The problem with blogging might be similar to teaching sociology. You often focus on what is wrong or not going well. And then you wonder if people just think you are negative. I don't want to be seen as negative. And this also about learning balancing the stress, as this will always be there. But it also means, as a great mentor here told me, learning to do the dance.
Point in case. My daughter comes home with a letter from her public elementary school last night. It's all about a "Christmas" activity they are doing. Okay, well in our family we celebrate Christmas, but are not overtly religious about the meaning of this holiday. And being a sociologist, being trained in diversity and inclusivity, with friends being Jewish, atheists, and many other identities, I say the holidays. Do I say something to the teacher or the school? Do I advocate for those who may not? Or if I do will this just be another level of stress and what I have ended up labeling "butting heads" with some of the locals. I bit my tongue last week during a meeting for an organization for girls, in which another leader kept saying Christmas, though I so much wanted to ask politely if we could say holidays. However, I did not because this is the person who I already said it would bother me if we said a prayer before snack. And here we go in this debate with people who hold their identities to be so true and such a part of themselves, that it is often difficult for them to see past their beliefs to understand others may have different ones. So, I cold imagine the backlash about taking "Christ" out of Christmas stuff. But our intention is not to tell you what to believe, but to ask we all be inclusive in how we talk and organize. When I was teaching a race, class, and gender course, I had my students read a small segment by Anderson and Hill-Collins about privilege and inclusion. The analogy the authors used is one of taking a picture. We are not taking anyone out of the picture, but instead expanding the focal point and lens to include everyone.
And this leads me to another thing I have been thinking about lately and especially when I was teaching sociology classes to criminal justice majors at my old institution. I've read enough papers with sexist, racist, classist, homophobic, transphobic, and xenophobic comments to satisfy a lifetime. My partner would always ask me why I would be so upset or attached to what the students were writing. Well, considering these students were intending to go into law enforcement in some manner, it does scare me. Considering what we know about the CJS, I think you might be able get my point. So at times knowing that I may not be able to have students fully accept the idea of diversity, oppression, and privilege, and especially when teaching online courses, I ended up using the logic of "you don't want to be the reason for a lawsuit". Not how I want to teach, but what was the case.
So, I think of things here in the Deep South. I think of the segregation and the discrimination my students tell me about that they have faced. I think of our ever so pleasant neighbor screaming about us. I drive my daughter to her school, where we have little contact with beyond the newsletters and some events. My daughter is white and does well in school. However, she "is not from here" and also not a Baptist. So, we've had a few incidents where some of the other children formed a little clique about their beliefs in god and told my daughter she was wrong. But that's small potatoes in terms of what I am thinking about. Being a sociologist I know way too much about our educational systems and practices (and education is not my area). There's the institutional racism, but there's the micro level piece also in which not everyone is probably aware about. So, as I drop my kid off at school, I wonder how the teachers are trained here. They have tough jobs with little pay to begin with, but are they thinking about discrimination and inequality in society and pay attention to this? Are the kids being treated fairly? Are there unconscious ways, those micro aggressions, that happen? Are the minority children treated fairly? Are they getting the same education? Do the other kids in the school learn racist ways from their families and enact this? Again, my kid is white and a good student, so we have this privilege, but I can't help but think about our neighbor some days and wonder also if people treat her negatively because of this.
I will end this by also saying that part of the experience of thinking about my neighbor has been about feelings of safety. While some people are able to brush these things off, I am not always able to do this easily. And it hit me the other day, as I re-experienced flashbacks to a time I was mugged on my front porch and how I had a hard time walking with people behind me. I want to trust people, but some experiences leave us feeling vulnerable.
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