LEGACY

For Jane, Sadie, Nettie, Rosie, and Bridgie; 

for Greta, Agnes, Anna, Betty, Bridget, Mary, & Marie,

for Liz, and, always, for Mary Jane. 

With love and gratitude.

All the women who have a piece in me are gone.

Bones and teeth,

Ash and dust,

Scattered remains.

They bequeathed their strength,

And I rise on their bent backs.

    Mind set on their course,

        Mindful that I will never know

their poverty

their pain

their oppression

their opportunity denied.

My fingers never broken by sweatshop machines.

My heart never bound by conventions and prejudice.

My mind never confined by misogyny.

Shaped by strength, they stomped the Earth.

Titans

                  (I imagine the worlds they would run

                  With just a tiny piece of my privilege.)

All the women who have a piece in me are gone.

                                    Bones and teeth,

                                    Ash and dust,

                                    Scattered remains.

They shove me forward and scream my name.

Rest in peace, my beloved Titans.

I remember your names.

I remember your pain.

I will never forget.            

I remain,

 filled with the pieces of you,

until I am legacy, too.

--Sheila Sweeny Higginson

That Time I Ruined My Valentine

I shatter

                       like a crisp of ice,  

                       flash-frozen pond top

     with your slightest move,

         Glance this way, turn that way,

         focus in some other direction

              (Not a stomp, nor a monstrous roar, it takes
               so very much less than that.)

We, like water, are a polar molecule 

      Covalent bonds, positive and negative charges

      Filling the years with an atomic dance toward and away from each other

And I, a weaker element alone, seek strength in that union

      Growing to be more than myself,

      Depending on the core of an unbreakable chain

            Forgetting to acknowledge, forgetting to embrace,

            forgetting the steps of the dance.

Will we dance that liquid dance again, moving this way and that?

Will we move mightily together, a solid that steers in one direction?

Will we steam, then scatter, nebulous as a gas?

The essence of the form will change, no doubt.

Melting, or heating, or freezing—the bonds will not be denied.

I am weaker alone.

I shatter at the flicker of a thought of that existence.

Shatter me, though, if you will.

I am weaker, but not weak.

I will flicker and float my way through the universe.

Or, better yet, dance with me.

The glacial buildup will be neither rapid nor trouble-free.

Cracks are to be smoothed over.

Paths will be carved.

Electron crashing may no longer be as volatile.

Still this is where I wish to be.

Part of a molecule, singular in strength, one and only, with you.

Found in Translation

The Setting

Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, early spring of 2004. It's just a few blinks after 9/11 and the neighborhood, hard hit by that tragedy is still in many ways shell-shocked. There is also a great deal of tension between the "old school" white Brooklyn residents and our Muslim neighbors, many of them new immigrants to the community.

The School Yard

Moms, dads, grandparents, and nannies gathered in the fenced-in courtyard of my son's preschool to wait for their children every day at pick-up time. Like all caretakers of young children, we were, at varying times: rushed, frazzled, late, desperate, in terrible need of adult communication. Before long, though, the invisible dividing lines of the self-selecting groups started to make the yard resemble a middle-school cafeteria. The separation was created by comfort and ease, Spanish-speaking moms talking to other Spanish-speaking moms, St. Anselm parishioners talking to other St. Anselm parishioners, and so on. You know how it goes.

The BFF

A few months into the school year, my son Jake started talking incessantly about Tarek, his new preschool friend. The conversation morphed into a daily, "Mom, can Tarek come over to play?" query at pick up.

Tarek's mom always stood near the picnic table, where a group of hijabi moms gathered each afternoon. I always smiled and said hello to them every day, but honestly, I did not make much effort beyond that. I knew that Tarek's mom didn't speak a lot of English, had a toddler daughter in a stroller, and was also pregnant. I had no idea how to broach the topic of a play date with her.

The Best Laid Plan

As the weather started getting warmer, I thought planning a trip to the park together after school might be a good compromise. When Jake and Tarek came running out of school one day begging for a play date, I asked Tarek to translate for me. We went back and forth a bit and chose a date—Thursday. 

On Thursday at dismissal, Tarek's mom gathered a few of the boys from the class, then walked over to me and handed me a piece of paper. It had her address and phone number on it. She said, "I take Jake. You call. Pick up." 

I was confused. This wasn't the plan at all. "I'm sorry," I said. "He can't go. I thought we were all going to the park." She looked at me, hurt and confused. "Why?" she asked. She gestured to the other boys who were all going to her home.

The silent awkwardness between us felt like it lasted an eternity.

"Jake come to my house," Tarek's mom said again. I stood there, not knowing what to say. I didn't know how to explain everything that was behind my denial, and so I said the first thing that popped into my head. "I'm sorry, Jake's dad won't let him go." 

The Aftermath

It was a cowardly act. Not quite a lie, but totally pawning my culpability off on my overprotective husband, and it was wrong.

Tarek's mom looked teary as she walked away with the other boys. I took Jake to my car, strapped him in his booster seat, hung my head on the steering wheel and we both sobbed. I had hurt another human being, and I had no idea how to fix that. I knew that I had to, though.

The Fix

I went home and wrote my thoughts in a letter to Tarek's mom that said something along the lines of, "Thank you so much for inviting my son to your home. It is truly an honor and I am sorry about the miscommunication. We are overprotective new parents, and Jake has never been left with anyone but a family member, he has never even had a babysitter…"

A few phone calls later, and I had enlisted the help of a friend's mom who took the time out of her busy day to translate my words to Arabic. The next day, I walked over to the picnic table and handed the translated letter to Tarek's mom. Her friends gathered around as they read it together.

