I’m glad you felt I put something helpful into words. The fact that the term “old white people” was used by a self-identified “old white ” to engage in self reflection and a desire to change hearts and minds, well, that is uplifting to me.Īnd I wrote the article, at least in part, out of a wish that there was some contained document that could become a useful tool for ambassadors of this movement. It’s a turn for the good when a young Black woman can look through comments about a racially charged article she wrote and find the term “old white people” being used.
Yes, it’s part of our history, but rather than glorify it, we should learn about it so that we don’t keep repeating it.ĬRW: I found this comment unexpectedly cheering. I’ve never understood why we have statues and monuments and buildings named after traitors to our country, people who were murderers and rapists. Kristen Rigney, Beacon, N.Y.: I have tried to explain some of these things to other old white people like myself, but you have put into words what I never could. It’s a hard won but immeasurably valuable virtue. Innocence is a precious thing, but so too is the unassailable strength you get from knowing you have not only survived but recovered from and learned to thrive beyond an act of violence. My hope is that by doing the recovery work that takes us from trauma into transcendence, we become something greater than what we lost. When it happens as a result of an evil act, the sense of tragedy is magnified exponentially. Loss of innocence is tragic even when it happens as part of a natural progression into adulthood. The ability to speak your truth in these comments tells me you’ve got great fortitude. I would, however, like to invite a new layer or perhaps a new consideration to add to the insights you’ve provided here. But we need to begin that course.ĬRW: Karen, the phrase “impossibility of redress” is just lovely. All we can do is what I eventually did: Address the effects of injury, and help people grow to their own best life, knowing it will never atone, only mitigate. Seeing Black anger in this light helps me feel the weight of it, the impossibility of redress.
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But I cannot imagine feeling that the trajectory one’s life should have taken was distorted generations before one’s birth, making it impossible even to imagine what that trajectory might have been, let alone how to reclaim it. I spent many years being angry about the innocence that was stolen from me, the way the trajectory of my life was bent off course so that the destination I had been aiming toward was forever lost. I know the feeling of wondering what life might have been if the abuse had never occurred, if one’s innocence had been preserved into adulthood where one could eventually find normalcy. Karen H, New Orleans : I know a bit about how it feels to have sexual assault change the course of one’s young life. It’s been moving but also a little bewildering to discover the degree to which the article was a revelation to some people! Second, allow me to commend you for doing the work of putting two and two together on your own. I speak from personal experience here - I had mothers of good friends ask me to keep quiet about things I learned about my own legacy from as early as 7 years old. Too often Black children are saddled with the burden of navigating classrooms and social gatherings and teams where the stories of their bodies and the bodies of their family members and ancestors are treated like taboo narratives that their classmates/friends/teammates should be sheltered from. First, it is an important reminder of the work we need to do in terms of finding responsible ways to tell children hard truths. It took until I was a teenager for me to put the pieces together myself in horror.Ĭaroline Randall Williams: I think that’s such a valuable recollection, for a couple of reasons. They didn’t have an answer for me and shrugged. Durham MD, the South: When I was 6, I innocently asked my parents why my African-American classmates were typically on average lighter skinned than my classmates whose parents were immigrants directly from Africa.
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