A Wound in Whiteness
There is a wound in being an American which is not apparent until you spend time with enough Caribbean people. I’m going to talk a bit about the wound in being American and white, but the wound is echoed in different ways across Americans of every ethnic group.
The Dominican spiritual parties I’ve been going to have made me cry. And cry. And cry.
No one at that party cared if I was a white woman involved in vodou, and in fact the spirits came and hammered the lesson home by reminding people that the spirits own the party, not any of us with our preoccupations and divisions. There were people from a LOT of different backgrounds at that party. No one cared about my family history or lack thereof. No one needed me to justify my involvement.
No one cared that I’m not a fluent Spanish speaker, or if they did, it certainly didn’t show. If I didn’t understand the spirits correctly, the spirits would literally grab people and tell them to translate.
When the spirits hugged me, or rolled around on the floor with me, or saluted me, no one made any comment but to say that they saw, and they called out approval and laughter when I picked Ti Jean up and spun him.
It broke my heart into splinters on the floor. I cried most of the way home.
How often, how long I have not danced, not sung, not been joyful. How long I have treated my emotions as if they are a shameful secret.
I could point to many things in my culture. Punishment of children for making noise. The punishment of passion, or any overt and noisy display of emotion. Mockery of people who don’t conform. Punishment of excitement—from beating children to making fun of ‘sensitive’ people to professionally excoriating people for being ‘excitable.’
How violent we are with each other! We dismember each other and consider it to be a favor: a man must. A woman must. A child must. Quiet. Orderly. Controlled. There is so much viciousness in conformity.
How violent is the idea that we are individuals who must rise or fall on our own. How cruel to say to someone that they must overcome every possible obstacle alone, or lie and say no one ever helped them lest their work be seen as less.
There is a wound in whiteness. Our culture wounds us and says that we are separate. Our culture wounds us and says that we are better and must maintain it by separation.
And worse, some of us backlash and treat ourselves as if we are less, as if we must live life as an apology for the things we have been taught, as if whiteness is a shame and not the place we were born, the way we understand ourselves. As if culture is a label carved in stone, unable to be changed, and our understanding of ourselves a divine mandate. All the ways we separate ourselves to say “this is better” are people being violent with one another.
The spirit needs none of that shit from us. There is a wound in it that needs healing.
