What a wild ride!
The intellectual self-stim of reading all of y’all’s work out there has been a roller-coaster. Thanks everyone.
Last night, the roller-coaster took me down down down into some white supremacist bunkers. The drip-drip of slippery stalagtites, and sightless creatures with the teeth of angler fish, snapping at the light.
My terror is that someone may interpret some parts of the shame bucket concept as apologistic for the diseased racist. Don’t do that. That’s not what I’m up to.
The shame bucket you carry is your Achilles heel, your self-debilitator. It has the manipulative power of original sin.
I’ve used the expression for a while, and used it in a comment on a thread in All About Race. Now I want to explain it at length. With all of the various warps and wooves, the shame bucket is the central pattern.
My original understanding of it’s power came while watching some cableTV biography of Jeffery Dahmer (sp?). From childhood, his progression of aberrant behavior spiraled as his self definition rotted. Until he believed he had no choices, that all outcomes were pre-determined based on his self-prejudice, “I am evil.”
I’ve read accounts from WW II Germans who were involved in some of the first mass killings (before the efficiencies of scale were applied). How many of them would vomit before they became, in the words of one, “used to it”.
Capacity for evil built upon recognizing one’s capacity for evil. This self-recognition born of inescapable self-judgement.
You know what you’ve done. You’re bad. Therefore, when given a choice you must take the bad one. That’s what bad people do.
“Forgive me Father, for I have…”
What a tidy way of institutionally dealing with the dangerous human element of self-loathing. ‘Cause these people are not just a danger to themselves.
One of my high school teachers (really, a teacher at my high school – I was never in one of his classes) had a reputation for being very strict. Mr. Brown taught geometry, and everybody loved him. Often, he wore high leather motorcycle boots. Badass cool with twin baby girls dressed in flower-print dresses following him around after-school. To me, he looked like Jimi Hendrix, but taller.
One day, while working on a project in the hallway, I noticed Mr. Brown looming over me (oh no ! What am I getting busted for now? And by Mr. Brown!)
“You know,” he said, “you’ve never been in one of my classes, but I’ve been wanting to tell you how much I admire your work.”
Did I tell you he was also a liar?
It was years before I figured that out. There was no opportunity for him to see any of my “work”. I know that because what little I turned in was mediocre and careless. What little was completed, none was displayed.
Starving for those magic (daddy=subjective love) words, “proud of you”, I found his ersatz bread to be coffee cake. Thumbs-in-my-armpits – chest-stickin’-out proud of myself, because Mr. Brown admired my work.
Like a secret coin held in reserve, I held onto that moment through some crippling times- counting my coin again and again.
Not until I was ready did I allow myself to see what Mr. Brown had done. He was not one to lavish saccharine praise, and his class (my friends complained) was hard. This wasn’t false praise a-la- go along – get along; social promotion. This was honing in on someone who’s self-punisher was in overdrive, and offering him an alternative self-definition; saving a fellow human from debasement (th’ basement ? Like I said, I was there last night).
These lessons roll around in my head and guide my daily work. I’ve begun to allow the shame bucket concept to nibble at my understanding of our racial misunderstandings.
Carmen, in her post on All About Race, asked the question,
“Do you believe MOST white people are offended by a “sense of black grievance?”
My answer was that I am not offended. I am ashamed. The bucket is unwieldy, and sloshing all over us both, though. I can’t be forgiven because I didn’t do anything. You can’t forgive me, because I haven’t harmed you.
Memory has indeed put it’s hand upon my breast, and I do know (of) your hatred (everyones, it seems).
Now what? (and don’t tell me kumbaya)
Well, to start… A sense of grievance and hatred are two completely different expressions/feelings/things for the most part.
That’s true Carmen. I’ve just been reading a lot of charged up stuff on race-themed blogs, and everything’s getting blurry.
That piece from your post on grievance:
“…a common hallmark of African-Americans who have achieved the greatest success, …— Oprah Winfrey, Magic Johnson and Mr. Obama — is that they do not convey a sense of black grievance.”
It really got me thinking about the face-to-face dynamics, and our seeking of subtle cues from one another.
thefreeslave’s brief:
“All white people are racist suspects – Wolves In Sheep’s Clothing -until proven otherwise.”
describes my sense of unspoken accusation when meeting a Person OC. I’m (gratefully?) relieved when I don’t feel that barrier.
A lot of that coming from one of my character flaws – needing to be liked. Of course I owe my gift (overly keen perception of the feelings of others) to the same flaw. I want to know how you feel, so I can know if you like me. Chronic illness, neediness.
So when I say I’m relieved, it’s because it feels as though I’ve set down a burden (a bucket), and can now use my hands to reach you.
I realize also, that a lot of the written vitriol that I’ve been reading too much of lately is what people feel free about expressing without being face-to-face. There is some of my character flaw in most of us, if there weren’t, salespeople would change their “I really like you, ________” style.
thanks for the kind word about the label maker. How precious the few moments I got to spend with one as a kid. They were like early blackberries.
clunk-clunk-clunk
squeeze. snip
HI CARMEN