Talking About Racism

So a few weeks ago a Facebook friend posted a link to a Huffington Post blog about how white people are not saying the right things to their kids about race. The author took issue with phrases like “We are all equal,” and “we’re all the same under our skin.” I would agree that those are platitudes that don’t offer any perspective on the realities of racism in this country or the experiences of people of color. Having taught for several years on a predominantly white, predominately wealthy college campus, I can tell you that most of these white (often liberal) college students do not understand anything about what it means to be not-white. And these are writers, actors, artists: people who are essentially majoring in empathy and expression. My issue with the Huffington Post blog is that it offered no answers. It pointed out the inadequacies in the way white people teach their kids about race, but offered no suggestions of what might be better.

So I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest a few ways in which one can help ones white children understand the sticky mess that is race-relations in this country.

1. Explain to your children that while all people are created equal,  not everyone is treated equally. And explain it early. And often. Children have an acute sense of what’s fair and what’s not fair. They keep score constantly. If it is made clear to them that people with brown skin are not treated the same way as they are, they will understand fundamentally what racism is and know it’s not fair. But you have to show, not just tell.

My son’s insistence on dressing like a complete slob is what prompted an interesting discussion (ok, maybe lecture) on race. My kid hates looking nice. He doesn’t want his hair short, or neat. Button-down/collared shirts are to be shunned and left unworn. Showers are anathema to him. On the rare occasion that I take him to a nice restaurant, he wears a T-shirt and track pants, and the waitstaff doesn’t judge him too harshly because he’s cute and polite and he eats his food. And because he’s white. He’s a white male in a society dominated by white males, and so even though he’s not dressed as nicely as I want him to be, no one’s going to kick us out of the restaurant or even bestow us with side-long glances. But I’m under no delusion that things would definitely be the same if we all walked into that restaurant with brown skin.

So, we were in the car a few months ago, driving home. And there was a guy, a black guy, walking down the sidewalk wearing the jeans-below-the-butt look (a gravity-defying fashion that continues to mystify me) and a doo-rag. I say to my son, “You see that guy? The way he’s dressed, most people are going to assume he’s a thug. He may even be daring people to think he’s a thug, even if he’s not one. But people judge him by his clothes, by how he presents himself to the world. People are wary of him and probably don’t trust him because of how he dresses. AND because he has brown skin. If he was white and dressed like that people would think he was a stupid poseur, but they might not assume he’s a thug.”

“Now, you know those black kids in your class who wear their hair super short and dress really nicely all the time?” I continue. Yes, he says. “Their mothers know that those judgments are made, and they don’t want anyone to judge their kids; they want their kids to be thought of as the nice kids that they are, and so they insist that they look up to a certain standard every day. And for school concerts and special events, those kids are in suits, ties, polished shoes, things you don’t even own. And those parents are going to exert that control as long as they can. Because they know their kids are scrutinized, held to a different standard. But even more than that, it’s about survival. Kids of color have been shot for wearing the wrong colors in the wrong neighborhood, for wearing expensive shoes, for wearing a hoodie.

“Now, you can walk around looking like you do every day, all sloppy and floppy and not matching, you can wear your hoodie, and the worst thing anyone’s going to think about you as you get older is that you’re a skate rat. You’d have to get a lot of tattoos and piercings before people jumped to the conclusion that you were a thug, or daring them to think you were a thug. And that’s privilege. You get away with looking like a slob because you’re a white male, but some of your classmates don’t have that choice. Is that fair?”

No, he says. That’s not fair. And I get less flack when I ask him to comb his hair. For a few weeks.

2. Read To Kill a Mockingbird with your kids.

My son and I read this book together this past summer, and it prompted so many conversations about race, class, the “n word,” sexual assault. Yes, these are difficult topics, but it’s your job as a parent to talk to your kids about these things, so grow a pair and do it.

As fate would have it the Trayvon Martin trial was going on while we read the book. To Kill a Mockingbird was published over 50 years ago. It’s set in 1936, and as most people know, one of its main story lines is a trial where an innocent black man is found guilty. And this inevitable tragedy happens “because of the times,” because of the times they lived in “back then.” And as we read about Tom Robinson we talked about Trayvon Martin and how even though we have a black president now, in many ways nothing has changed. How in some ways Trayvon Martin was on trial even though he was killed. And isn’t that tragic and horrible and sad and wrong.

