Where Do We Go From Here

It has been almost a month since my last post. Excuses range from election exhaustion to too much real world stuff to manage.

But since last post, I have had the privilege of speaking to a number of college classes regarding race and gender discrimination. Normally I talk on lgbt issues, so I found it a bit odd to be addressing race and gender in a broader sense. Odd, because I am a white female of middle class origins from a metropolitan southern suburb and really, what do I know of race issues and from my experience what do I really know of gender bias?

But on the other hand it is not odd. Race and gender discrimination are rampant in the lgbt community just as they are in the at-large communities. And as a white woman I can speak to other whites and say we are not done, though I also can speak to the fact that it is not our burden alone. I can also speak to the gender bias which is thick in our community. But not only in a way one would expect. There is a minority, but strong ideal of separitism in the lesbian community- very anti-male or XY chromosome. I frankly find it limiting, counterproductive, and highly discriminatory. Indeed women hold up half the sky...but only half.

There, I said it.

I have experienced far more racism for being white now living in the north than I ever experienced living in the southwest and that was a good bit as well. Is this a complaint, no. Do I stretch my experience and say that I can relate to others who feel persistent race bias? No, absolutely not. What I experienced is mine and cannot be weighed against anyone else's. That would be arrogance maxed out. I am white and living in a white dominant society. The advantages of that to date can not be erased or negated.

As to gender bias, I have expereinced it once, overtly. Other incidences may have also occured, but they were so subtle, they passed beyond my recognition.

Nevertheless, I have given the isms thought and enter the fray for discussion.

My best friend happens to be a woman of color and soon after our friendship began I remember her commenting on "entitlement": that I moved about as though entitled. She attributed that to race and privilege. I hadn't given it any thought but once pointed out, I determined that it wasn't out of race or even gender, but personal entitlement that I did these things. I still believe that. I believe that if anyone else can have, or get, or access, then I should be able too, as well. Though on occasion I have used white and/or gender entitlement when advocating or helping someone and recognized I was doing it for that purpose. It was my own anecdotal social experiment.

I, one day, suggested that there was no reason she should not also use entitlement. If I believed it was not borne of race or gender, then she should be able to, right?

I think the idea that someone else is entitled directly places one in the position of have-not. The idea that some country-club system allows for this to happen and that only members can exercise the right is an acceptance of being a have not and seeing others as the have's. This is a stance from limits and lack. For this to continue, those on either side, the have's and the have not's must remain where they are and maintain this belief.

But it just may be only that- a belief.

If we look at entitlement as a self-accessible advantage then we stand in abundance. That anyone can be entitled. That entitlement to having needs met, getting service, having access can be expected to occur.

My friend, a few months ago stated that she got it. But what it took was someone thought to be of the entitlement country club to give her permission or rather enlightenment.

A pretty, white, slim, accomplished straight woman who she greatly admires, told her she just needed get over it and act entitled or she was not going to get where she needed to be in her career. In essence she was given "permission" to act on what she wanted all along. This woman said the light is better out here and my friend walked out from Plato's cave.

It was as though the light burst forth from the clouds for my friend. Someone viewed as part of an upper echeolon of those entitled gave her the key. This freed her up to access what she wanted from beyond a barrier of gender and race as never before.

Now, I have used the words "permission" and "gave" which continue to reinforce that entitlement is a club and that a secret handshake or knowing the right person is how to rank-in. But its not. Those words were used to convey how this story came about, but not how it has to be or is, really.

The "get it" part of this is that one can. One can access what one wants. Will it change everything immediately, no, of course not. But will it begin to shift what we all experience and expect, yes, most definitely.

Holding an expectation of having needs met, having access and getting service is all about intention. And intention is action. It is seen and palpable. It is not awarded or bestowed nor is it limited.

For much of a woman's historical memory-conditioning and subsequent brain adaptation has shackled us from thinking and acting this way. Women often do not start at salaries as high as men because men ask, women do not. Men risk being told no and move on. Women, broadly stated, fear rejection and do not risk as often. Particularly for themselves. Ask a woman to risk for her child and she will be indomitable. Ask a woman to risk solely for herself and hesitation is the first answer. Men act on entitlement, women do not. Men assume they have power and stand in it. Women assume they do not have power and leave it for someone else to use. Whose paradigm is most beneficial to us all?

Intention says we will push to stand in discomfort, to admit when we hold to and operate from old beliefs and stereotypes, to stretch ourselves into risks, charting new territory getting beyond the already always way of being we have created for ourselves.

As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Do one thing every day that scares you."

Where do we go from here?