Suddenly, I was embraced in an all-forgiving group hug. Tears fell to the concrete. "I understand," Tarek's mom said. Another mother explained, "We're the same way. We would never leave our son with anyone but family. Don't worry."

Then, sadly, they asked me where I was from and shook their heads at my response that I was raised in Brooklyn. "You can't be American," they replied. "You're too nice to us."

The Lesson

I've reflected on the lessons of that day a lot. I came to the realization that to carry my baggage as a socially anxious girl geek to my interactions with other people is, in fact, quite selfish and ignorant of my inherent privilege. I now ask myself:

• When I'm in a situation with new people, to whom do I choose to talk? Why?
• Can I look at myself objectively? See myself the way others actually see me rather than the way I feel about myself?
• What are some strategies I can use to connect with new people, especially people who may never feel comfortable initiating contact with me?
• Would anything I say…or do…or write hurt another person? How can I anticipate that pain to make sure I change my approach?

The Journey

One of my husband's mantras is: When you admit you're wrong, you're right.  

I am a flawed human, but I am trying to be better at it. I will continue to make mistakes. I try to live by this truth. 

I was wrong that spring day in the preschool schoolyard. Acknowledging it not only helped me grow as a person, it opened up a world of new friends. I can only hope that, with practice and self-awareness, one day I will get it right.

White Like Me

For the past few days, the Bay Ridge and Bay Ridge Parents Facebook groups, usually home to posts about what time summer stroll starts and where to buy a potty chair, have erupted with a stream of vitriolic dialogue in reference to Al Sharpton and the protestors who boarded buses in the neighborhood on their way to their peaceful protest in Staten Island. It has been painful to read the conversations, and impossible to figure out a way to respond to them in the confined space of a comment box on Facebook, and many have since been deleted. Following is my response.

Being white, I did not learn how to grow up with a shield against racism the way my husband has. I do not have at hand the arsenal of defenses that he has developed over the years: Be nicer, more polite, and smarter than they expect you to be. Never talk or fight back, always walk away first if you can. Keep your friends close and your frenemies closer.

I’m tired of being cordial. I’m a mom, I have a career, and I certainly have enough to fill my plate. I don’t need to impress anyone and I don’t really care who I alienate. You can cross the street when you see me, just like you would if you saw my husband coming—oh wait, you don’t do that because you know he’s one of the “good” ones.

For the record, let me say once and for all that if you grew up white in America, unless your name is John Howard Griffin, please stop making comments about anything that has to do with dealing with racism. You don’t know, you never will, and neither will I. The more you talk about being color-blind, the more you are showing your true whitewashed colors.

And if you think that it is just a poverty issue, or a criminal issue, or a neighborhood issue, or an anti-police issue*, the following is an abbreviated list of some things that I’m guessing my white friends with white husbands and white children who grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, have never had to deal with, but which my middle-class, law-abiding, educated black husband and children (and myself, via them) who grew up in the same neighborhood have:

• Having garbage thrown at us while we were looking to buy a home in the neighborhood we both grew up in.
• Getting pulled over for random traffic stops (without any apparent violation) in our neighborhood and being warned to “get home quickly.”
• Getting taken into the police station as a suspect for a major crime in which there were eyewitnesses whose descriptions did not match you at all, except for being “young black male.”
• Getting pulled out of work by detectives continuing with the investigation of then boyfriend/now husband.
• Never being informed that you are no longer a suspect in the aforementioned investigation, and still waiting to hear more than 20 years later.
• Having anonymous letters sent to my parents stating that they would burn down their house if I continued to bring my then boyfriend/now husband to their summer home.
• Having my children (and nieces/nephews) be called a slave, Oreo, penguin, n***** in and out of school, all before they’ve graduated elementary school.
• Having the same children be told by classmates that they couldn’t have gotten that good grade, or be in the g&t class, or be Latino/Italian/Irish, because of the color of their skin.
• Seeming to be the only one to notice that the essay posted in the hallway at that elementary school during open school week which started “If I could live in any place in the U.S. during the 1700s, it would be the south so I could have slaves,” might be offensive to some children and parents.
• Consoling my husband when he’s upset after a woman jumped away from him, thinking he was about to mug her when he got out of his car outside of our home, and knowing how much anger he has had to swallow his whole life from countless similar incidents, and wondering how that has affected his health and well-being.
• Listening to my husband tell our sons not to wear their swim-team caps under their wool hats when it’s winter and cold outside, because someone might think they’re thugs, and wanting to say that he’s being ridiculous, but knowing that he’s right.
• Listening to my husband tell our sons that they are not allowed to get a flat-top, corn rows, or design shaved into their heads, because of the way he knows they will be judged accordingly.
• Having to worry that someone will think that my honor-student teenage son’s pants are falling down because he is a thug instead of the real reason, because he is so skinny that even super-skinny jeans with a belt fall below his underwear.
• Having to tell my sons not to put their sweatshirt hoods up at night.
• Having to tell my sons that they even if they don’t ever break the law, they have to be prepared to be questioned and possibly detained by police, and how to act in a way that is not only respectful of authority, but that will not ever put their lives in danger.
• Being repeatedly hurt by the posts of the people that you have known and loved all your lives.
• Having to smile and politely answer ignorant questions and comments such as:

Are they your kids?

Is that baby your husband’s? He’s so much lighter than your first son.

Why would you care if there are no other black kids at a school? I don’t think of your kids as black.

Does your husband wash his hair?

Your husband isn’t really black, he’s white inside/he acts white.

He’s so cool (nice/normal/smart/insert adjective) for a black guy.

• Feeling sometimes that truly, your family is alone on a little island and that when the chips fall, the people who have surrounded you most of your life may not be around to stand by your side.