Heart Reading … Day 43
Tea time & ice cream — inspecting two class aspects of white mindedness
This heart reading is kind of a follow up to Day 42’s commentary on deconstructing white mindedness and it is beginning with notions that sit squarely in my heart. I’ll do an actual heart reading once I get these notions out of my head and see what transpires.
Last night I had the great fortune of attending the first live performance of NPR’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me show since the Coronavirus pandemic began. I joined a couple of friends on the lawn at Tanglewood and Peter Sagal opened with a great delivery of a faux land acknowledgment given the “WASPy” history of this “bucolic” and “ethereal” part of Western Massachusetts which begs visions of Chester and Weezy entertaining socialites on the patio at tea time. The news featured in the show included the latest on Comirnaty (i.e. Pfizer’s vaccine), and historical trivia on the use of the middle finger. Aside from my fear of ticks, it was a truly wonderful evening.
Attending any performance at Tanglewood can prompt a white anti-racist to feel a bit self-conscious as the audiences are most often a sea of white people. As someone who’s father was a truck driver and who’s mother was a cashier and secretary (she was damn good at both), we skirted the edges of our working class place in the world when going on day trips to Cape Cod or taking our barely functional speedboat to Lake George, NY a few times. And I have (much too) often reflected on class and white privilege and the constructs which form “the American Dream.”
Two conversations — one with the friends I drove to this show with and one with my partner during a long drive today — about sophisticated psychodrama, along with my own in-real-life sophisticated psychobabble, have me “catching feelings” about class and the very real experience of navigating complicated interpersonal dynamics. The first conversation was about teenage bullying and how even though school administrations can take active stands against it, the sophisticated and subtle ways bullying plays out can elude many teachers and staff members. The second conversation was about the nature of narcissism which left us wondering if any adult can claim they are not a narcissist even if they are incredibly talented at giving the appearance of being other-centric, empathetic, and blessed with healthy self esteem.
With thoughts like this swirling around in my head today, along with a song that wouldn’t leave me alone, I drove an old but spunky white BMW across Massachusetts from the West to the South. Early into the drive I got to one very average town, like the one I’d grown up in, and gave into a heat- and humidity-induced craving for a Klondike bar. Prior to this I’d gone over two weeks eating a vegan diet, inspired by The Sexual Politics of Meat and The Animal Manifesto as well as a newfound allergy to eggs and ongoing issues with dairy. Why did I do this to myself?
Even though the ice cream bar was delicious, it immediately caused a bizarre allergic reaction which left me kicking myself figuratively. [Could it be the high fructose corn syrup, the alkali, the propylene glycol monoesters, guar — or cellulose gum, or the soy lecithin? Hmm]. Anyway, I was the kid who would come home from school and eat one scoop after another out of one of the various half gallons of ice cream in the freezer. The only reason for divulging that fact is to acknowledge the power that childhood habits can have on us, particularly in stressful moments (which are arguably all moments these days).
What lingers in my heart year after year is the notion of aspiring toward white privilege. I have aspired for many years — wanting to have a nice house, nice vacations, general easefulness. Even though I now have the conditions for all of these things, I remain dis-easefull. I can even get myself in quite a pathological monologue about the lingering class issues I harbor in the sad corners of my body-mind — particularly when I am in community with others who seem to have had an abundance of healthy communication in their early years.
I have wished my childhood was better and have wished that all children everywhere could have not just numerous and diverse creative experiences like the more privileged among us but also intergenerational dialogue to help them put life and its confusing elements into perspective. But in laying on my back with my hand on my heart, listening to what subtle messages there are for me to hear, I re-member that the struggles which children face are what give them resolve, courage, vision, and the skills to make their way… to define their own dreams — along with or in contrast to an American Dream that was defined however narrowly by the colonists in New England.
At the same time … the conditions for dis-ease among children — as they return to school, hopefully wearing masks for protection, seem to be like nothing any generation before them have ever faced. May all children be well and live safely in the balance somewhere between the excessive rigidity of tea time and the excessive indulgence in ice cream.