The worst part of reading To Kill a Mockingbird out loud is saying the “n word,” over and over again. It hurt my soul a little bit every time I uttered it (which I told my son), but it felt wrong to the poetry of the book to omit it or say “the n word,” every time. But ultimately it was a good opportunity to say, “Look, this word, white people can’t say this word. It is the pinnacle of racism. But most people know that, so even racist people don’t use this word anymore. Racism is quieter and more subtle now in this world of political correctness. Racism is people of color being followed in stores, and treated differently in hotels, and not given jobs. But just because it’s quieter doesn’t mean it’s not just as pervasive or just as hurtful.”

I’m certain there are dozens of books written by minorities that would also serve this function, but I do think a book written from the perspective of a white child trying to make sense of the world she lives in makes To Kill a Mockingbird exceptionally accessible.

3. Live in a diverse community.
I realize this is a tough one, that no one is going to get up and move, but in case you’re thinking about moving soon and you have kids, consider moving someplace where your kids will actually know some minorities. And not just wealthy Asian kids. We chose a home where our neighborhood school is approximately 1/3 white, 1/3 black, and 1/3 Latino. And I say “black” and not African-American, because there are several kids in the school who are (or whose parents are) from African or Carribean nations. In fact, many of the white kids have parents who emigrated from Europe. It’s a diverse school. Multi-Cultural night is very fun.

Intolerance festers in homogeneous communities where everyone outside is consider “other,” and therefore undesirable and scary. I grew up in one of those homogeneous communities and saw a lot of intolerance first hand, some of it directed at me. Tolerance and understanding are born in places where people are forced to confront differences and also see that, despite those differences, people are generally just people. But also important, it’s much easier to talk about race and racism, entitlement and privilege when you can reference people that your child knows and use your children’s own lives as context.

So those are three ways I’ve found to help my kid understand the realities of racism. I’m sure there are more. I feel very strongly that when talking to our white children about disparity, it’s just as important to make them aware of their privilege and freedom as it is to make them aware of the disadvantages of others.

The day that Obama was inaugurated the first time, I had taught class that day at the predominantly-white, predominantly-wealthy university I mentioned earlier. And one of my white students — a liberal, kind, open-minded student — said he didn’t understand why the news stations insisted on showing “all that footage of black people” in black churches and wasn’t this a victory for all of us? Why was it SO different for black people?

Oh my god, I could barely speak. I was so stunned by his ignorance, by his total lack of awareness of the black experience in America. I think what I said was, “If you don’t understand, I don’t know how to explain it to you,” and we moved on. And it was a grave disservice to the one African-American student in the class (I sent her a lengthy apology email that night), but I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t think straight. I was not capable of a diplomatic answer in that moment. Here is what I wish I had said:

When my best friend from high school had her daughter she told me she cried. She cried because she thought, “my daughter will never be President.” And I thought, “Really? Don’t you think in our lifetime we’ll see a woman president in this country?” But I also thought, “Wow, every minority in America must think that when they have a child.” It’s got to be demoralizing to bring a life into this world and feel that not everything is possible for them.

I vividly remember walking my son to school the day after Obama was elected the first time, and the looks on the faces of every black mother I passed that morning, beaming with pride and joy and relief. And I thought, they must have all woken up and looked at their sons and thought, “Baby, you can be President someday. Sky’s the limit.” Maybe they even said it out loud. And sure, maybe they couldn’t look at their daughters and think the same thing, but maybe soon. Hopefully soon.

Dear Anna Gunn or The Cute Factor

Dear Anna Gunn,

Thank you, thank you so much for the letter you wrote to us all via the New York Times, because I too am guilty of not liking Skylar White (though I’ve not participated in any sites on the Internet...maybe a tweet or two?). But you made me really think about why I didn’t like her. And certainly I’m not a misogynist, so I wondered both why I disliked her, and why other people hated her enough to start web pages.

I suspect that the main factor in the audience disliking Skylar is not quite that she’s an antagonist as you say, but that she’s a bit of a third wheel in the early seasons. I remember watching the first couple of seasons and being annoyed every time the story lingered in the White household. I didn’t care about Walt’s family, because the primary relationship of the series is outside of Walt’s family.

