Here’s another great conversation between Kate and Erik. I won’t be posting tomorrow, because it’s a travel day for me. Finally going back home! This past nine days hasn’t been easy for me, because I’ve been alone, away from my family who is my main source of support. I miss them all so much.
Erik & I have been bouncing this entry back and forth for nearly six weeks now. I didn’t really have the opportunity to sit down, alert but relaxed and uninterrupted in front of my computer all this week – so he woke me up at 6 am on a Saturday. It’s true, there’s no better writing space than the wee hours of the morning.
I would’ve woken you up at 5am, or 4am, but I know you’d just roll over and go back to sleep. (psh) Mortals.
Okay, go for it, E.
(Dressed as “nerdy teacher” with thick black glasses taped in the middle, that he pushes up with his finger. He’s wearing an oversized bright red cardigan and red, green and grey plaid pants, white socks and long, shiny black shoes.) Your lesson today: (pointer taps on the chalkboard) “How not to be a racist asshole.”
Here’s the thing I would (just love for you to understand) – if everyone could just see the noxious cloud of pollution that is racism. (Shows me large, sickly-coloured clouds hanging over each country, town and house – meaning it affects EVERYONE.)
Racism (I don’t believe in ‘isms! A john lennon quote) whether you believe in isms or not, you pick whatever word you want. Really, this whole (dumptruck) thing I’m gonna unload on you is about the perpetuation of all isms/asshole behavior, my point is you’ll still be a racist asshole unless you educate yourself – and you can’t educate yourself if you refuse to see the existence of this cloud. You know how that noxious cloud gets there? Every time someone is racist out of ignorance, that’s a fart. That goes into the atmosphere to join the huge racists’ fart cloud that only (those on the receiving end) can actually smell. And it’s DISGUSTING. And it’s not effective for the person smelling the fart to shake their finger at you and yell, “Stop farting, you racist!” By the time the fart happens, it’s too late! You gotta start looking at the diet that’s causing the problem.
Here’s the best part: I’m not going to ask you to give up coffee. (HUGE GRIN directed at me.) For this lesson, you don’t have to change your food at ALL. But learning how not to be a racist asshole is a lot like a diet, cause you have to take responsibility for what you eat and the fact that you fart at all, and you have to care that other people are smellin’ that shit.
Are you with me? Of course you are ‘cause you guys are awesome, and NO ONE wants to be a racist asshole. Think I’m not talkin’ about you? Wellllllllllll Kate:
Okay, I’ll give a quick share here about what I’ve learned in the past year. The main point he’s getting at here, and I’m talking to my fellow white people in particular, is we all have racist moments. Step one is to become self-aware enough to even realize you’ve cut one in the first place.
These moments result from cultural ignorance due to being raised in a country that is run by the Colonial victors. Some of it goes back to our early education, (for example, some of us were taught that North America was basically empty except for a few scattered tribes who were not “using the land”.) If you’re a white person, and for the sake of streamlining it let’s just talk to white folks in North America right now – if you’re white and living in Canada or the US, you’re kind of racist.
It took me nearly 20 years to understand what this is. The seed was planted back in the 90s when I heard a comedian (I wish I could remember if it actually WAS Chris Rock or not, I’m not sure) say: If you are white, you are racist. It’s not your fault, but if you can’t go forward in your life in ignorance anymore. (That’s not a direct quote, but it’s the gyst.)
My first reaction as a forward-thinking white girl in the ‘90s was to say, “I’m not racist!” And I DID go forward in ignorance for another 20 years! It took that damn long for the actual intent and meaning of the message to get through to me, but I never forgot that comedian’s shocking declaration, not angry or accusatory, just a statement of fact: if you’re white, you’re racist.
I didn’t begin understand the true depths of my own ignorance until six months ago when I took a work-sponsored course in essentially, how to not be a racist asshole to First Nations people. This program is provided free to those who work in the health care sector, so that we can avoid being racist assholes to First Nations people in their most vulnerable moments, because the real toxicity is sheer ignorance of our own history, and it can be genuinely upsetting for a nice, empathetic, good-willed white person to come to terms with how inadvertently racist we can be.
