When the hurt sticks — and what I’m doing with it

Hi there,

I felt called this week to revisit one of my previous blogs on the subject of racism.
If you’ve been with me for a while, you might remember this one.

If you have any thoughts on my experience below — or want to share your own — I’d love to hear from you.
Send me an email at debshine@thriving4equity.com.

One evening back when I was living in California, I ate at a restaurant where the racist treatment of my husband and me was blatant.

The next day when I woke, it was still present with me.
I didn’t want to write about it. I didn’t want to think about it.
I wanted it to go away. Poof. To dissipate into the ether.

But it did not. It stuck with me.

I can pretty much guarantee my husband wasn’t thinking about it the next day.
He’s skilled at letting things run off his back.
You need that skill to be a Black man in America, I think — at least if you want to function in all the white-dominant spaces he’s lived in since private school at age 5.

As I sat fuming at that restaurant table, my husband thanked me for not hitting anyone — as I’d said I was inclined to do.

The thing is, I wasn’t even close to hitting anyone.
I didn’t say anything at all to the owner or manager — the same man who served every other table with warmth and enthusiasm, except ours.

I even overheard one customer say, “My son still remembers you!”
But us? He didn’t speak to us. Didn’t make eye contact.
He assigned the brown-skinned Latino bus “boy” (what a term for a grown man) to take our order and serve us our food.

It was that kind of racism that’s blatant but deniable.
The kind that’s done skillfully enough that if you complain, someone can say, “Nothing happened.”
But make no mistake — it was not subtle.

As we left, I took a picture of the place — just in case I decided to post something about it later.
That’s when I noticed the American flag on the building. I’d missed it on the way in.

Isn’t that sad?
That the American flag has come to signal hate and exclusion more often than pride or freedom.

I’m a military kid.
Two of my uncles died because they loved this country — because they believed in its promise and served it fully.
My father missed my birth while deployed to the same war where his brothers were killed.

I used to think of the flag as a symbol of democracy, of a country to be proud of.

Not anymore.

My oldest son and many of his friends are making plans to leave this country.
They know it has betrayed them more than it has protected or supported them.
And I understand.

That night, I ended the day reading Richard Blanco’s book of poems:
How To Love a Country.
I think I was looking for a way not to give up.

If Richard Blanco — a gay Cuban immigrant — can find some way to love this country,
surely I can.

His poetry dives into our deepest national wounds:
mass shootings, poverty, division, legalized discrimination.
But it starts and ends with hope.

These poems are for all those
whose trailblazing footsteps
I followed here, and for all
those I now walk alongside
with compassion, hope, and the
audacity to believe that someday
all of us will walk together.

That’s what I’m going for today.
Compassion. Hope. Courage.
Courage to take action — whatever action is mine to take.

My son may leave this country. And if he does, I will bless him as he goes.
This nation doesn’t deserve to hold him if it cannot recognize his value — or that of his father or grandmother.

But I know I need to stay.

I want to stay “to sing [America the Beautiful] again — beautiful or not, just to be in harmony — from sea to shining sea — with the only country I know enough to know how to sing for.”
(From “America the Beautiful Again” by Richard Blanco)

Because I know I am not separate from the restaurant owner who treated my husband with such casual disrespect.

Our lives are tied together — whether either of us likes it or not.

It took me a long walk home from that restaurant to come up with things I could have said.
So now, I keep a few options ready for next time.
And I’m considering some additional steps, too. I haven’t decided yet.
But there will be no poof this time.

If you're trying to hang in there too, here are some next steps to consider:

1) Read The Declaration of Interdependence
Let me know if you want to memorize it with me.
I want this medicine — compassion, interdependence, poetry — to live in my bones the way poisons like white supremacy, sexism, and classism have lived for too long.
Poetry can help. Doing hard things together can help.

2) If you’re white, talk to your people.
Start with a sibling, a cousin, a friend. Read together. Grow together.
That’s one step I took in response to this most recent reminder — that we white folx still have a lot of work to do with each other.

3) Vote.
And encourage someone else to vote — especially someone who might otherwise skip it.
Need to check your registration? Start here.

4) Take care of yourself.
Nap. Dance. Walk in the woods.
Read a novel just for fun.
As my friend Larissa Parson says:
“You don’t have to earn joy.”

Here’s to thriving and equity and finding new ways to love the seemingly unlovable — in ourselves, in our communities, and in our country.

Deb

RESOURCES

• Learn about the Six Triple Eight — the all-Black, all-female WWII postal battalion soon to be honored with a Congressional Gold Medal.
  
  

• The Decarceration Collective — a woman-powered law firm freeing people sentenced to life for drug crimes. Over 40 lives saved so far. Support their work.
  
  

• Check your voter registration — and help someone else get registered too.
  Your vote is your voice.
  
  

• Give Blood or Volunteer — our community still faces a serious blood shortage. Help if you can.