juliannechat

Adopting a forest road (for the Sage Foundation)

My company gives us paid time to spend volunteering in our local communities. Last week (ending on April 23rd) Sage Foundation connected us with Solve Oregon to help pick up trash in our local communities. 

I broke up the Foundation hours by starting with short daily walks picking up trash in my neighborhood. For the day itself, I drove to a beloved park and "adopted" a stretch of road. Here were my tools:

Trash bags - headphones to listen to something while I picked up trash - disposable masks - disposable gloves.

As it turned out I didn't use the headphones; there were birds singing, and I also enjoyed eavesdropping as pairs of walkers passed me. (How I've missed eavesdropping along with all the other elements of "being in crowds"!) When I thought anyone was staring I would wriggle my free hand in its blue glove and try to look serious and determined. 

It was a beautiful day in Mount Tabor Park. I've put these next pictures in tables; click to see versions of them un-distorted. I couldn't get an entire tree in my camera viewfinder so here are the trunks ... followed by some of the treetops ... 

This is the stretch of road I adopted (basically "all the road I could see from the car in both directions"). 

The prize for the most interesting piece of "litter" goes to this clothing tag. Sage makes software to help small businesses, and so I'll support this one by showing you both sides of the tag. It had been stepped on but was still in pretty good condition (high quality card stock):

 

white tears vs mourning for "real"

One of my demographic identities is North American white Protestant Christian and I'm writing about an issue some members of our community, especially those in older generations, have [1]:

• All genders are trained that "polite" communication is indirect. We don't want any communication to get so "real" (=authentic) that "anyone" (=white) becomes "uncomfortable."
• People who identify as female are seen as responsible for keeping communication flowing "politely." [2]  
• When "things become awkward," we first try to "smooth things over" with distraction, deflection, derailment. 
• If despite our best efforts things do become "real" then some of us think it's "our fault/responsibility" and so ...
• ... we have strong emotions about our failure / frustration and may begin crying.
• This can deflect / derail any authentic discussion because people turn aside from reality to comfort / engage with us. [3]

 

Why does this "work"? From an article on the Solus Jesus blog:

The most easily transmittable emotion in human groups is fear. This is an important survival mechanism for most mammals. A member of the herd, group, community, family is frightened, and that fear is quickly passed to other group members.

 

How can I prevent this "white tears" reaction in myself? Recognizing the pattern is the first step. Second step is staying extra grounded.[4]

Found a good primer on NPR's Code Switch podcast: When the 'White Tears' Just Keep Coming. Bonus: another Code Switch focusing on The Blacksonian.

Having lived in Australia for 7 years I recognize what Ruby Hamad, "an Arab woman working in Australian media," is saying in White Tears, Brown Scars. If you don't have time for an entire book, here's Ruby's Guardian article that the book is based on. Bonus: this from Miss Blank.  

Prayer: may my mourning be for real.

 

 

[1] Robert Coles says the only "plight" we should write about is our own. So this blog tries to stay in its lane.

[2] And remembering birthdays and anniversaries and holidays for people of all other genders. Really too many annoying expectation to list here.

[3] So we achieved our goal - indirectly - 

[4] I wrote about this in my Medium trilogy, Enough, now out of date. (For example, embarrassingly naive about US history of patrolling/policing control over Black people. Karen Trusty did warn me!) Process improvement errday.