supporting equity – Stone Soup NH

Risking Deeper Dives

A friend of mine has been doing anti-racism work since before it was cool. Her training, work history, and lived experience combine to make her very good at helping white folks notice patterns they may have missed before. She was recently asked by a group of white progressives to come do some extended work with them. She said sure and they started working out the details.

The first sign of trouble was when they asked if maybe a white person would be a better trainer for them, since she or he would have a better understanding of the white experience of racism. She got through that (being a patient sort) by pointing out that being white–and therefore not racism’s target–they had some important blind spots she could maybe bring to their attention.

She then kept talking to them until they told (not asked) her to send her curriculum to them so they could tell her what changes to make.

Let that sink in for a minute.

The group of white people hiring the African American woman to help them see and unravel patterns of racism in their lives first told her they weren’t sure that a person of color could help them learn what they needed, and then told her that they wanted to make sure that she was going to teach them the right things. (I’ve been imagining telling my Spanish teacher that I wanted to learn nouns but not about their gendered nature, because that made me uneasy. Can’t see it getting very far.)

Since I am one of her “What the f is WRONG with you people?” white people, she called me to express her frustration. Then she sent them Robin DiAngelo’s very useful article describing white progressive groups’ defenses against deep anti-racism work. Now she is sorting out how to respond to the fact that they are promoting the workshop with her name without confirming with her that if it’s her workshop, it’s her rules.

She’s working on a letter which says:

· that she believes they want to really work on this stuff,

· that this behavior is a demonstration of how racism can work, and

· that she’d like to unpack this set of interactions as a learning tool in the workshop, but

· she’s not willing to do a “stay inside the lines” training that will let them check the box on this work without risking real insight or growth.

I don’t know what she’ll decide to do and it’s not my place to say, but I do wonder sometimes what the f is wrong with us.

Waiting for the Second Marshmallow

Tali Sharot wrote a good book about how brain patterns influence our behavior. In it she unpacks the “marshmallow” experiment, that one from the late 80s in which kids were asked to postpone eating the one marshmallow in front of them in favor of eating two later. This was taken to show which kids had better self-control. The ones who waited did better later in life. So, the study concluded, if you have the psychological structure to resist short-term satisfaction you can improve your final position.

Sharot, however, offers another way to think about it. Based on the work of other researchers, she suggests that it is not self-control that dictates people’s choices, but our faith in the future. In one study the kids were given a cool project and bad crayons in a hard to open box. After they’d had time to figure out the crayons were substandard they were told they’d get a better box if they waited. So they did, and one group got a new, easy to open box full of crayons with sparkles. The other group was told, sorry, we don’t have anything better for you after all. Then they were given the marshmallow test.

Two guesses who waited for the second marshmallow.

Now think about people who’ve never caught a break and never seen anyone who looked like them catch a break, and tell me again about how buying that nice car instead of saving for a home shows that they “lack self-control.”

What do you think you would do?

Added 8/24/18

Last June The Atlantic published an article about a study that revisited the marshmallow study. It “suggests that the capacity to hold out for a second marshmallow is shaped in large part by a child’s social and economic background—and, in turn, that that background, not the ability to delay gratification, is what’s behind kids’ long-term success.”

Seemed relevant.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmallow-test/561779/

Believe the Need

Ally, accomplice, trying-to-be-a-decent-human….

Whatever we call it, we should do what we’re asked. I was asked today by a long-time friend to write this.

She asked me to write a post to which she could direct the earnest, well-resourced people who want to support her work but do not see that she IS her work. She wants me to tell them that she is really good at bringing racial consciousness to her peace work because she lives it every day. She wants me to tell them that this also means that she can’t always pay her rent, and doesn’t always have enough to eat (like, there is no food in the house until payday, and then only if she shorts the landlord again or BEGS the phone company not to cut off the way people reach her to give her paying work.)

She asked me to write this because she’s tired of exposing her financial insecurity to people who ask where check should go and then tell her that she “can’t expect people to give her the money directly!”. Better, I guess, to give it to an organization that will take the admin fee and then give some of it to her as less salary than she is worth (or if she proves personal need to their satisfaction). Better, I guess, not to trust the person you KNOW works full time on a part time salary to craft peace to know what she needs to continue that work.

In this post I was asked to write, she asked that I tell people who want to make the world better to reflect on what they are able and willing to give. We all have limits on how much of our privilege we’re willing to do without. Just be clear about it. (And maybe don’t talk about your trip to Paris while apologizing for not being able to do more.)

Finally, and this may be a subtle point, she is NOT asking for reparations for historic imbalances. She is trying to answer the question asked of her, “What do you need to bring your unique skills to solving an important problem?” Telling her that her need to eat is not part of the equation is not helpful.