Breaking Bad is a love story, a buddy flik, and a father-son saga all between Walt and Jesse. We tune in to see Walt and Jesse. Not to see them cook meth or kill people as some have proposed, but to see them forge bonds, learn to trust one another, have each other’s back, betray one another, and reconcile. That is the relationship that Gilligan asked us to invest in at the start. So anytime Skylar came in with her completely reasonable and rational concerns we were annoyed. I was annoyed by Hank and Marie in the early seasons as well. Poor Walter Jr, no one gives a shit about him, because Jesse is Walt’s son in so many more meaningful ways.

For a long time, the Skylar storylines kept us from what we most wanted to see. So when Walt was nagged, we too felt nagged. And she was asking questions that we already knew the answers to, which is inherently undramatic.

But this does not explain the vitriol or the threats or the websites dedicated to hating Skylar. That I do think is about misogyny, about people feeling threatened by strong women.

People — both men and women — love to find reasons to hate women. I know in your letter you mentioned Betty Draper as another loathed character on TV, but I think the sources of people’s disdain for January Jones are far different. I think women resent how beautiful she is, and men don’t like how cold and hard and inaccessible Betty Draper has become. She’s that “out-of-our-league” girl that men resent because they’re so sure she would never given them the time of day.  It’s not about her strength, because Betty Draper does not have or wield much power.

I have been quietly studying forceful, “bitchy,” powerful women for years now. There are the ones who people are OK with and the ones people are not ok with, and from what I can surmise, it all seems to revolve around physicality. Oprah was the first person I fixated on. Here is a very opinionated, strong, black woman who somehow became the most powerful woman in television. She’s smart, she’s savvy, she’s extremely good at what she does, but I bet you anything she would not be so successful if she weren’t overweight. I don’t know if it’s because her literal softness softens her figuratively in people’s minds, or if people perceiving her as “flawed” (since we are told by every form of media that anyone beyond a size 4 is flawed) is what allowed the establishment to be OK with her having so much clout. I have heard that her ratings went down when she got skinnier and went back up when she got heavier. And that’s weird. But definitely not coincidental.

Now the women I know personally who are headstrong and yet manage to work their way into the male establishment, they all have what I like to call “The Cute Factor.” They’re little or they wear cute clothes or they have cute faces. There is something in their physical appearance that undercuts their forcefulness and makes it more palatable to people who would otherwise be intimidated. Sexist men can justify these “cute” women having some power because they don’t feel like they’re giving anything up to them. Maybe they even feel like they’re doing them a favor. They may not be taken as seriously, but these women are still able to get higher up the ladder than women who don’t have much cute factor or women who are flat-out sexy. Very attractive, sexy women don’t seem to be taken seriously at all, perhaps because heterosexual men have a very difficult time concentrating in their presence.

You, Anna Gunn, have very little Cute Factor. You’re beautiful to be sure, but you’re not dainty or small. You’re a big woman and you’re unapologetic in your size, in how you carry yourself. And Skylar doesn’t give an inch. Not that she’s not vulnerable in moments, she IS, wonderfully vulnerable. But there’s a part of us that knows that Skylar could pound Walt into salt if only she would realize that she could. Skylar is formidable, and she was getting in the way of the story telling we wanted to see, and I think that combo, for the insecure men out there (and perhaps women who think other women shouldn’t be so strong) was too much.

[*Side note: Hillary Clinton also lacks the Cute Factor which is why I think she’ll never be elected President. Elizabeth Warren on the other hand is both cute and maternal, which I suspect makes her a more viable candidate. I’ve noticed as Hillary gets older, she is getting cuter, but her image during her husband’s Presidency is what shaped our vision of her, and it’s unlikely that the American people will ever see past that.]

The timing of your article was ironic, since the prior episode of Breaking Bad was the one where Skylar/you finally won me over. It was the conversation with Hank at the diner where she said nothing and walked out. That did it. That and when she threatened the nervous, brunette chemical supplier. But from a storytelling perspective, it’s bigger than that. Something has happened in Season 5, this schism between Jesse and Walt. They rarely appear on screen together, they’re no longer working as a team. Now Skylar and Walt have teamed up against Hank. And that is something for us to hang on to and root for. And I think that’s why Skylar has won me over. How Jesse will ultimately find his way back into the dynamic remains to be seen. I think we’ll all feel cheated if it doesn’t come around to Jesse and Walt in the end. If the final moment of the series isn’t about those two, I think the audience will be disappointed.

