Beauty and Truth...beauty and truth...

An experience of Beauty...whether in the visual arts (think of Titan's "Rape of Europa" in the Gardner Museum in Boston, or the Master of the Nets Courtyard in Suzhou), music (Debussy, "Images"), Nature herself (the San Juan Islands)...or even a lover...his/her physical beauty.

Beauty synonymous or identified as Truth, a truth.

Beauty as an encouragement on a quest for truth in the journey of life, rather than simply external ornament (think Bernard of Clairvaux).

People of color can be just as racist, if not more.  (I won't go into the historical aspects...).

Having a fear of people of another skin color based on having been physical and emotionally traumatized repeatedly by persons having the same culture, skin color, ethnicity is not necessarily racist.

Branding persons with such past experiences as racist is blaming the victim and only deepens the trauma.

* * * * *

The one unambiguously racist incident that I recall over the past fifteen years was when I passed by a group of black men in the Central Area who making motions with their fingers pulling up the corners of their eyes, smiled jeeringly at me.

I did have a (white) neighbor who spoke disapprovingly to my building manager that I listened to television programs in a certain foreign language, though it was not the one she thought it was.

Most of the hostility and suspicion (80-90%) I have experienced over the most 20 years living in Seattle has been from African-Americans (12% of the local population).

* * * * *

But no one asks me for my opinion and I am usually too afraid to give others mine.

To tell the truth, I don't think people like me are asked for their opinions.

An  inconvenient truth.
We just reinforce the cowardice of society, that of others, and our own by not speaking.

Unfortunately for America, there is so much chatter (chit-chat, shooting the breeze...) that hides the essential truths and that passes for actually saying something.

I came out of the closet. I am coming out of the closet. I will come out of the closet.

Do I need to feel shame or guilt about having been dragged, kicked, and beaten outside of Garfield High School as a teenager just because the incident does not fit into the Political Correctness of Seattle over the past 40 years?

Society blames the victims...

* * * * *

Tell The Stranger this:

I came out of the closet.  I am coming out of the closet.   I will come out of the closet.

* * * * *

I was traumatized as a 15-year-old.  

At Meany Middle School and at Garfield High School here in Seattle I was shoved, pummeled, kicked in the stomach, knocked to the ground,  and once poked with umbrellas by roving bands of young African-Americans in the hallways, bathrooms, and grounds of the schools.  No one came to our aid, the teachers being too concerned for their own physical safety and being obviously unprepared to deal with this kind of mass violence.

Other incidents of physical violence occurred, as well, not just to me but it happened to anyone who was not black.  I did not fight back (I remember just curling up into an inert ball) but I was scared and unconsciously made a decision to do everything to avoid it happening to me again.

What happened to me probably happened to hundreds of thousands of students in junior and senior high schools across America, especially in cities with any sizable presence of African-Americans.  Seattle, long considered "one of the whitest" of American cities (at least 85% then), experienced relatively "mild" race riots, what about Los Angeles, Houston, Detroit, Cleveland, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, etc.?

Though I've lost contact with classmates from that era, I did bump into the sister of one sibling's friends at a party a few years ago.  She teaches in a middle school in Seattle and mentioned that she is teaching the children of black people who had beaten her up years ago.

At the downtown YMCA, for at least a couple of years, I was subjected to verbal and emotional abuse by members (strangers).  Except for one instance, I did not report these incidents, thinking at the time that either nothing would be done or that instead of the perpetrators being identified and punished, I would be blamed. 

Do I need to feel shame and/or guilt in addition to the pain already buried inside of me?  

As long as society does not recognize or account for the scars left by these experiences, many, many Americans will have difficulty healing and dealing with the shame, pain, and guilt associated with those experiences.  Through no fault of their own, they were subjected to terrible beatings.   I think they continue to try to "atone" for things they were not responsible for (slavery, the second-class citizenship blacks experienced in the South).

It was if because their skin was not black, they (white, Asian...), they had to wear a badge of shame the rest of their lives, shackled and punished by "conscience."   I would call these things undeserved guilt.

* * * * *

Silencing the voices of those who have been damaged just because their voices do not reflect the political arrangements of the day is like depriving a child of his spontaneity, spontaneity the raison d'etre of having a life at all.   

On Being "Open-minded"

Not always easy if one has been traumatized by that particular group of people.

* * * * *

I was recently admonished recently by a YMCA staff member, who has a knack for being patronizing and making others feel "small" or defective.  I was told I should be open-minded.  The reference was to speaking of whom people I have a fear.  The implication was also that earlier "unpleasant" experiences with these people was due to my having provoked their ire by being unfriendly or discourteous to them,

Afterwards,I thought a while about what she had said.

And I thought to myself, "Yes, it is good to be open to all kinds of experiences and to all kinds of people," and yet it takes commitment and courage to be open to some (groups of) people."

And here I will be fearless and say that I, a racial/cultural minority, have a deep fear and mistrust of African-Americans, based partially upon my experiences as a teenager of having been repeatedly kicked, knocked down, shoved, pummeled, and slapped by young African-Americans at Meany Middle School and outside of Garfield High School, both in the Central Area.

Re-traumatization occurred again as an adult at the downtown YMCA.  At that point in my life I was too scared to report more than one of these incidents to the YMCA.  I assumed that the YMCA would do nothing and that the reporting incidents might, in fact, put me in harm's way and at risk for retaliation; or that the YMCA would blame me for somehow having "provoked" the incidents.  (Yes, it's easier to blame the victim sometimes than to side with him/her against the perpetrator).

A staff member who witnessed one of the verbal assaults tearfully told me that she just could not understand why the man had acted the way he had.  She seemed to be as in incredulous pain as I.

* * * * *

I build higher walls against certain (groups of) people who exhibit patterns of behavior that I consider destructive and/or unhealthy.  At the same time, I see a need to see people as individuals.

Women who have been raped, presumably by men, will have a greater distrust of men than women who have not.  Is their being "less open" to men irrational or wrong?

A tricky balance.