At The Root, Michael Harriot wrote Where'd All These Woke White People Come From?, which is a truly great article. Here is one tremendous quote (of many):
It’s not that white people don’t care about their friends. It’s that they don’t think about racism. White people are immune to white supremacy so they don’t even consider that some of us are racism-intolerant.
Another interesting article is on Medium by Ramesh A Nagarajah: Reflections from a Token Black Friend.
Like many of my friends from high school, these two articles caused my friend some pain to think that the experiences and perceptions of her black friends were so different from her experiences and perceptions. As we spoke, a deep literary idea struck my mind.
For decades, one of the most famous deaths in the Marvel universe was that of Captain America's sidekick James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes. Ed Brubaker kinda un-killed him in 2005, and when he did this, Brubaker made other important changes to Bucky's backstory. The Star's Kaleon Rahan describes the core of the change in Captain America's sidekick Bucky is one big and bad, bad boy:
"... Brubaker injected some substance into [Bucky]’s history by revealing that his sidekick status was actually a cover-up, and that the US military had bigger plans for him, including black ops stuff that Cap wouldn't have the stomach for."
This is called a retcon. Brubaker changed Bucky's history, and in doing so he changed how we see two characters we always thought we knew. We always thought that Captain America was the squeaky clean defender of liberty who was the critical piece that helped the allies win WWII and Bucky was his kid sidekick. Now, we saw that Cap was too squeaky clean, and Bucky was there to defend him and to do the dirty work that needed to be done.
This is what many people are dealing with now. All of a sudden, they are seeing perspectives they hadn't seen before, and it's not only changing how they see old friends and past events, but also how they see themselves and current social/political dynamics. Some of my friends are apologizing for what they did or didn't say or do decades ago. One moving example is a friend who said:
"I know a great deal better today and I am working to do better daily."
I hope the message quoted above is true for all of us. It's certainly true for me. Dynamics that helped continue and even deepen hurtful attitudes are everyone's burden. They belong to the white kids who make jokes about race as well as to the black kids who laugh along or brush them off. I'm not saying that the black kids are to blame for racism, but all the things we said and how we reacted to them were the result of entrenched, toxic attitudes. As we look back, we're all seeing things that make us uncomfortable about our own actions and inactions. We need to allow that discomfort to drive us forward.
For years now, I have said that one of the few upsides to being a black man in America is being able to make white folks feel uncomfortable about race. Being comfortable with this role is not something I was strong or self-aware enough to embrace when I was younger, and I cringe when I think of some of my inaction. But now I try to lean in to being an agent of understanding. This is still an area of growth, but I'm working on it.
This national discussion about race is like a huge retcon that is changing how we see our past experiences, relationships, and behaviors. Retcons can be disconcerting, but we can all benefit from digging into them and really grappling with the new understandings they bring. The new Bucky can be a tough character to deal with, but he is a MUCH more interesting and complex character than the old sidekick character.
No comments:
Post a Comment