In depth

How it feels to be white in America.

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So ready for some controversy? Good.

I am feeling a little discriminated against by…the system!

Nah, too dramatic.

Still, for all I read and hear about what it’s like to be in a minority group, I wonder.

Okay, it’s not like this bothers me every single day of my life or anything…it just occurred to me at school today when I did something mildly nice for an Asian student. I had the thought “What would my actions be construed as by the wrong person?” Any number of things i suppose, but with the blatant hostility I read about sometimes, I had to wonder. Would my help be seen as some psychological need on my part to absolve myself from the charge of prejudice? To show that i don’t see myself as a cut above non white students? Or above foreign ones.

Anyway, what really bugs me is tokenism. Which targets minority groups. It works like this, by stressing how excluded a minority is, and then including one or two members of that minority in your project, you make it seem like you’re on their side.

However, it’s kind of bizarre to make a point out of including someone just for their race or gender. Isn’t that basically the same as saying they are different? That different rules apply?

And if you should choose not to work with those people, you get accused of being bigoted. Though you could have legitimate reasons not too. I don’t choose that myself, but I know business owners who’ve been burned plenty of times by minority group members. Just because you’ve been discriminated against doesn’t make you a good employee.

That’s kind of the problem. Just as someone can’t lack worth because of a their race, neither can they gain worth. Black lives don’t matter more than anyone elses. All lives matter.

Being born one color doesn’t grant superiority, inferiority, amnesty, or guilt.

I think most of us would be surprised how many people got turned into racists simply because they were accused of being so. Maybe our idea of what racism is changed, or maybe our idea of ourselves changes if enough people say bad things about us. White people have been as much a victim of that as anyone else.

How it feels to be white living in America now is something that people don’t talk about very often. Even saying white can be a trigger word. Now, I’m sure, I’d make some eyes roll if I said being white can be hard now. Well sue me. (Not literally.) It can be kind of rough.

I hate  having to ask the question if I do things because I am kind, or because I feel guilty. Now, I don’t really entertain that thought, but the fact that it’s even come to mind is kind of sad.

I remember as a kid I used to be kind of uncomfortable around black people. I didn’t know any personally for years. I guess there weren’t that many where I lived. (There still aren’t come to think of it.) But I never considered them as inferior. Just different. On the outside.

You know, the madness has gotten to the point where my even feeling that way would be twisted by some people into saying that racism is just part of being human and I couldn’t help myself. And white supremacy, blah, blah, blah.

You now the black people I do know now are all more well off than my family is, so much for white middle class pride.

I’d be glad enough to think that when I pass a black person at school they don’t look at me and think “racist” or assume I’m privileged. Or that somehow I have advantages they don’t.

If you took race out of it, just assumed race has nothing to do with success, then the difference between me and them is…not outward.

It’d be a fair guess that most of them weren’t homeschooled, based on what I know of young people, a lot of them don’t like to read, they probably don’t really like school most of them.

That’s what I’ve seen from all students, race isn’t important. Even the Asians who are reputed to be the brainy, honor roll, geniuses complain about classwork. The few white students in my classes actually yap the least in general about the teacher. They tend to be quieter too. I can’t say if that’s race, environment, temperament, or all three.

But, here’s the thing. If I succeed academically and then at a career, it’ll be assumed by a large amount of the population that I was given preference over these other students. “Of course she did well,” they might think, “the system was rigged for her.”

It’s slippery when you can convince everyone that the system is rigged against one group, and secretly rig it against another.

Here’s a little trivia for you. Guess how many groups I can be a part of just because of my race? Guess what scholarship opportunities and clubs I get to join because of it? Guess what kind of discrimination claims I can file if I don’t get selected for something?

If you answered none to all of those, then you’d be right. Can you imagine, even in the midwestern part of this country, someone starting a white pride club?

It’s laughable isn’t it. Now this will be hard for some people to understand but bear with me…If you can’t start a club about how proud you are to be your race because that in itself would be considered racist…that’s a double standard.

“I’m painfully white,” “I’m too white,” “I’m so white, people need shades when I’m at the beach.” What kind of talk is this? And who made it okay for white people to disparage their skin color, but shameful for black people or Latinos to. (Not that they don’t still. Anyone can have this problem, it’s just how its viewed by society.)

