It’s bad grammar, I know, but it sounds better than, All my friends are smarter than am I.
Either way, I think they are. It’s a good thing. They make me think. Here’s an example.
One of my friends, let’s call her Sheena, was visiting the other day. Sheena was here for a class we were taking together, and she stayed with us. It was SO MUCH FUN, because Sheena is hands down one of the funniest people I know. She makes little old introverted me feel like a barrel of laughs, just because her fun-ness rubs off on everyone around her.
She’s funny. But she’s also kind and good-hearted and sweet and caring and loving and concerned about all kinds of evils in the world.
Which is why I wasn’t offended when she called me simplistic and naive.
Actually, she called my world view simplistic and naive, but whatever.
Sheena thinks big thoughts about big issues. She is definitely one of those smarter-than-me friends. She’s heavily invested in things like human rights, particularly as they pertain to all the stuff we hear in the news these days regarding the implications around our country’s treaty issues. She calls herself a settler, and lives and works as a teacher in Fort Qu’appelle, Saskatchewan, which is where, as I understand it, Treaty 4 was signed.
Sheena blogs at Treaty Walks where she writes beautifully about this treaty journey she has been on for the past few years. She’s been on radio talk shows and is friends with lots of journalist and political-type people, and it’s all really cool.
So we’re sitting around my kitchen table, talking about The Lord of the Rings and the goats and her girls and my boys and inevitably the topic of First Nations people and settlers and Idle No More comes up.
And in my simplistic and naive way, I say something like, you know, that I don’t think race needs to be such a big deal every time a white person and a First Nation person encounter each other. Like, why can’t it just be me and her, race-defining-adjective-free, sitting down and having a cup of coffee together and talking about our kids? Why do I always have to be so conscious of the fact that I am privileged white woman and she is historically wronged First Nation woman?
My friend Sheena gave me lots of reasons why that isn’t possible. She gave me examples and we talked history and culture and I see her points. I do.
But, dang. Does it have to be that way?
Is it really simplistic and naive to think that can change? Can’t I behave as if it has already changed? Can’t I ignore all the garbage and just see the person in front of me? One person at a time. One relationship at a time. Sure I’ll make mistakes. Sure I’ll misunderstand culture and history and put my foot in my mouth. But isn’t that the process of changing things?
I appreciate so much people like Sheena. People who delve into the issues and take brave stands and march and write letters and make speeches. People who walk their talk.
I think there’s room, though, for those of us who are just walking. Not with heads in the sand or anything. Not ignoring the fact that there are problems. Just approaching them differently.
Howell Raines grew up in Birmingham, Alabama during those days of riots and hangings and civil unrest. Black and white. Somewhere in all of that, it was his relationship with Grady, the family maid, that informed his ideas about race and equality and influenced his writing and his life. In his 1991 Pulitzer Prize winning essay Grady’s Gift, he wrote this…
Gradystein Williams Hutchinson (or Grady, as she was called in my family and hers) and I are two people who grew up in the 50’s in that vanished world, two people who lived mundane, inconsequential lives while Martin Luther King Jr. and Police Commissioner T. Eugene (Bull) Connor prepared for their epic struggle. For years, Grady and I lived in my memory as child and adult. But now I realize that we were both children — one white and very young, one black and adolescent; one privileged, one poor. The connection between these two children and their city was this: Grady saw to it that although I was to live in Birmingham for the first 28 years of my life, Birmingham would not live in me.
And this…
There is no trickier subject for a writer from the South than that of affection between a black person and a white one in the unequal world of segregation. For the dishonesty upon which such a society is founded makes every emotion suspect, makes it impossible to know whether what flowed between two people was honest feeling or pity or pragmatism. Indeed, for the black person, the feigning of an expected emotion could be the very coinage of survival.
And this…
Every white Southerner must choose between two psychic roads — the road of racism or the road of brotherhood. Friends, families, even lovers have parted at that forking, sometimes forever, for it presents a choice that is clouded by confused emotions, inner conflicts and powerful social forces. It is no simple matter to know all the factors that shape this individual decision.
As a college student in Alabama, I shared the choking shame that many young people there felt about Wallace’s antics and about the deaths of the four black children in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in September 1963. A year later, as a cub reporter, I listened to the sermons and soaring hymns of the voting rights crusade. All this had its effect.
But the fact is that by the time the civil rights revolution rolled across the South, my heart had already chosen its road. I have always known that my talks with Grady helped me make that decision in an intellectual sense.
This is the power of relationship. This is the beginning. This is how it starts. The marches and the clashes and the political stuff… those are necessary and important. Those are the things that make the news.
But the real game-changers, I think, are born out of meaningful relationships.
They might not be equal relationships. They might not be well understood or even socially acceptable and will likely involve a lot of fumbly mistake-making.
But relationship, two people sharing words and tea, that’s where it begins. At least, that’s where it begins for me.
April 23, 2013 at 1:18 pm
Why do I always have to be so conscious of the fact that I am privileged white woman and she is historically wronged First Nation woman?
My friend Sheena gave me lots of reasons why that isn’t possible. She gave me examples and we talked history and culture and I see her points. I do.
But, dang. Does it have to be that way?
No, Janelle, it doesn’t have to be that way. Sheena is either your friend or she isn’t.
Have tea and make a friend.