At the same time, I was listening to an audio book “How to be Black” by Baratunde Thurston. In his book, Baratunde speaks to his fellow black people, tongue in cheek, about being around white people in a white man’s world, and how to negotiate the tricky obstacle course of ignorant racism that inevitably crops up without becoming “angry black man” every time.
Is that enough Erik?
Beautiful, babe. Here’s the thing people have been asking me: are you still a white boy? Yeah, I am, because I’m still *ERIK*. I’m still relating to my family and y’all as Erik, ‘cause I’m more relatable as Erik than as a ball of light. Am I still an ignorant white boy? Fuck no. That’s why I actually DO want to talk about this, and that’s why it took me to fucking long to figure out what to say on this first. I’ll tell ya, you can’t grow up white in Tex-Mex without swimming in racist bullshit. My family is NOT racist, buuuuuuuut… (trails off.) Let’s say that I have a more complete perspective up here, and I can actually smell the farts now. An’ they don’t smell like roses.
Here’s the thing: yes, once you die, there is no race. A lot of (individual soul consciousness) have incarnated so many times as so many different races, it’d be impossible, and stupid, to try and pick a race for that particular soul. But you know what it is when you say you don’t see colour, you just see soul? That’s kinda ignorant, and it’s kinda racist.
That’s the go-to safety place of a lot of nice white folks – to just say you don’t see colour. (That and to site a great-grandmother who’s part Cherokee. Damn, those Cherokee sure as shit got around, all these part-Native white-looking great grandkids. It’s ironic how racist that shit really is – if you really ARE part native, why do you think that is? Is it ‘cause the whole rest of your family was invading their land?)
What that’s really saying is, “I don’t want to deal with it. I don’t want to look at how I’m the descendant of invaders. I can’t think about what my responsibility as a white person in North America is today, because none of that shit that happened back then was *my* fault.” Kate:
Yeah, have I mentioned that my father is German? My grandparents lived in Nazi Germany, and not in a camp. That would make them…..? My Dad has spent a lot of time educating me on what it was like in Germany at the time, (as my Dad experienced a lot of racism being German in Canada in the 50s and 60s and wanted his kids to understand that Germans really aren’t bad people.) It’s possible that, had the war continued, our family wouldn’t have made the racially-pure cut, as my great-grandmother (my psychic Oma) was ¼ Jewish. At the time, however, they were free citizens of Germany, and my grandfather, Oma’s son, was a member Germany’s version of boy scouts: the Hitler Youth.
Erik says, Kids growing up in a racist environment experience a form of racial violence too, and it’s a trauma that’s incorporated into their psyche. It is not good for anyone to live in ignorance! Every time you hurt someone, whether it’s intentionally or out of ignorance, that is some this that you are GOING TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH, eventually. A lot of “dealing with it” means reincarnating. So you can really save yourself a lot of time if you fuckin’ figure out how not to hurt other people, accidentally, despite your background and upbringing.
Erik brings up my great-grandmother, my mother’s father’s mother, who was an incredibly strong, independent woman – but who let rip some SHOCKINGLY racist comments in front of her grandchildren. When my mother admonished her, she replied, “I’m old, I’ll say what I want.” It was such an uncomfortable topic, it was never discussed again.
Call it a bad vibe that you keep on humming. Racism perpetuates because the CULTURE teaches it. It’s in school books written by “the winners”, it’s in family attitudes that get passed down, it’s in the fucking public holidays!!! To poo’ white folk, it’s just REALITY.
There, now we’re starting to circle around to my point. Do you get it yet? High fives for all who see where I’m goin’ with this.
Sure you’re not as overtly racist as your dear old gram, but do you want your OWN great-grandkids to see YOU that way? ‘Cause they will. People, if you don’t deal with and help to clear the racist farts from the air and STOP FARTING in the first place, the task is just going to fall to your kids and their kids. That ain’t no kind of heirloom.
The difference between little racists who grow into ignorantly racist adults is they’re never gonna smell their own farts, and the most racist thing they can do is DENY the fact that they’re farting at all!!! In their ignorance, they’re CREATING a bad, sad world every damn day!
If you do NOTHING, you’re Part of the Problem.