I am not saying white people can’t make jokes at our own expense, I just don’t like the underlying shame in the tone of these jokes. We aren’t proud to be this way…we feel unable to change it.

What saddens me is that some very bitter people (not all by a long shot) in minority groups would say this is what we deserve after years of doing it to them. How does it feel?

Well, how does it feel? Guess what, my roots aren’t all in the oppressor. My grandfather’s family was the oppressed. They had to leave Europe. Now, who’s had it worse? I’m sure either side could make an argument.

But because I look white and american, no one will ever think just be seeing me “her grandpa got persecuted for his race. Her great grandparents got forced out of their homes by a corrupt government.” Just like African Americans. What is the blooming difference?

That I’m white.

What stings is not that I want payback for it all. I don’t. I don’t even want to talk about it. It’s in the past. Things change. We change with them. And maybe, dare I say, Jews understand this a little better because we are so universally despised. We adapt though we hold on to tradition.

No, what stings is the assumptions. Again, some Africans I know have a less brutal history than my family does, even if you go back a few generations. Not all of them, and probably not most of them if I’m honest. But what will be assumed?

To restate the old adage “you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

Why do we keep on focusing on what divides us? I’m not the first to ask, and I won’t be the last. If they don’t care, I won’t either. But I’m not living my life feeling guilty for something I didn’t do.

That’s all for now, until next time–Natasha.

We don’t understand Death.

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My cheerful topic of discussion in class yesterday was Death. What is it? Why do we avoid it?

I’m starting to think the curriculum was designed to hit close to home for me since I’ve lost some people recently and been pondering the subject of death. As I wrote about in my last post I am a fan of Resurrection.

However if we go by what my classmates seemed to think, it doesn’t look like most people see much sense it the idea of resurrection. Many people embrace the idea that death is the end, and we should just accept that.

Everywhere from real deaths to fictional ones, I find this. Some folks are still holding out for their favorite character to come back to life, the soul crushing response by some other fans? “They’re dead and gone, deal with it.”

Well, ouch.

Seriously, is that really the most sensitive thing to say? Don’t stomp on my hopes.

Characters dying never bothered me too much as a kid, usually they were the evil characters. Of course I didn’t like Obi Wan Ken-obi, but then he comes back. And it’s sad in other stories too. Not a lot of examples come to mind. There’s Beth from Little Women, but I stayed away from sad books as a kid.

As for real life, I’ve only known four people who’ve died. Known them well. I remember my first brush with losing someone was a nice woman at my church who died. I didn’t know her very well, I just remember her always smiling at me. My mom told me she went to heaven. I believed it, and I still do, so I wasn’t bothered.

However since then the people I’ve lost have all been ambiguous at best, I’m not sure if they went to heaven. A few I really doubt.

It’s the worst part of being a christian, having to believe that not everyone gets to live happily ever after, and worse, that they could have if they’d opened their hearts. Rejecting God is a choice.

Yet Death is one of the things that makes it hardest to accept God. Especially a loving God. Though we all intellectually know death happens and the world goes on, when it happens to us it’s still a fresh shock. We are suddenly unsure f ourselves, and that makes us unsure of what we believe. This doesn’t happen to everyone. Some people handle death with peace. But they are the exception, not the rule. Most of us are left feeling uncertain. Some never recover from that, most of us do, but we never feel the same.

That’s not to say we are the worse for it. Death, like other ills, is a matter of how you handle it. It can make you stronger or weaker.

In my class my teacher brought up the idea found in some poetry on the subject, that love ends with death. There is no love between the dead and us. We love them, but it’s not a living, growing thing.

I’m not sure that’s true. Many people continued to feel connected to their dead family or friends. I don’t really myself, except at certain moments. The interesting thing about love is that it preserves your memory and therefore a little bit of yourself. When you’re gone, you’re not entirely, if someone loves you. A part of you, not your own consciousness, but your memory, stays with them.

It’s something science hasn’t been able to explain. Loving our lost ones is not biologically helpful to most people. yet we still do.

I am not sure that the dead no longer love. I believe that those who go to heaven love even more, but from afar. We can’t hang onto them, because they have no need of us anymore.

