I am more than a bit conflicted about Monday's inauguration falling on MLK Jr. Day, giving the current national views on diversity, equity and inclusion. (Writer's Note: was the mistake capitalizing D.E.I.? the words don't look offensive in lower case.) I understand the power of narrative, but I will admit that I am baffled at how easily those three words were manipulated into standing for the exact opposite of what they mean. But then, I also believe that every person deserves to be treated with dignity, and that certainly is not a current value in our society.
I also do not understand why, as a nation, we are afraid to have a rational conversation about systemic racism. I understand that no individual wants to be accused of being racist, even in the current climate. It seems logical then, that folks would be inclined to accept an argument that says the cultural systems we have created do not treat people equitably. (Again, in lower case, the word does not look scary.) I've lived around so many people who think the game is rigged against them, that you would think they could accept it is also rigged against other people, but usually, those are the most ardent voices calling "BS!" when you try to engage them.
One problem, I think, is that no one accepts that they are part of the 'system.' We've taken this idea of individualism to such a degree that everyone seems to think that everything they have has come purely through their own hard work, and that no one has helped them. Writing is like that. People think writers sit in a room alone with their computer (okay, that's all true) and pound out a book. But that book becomes a good book because of beta readers who offer feedback and editors who demand changes, and it sells when a publisher takes a risk on it, and it sells more when readers post glowing reviews. None of us do it alone.
I was six when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. We lived about an hour east of Cleveland, in Perry, Ohio. I experienced those events as a white six-year-old would. We had plans to go to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History on Saturday to see the dinosaur skeletons, but my parents cancelled the trip because there were riots happening in Cleveland. Instead, they took us to Amish country. About the whitest thing you could do. I never put the cancellation of that trip to the museum together with MLK Jr's assassination until I was nearly sixty and I was participating in a Racial Healing Circle as part of Otterbein University's Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Campus Center. We were discussing a prompt "What was the first time you noticed feeling different because of your race." The memory of the cancelled visit came into my mind, and it was the first time I thought about the context of what was happening in the world during my youth. It was like a punch to the gut because it revealed my own systemic failure.
Win a free Kindle edition of Love: a novel of grief and desire: I work with Reader's Favorite on the Kindle book giveaway. If you go to readersfavorite.com/book-giveaway you can sign up for the monthly giveaway. You can scroll through the list of giveaways (over 500 each month) or sort the list by title or author to find Love: a novel of grief and desire and put your name in for this month's drawing. Good luck
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