Author: barryschade@gmail.com

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.

Last evening, two members of my book group described their recent experience of looking into the night sky. They were each in the Southwest and in an area protected from lights. Their descriptions of the richness of the experience awakened in me the memory of sitting on the end of my dock at the cabin and being drawn into the vast expanse of the Milky Way.

I am lucky that there are so few lights around my cabin, and the night sky can glow with a deep, inviting splendor. On nights when there is no moon and no clouds, the night sky is magnificent.

Last evening, all three of us spoke of the feeling of being drawn up and into the night sky. For me, it has been the closest thing to the experience of being absorbed. The three dimensional aspect of the sky is highly inviting, and I remember having the feeling of leaving the ground and being in the midst of all the glowing, distant stars.

This is the same night sky that my ancestors saw and were drawn into. I suspect they had a similar experience of awe and attraction. Yet, it is also different. I am also reminded that it is not exactly the same night sky that must have enthralled ancient people.

Our sun and its planets rotate around the Milky Way once every 250 million years. Since its formation, our solar system has made that journey around the galaxy something like 18 times. So our position in the Milky Way has changed since the time of the first humans, and the view of our companion stars has shifted. But I suspect that the experience has changed little.

I am fortunate that I was able this morning to resurrect so vividly the memory of looking deeply and plunging into the night sky. Today, the enthralling, captivating memory became the focus of my concentration practice, and I once again was able to experience the wonder of the night sky stored in my memory. The awareness of the night sky became the object of my meditation, and the experience of absorption in its vastness flooded my heart.

It is relatively easy to remain focused on realities that seem close at hand. But there is another dimension hidden more deeply. Being able to focus on the night sky draws me into a reality that invites me into a place where there are no limits, where the possibilities are infinite. It is so good to have the experience of the night sky residing in my memory.

I like to think that I am self-motivated, but that is not always the case. I am constantly affected by the people around me, and that often influences the motivation I have to do the things I think I want to do. I am encouraged to do what I want when I experience a positive response from other people. Conversely, I am discouraged from doing what I want to do by negative reactions.

It takes more energy to overcome discouragement. And my energy is reinforced and amplified by any encouraging support I receive from other people.

I thoroughly enjoy my garden and I spend time fussing over so many aspects of my garden. Left totally to myself in isolation, I am convinced I would indulge in the delight of gardening. However, the positive reactions I get about my garden from strangers and friends adds to the motivation I have to fuss over my garden. I don’t know if it makes gardening any easier, but it clearly channels my energy to know that others will react positively and encouragingly to it.

I put up a lot of decorations for Halloween, and I do this because I enjoy having my house and yard decorated. The many positive reactions I get from adults and kids certainly encourages me to put in the effort it requires to make my home Halloween-festive.

A similar thing happens in conversations and in relationships. Encouragement helps draw out more energy and invites deeper insight and adventure. It is my innate social tendency that makes this so. It is the way I am made, as are all humans I think. There is a natural link that we have with one another. As much as I am aware of my aloneness, I am also aware how much others can reinforce who I am or, conversely, cause me to draw back from who I think I am.

I suppose I am capable of doing what I want to do all by myself. It sure is easier and more enjoyable if I have the encouragement of others.

I am a true son of the South. I can see that I have been trained well. I know what to expect when I meet up with others whose skin is darker than mine, whose features are unlike mine or my family.

I have learned what to expect, and much of my expectation has to do with my skepticism and their inferiority. What I expect of people with darker skin affirms and supports my enjoyment of being white. My experiences selectively confirm that my expectations were valid and helpful.

From my youth, I have learned to expect a dialect different from my own and reflective of an impoverished use of speech and thinking. I have learned to expect something more guttural, something lacking a rich vocabulary, something without much imagination. I have learned black speech to be less than the rich nuances I have associated with intelligence.

I am surprised when someone with dark skin speaks with the practiced skill of one who has grown up in an environment of reading and spoken language. I am surprised when I hear language that flows with ease, with familiarity and without crudeness.

I have learned to expect behavior that goes contrary to social norms, and I expect to feel uncomfortable, even assaulted. It is no surprise to walk past black young men smoking in the non-smoking area of the train platform, punctuating their conversation with spitting on the sidewalk. This is what I expect, this is what I notice, this is what I pull away from. Once again, my expectations are confirmed by experience.

