That place of feeling defensive when being confronted with knowledge that challenges my understanding of history, society, or myself. It is my responsibility to be educated, to be kind, and to be persistent when talking about these issues with other White people. And to promote the voices of people of color, who have been speaking on this for decades.

And I will also continue to reflect on myself. I have been back and forth about sharing this story, but I believe it’s important that I do. At some point during undergrad, Jesi (see best friend reference from earlier) and I were walking home from class. I don’t exactly remember the context, but I think she was talking about a Black student organization on campus, or something having to do with being a person of African descent. I blurted out “you’re not even Black!” Jesi, who I believe identifies as mixed race, wasn’t “Black enough” in my eyes that day. I feel queezy recounting that right now. But it happened. Every time I think about it, I want to shake the memory away.

I tell you that story not because I want to come clean. I’d be much happier if no one, including Jesi, ever knew about that. If I could have erased Jesi’s memory in that moment, I probably would have. I tell it because despite attempting to entrench myself in learning, I still said and did ignorant shit constantly. More times than I’d like to admit. And I likely still do. It is my responsibility to continue being honest about how my actions, complacency, and ignorance work against the cause I would like to support.

And finally, I would like to encourage feedback from others. As Brené Brown puts it, “if you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I am not interested in or open to your feedback”. As I re-enter the arena, I am asking others in the arena to help me grown and to call me out.

With that, I am fresh out of well-thought out, eloquent ways to wrap this up. But thank you for reading. Thank you for letting me share this journey. The parts I am proud of, and the parts I am not. If I said anything that offended you, if you felt like this blog went too far, if you thought this blog did not go far enough, I welcome you to share how you feel. This time has re-taught me that there is always more to learn; as a counselor, friend, daughter, sister, girlfriend, and person.

As Maya Angelou once said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better”.