I am me.

(me)

I know this may come as a shock to you, but I am not a woman.  I’m also not black.  I’m not a scientist.  I’m not a Nobel Prize winner.  I wasn’t raised in the South.  I’m not a Fundamentalist Christian.  I’m not a millionaire.  I’m not an overweight girl.  I’m not a jock.  I don’t suffer from PTSD, depression, attention deficit disorder, paranoia.  I’m not a gun owner.  I’ve never been abused sexually or physically.  I’m not an A student.  I never graduated from college.  I’ve never broken a bone.  I’ve never jumped out of an airplane.  I’ve never been shot at.  I’m not a soldier.  I’m not a cop.  I’m not homeless.  I’m not gay.  I don’t have AIDS.  I’ve never had cancer.  I’m not unwed and pregnant.  I’m not poor.  I’m not displaced.  I’m not an immigrant.

Now that we’re clear of what I’m not, here’s what I am (as of July 10, 2015):  50 year old white male, slightly overweight, bald, Christian, born in Japan, grew up in Pasadena, Ballard and Mountlake Terrace.  Married 28 years (29 this August).  Father of two adult children.  Knowledgeable about film and screenwriting.  Film maker.  Producer.  Writer.  Teacher.  Have worked in some capacity since I was 12.  Grew up in a single family household until I was seven.  Didn’t get along great with my step-father.  Got kicked out of the house when I was 18.  I’m acquainted with death.  I’ve had amazing joys and deep sadness. I’ve been in love more than once.  I’ve had my heart broken. I’ve been on the stage as a performer.  I’ve made people happy and I’ve made people sad (usually the same people).  I am me.

Now that Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner has figured out who he (she) is, there are going to be a lot of people out there who are going to slice and dice and analyze.  There are going to be a lot of people out there with opinions.  There are going to be “experts” who are going to try and figure it all out.  But no one is Caitlyn Jenner.  No one knows what she’s gone through or going through.  No one truly knows her story but her.  But that’s not going to stop people from making judgments and assumptions and rationalizations.  It’s in our human nature.

Caitlyn Jenner

Just like no one knows what Trayvon Martin was going through the night he was shot.  Or what it’s like to be a cop on a beat figuring out who has a gun or not.  Or the young girl finding out she’s pregnant from a rape and wants to choose an abortion.  Many of us can’t speak from that perspective because we’ve never been in that situation.  We didn’t grow up black in the slums of Baltimore.  Nor did we grow up in the Hamptons never having to worry about a college education or working full time.  Many of us haven’t been treated differently because of our race or sex.  Many of us have.

Though many of us haven’t experienced things like racism or abortion or sexism or hatred or a lack of hope and a lack of future – many of us sure feel like we can speak about it.

A few months ago a friend of mine – a tenured college professor who has written books on race – had an editorial printed on Salon.com about how difficult it is for white people to talk about race and racism.  Scrolling through the comments to the article you get nuggets such as these:

“Congratulations!  You have now analyzed the psychology of why I refuse to admit that I am a racist and prejudiced supremacist bastard.  Wonderful.” – keeblerhrk

“American blacks are the most pampered and pondered culture on earth. Ive lived in several countries and by far the complex inconsistencies of what blacks accept as racism are most baffling. In a nutshell, "racism" is whatever they want it to be, when ever they want it to be.” – Johnny J

“Dr. Diangelo is missing a few things from his discussion. There is a difference between racism and prejudice. Not many people are actively racist but EVERYONE is actively prejudiced.” – Richard Ganton

“I'm tired of being blamed and lectured for every ill in a brown community because the color of my skin happens to be white.  Isn't that racism? To judge me and assume I'm bad because I have white skin? Please, keep your white guilt to yourself.” - gthrock

There are nearly 800 comments.  Feel free to read the article and the comments yourself:

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/10/white_americas_racial_illiteracy_why_our_national_conversation_is_poisoned_from_the_start_partner/

Of course what many of these commentators don’t take into account are the hours and hours of research that Dr. DiAngelo has done.  The many interviews.  The books she’s read and digested.  The conversations she’s had.  The hours upon hours of detailed work to come to the conclusions she’s come to.  They disregard her opinion as, just that, an opinion.  As if she tossed off this article like it was scrawled on a notepad during a bus ride to Hemp Fest.  She’s an EXPERT.  Maybe she has valid points.  Maybe she’s done a bit more research than you.  Maybe she can tell her story based on years of research and you can listen and you could learn something.  Maybe.

I see this more and more with our politicians and climate science.  Here you have a strong learned community that has spent countless hours looking over data and charts and researching patterns.  They’ve read books, written papers, and written books.  Challenged the status quo.  Changed the minds of their students or professors.  Have failed and have succeeded.  Done testing and more research.  Devoted years, nay, decades to their craft only to be dismissed by someone who says:  “I’m not a scientist but I don’t believe in this here ‘global warming.’  Look, I have a snowball in Washington D.C. in February.”

Of course these are the very same politicians who decry the global science community as “fear mongers” who will just as quickly encourage their constituents to get vaccines because, for some reason, that science is more real or more valid or (insert rationalization here).

Then as we see rioters in the street, pundits of all types and stripes who have never been homeless, never struggled with being poor, didn’t grow up black in the inner city quickly call them welfare moochers or thugs or worse.  They don’t know their story – but they’ll be quick to judge them like they know them and have walked a mile in their shoes.  And, most likely, they don’t WANT to know their story:

Here’s the deal:  I know my story – I don’t know YOUR story.  We can approximate things, certainly, but we will never ever ever truly know the person we’re looking at because we haven’t lived their life.  You want to know the opinion of a 50 year-old bald guy who, until age 7, grew up with a single mom and has gone on to teach screenwriting and work in the legal field?  I’m your man.  You want my opinion about inner-city racism and black-on-black crime – whatever opinion I have will be viewed through the prism of my middle class suburban lifestyle and my decidedly white Christian upbringing.  In other words – my opinion ain’t going to be worth much.

But is having an opinion on par with judging?  And what of fighting injustice?

I think that as a Christian, Christ calls us to fight injustice when we see it.  Help the homeless, challenge authority, question the righteous and, most of all, love our neighbor.  But how do we love our neighbor when we don’t get to know our neighbor?

There are 24 hours in a day.  1,440 minutes.  86,400 seconds.  How much of that time am I going to spend worrying about gay people marrying?  How much of my day am I going to think about transgender people using the bathroom?  How many precious seconds am I going to think about Bruce Jenner becoming Caitlyn Jenner?  I’m not.  I don’t care.  She is who she is and she knows what’s going on in her brain – not me.

Seriously...so few minutes in a day.

In the grand scheme of things – I try my best to listen so I can learn.  I try to ask questions that are relevant to what the person is talking about.  I try to table whatever agenda I might have to actively listen to the person in front of me.  There are people I know who are going to make choices I don’t understand.  There are people I know who are going to make choices I don’t agree with.  But they are them and I am me.

The next time you see a story about the next cop killing.  Or hear another argument for or against gay marriage.  When you question abortion.  As the television (or social media) creates villains out of the homeless or the illegal immigrant or the person whose faith is different from yours – maybe take a moment and look at who you are and where you came from and then put yourself in their shoes.  Try to understand who they are and where they came from and why they’re making the decisions that they are.  And then finally understand, no matter how hard you try, that you will never fully comprehend the life that person is going through – so maybe best to not judge and, instead, love.