I’m sorry that you’re being vilified for playing a strong woman extraordinarily well. But thank you for doing it. The more characters like Skylar that we see, the more people will come to accept these strong women in real life. Thanks for paving the way.

~ Mia McCullough

On Compliments or You Look Good in That Dress

The other day a friend on social media asked when she was expected to grow up and not respond to compliments with “Shut up! YOU are.” And I found myself thinking (and typing) “Please tell me it’s at least 43 as it will give me a few weeks to mature.”

I’ve never actually uttered the words, “Shut up you are” in reaction to a compliment, but I do suck at receiving compliments and I have as long as I can remember. I often give the complimenter a suspicious look that says, "why are you doing this to me," and my thank you is often hard and forced and not at all sincere. But this friend’s post made me think about why. Why is my reaction often defensive and wary?

Well, one reason is easy: I don’t trust compliments. One of my earliest memories of a compliment-that-wasn’t was when I was 9. I was in my fourth grade classroom when two boys approached me. One of them said, very sincerely, “Hey Mia, you’re really pretty.” And I remember feeling so pleased, so relieved, so surprised, that someone was saying something nice to me for a change. I turned to say thank you at which point, of course, he said, “pretty ugly.” And they had a good laugh while I turned away, my face burning with embarrassment and anger — not because they made me feel ugly, but because they made me feel stupid.  The dumb boys had gotten one over on me. I was socially ostracized my whole time in grade school and high school, so to open myself up to what seemed like it might be a positive social interaction and to have this compliment be a Trojan Horse of sorts reinforced my suspicion that no one was to be trusted at their word.

But upon closer examination I realize that I’m not terrible at taking all compliments. Compliments about skills that I work (or have worked) hard on like my singing or my playwriting or my stand-up comedy, I’ll take those fairly well. It’s nice when people acknowledge the efforts we make. And that translates to appearance as well. If I get all gussied up and no one tells me I look nice all day, I’m gonna be a bit crest-fallen. But when people say “You’re hot,” or even “You’re pretty,” (which is completely different from “You look pretty today,” by the way) it makes me really uncomfortable. Because looks are not a skill, it’s not something I’m working on. I rarely remember to wear make-up. I brush my hair about twice a month. Regardless I have little-to-no control over my attractiveness to anyone else, so it feels weird to take credit for it, and even awkward to acknowledge it.

But I realize, even as I type this, that there’s more. There’s something deeper. And it’s not a problem with me being unable to accept a compliment. It’s a problem of compliments often being thinly veiled accusations and attacks disguised as social niceties. And one could argue that this is my interpretation and not reality, but one would be wrong. I shall explain:

I have a colleague that I’ve known for almost two decades. He has — many times — told me that I’m very pretty, always a sudden non-sequitur, often in front of others. And I’ve tried to take it graciously because he never seemed to be hitting on me and had never done anything else to make me feel uncomfortable. And I’d always felt that it was my problem, my inability to take a compliment that created the discomfort. But then a few months ago when he was telling me how pretty I am, he mentioned admiring my photos on Facebook. And that was a little creepy, like why would you tell me that?

Realizing that, even in the loosey-goosey world of theatre, this qualified as sexual harassment, I told him that he was making me uncomfortable and he needed to stop saying these things to me. I know he heard me, but clearly he didn’t believe me, because a couple months later I found myself alone with him in a small elevator. And he turned to me and said, “you’re so pretty,” to which I responded, “I’ve asked you not to say things like that.” But he didn’t hear that because he was busy still talking.

“And I think you know it, too,” he said.
There it was: the accusation unveiled, the subtext of every compliment he had ever paid me. He was blaming me for being pretty and parading my pretty self about and making him notice.

Had he been another kind of person, I would have been afraid in that elevator, in that moment. Because I’m fairly certain many a rapist has uttered those words: “And I think you know it, too.” The subtext of that of course is, “so what I’m about to do to you is really your fault, because you’re tempting me and you know it.” But I wasn’t afraid because I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, even touch me. But I was sorely disappointed in him because even after I had set boundaries and made it clear that this sort of attention was not ok, he still did it.