Want to be part of the healing? (Oh yeah! Now Erik’s an Evangelical Preacher on the pulpit again!) What is the WORLD you want to give to your children and grandchildren? Do you pass them the baton of responsibility and self-education?
Erik pokes his head into my family history, says, DAMN KATE! You have got some RACIST KARMA up in here!!!!
So yeah, using my family as an example: in addition to the scary Nazi grandparents, you go further up my family tree on my father’s side and you’ll get to the branch of Vikings. My dad LOVES this branch of the family tree. He even named a business after his Viking heritage. To this day I haven’t had the nerve to discuss with my dad how other people might view our Viking legacy as the first of the invaders, conquers, rapists and pillagers. To my dad, Viking means brave, tall and strong. To me, it explains why I do well on a diet that includes fermented dairy products.
On my mother’s side, we have four generations of farmers, descended from English and Scottish immigrants. Colonists.
So yeah, it does add up to one hell of a karmic responsibility. I think this inherited burden is so heavy, a lot of people just don’t even want to look at it.
Erik says, Yeah, and that’s the whole point I’m trying to get at: See, if a kid grows up on the other side of the fence, he can’t help but be confronted with the smell of the racist farts all around him. He can yell and scream, “IT FREAKING STINKS IN HERE – CAN YOU NOT SMELL THAT???” but that shit’s not gonna clear up until the farters admit to their emissions.
But it’s a catch 22 if the farters are so uncomfortable with their own farting, that they go walking around saying, “Well yeah, I smell that other dude’s farts, but *I* didn’t fart! I’m not flatulent at all, even though I grew up on the same diet as farty-farticus over there!”
Who do you think you’re bullshitting?
Okay okay, so you’re the most progressive white person on the face of the planet and you haven’t an ounce of racism in you at all. Fine. Let’s just play that out for a second: You’re still living in a white man’s world, ya dig?
There is shit that you simply don’t see or experience as a white person unless you actually go to the trouble of educating yourself. It’s just like an old rich dude telling some young girl that there’s no such thing as sexism anymore. She be like, “Old man, when was the last time someone was sexist AT YOU???”
Just ‘cause you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. And just ‘cause you refuse to acknowledge it, doesn’t mean you’re not lettin’ one slip once in a while.
So dude, how can one best avoid being a racist asshole?
Girl, you gotta smell your own farts.
Oh my gawd. Did I walk into that one. So, here’s a scenario – when you are witness to another person making racist farts, like saying something out of ignorance, what do you think the white bystander should do?
Well first thing is if you don’t speak up, the non-white person in the room is gonna assume you agree / are just as ignorant. So really it’s in everyone’s best interest to speak up. Second thing: be polite. Be like, “Excuse me, I think that’s an unfair comparison / statement.” Or if you’re Canadian, say, “I’m sorry, but-“ and then offer them a donut.
(see how he’s using cultural stereotypes to illustrate his point?) Yeah and also to say you can take your cue from the person who might’ve been insulted. The ENERGY of the situation will tell you when have an opportunity to start (Oy-yoy, rough choice of words dude) “un-raping” your shared karmic burden. Like, was there this sudden awkward silence? That’s the RACISM SIREN! Don’t ignore it, cause if you do, you’re just farting and leaving the room.
Now, I know I’m asking a lot. Once you attune yourself to the aroma of racist farting, you can’t escape it. (Shows me his face pulled in a grimace from sensing a *really bad smell*.) But wouldn’t you rather be on cleanup duty, than an ignorant farter?
Here’s the thing: we NEED people on cleanup duty. Shit REEKS! It’s super-important, and it’s really, really hard to look at this shit about yourself. If you’re into “personal growth” and you consider yourself a healer, you can’t afford to ignore this shit. But hey, who said this was supposed to be easy? Yeah it’s hard. It’s easy to be part of the problem.
But now I’ve gotcha! Now you know, and now YOU can no longer go forward in ignorance! Muahahahahaaa! Smell the farts, people!
And a nice big fart to signal the end of the entry. Excellent. Thank you Erik. Thank you folks, for reading this with an open mind.
Kate Sitka is a spirit medium and animal communicator located in Tofino, BC. To learn more about her and her work, please visit her professional website: tofinopsychic.com and her personal blog psychicintraining.com
