On WHITE FRAGILITY (and Butterflies)

Hello and Happy Spiritual Journey Thursday! Today our topic is "change," and we're gathering at Margaret's Reflections on the Teche. Please take a look!

My latest book with Charles Waters DICTIONARY FOR A BETTER WORLD: Poems, Quotes and Anecdotes from A to Z is thisclose to going to press. Hallelujah! This book was the most difficult book project I have encountered so far. It's 100% about CHANGE... mostly about how our first responsibility is to change ourselves.

As this kind of change is a lifelong journey, I come back often to this quote from Maya Angelou:

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty."

These words encourage me when I am neck-deep in revisions (like I am now, with a verse novel coming in 2021)... and they inspire me when I am working to achieve bigger changes, too. They've been in the forefront of my mind since reading WHITE FRAGILITY: Why It's So Hard for White People toTalk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo.


This book provides some useful language for talking about race, and some thoughts that were particularly helpful to me as I continue to learn and grow as a human. So much is about our simple willingness to change. Consider this excerpt from the book:

"[Says the author to a person of color], “What would it be like if you could simply give us feedback, have us graciously receive it, reflect, and work to change the behavior?” Recently a man of color sighed and said, “It would be revolutionary.” I ask my fellow whites to consider the profundity of that response. It would be revolutionary if we could receive, reflect, and work to change the behavior. On the one hand, the man's response points to how difficult and fragile we are. But on the other hand, it indicates how simple it can be to take responsibility for our racism. However, we aren't likely to get there if we're operating from the dominant worldview that only intentionally mean people can participate in racism. "

I particularly appreciated the author's suggestions on receiving feedback from others about one's racist behavior:

" 1. How, where, and when you give me feedback is irrelevant – it is the feedback I want and need. Understanding that it is hard to give, I will take it any way I can get it. From my position of social, cultural and institutional white power and privilege, I am perfectly safe and I can handle it. If I cannot handle it, it's on me to build my racial stamina.
2. Thank you."

In order to truly change the world, I've got to be willing and committed to building my racial stamina (a term I love!). Which means being willing to be uncomfortable and to enter into conversations that might make me feel embarrassment, guilt, shame, and regret. I've got to walk around the world as a learner, willing to make mistakes in order to improve.

By © Derek Ramsey /
derekramsey.com, GFDL 1.2,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/
w/index.php?curid=1612827

I know there's a butterfly waiting to emerge... and all my confusion and mistakes and scrambling around are just part of the process required for change. Thanks for being patient with me!

As for those novel revisions, I've learned to just chip away at them every single day. All those little changes will eventually build up and become the story it was meant to be all along.