Most of grief isn’t really coming to terms with the dead, but with yourself. Asking how you can deal with this, how you can go on. Some decide hey can’t, but that’s not the right choice.

I think because we’ve removed the comfort of religion and core values, death has become too much for many people. Now  they have nothing to make it seem less terrible.

And the answer most come to is “We don’t know.”

There is no faith in saying “I don’t know.”

I’ll admit, I don’t know what happens to every person everywhere who dies. OR even to the ones I know. That’s my uncertainty, and that’s my grief. Not knowing.

But what I do know that I know that I know, is that Jesus is real. And that he is love. And though God does things I don’t understand, there’s a reason He holds the keys to life and death. I  know that I’m alive now in a way I never was before knowing Him. I know that He changes lives. I know that He enables people to die with courage.

You might wonder, why does God let people die at all if He really conquered death? The Bible says in 1 Corinthians that Death will be the last enemy to be overthrown at the end of time.  Why is this?

A couple of reasons might present themselves. If we never died our bodies would be pretty useless. At old age, death is a mercy if you will be transformed.

More than that, if death was overthrown now, all the evil people in the world would never die either. Can you imagine that?

Even more than that, God wants us to trust Him with our lives. It’s what sets us apart form nonbelievers. If we didn’t die, there would be no need of trusting Him.

We are promised the fruit of the tree of life when the new heaven and new earth are made. We will be eternal then, in fact we already are, in our spirits.

That sounds nutty to many people. The things of God are foolishness to the world. What else would you expect?

My conclusion: Either I believe the Bible, or I believe nothing…and that doesn’t seem to work out too well.

Until next time–Natasha.

The Resurrection Arc.

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Hey fiction buffs! You’ve heard of character arcs before, but did you know there’s different kinds?

Yeah, probably if you read or watch any TV show that’s fictional, you knew that. I’m simply being dramatic.

You might know of arcs (and for you non-buffs, an arc is how a character or plot develops from one point, usually an immature one, to another, usually a better, wiser one. Typically the arc is what shows us the point of the whole story, but there are negative arcs that show one good guy turning bad, or a good guy slowly giving up on their cause. These are the bad example arcs that are meant to be a warning.) But have you heard of a Resurrection Arc?

Most arcs follow a pattern and this one does too. It’s actually pretty widely used, but since it is often misused, and people are now knocking it, I thought I’d write a defense of it.

All arcs are meant to change the characters and show them something they did not see before. Some arcs are a part of the plot and the characters learn by dealing with the challenges of that part. That’s what category I put a resurrection arc into.

A lot of things kick off arcs. The most famous is getting a challenge like being chosen for something, or the sadder common catalyst is a character losing someone close to them. Sometimes just witnessing a tragedy is enough to do it, other times the character has to lose their soulmate for their arc to begin.

However, there’s another really cool thing that kicks of some arcs. And it’s a resurrection. A resurrection can happen one of two ways. Either it’s a character literally coming back from the dead, or from being almost dead, or they just thought they were and it turns out they weren’t; or something else can be restored to a character that they felt they lost. In fiction especially this can mean a gift or power, or it can mean a belief in something they had lost faith in. It’s popular now for a memory to also be something that helps a character in this way.

In older stories resurrection is often just straight up someone’s coming back to life. This theme appears in fairy tales way more that we realize. Often it’s intertwined with redemption. Many of Anderson’s lesser known stories involve resurrection, and even his most famous ones that have had those elements removed in the retelling.

In modern fiction Death has an oddly compelling presence. Take “The Fault in Our Stars,” or almost any dystopia fiction now. Death is everywhere, often very young people are obsessed with it. (Funny that it’s often older people writing this stuff.) I always loved life, I was happy when nobody died. I considered “The Lion King” a sad movie, (and that part still is.) But of course, Mufasa isn’t really gone, and that can be part of a resurrection arc. Realizing that death isn’t so powerful. It’s why you won’t see this arc in the death-shadowed stories I just mentioned, unless it’s in some twisted, unholy way. Frankenstein’s monster is no example of resurrection, just to be clear.

Life wins out in the end, and love. That’s the message of resurrection arcs in a nutshell. But the complaint, which I’m sick of hearing, is that they don’t create lasting stakes.