I am not very surprised when black school-aged kids peer into the open door of my garage, when they stop and stare. I expect investigating looks of mischief and not simple curiosity. I expect loud and boisterous talk at the bus stop. I have learned to be uncomfortable with a behavior so unlike the respectful, subdued exchange I expect because I am white.

I am white to the core, and I expect my experience with black people to be alien, and so it is. I feel as distant and unfamiliar with their presence as if I had found myself in an asian fish market. The sounds, the smells, the sights are all alien and confirm my expectations of discomfort, strangeness and otherness.

My expectations guide me. They confirm who I am. My expectations make it easy for me to wrap myself in a satisfying sense of how much better it is to be white.

Something has changed. A little over a year ago, I was on a retreat with a group of gentle Earth Holders. A startling experience from those few days was the ease with which my tears began to flow. I found that when I allowed myself to feel anything at a deep level, I would begin to cry. It was totally spontaneous and uncontrolled.

It was something that stayed with me for weeks after the retreat. If I allowed myself to go to the deep feeling spot, I would involuntarily tear up. I sometimes sobbed and became unable to speak. It happened at live concerts when I allowed myself to sink into the music of Beethoven. It happened when I talked about my experiences at the retreat. It sometimes happened when I sang.

It is now over a year later, and the tears no longer happen so readily. There are moments that I feel near to tears, but I don’t have a tearful response to hearing Beethoven’s music as I did months ago. I don’t so easily cry.

However, something else is happening. I may no longer venture into that deep place with an upwelling of tears. However, I do go to that adventuresome place more easily and frequently. I experience the same deep wave of joy that surges through my body, but it comes without tears. There is no uncontrolled rush of tears. I find myself in that same wonderful and lovely place throughout my days, but without tears.

I find that I can choose to settle into that deep experience without the tearful overflow. When I remember to go there, there is no surprise of tears. Instead, I can sustain for extended moments the embracing rush of excited joy, and then slowly let it go. There is no interruption of tears, there is no release or overflow. The joy simply hovers with me and attaches to whatever I am doing.

I now seem able to contain the experience and reside in that lovely place without losing the feeling in a sudden rush of tears.

I am aware that something happened last spring when, one morning, I accidentally surrendered to the feeling of plunging into a deep well of undefined awareness. It was a brief brush with a feeling of emptiness. It was so startling that I was concerned that I might have had a small stroke or seizure. I checked in with my doctor who assured me that my body was likely OK. But I remained startled.

About a week later, I summoned the curiosity and courage to allow myself to follow the path to that same formless place. It is now a familiar route.

Ever since then, and with some practice, I seem to be able to take that same uncontrolled plunge with little resistance. It has become a familiar pattern, but without tears . My mind becomes light, buoyant and bright. A ripple of contentment surges through my whole body.

I feel the same surging energies that were unexpectedly released during and after the retreat. But now there are seldom tears. Instead I typically feel a calm that accompanies, perhaps channels, the enthusiasm and delight.

Now I am curious to find where those tears make their future appearances.

I’ve been thinking recently how I made up of components that come from my four grandparents. Each of them contributes one-fourth of the factors that helped determine what I would become. For a long time, I’ve been daily aware of the contribution of my two parents, each of them contributing one-half of me. It is another matter for me to think of the contribution of each of my grandparents.

For me, it is more than being attentive to the genes I got from each grandparent. I have a growing interest in attempting to see into the shadowy recess of my origins. The more I search, the more these four grandparents seem to be with me. I have more acceptance of how I have come to be connected to this body and mind.

It has been a startling reminder that both my grandfathers were alcoholics. They were classic drunks. They led disfunctional lives, so the sketchy and whispered stories go. One was ‘kicked out’ and lived in isolation and obscurity. There are conflicting accounts about whether he was alive after I was born.

The other grandfather was only an image in a portrait that hung on my grandmother’s wall. He passed on the name ‘Charles’ that became my father’s middle name, and is now mine.

I suspect that the seeds that grew and prospered in them were scattered into my parents’ make-up and subsequently are part of mine. Each of these alcoholic progenitors give me one-fourth of my determiners and fashion the base of who I am.

