Not Going Crazy in America
How to live in American and not go crazy – for realz!
The first lie in that statement is the “not go crazy.” Last year I was diagnosed with PTSD and I’m pretty sure the last straw was working recovery for Hurricane Sandy. I stood in front of a lot of rooms and heard a lot of traumatic stories and that has an effect after a while. I don’t how people work in hospitals and other settings where people experience trauma on the daily. My therapist has to be a saint. But besides the obvious traumatic stuff we go through, there’s the not so obvious part about living in America that I imagine fucks people up (excuse my French).
Imagine you lived among a community of cannibals who only ate people who were not from their tribe. You, unfortunately, aren’t a tribes-member. My a stroke of the divine, you have a friend who is part of the tribe. She assures you daily that because of your association with her (as a friend), and because she’s a beloved member of the tribe, you are safe. You don’t have to worry about being eaten. Whew! She also explains that the tribe hasn’t eaten anyone (at least not a human) for at least twenty years, so your fears are completely unfounded. A lapse of the custom of eating people, and that you have a friend to protect you, is all that’s keeping your ass off the menu. Would you feel safe?
How about if, even though you had never been physically harmed by any members of the tribe, many of the tribes members called you “delicious” as a nickname? What if there were pictures of banquets in all of the books and magazines of people being served up as food? How about if in movies and television programs there would be scenes of people being eaten and the members of the tribe would laugh hysterically at these scenes? Let’s say, giving up humans as food, was even a conscious decision on the part of the tribe, with perhaps only a few hold-outs who continue to resent having the “right” to eat who they want taken away. Take a moment to indulge in this thought experiment.
I don’t know, maybe it sounds far fetched, but that’s a little bit what it’s like being a Black person in America. I know slavery was a long time ago, and that America finally passed a civil rights act in the late sixties, but it’s still a little bit like living in a place where people like me were considered food for a very long time. One day White people decided they didn’t want to eat Black people anymore. They found out it caused some disease or something.
I guess I’m supposed to feel safe but in part of my brain I keep wondering, did this person’s parents eat Black people? Did there grandparents? Did they grow up with people telling stories about banquets where Black people were served up like barbecue? No I don’t think White people are cannibals, but you get the idea, right? There was a time when people walked around believing Black people where inferior and there was never a national campaign that taught a different way of thinking. People just decided it wasn’t true. Well, some people did, at least, right?
Black people stay sane in America by pretending slavery never happened. They stay sane pretending there were never signs that read “Whites Only.” Most of the time it works. But, occasionally, something triggers that memory and it’s pretty easy not to feel safe. Someone might casually reach out and touch your hair to see what it feels like. Someone may act surprised when you speak without the TV dialect Black people have been forced to learn to get acting jobs. Someone may simply make a reference to the color of someone’s skin in conversation and remind you that being Black is a character trait, where as being White is is not useful information.
Add queer into the mix.
It’s not even just a thing for people who are typically pushed to the margins. The dehumanization of anyone, the commodification of anything really, even land, has to have a damaging effect on everyone conscious of the reality of commodification. Going back to the cannibal tribe, can you imagine being a kid in that tribe and having to figure out who is okay to eat and who is “safe?” On a subconscious level it would have to be a threat to everyone. I mean, what happens if the tribe decides you don’t belong in the way they have decided some others don’t belong?
So, yeah, the way to stay “sane” in a world where people have been “things” is to just forget, right? Or maybe you know of a better way?