Since the Avengers franchise took off, fans have been growing dissatisfied with happy, everyone’s alive, stories (like they don’t all hate it when their friendly neighborhood Spiderman gets knocked off, please.) While I find the constant whining about it to be stupid, I do note that there’s something to be said for making things a bit more realistic.

It’s not that no one dies that really bugs me, it’s that no one gets hurt for very long, no one loses anything in their lives, and no one seems to be affected for longer than two films by any traumatic experience. Also I fail to see character growth even when they are.

In truth, whether characters live or die has nothing to do with depth. Action flicks that kill off henchmen by the dozens aren’t known for being deep. And Chick flicks that don’t kill anyone, or else do it in a more drawn out, romantic way, aren’t necessarily shallow. The Notebook is dumb for most of the movie, but the ending always gets to me because it is saying something profound about love.

That said, I think people who knock resurrection arcs are missing their potential. It’s not always a cheap cop-out to have a character not stay dead. In fact, often it’s a very good catalyst for growth in both them, and everyone else.

When a characters is resurrected, everyone has to reconsider what life and death means to them. They have to ask themselves what they are willing to sacrifice, and what they aren’t. But most of all, it changes the dynamics of how they see the antagonists. Maybe there are things more powerful than whatever the evil stands for.

As for the character who comes back themselves, they get a chance to change things about their lives that maybe only losing them gave them the clarity to do. Or they impart some wisdom on the other characters that they couldn’t before. Resurrection means restoration.

If we no longer like that, it is because we have grown more hopeless. It’s more cool now to just accept the crap in you life and deal with it, then it is to hope for a change. People encourage you to give up on hoping for others to change, for things to turn around. Be the force, they say. Well, that’s fine in its place. But what about when your force isn’t enough?

What about when all the kick-rear skills in the world won’t save you? What about when you’re losing heart and nothing else will help? What about when someone simply can’t save themselves?

Resurrection is what solves this, and nothing else can. It’s a restoring of life and hope and faith to someone who had lost heart. It’s the only thing that makes redemption fully possible. Because though a death may redeem someone, it only sticks if life comes out of it.

Resurrection, in the end, is what breeds humility. What engraves the inevitability of our own need for someone to intervene on our behalf into our souls. By overcoming mortality, it reminds us of it.

It’s not cheap. It’s often the hardest thing to do well.

I for one will never get tired of this arc, until next time–Natasha.

A word to the wise.

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Homo sapiens. Or homo sapien sapien. Do you know that that means wise man? Or wise wise man.

Do we seem wise to you? I see a lot of cynicism about that fact around me. No matter what political party or social group people are in, they don’t think we’re particularly wise.

Wisdom seems to be an elusive quality for man. Or woman if you want political correctness. Maybe that’s why its’ actually been an occupation to be a wise men. We call them scientists now, but back int he day, they were more like oracles of gods, or philosophers. People who had a special insight into the things of life who could advise kings or villages, depending on their status.

Some of us are lucky enough to still know people with that kind of reputation. But it’s scarce now isn’t it?

I think what made it scarce isn’t that wise people don’t still walk the earth, it’s that we stopped looking for them.

I don’t wish to harp on about how this generation is the worst. frankly, form what I’ve read, that’s what every previous generation says about the next one. And each of them are both right and wrong.

Mankind tends to destruction, and that does continue to worsen almost every generation. But the same follies and foibles are always present in mankind, whether as a whole or not we’re at a more enlightened state. And those have been short lived.

I realize I sound kind of defeatist, but I’m not really. I just have little faith in man’s ability to be true and virtuous without divine intervention.

Wisdom, if we read Proverbs, is one of the most important parts of being a righteous man or woman. Without wisdom, we have not the wit to do any good thing, except by instinct. And that only carries you so far. It’s no shock that every culture has its own set of sayings and fables meant to teach wisdom to the simple. Usually to children. Kids can be wiser than adults.

Proverbs 8 describes wisdom as crying out in the streets, and stnading on a high place, and at the city gates, imploring the sons of man to listen to her.

While the city gates were traditionally where the wise men of town would sit to solve problems and give advice, and a high place is symbolic for divine perspective, crying out in the streets can just mean an announcement. It’s not necessarily a dignified position. It was like doing a broadcast is today.