I suppose that any time that I speak or use words I am using a kind of code. Words may imply what I am thinking, but they are only useful to the degree that they come close to what is in my mind. I value clarity, and appreciate it when someone’s words clearly code what is in their mind. This doesn’t always happen.

When I hear people speak about issues involving race, the meaning is often hidden in a code that has meaning only to those of us who have been trained and initiated. Rather than speak openly and clearly, people often speak in a code that somewhat shields them from being called racist.

An article recently appeared in the Southwest Journal that included a quote from a resident that was racially coded. I send the author a message that addressed this issue:

“I was interested in the quote from Sean Thorud about ‘what kind of element’ light rail will bring into the Bryn Mawr neighborhood.  The reference to North Minneapolis is  clear race code meant to raise fears and uneasiness in white readers like me.    

I appreciate the problem that a newspaper has in reporting quotes such as that.   But while it may be a correct representation of someone’s opinion, it also gives such racial agitation a broad audience.   I am willing to wager that any white reader of your reporting of that quote will feel the racial meaning and experience the racial uneasiness associated with it.   I think that the newspaper, perhaps unwittingly, reinforces the racial bias by stoking the racial fears of white readers like me.   I can only guess about the offended feelings your black readers might experience.

  
If the newspaper is going to report those kind of comments, I would appreciate a comment by the writer that it is a racial slur.    The quote might be couched in soft language, it might pretend to be subtle,  it might be even be disguised as “nice”, but it is easily felt as racially coded and meant to stir fear and anxiety.    I don’t think that the newspaper should participate in that kind of complicity any more than it would quote language that is blatantly offensive.

   
I for one am offended by the quote you included from Sean Thorud.   I am offended that you would use a quote that would seek to stir racial unease in me as one of your readers.   I am offended that a quote like that would be used because of a belief that readers like me might be disturbed by it.    I am offended that such a quote might be associated with my neighborhood.

 
We white people have learned how to talk with one another  in a coded way that conveys a racist message without blatantly appearing to be racist.   We deftly and subtly pluck at the anxieties and discomforts that we have about people of a different color, without experiencing the embarrassment of displaying our full intent.   I encourage the newspaper not to participate in this charade and either avoid statements that are racially coded or call them out for what they are:  racially based slurs. “

I am satisfied that the editor responded favorably but the issue will continue to be a part of my life. I intend to be more alert to this kind of coding, in myself and others. I will attempt to clarify what it is people are actually saying and push for clarity when anyone is making a racially tainted comment. By paying attention to how I feel when I hear such a suspicious comment, I will know whether it has a racial meaning.

I have learned very well how to exercise my judgment skill. It is a skill that I developed at an early age as part of my family tradition. It is also a skill that has helped me make sense of experiences. Judgment often helps me make sense of what I encounter.

By putting experiences into categories, I find them easier to deal with. I have a well-tuned critical mind. It is a mind that can help me with shortcuts, but it also can cause me to move too quickly to judgment.

I find that I am highly capable of putting people into predetermined patterns of behavior and appearance. These categories have meaning for me and help me make my way through life. They are often based on and reinforced by my experiences. They also limit my ability to observe and react.

Judgment helps lay a foundation for my cognitive manner of understanding and help me determine how to react. I know how I might easily deal with a situation more efficiently if I see how something fits into my pat pattern of experience and consequences I am familiar with.

I think that judgment is like my own built-in form of Google. Anything new is measured against a life-long data storage that alerts me to whether the new is likely to be good for me or not so good. I judge whether it will be beneficial or harmful. Judgment is so much a part of my built-in psyche that it happens almost automatically unless I intervene.

I’ve had two experiences recently that have caused me to think about judgment and the role it plays in my reactions. At the Fair, I was standing in a long line at the Sweet Martha’s cookie booth, when a group of young women went up the exit aisle and proceeded to purchase many buckets of cookies. They were apparently Somali, and no one suggested they go to the end of the line, except the friend I was standing in line with.

My reaction was to suggest that I had experienced this kind of behavior in Somali individuals in the past, the demanding push to get what they want. Friends have simply called the behavior rude. For me, it reinforced my experience of pushy behavior, and probably set the foundation for future judgment.