But you know what? A piece of me was validated too. Because suddenly I knew that all my years of discomfort over his “compliments” were warranted. I wasn’t overreacting. Feeling defensive and uncomfortable was completely natural because there was a very subtle attack going on; maybe an attack he wasn’t even conscious of, but an attack nonetheless.

So I’d like to end with a lesson. It’s both a grammar lesson and a lesson in objectification.

Most little girls love dresses. They love getting a new dress and bouncing around in it having everyone tell them how pretty they look. When you’re little you can grow out of a dress in less than two dress-worthy occasions, so you cherish each opportunity to wear one you particularly like. Grown women enjoy being complimented on their dresses too. The thing is, “That dress looks good on you,” and “You look good in that dress,” are two very different statements. In the first sentence the dress is the subject and the woman is the object, but the woman is not objectified. In the second sentence the women is the subject of the sentence, but she is objectified.

If I see a woman I don’t know wearing a fabulous outfit and looking fabulous in it, I will often say “That looks great on you.” I do this because I’m thinking it, and I know that a random, unsolicited compliment can brighten an otherwise shitty day, so I say it. I don’t say “You look great in that,” because that’s a bit too personal somehow. It implies that I know how she looks in other things, which I don’t.
NOTE: Unfortunately there are not many situations where a man can compliment a woman he doesn’t know on her appearance and not be taken for creepy. “That looks great on you,” to a stranger when you are the only two people in an elevator (or the only two people anywhere) is not recommended. In passing, on a busy street, when you keep moving and make it clear that you have no intention to stop and harass the woman? That’s usually fine.

Also I’m not saying “You look great in that dress,” should never be spoken. On the contrary, it can be a simple-yet-effective bit of foreplay; a card that can be played early in the evening to lay the ground work for later. But only with someone who is already an intimate. Otherwise the dress should always be the subject of the sentence.

I was at a benefit recently, wearing my favorite party dress, and a stranger in the building — not a benefit attendee, but an employee of the building, I think — said, “Nice dress,” as he passed me in the hallway. I smiled and said thank you over my shoulder, and I felt three years old again in the best possible way. And I felt pretty. And I realized that that’s how a compliment is supposed to make you feel. Not blamed, not accused, just good. Turns out I do know how to take a compliment after all.

© 2013 by Mia McCullough. All Rights Reserved.

My PT Problem

I've never felt like a strong person. Physically strong. I was a scrawny kid. Short, painfully thin, uncoordinated, picked last in gym class. I felt fragile. Twiggy. Vulnerable. Inadequate. These feelings were reinforced by a jock in high school, a boy I had a huge crush on, coming up to me and gripping my right calf in both of his hands and declaring that I was so skinny he could break my leg in two with his bare hands. And it was possible. Maybe. I felt it was possible. And this isn't the only instance of such a thing happening. Only the most vivid.

This general sense of fragility played into the type of guy I chose to date, ...when boys finally started showing an interest in me. I have always had a thing for big guys; big, bear-like, barrel-chested men. But I also had, especially back then, a pretty healthy (or maybe not healthy, not sure) fear of being raped. So I avoided the big guys, because I knew they could overpower me if they wanted to. I didn't feel inherently safe with them. And I knew if I was ever going to take all my clothes off and lose my virginity, I was going to have to feel safe.

Another thing you should know about me is that I've always been very competitive with men, boys. In grade school, I never cared if I got better grades than the girls in my class. I wanted better grades than the boys.  I think, even then, I was acutely aware that the deck-of-life was stacked against women. I knew who I had to be better than. I wasn't going to waste my time feeling competitive with the girls. But I also knew that in a physical arena, I was never going to be better, stronger, faster than the boys. Hell, I wasn't better, stronger, faster than any of the girls. I wasn't designed for it. I definitely wasn't encouraged to do anything remotely athletic by my sports-averse parents. So I didn't try.

