Synthesis Sunday: Now, With Something That I Actually READ!!

I spent some time this week actually reading something for my professional enrichment and to move me forward on one of my quests for this year. I have been taking some random, colorful, and sentence notes all over my bullet journal to keep me going and to remember important things about this book. I know that I said that I wasn't going to take notes, but there was so much information in this book that I just couldn't help it.

I am reading Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. As I understand it, Ibram X. Kendi wrote the meat of the book and Jason Reynolds made is read more like a novel than a textbook. At least, that was the implication of the introduction by Ibram X. Kendi. I am about halfway through the book now. 

One of my quests for this year has been to seek understanding of some of the movements that are happening in our world these days, one of those being the Black Lives Matter movement. This is my first step onto this quest.

I am a person of privilege from the perspective of many. I am a suburb kid, from a middle class family, who was able to go to higher education, has been employed for my entire work career, and who has gone on to further higher education. After many years of being a renter, I have finally managed to purchase my own home. I own property now. I have a car. I have the ability to pay for medical procedures when I need them - that hurts, but I can do it. If all you did was look at me, I would present indications of privilege - I am white, I am fat, I am in a place where I tend to be surrounded by people who are more like me than not like me.

So, as you can see, I have been taking notes in color and in a rather haphazard manner. I am enjoying the all over the place nature of these notes, but I am also really enjoying the book. At this point, I am immersed in the history of Black Lives in this country. I've made it as far as the years right before the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln has been just mentioned in an off-hand way.

In the pages that I have read, we have discussed the difference between being a segregationist, an abolitionist, and an anti-racist from the perspective of historical figures. I am finding that this history, while somewhat uncomfortable from the perspective of a person who comes from ancestry of long-time Americans, is still familiar to me. I know that my family members engaged in some of the behaviors that are described in this text. As far as I know, no one was prosperous enough to own slaves - most of my family members were firmly in the Poor White category of the times, but I am definitely sure that there were ancestors who were segregationists and abolitionists in my genetic past. In fact, when my father got a bit tetchy about the family history of our current Vice President, Kamala Harris, I reminded him that our own family history was not as clean and clear as he would like to think. I have nothing confirmed, but I am certain that various parts of my family tree are part of the problem. While I am unable to fix the attitudes and actions of people in my genetic past, I can strive to be a better person myself.

This book is helping me figure out some of the long-standing issues that have been ensconced in how we do things in this country. I have benefited from many of the systems that are part of the world. I have never really thought about how people expected freed slaves to assimilate into the culture of the savior rather than adding to the primary culture. 

I think that I have had a naive view of the "American Melting Pot" all of my life.

That disappoints me. I want to live in a country where we celebrate people for who they are and where they came from. I want a country where being American has nothing to do with the color of a person's skin but has to do with simply living here. I also want to believe that other people want this as well. I want to live in a country where we can enjoy differences, and where we can celebrate what people contribute to a completely new type of culture. I want to live in a country where we strive to learn about what we can each bring to a constantly changing culture.

That is probably patronizing to some, infuriating to others, and a common view for yet others.

At this point, I am merely starting my quest into ideas from viewpoints other than my own. If anyone has any other book recommendations, send them my way.

 

Next week, more about my current reading...