This morning, I sat in a car dealership waiting room, for about half an hour, aware that a man with an “African” accent was all that time talking loudly on his cell phone. All 20 of us in the room could hear every word of his conversation. He was still talking when I left. I noticed that another man with dark skin was quietly and inaudibly talking on his phone. But it was the loud talker that will reinforce my categories and shape my judgment about what to avoid.

I am aware that the influences on my judgment categories are often more subtle, but they are also powerful to shape my future judgments unless I mindfully intervene. Judgment is a useful tool, but it requires considerable control and skill.

In my current meditation practice, I move through five kinds of concentration, the first of which I call Contact. It involves being very aware that I am breathing, before I move to the second level of concentration, Sustained awareness of my breath. The third level is one of Rapture, followed by Joy and then One-pointedness, which is close to absorption.

The foundation of it all for me is Contact. Before I am aware of and make concentrated contact with my breath, I have already made awareness contact with my body through mindful movements, including stretches on the floor and settling onto my pillow. Making contact with my breath is simply a continuation of the awareness, the attention I give to my body in other ways as I go through exercises and planned movements.

Contact with the ground, with plants and with people is no less an occasion of deep awareness. The contact is more than the basic physicality of the experience. The contact gives me the opportunity to be aware that I am touching or being touched. Even contact with the chair I am sitting in can be more than the simple physicality of feeling the chair. It easily becomes an experience of awareness of a chair that I am contacting.

To some degree, contact with inanimate things like a chair, keyboard or floor is remarkably different from contact with living beings such as persons, plants or pets. However, sometimes it seems that there is a continuum of animation that extends to things considered inanimate. I sometimes know a level of awareness that there is aliveness even in those things typically considered inanimate. To experience that awareness, I may have to realize the fifth level of concentration, One-pointedness. I definitely have to go beyond awareness of the simple physicality of contact by touch.

The awareness that arises through contact is more than a simple sensory experience. However, the contact that generates awareness is typically grounded in some type of sensory experience. I think that, with practice, most sensory experience can be the foundation for deep awareness and joy.

Much of my reflective, spiritual reading is a nice backdrop but it is not true practice for how I want to live. What has had the greatest noticeable impact on me has not been what I read or listen to but what I practice on my pillow.

My experience sitting on my pillow has the greatest lasting impact. It is a wonderful practice for living. It is good practice for being aware when I am siting at my computer keyboard or next to a friend. It is practice for unpleasant experiences at the Fair or a delightful walk through my garden in the rain.

The concepts of spirituality I read and hear are interesting and helpful. They especially help my cognitive functions to prepare for and make sense of what I experience. They help my mind relax and move out of the way. They may even help me move through the thicket of confusing experiences. But it is my meditation practice that helps me the most.

What I experience for the few minutes I sit on my pillow helps me prepare for what I experience afterwards. The practice may end with the ringing of my bell, but the reverberations of the practice continue deeply into my day. The practice of descending into deep concentration allows my practiced awareness be less cluttered and impeded by the feelings and thoughts that readily arise. Putting aside the hindrances of distracting feelings and thoughts while I am sitting on my pillow trains me in dealing with similar thoughts and feelings that naturally occur later on.

Those thoughts and feelings may often be useful as I navigate my daily life. However, they are often a distraction that keep me from being intimately aware of what is going on. They distract me from being deeply aware of what is actually right in front of me. They keep me from being aware of things and people as they really are.

I am beginning to see that my awareness, my sense of presence grows as my concentration practice becomes less cluttered. It has been months since I began to use my breath habitually to guide me on a contemplative plane while I sat on my pillow. Now it happens more frequently when I am no longer sitting. My skill in descending into steady awareness has become more stable. I only have to nod gently in the direction of my breath, and I touch a steady state of focused awareness and penetrating joy.

Practice has slowly brought me to a place of simple awareness independent of content supplied by my mind. When I remember my breath, I can experience who or what is before me with little distracting explanation supplied by my mind.

I even sometimes think I may almost experience things close to the way they really are, without the shaping veneer supplied by my mind. In time, this may become more routine, more habitual. With practice.