I had insomnia last night. I spent some time agitating about the political situation. I'm stimulated by the book I'm reading, "White Fragility." I have understood that we are all prejudiced since my mid-twenties. I was in graduate school in Wisconsin when I heard a caller talk about it. He was a white man who had moved North because he couldn't stand the way people of color were treated in the south. He found just as much prejudice; it was just subtler, more hidden. He said we had to realize that we were born into a racist society, and it is inescapable. While none of us is free of prejudice, I think it's possible to compare ourselves on the national scale of prejudice. I am not a member of a white supremacist group. That means I'm not at the bottom of the scale. Where do I belong? I don't know that I can make that evaluation. Perhaps a person of color has a better sense of where I fit in.
My distress was with people who assume they are not prejudiced; it's just that there is something wrong with all people of color. They see themselves in touch with reality. Oh, dear. Very distressing, very.
I got up late, too late to do much walking. Elsa and I did just enough for her to do her business. Then it was yoga. There were five of us today, and Joe, a regular, wasn't even there. I worked on straightening my right leg more, pushing into the inner thigh. My right leg is my good leg. By pushing into that thigh muscle, I raise the right hip, allowing the left to carry more weight. At the end of the class, I showed Yvette that telling us to pull up their abdominal muscles doesn't do it with twisted folks like me. I have to pull those muscles to the left and then up. My twist is caused by bad habits, unlike people who have a structural spinal curvature. That makes mine remedial.
I meditated when yoga was over. I sat in the chair today rather than on the kneeling bench. My legs had been strained enough for the day. Of course, after the meditation, I needed my mid-morning nap. My friend from Ohio, who just got out of the hospital, called as I woke up. She is doing much better. She sounded amazingly energetic, given that she has been flat on her back for a month in a hospital fighting for her life.
Elise called today. She got back from visiting friends and family on the mainland and will be quarantined for two weeks. She is one of the regular participants in Yvette's driveway yoga. When I announced in the class one day that I was looking for someone who could help me get my Phonics Discovery Systems audio files coordinated with a PowerPoint slide show and post them on YouTube, Yvette told me that Elise did that type of work. I had a few other names. I had checked out one. She charged $75 an hour and said she thought the job would take three hours. The price freaked me out, but so did her image of how long it would take. Elise said it would probably take something like fifteen minutes to do one. It may take longer, but the other woman overestimated.
I was delighted when I heard that Elise might be someone I could work with. I like her, feel comfortable with her, and feel I can ask her to teach me how to do things, so it will require less time on her part. When I asked her how much she would charge, she said nothing. That's fine if we're talking about half an hour of work. If we are talking about something more complicated, I want to compensate her. I don't want to take advantage of her goodwill. I feel wonderful about having her as my helper.
I tried to do some writing. My brain felt dead. I didn't know what was going on. I did one freewriting on one section of the article. It's a little like automatic writing. It's not great, but it's better than nothing. I couldn't do too much of that either. I went to Costco to do some shopping.
While I was watching TV, I sent Elise the files I wanted for YouTube. Well, guess what. I hadn't completed the work on the PowerPoint slideshow for the two audio files I had ready to send. I texted her that I would work on it the next day and then send it over.
When I got home, I did some more reading in white Fragility. I find this book very interesting.
__________ ____________ __________
Musings:
I don't do well with people who do what I consider simplistic thinkers. All___________, put in whatever you like, people of color, immigrants, Muslims, politicians, police, schoolteachers, etc. are bad/ or are good; all existing institutions should be destroyed, flattened and we should just start from scratch. I have heard that about the police of late.
Now, I have heard about the police department in the Camden Police Department. They defunded it, disband it, and started from scratch, only hiring police committed to a non-violent, community support approach to policing instead of a community control approach. But, they didn't just get rid of the police department. There must have been enough people on the force that were already committed to that point of view. They had a plan that focused on community building instead of suppression.
When I hear just negative thoughts, it scared me. I wish I knew why I had such a strong reaction. Now it is true that my mother thought that way. Whatever she thought had to be right. If I contradicted her, all hell blew loose. I learned late in her life; she felt put down if I held a different opinion from hers. Huh? Are you for real? She was completely embedded in her point of view.
Ironically, she always made me feel bad about my point of view, who set me free- somewhat- when I was about twelve. She came up to me and said, "If two people always think the same thing, there is only one mind at work." I can tell you exactly where we were standing when she said it to me. I knew even then those words weren't hers; they were my father's. It wasn't just that she could not accept an opinion that contradicted her own; she would never have thought in such abstract terms. My mom was an intelligent woman, competent; it's just she would never have generated an abstract thought of that nature. You can imagine how the two of us clashed with each other. I would observe something that thrilled my father, and my mother would turn into a maniac. It was shocking, scary, and I had no idea what I had done wrong. How could something be received with delight by one parent and rage, terror, anger from the other? Crazy making! I hope I can overcome my visceral reaction to absolute thinkers before I die. First off, it is that fear that keeps me from presenting my work to the world. I know there is someone out there that will respond with murderous rage to something I say
I gave a talk at an English as a Second Language conference on a method to teach pronunciation I had developed. The room was packed, standing room only. Would you believe one man got angry at me? There is always someone triggered by something you have to say, or at least what I have to say. So scary!
We once had a couple over for dinner. The husband went on a half-hour tirade against the educational system. This was the second time he had pushed his point of view, not backing off when he saw I was uncomfortable. I had to cut off the relationship between that couple. I was having nightmares. I still feel fear rise in my breast when I even think of him. It may not be his fault that I have these fears, but I do. I do not feel an obligation to suffer.
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