Wisdom thus puts herself in the expected place, the more divine place, and the place of anyone wanting to get some news across. Whatever works. The point is, Wisdom is everywhere, and it’s trying to get your attention.

I think of my college classes here. Whether or not my professors are wise is up for debate, but that we learn from wiser sources is pretty much a given. Wisdom also doesn’t come form the wise ,sometimes, like in the movie Forrest Gump, wisdom can come out of the mouth of the most innocent and simple minded people.

Wisdom might be found on social media, if you can dig it up. Wisdom can certainly be found in churches still, if people have open ears. It can be found in relatives. In friends. In what you read. In what you listen to. If it’s the right sources.

And a good way to tell is also provided in Proverbs 8. You’ll know wisdom by what it supports. Wisdom claims to love life, to hate deceit, to hate strife, Wisdom’s delight was in the sons of man, Wisdom is creative, Wisdom means to save live, not waste it. If something in your life encourages all that, it probably has wisdom in it.

If that sounded like the opposite of the things in your life…careful.

Being willing to hear wisdom is the first step toward getting it. All you have to do is look. That’s where the saying “A word out to the wise” comes from.

That’s all for now–Natasha.

What really matters.

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Well it’s been quite the week for me. On Sunday my grandpa passed away. Now this weekend is his funeral.

I  never knew that loss felt cold before. But it does. I felt cold after I heard the news. I’d expected it for a while, he was not doing well right before. He hadn’t been doing well for a decade. Especially the past four years or so. In fact, that he lived as long a he did was a mystery to his doctors, and my family’s opinion, it was a miracle. He lived off prayer, so many people prayed for him.

The show I mentioned before, RWBY, has a song about loss titled “Cold.” It’s pretty sad. And pretty accurate. When someone dies, do you cease to love them? No.

To me it’s more like a connection was lost. Like your spiritual cellphone now is out of service. But I know some people don’t feel that way. They still feel connected to people they’ve lost. I’m not sure why that is. Losing people has not made me an expert on it. C. S. Lewis wrote about feeling his wife’s nearness in “A Grief Observed.” He knew she still continued to exist.

Some folk think you can talk to the dead and they’ll hear you. I don’t think that, but I understand the need to have final words. So few of us get to be with loved ones when they pass on. I felt like if I had had the chance, I would ahve felt better. Though I did get to see him the very day before, so that was a mercy.

I don’t have a lot of very close memories with my grandpa, he had such ill health, and lived too far away, and he was not very good at connecting with people. But I did get to go out with him on his boat once, which was fun. And he took us around museums and a fishing expo once. I think we went to an aquarium once also. Before his health got really bad. He also paid for my braces, so I owe the fact that I have good teeth now to him.

He was always kind to me. As I got older I found out he was not perfect. None of my grandparents are of course. But I always chose to think of him more as how he was to me. His best self. I prefer to see people that way.

I notice that families like to dredge up old stuff. And I’ve been there, and I’m getting really disillusioned with it. It’s such a waste of time, as my grandmother liked to say. We all do dumb things when we’re young and immature. I’m fortunate to have realized this now and not when I’m 80.

What really counts, as a couple of good songs I know “It happens in a blink” and “Give a little love”, both point out, is not the dumb things we’ve done, but the things we did to love other people. The Bible says that some of us will do little, some of us will do none, and some of us will do much. The parable of the Talents, or when Paul speaks of our works being tested by fire. The point really isn’t how much we do, but that we do things out of love.

Whatever else anyone could say of my grandpa (and all of us could have plenty of things said of us that we wouldn’t like, couldn’t we?) he did love me and his other grandkids and he did things for us that we couldn’t pay him back for. He did help out my parents when we were down on our finances. He did try to take care of my grandmother. And that’s what we’ll remember more about him, or at least that’s what I want to dwell on. No human being is perfect, if we focus on our mistakes, that’s all we’ll ever see. If we focus on the things we did right, at least there is love.

 

 

 

Until next time–Natasha.

Character Grief.

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That moment where you’re innocently watching your favorite show or reading your favorite book series and then it happens. you stare at the page/screen in abject horror. You slam the book shut, you shut your laptop. You yell “How could this happen!” You scream.