Fast-forward many years, to my early thirties. I'd gained some unwanted weight, and I joined the gym in hopes of getting rid of it. I made no progress in the first few months, so I asked for a couple of complimentary sessions with a personal trainer. And they assigned me this very nice young man who, through no fault of his own, triggered every ounce of inadequacy I have. He was a tall, extremely fit, handsome black man. He was the embodiment of athleticism. At least in my head. I knew I would never, ever, no matter what I did, be as strong and fit as he was. And so I did everything he suggested, and felt like crap about myself every single moment, and then I politely asked at the desk if there wasn't a woman who could be my personal trainer instead. And they obliged. My new personal trainer was a short, stocky woman who looked nothing like me. And I didn't resent her for being athletic. And she didn't make me think of inequality as I was doing my reps. (Yes, I do see the irony of a black man making me feel not-equal, I do, I do. And you can't imagine how guilty I felt running into him at the gym after I’d requested someone new.)

Anyhow, I didn't stick with the woman all that long either, even though I was far more comfortable with her. The fact was the whole gym scene (even though this was the Y and didn't have the douchebag scene you see at trendier gyms) made me feel like that get-picked-last-in-gym-class kid all over again.  I needed to find a form of exercise and a setting that wasn't going to make me feel worse about myself.

Fast-forward another few years. I'm nearly 40. I've had a kid. I've lost some pounds and dropped a pant size or two. I'm active. I ride my bike everywhere in the warmer months, often carting my computer along so I can work outside my home. And I end up straining my rotator cuff. Repetitive motion injury, not from golf or tennis or baseball, like a real athlete. No, I've hurt myself riding my bike with a heavy back pack. My doctor ships me off to physical therapy.

I call the physical therapist's office, even though, as a rule, I'm not good at taking my doctor's advice. The receptionist makes me an appointment. She says, “You'll be seeing Jason.” Great. Jason. A dude. And probably a hot dude. Because guys named Jason are always hot. Or at least cute. But he's definitely going to be in shape, right? Because he kind of has to be, right? I don't know. I think of the personal trainer experience and try to talk myself into being more open-minded for the other PT experience. I do not request a female PT before even meeting this Jason. That's not fair, and it's really letting my insecurities win.

I go to my appointment. In the waiting area I can hear the physical therapists talking. I hear someone say, “Hey, Jason,” and ask a question. Jason answers. He even sounds attractive. My dread of our meeting increases. And then he comes ‘round the corner to get me and fuck-all if he isn't even better looking than I'd feared. Frat-boy good looking. Not even my type, but tall and fit and blue-eyed, and fucking nice, too. I want to walk out. But I reluctantly follow him to the assessment area where he proceeds to manipulate my limbs and quantify the extent of my injury to my sub-par, unathletic, aging, slightly paunchy body. And I know he's not judging me, not even a little, but I accuse him of it at every turn. He comments that my movements on one strength-building exercise are “kind of jerky.”

“So, you're saying a spaz, that's what you're saying.”

“No! I'm not calling you a spaz!”

I am belligerent, combative, difficult. I try to temper my insecurities with humor, but the day I threaten to kick him in the head while he's pressing the shit out of my shoulder... I'm not really kidding.

Over the weeks, I grow a little more comfortable with Jason. I don't feel less inadequate when I'm with him, but he's so damned nice, and I think I'd only hurt his feelings if I asked to switch to one of the women PTs. And he's not doing anything wrong. He's a good physical therapist. He's already made the revelatory discovery that I have unusually stretchy ligaments, which explains so many things, and improves my self-awareness. I say, “That's why I win at yoga!” And he smiles at my joke.

After each PT session I vent to my Facebook friends. If I'm going to have some handsome whippersnapper unknowingly poke at all my insecurities – both literally and figuratively – people are going to hear about it. I think many of them, not having an inkling of my issues, assume I have a bit of a crush on Jason. And while clearly he's crush-worthy, that is not the crux of the dynamic.

He claims he didn't find me belligerent, and even that I managed to turn into an insult in my head. “So you don't think I have it in me to be difficult?! I'm too little and weak for that?” See? In so many ways I'm still that high school girl having her leg threatened to be snapped in two.

I'd like to think that Jason not only helped me heal my shoulder, but helped me get past a piece of myself, helped me evolve past sophomore year of high school. When I re-injured my shoulder and had to go back to PT, I even requested him. A couple of months ago my right hamstring really started to bother me, especially at the top. When I told my husband of the on-going, nagging pain in my right glute he teased, “You just want an excuse to go back and see Jason.” And I said, “Nuh-uh. There is no way I'm letting that boy touch my ass.” And I meant it. Evolution is a slow process, yes?