April 23, 2013 at 1:23 pm
Sheena is my wonderful friend. She’s also white like me, but I see now how my clumsy writing might make you think otherwise! Oops. I suppose that’s why people recommend writing one day and publishing the next. I probably would have caught that if I’d had fresh eyes on it.
April 23, 2013 at 2:42 pm
Your meaning was clear to me. I agree with you. people who offer a smile and friendship without agenda or Judgement and with an open heart, can and surely do meet and make bonds of friendship across many a social divide. I also think its more than possible to over think and also to be so wrapped up in the politically correct as to miss that smile and welcome in the first place.
April 23, 2013 at 5:34 pm
Over thinking things. That’s the second time in just a few days that that phrase has come up. Interesting. I’ll have to (over) think on that.
April 23, 2013 at 10:32 pm
No! Lol
April 23, 2013 at 4:07 pm
Beautifully written as always Janelle. I don’t have a lot of faith in marches and protests for accomplishing social justice, it really has to be about one person caring for and defending another person, just asking yourself honestly, “who is my neighbor?” and doing the next thing. That’s a lot harder.
April 23, 2013 at 4:07 pm
…and I don’t think all your friends could possibly be smarter than you, as you’re pretty darn smart.
April 23, 2013 at 4:39 pm
My thoughts exactly 🙂 she’s smarter than me for starters 🙂
April 23, 2013 at 5:35 pm
I think those public expressions are about solidarity, and that is important, too.
April 23, 2013 at 5:39 pm
So, to be clear… I admire my friend for the way she passionately pursues change. And I think she’s right, my views are simplistic. I’m just saying, so what if they are? There’s room for simplistic on the the-world-could-be-a-better-place landscape.
April 23, 2013 at 7:31 pm
Janelle, it is interesting that you think others are smarter. And yet I find myself wishing I had such a writing talent as you! Your blogs constantly amaze me for their ability to cut to the chase but always in a charming sincere view. Keep up the great writing. It many times makes my day. Oh and knowing of someone like your character “Shenna”….those people we all need to just admire.
April 23, 2013 at 7:40 pm
I admire our friend Sheena so much! She inspires me to care more. Thanks for your kind words, Murray. I really appreciate you taking the time to share that.
April 23, 2013 at 9:06 pm
Isn’t it interesting that in our world, and closer to home, in our circle of friends and acquaintances, there are so many varied personalities! I love that we have Sheenas and Janelles, and that they enrich each other so well. And having both ladies bless us by sharing their thoughts pretty much daily, is something for which I am VERY thankful! 🙂
April 23, 2013 at 10:02 pm
I’m thankful for thoughtful conversation! Thanks for joining in, Susan. We all enrich and bless each other.
April 23, 2013 at 10:26 pm
Hey, Janelle. Thanks for your insights. I’ve shared this post on my facebook page. I totally agree it’s all about relationships, and at the same time, the big machine of society never sleeps.
April 23, 2013 at 11:17 pm
I know that is true. I want to ignore it as much as possible, though. Childish, maybe. Like putting my hands over my ears and saying “I can’t hear you.” I appreciate people like you, who make me think beyond my thoughts.
April 24, 2013 at 8:30 am
Very well written. Most of my friends are smarter than me as well
April 24, 2013 at 9:16 am
Yes, it’s a blessing, really.
April 25, 2013 at 2:52 pm
Do you remember Rodney King, who as beaten by police in Los Angeles causing huge riots. When he could speak, all he could say was, “Can’t we all get along?” It’s been made fun of a lot, but it’s like what you are saying. At the bottom of it, he was just a person, not a cause.
I have, however, been involved in trying to pursue a political goal, and the ultimate frustration is knowing that good people are just too involved in their own meaningful lives to help. How to make them know that this affects them, and that they should care? It’s why advertising and fundraising becomes louder, brasher, more sensationalist. Good people who want other good people to care about the same things they do. And yet we can only fill our lives with so much.
I respect you for taking on the big issues, Janelle.
April 26, 2013 at 5:52 am
Anne, I’d love to introduce you to my friend Sheena. You guys would enjoy each other.
April 29, 2013 at 9:50 am
I think both you AND Sheena are right to some degree. Yes, white folks are privileged and we have to be mindful of that. It makes friendship harder. However, true change does start at the relational level. For example, when you see politicians who are against “the gay agenda” change their stance and suddenly start voting differently, they often cite the fact that they learned some close family member or friend is gay and the knowledge shook them to their core. It made them re-think what it means to be human.
It is much easier to have compassion for someone who is different than you (race, gender, creed, religion, sexuality, the list goes on) when you actually know the people in question on more than just passing terms. In addition, it is also important to go and and seek those friendships, because how can you learn about their differences and understand them if you don’t know them? In the end, I think most people will find that people are all the same inside, we are just wrapped up differently in different colored paper and ribbons, and the attached decorations are the sum of our experiences and beliefs. One package is not better than another, the decorations are all interesting, and we are all human. That knowledge is the true gift and the route to change. And my metaphors are getting mixed up, but I think you understand. 😉
April 29, 2013 at 10:48 am
I love your mixed metaphors! And I think you are right. There’s always more than one way to look at an issue. The key is being able to communicate with each other in spite of our different ways of looking at things, don’t you think?
April 29, 2013 at 10:56 am
Yep. Tolerance and compassion can help lead to real communication and trust.
December 31, 2013 at 11:37 am
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