Antiracism Work in Life and Writing
One of my writing goals is to portray and address racism in the lives of characters, an effort toward Antiracism – working to dismantle white supremacy in the United States. As a white child in the Northeast, I knew no people of people of color. During my young adult years, in college in California and working in Maryland and NYC, I felt the dissonance between how I was treated compared to friends and lovers who were not white. I knew that ugly, intentional racism was still alive, but couldn’t understand why the differences and separation between races persisted. Later I learned of systemic racism – voting obstacles, redlining in real estate, mass incarceration, etc. Finally, I became aware of my own racism – invisible, inevitable, and almost impossible to talk about. Even growing up in a tolerant, accepting family, I did not see my own privilege or question history or assumptions about “the other”.
Now I do. I better understand how racism works, its costs to a democratic society – and I see the need to act, through further educating myself on American racism AND the experiences of people of color: reading history, literature and blogs; visiting Civil Rights museums and institutes; attending seminars and workshops; allying myself with other people seeking to make change; by introducing myself and engaging people of color in social and learning situations. And through my books.
In my writing, I attempt to create situations where racism is always present: sometimes in the background, sometimes the source of problems, not always recognized by the characters. The main point of view characters are similar to me: white, educated women of the current day, coming of age in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and displaced from their middle-class lives. Their previously isolated worlds have become populated with multicultural characters, lives intersecting to produce conflicts, discoveries - and changes, mainly through shared experiences and necessity. My goal is not simply to reveal misperceptions and injustices. It is also to show the protagonists’ personal transformation: their realization of common humanity; questioning values of the dominant society, and valuing the wisdom and traditions of other cultures, particularly those which have survived just as long on this earth; who are life-affirming and not destroying; and who are rising out of oppression.
Now I do. I better understand how racism works, its costs to a democratic society – and I see the need to act, through further educating myself on American racism AND the experiences of people of color: reading history, literature and blogs; visiting Civil Rights museums and institutes; attending seminars and workshops; allying myself with other people seeking to make change; by introducing myself and engaging people of color in social and learning situations. And through my books.
In my writing, I attempt to create situations where racism is always present: sometimes in the background, sometimes the source of problems, not always recognized by the characters. The main point of view characters are similar to me: white, educated women of the current day, coming of age in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and displaced from their middle-class lives. Their previously isolated worlds have become populated with multicultural characters, lives intersecting to produce conflicts, discoveries - and changes, mainly through shared experiences and necessity. My goal is not simply to reveal misperceptions and injustices. It is also to show the protagonists’ personal transformation: their realization of common humanity; questioning values of the dominant society, and valuing the wisdom and traditions of other cultures, particularly those which have survived just as long on this earth; who are life-affirming and not destroying; and who are rising out of oppression.