Because what just happened was they did something you never saw coming and you felt in your bones was a bad idea even if you did.

Now you’re left with that strange phenomenon known as Character Grief.

Actually I just made up that term just now, but it’s a thing.

It’s not a fun condition, but not everyone suffers from it. Here’s a way to rate yourself.

1-5: If you are mildly annoyed, and tell your friends or family it was stupid, but other than that you don’t do much.

5-10: You cry and can’t bear to continue, or you cry and then re-watch or reread said materiel over and over again because it’s cathartic, and tell your friends because misery loves company.

10-15: You give up the material in favor of less infuriating entertainment and proceed to tell everyone else it’s no longer worth their time.

15-20: You get so upset that you figure out ways to solve what happened and fan fic your way to mental peace. Extra points if you convince your family or friends to join you.

And extra points if you do every single one of these things. Like I do. Except cry, I rarely do that.

Character grief is different form plot frustration. It’s more personal. It sticks you in your craw and wounds you to your whimsical/imaginative core.

I think Character Grief happens in one of three ways.

  1. The least painful, most annoying way is when your favorite character simply is left out or disappears from the story. This can happen with books made into movies, like how Tom Bombadil got left out of Lord of The Rings. And all my favorite characters got left out of the second Anne of Green Gables movie.
  2.  The most painful, actual death. I mean unforeseen, or totally unwanted character death. It feels unnecessary and it leaves you sad for days. Probably you can’t even go back to the story without crying or reliving those emotions.
  3.  The last way is the most poisonous, but that does make it easier to be mad about and less sad. It’s when a character is radically changed for the worst. They could turn evil (like Ever After High), or they could lose their most lovable personality traits. This happens a lot with the books to movies thing , but it also happens when new writers or producers take over, or the creators stop caring for whatever reason. Like Shrek: the Final Chapter. The change is usually brought on by the character doing something they would never actually do if you went by previous traits they exemplified. The action violates their moral code, and they haven’t been brainwashed or anything that would make it seem reasonable.

The last two bother me way more than the first one. And I take it hard. I can’t just quit the thing like some folks who don’t get involved.

So I though I’d write this post to speculate about why Character Grief happens. There’s probably research on it out there, but it’s tricky to explain because every person is different.

The first thing that shocks you about character grief is that it feels like real grief. Though a part of you remains separate from it because you know they cough* aren’t cough* real. (Angry gasps form people who’ve felt this before.) yet you still feel sad, mad, and in denial just like when real grief strikes.

Actually, with real grief I tend to go numb. A part of me just can’t believe it really happened. Even when I accept it, I don’t feel strong, out of control emotions. I don’t sink into depression. somehow I distance myself form loss. I don’t know if that’s a good thing. I’m learning to explore those emotions more.

But character grief has a way of cutting through my defenses. Much the way spiritual things do. It’s almost like when I can see and hear the loss, and it affects my physical world, I handle it. But when I can’t, and it doesn’t seem to, then I get cut to the quick.

With real loss, I feel the unfairness and helplessness people talk about.

With loss in imaginary things, I feel like my heart got ripped out.

I think partly because in fiction, you see people more clearly than in real life. There’s less sin and misunderstanding to cloud your vision. You just see them s people.

Maybe if in real life we could be that honest with each other, caring would be easier.

because to be honest, we make it hard for people to love us, don’t we?

I know I can be difficult. The people who love me most are the ones I can’t hide from as well.

With strangers we are on our best behavior, but do we really connect with people until we know they’re flawed and we accept them anyway?

I love characters who are better than me because I can see them just as people, I don’t have to worry about them doing wrong that I’ll have to fight against. IF they do slip up, I know they’ll recover.

The people in my life who I know will pick themselves up after they fall are the ones I trust the most.

In fiction, losing that person, whether to bad writing, or to a tragic end even if it is well written, can feel like losing a friend.

People have always thought those who have imaginary characters as friends were kind of odd. But I think we have them because they have more of the author’s soul than we might see if we just met the person. When we can get our cumbersome flaws and failings out of the way through our creativity, we see each other better.

Not that it always goes well, but fiction fans live off the times that it does.

Some other time I’ll talk about how character grief can also teach us about hope, but I’m out of time for now, until next post–Natasha.