I never asked for or chose my lineage. It just happened that I come from a line of racists. My parents and the parents before them are part of my lineage. Like me, they too sprung from racist stock, rooted deeply in a highly racist culture.
It appears to be my fate to have grown up with a racist flavor in how I respond to others, how I feel in their presence, how I interpret their actions. My expectations of others, whether white, black or otherwise, have been set by the culture and the family from which I come. It is my lineage to be racist.
I still have choices I can make. I can decide how to act, what to say, what to conclude. But all my thoughts and the movements of my heart are shaped and influenced by my racist lineage.
My family lineage is, perhaps, more evident in my brother. He seems less critical or reflective of his natural, spontaneous reactions to his world. To me, he seems often guided by the racist lineage we share. A few days ago, he easily spoke of his frustration with the killings and lawlessness. His solution is to annually take five jail inmates out to a local bridge and hang them from that bridge as a deterrent to lawlessness.
I was actually surprised how much his “solution” is saturated and shaped by the history of lynchings. His lineage is filled with the experience of white people who took comfort, sometimes delight in a practice of lynching. It is something they absorbed from their infancy. It is part of his lineage, mine, and many white people to think of lynching as a normal response and solution to fear and lack of control.
The influence of my racial lineage is usually more subtle and doesn’t include aspirations of lynching. My racist lineage gets exposed when I watch how my heart responds to people of color. My racist lineage was evident to me in the emotional tone in my response to trick-or-treaters on Halloween.
My lineage showed itself in how I felt when black children came to the door, and I noticed how different it was from when white children showed up. My caution, my benevolence, my expectations shifted depending on whether the children were black or white. My lineage influenced how I regarded Asian or Latino children, all of whom seemed close to being white.
My lineage was not surprised when a young black boy ran through my garden, tearing up lights and decorations in his path. It was what my lineage expects, fears, and then judges.
I do not reject or deny my lineage. If I embrace it at all, it is an embrace of recognition and acceptance. I do not let it guide me when I become aware of its influence . I try to be mindful of its presence, its rooted and familiar place in my life. I attempt to be attentive to its subtle coloring of my thoughts and my heart.
I am not about to bring a great change in my racist lineage or culture, but can limit how I am influenced. I can become more intimate with my racist lineage, observe it, be aware of it in all its features.
For me, it is finding the middle way, and I am not about to deny or purge what is so much a part of me. Instead I choose an open, benevolent heart and let my awareness guide me.