@olan

 Thank you, Olan .  I see you. I hear you. I AM listening now.  And I am deeply sorry for causing you pain/ upset/ stress/ anger.  Whatever harm I have caused.  

No, I don't have the energy to go through all of the old threads to know your history with @peano.  I live with chronic illness and limited energy.  I shouldn't have posted at all on such an important issue in such a state, at the tail end of a 5 day migraine.  I in no way was trying to convey that I "believe/trust" peano and don't believe or trust you.  I come from a faith tradition that encourages us to "assume good intentions" and I was trying to inject that into the conversation.  

What peano wrote about the work of anti-racism taking a lifetime resonated as truth to me.  This is hard.  It is also very important.  

Of course it's not nearly as hard as living the Black experience in this country with its horrific systemic and institutional racism, redlining, schools being funded by property taxes so rich neighborhoods have incredible schools and poor neighborhoods, which are often populated by people of color, have crumbling buildings and often unmotivated teachers and staff.  There has been precious little opportunity for Black and brown and indigenous people in the oh so poorly named United States of America to benefit from inherited wealth, etc.  The list goes on and on.  And it's a pathetic and shameful list of horrors and injustices that Black people have lived with since first being stolen and brought to this country as slaves.  

It all sucks. Understatement.  I wish I could change it. Understatement.

I and many others are trying, albeit far from perfectly, to learn, grow and to support our Black and brown people and communities.  Myself and many others are listening to and learning from Black people by reading their books and blogs, listening to their podcasts; we are supporting them in their candidacy for political office, recognizing that we need a true representation of our citizenry in positions of power.  Heck, I believe we would all be a lot better off if the government was comprised entirely of women with white women in the minority.  Truly.  

I have precious little opportunity to try to befriend any Black people where I live, as there are very few.  
I wouldn't be looking for a "token Black friend" to prove what a good person I am, BTW.  

As far as allyship, I don't think anyone can legitimately call themselves an ally. It is up to the Black people they interact with to give them that, if deserved.

And in closing, I will restate, love to all.  If we can't love each other, how can we make real progress???

Your far from perfect pea friend, trying to be a better human.
Liz
P.S.  I am not running away from this discussion but will be away from NSBR for the next 8 hours or so.

Thanks for this link. She linked to a blog by Kandise LeBlanc, that was also very thought-provoking.

I hear you and I think that's a very important point.


I'm reading and listening...I think what I'm hearing from Olan is that being an ally needs to be on the terms of the person needing the ally not the person being the ally. And what I think I'm hearing from @peano is that she's trying to grow and learn and to be an ally but she doesn't want to lose herself in that process and she's not fully comfortable with being told what that process should look/sound like or that she's not doing it right.

I'm a white woman - I'm uncomfortable with much of what Olan has to say. It's good that I'm uncomfortable, I should be. White Americans have been comfortable too long. And I hope that as we become less comfortable with the status quo and with our history, things will improve. I do know that hoping isn't enough, but I don't know exactly what I can do that might be. I've learned that I need to ask other allies not Black women because they have enough on their hands and don't need to be educating me.

I think it’s important to note peano hasn’t been asked to “lose herself” in the process of becoming anti-racist. I certainly haven’t made that request of her.

If you aren’t comfortable being told how to be a good ally then it might be wise to sit out this movement. Keep in mind I haven’t made any outlandish allyship requests of the peas and if I have no one saw it as a challenge.

I think what we are really hearing peano say is, don’t make me examine my role in upholding racism or make me feel bad about what I’m apart of. And don’t hold me to the fire when I say white women had no agency. Life didn’t get in the way of her receiving that lesson. Ego did.

Does anyone think that a good ally would speak to a Black person the way peano has spoke to me?

An ally would never dismiss racial trauma and avoiding violent videos to preserve ones mental health as WTF rhetoric. An ally knows the history of chattel slavery and in instances they are ignorant they don’t go around smugly correcting Black people. An ally doesn’t think Black people need to “win” over anyone so they can be recognized as whole human beings and not “cardboard cutouts”.

The way she wanes on and handled herself her is indicative of who she is as an ally. And as a woman.

I can't even imagine what a slap in the face reading that must have felt like. I'm sorry you were dragged in to this thread.

Fresh Air


“In my research, I found evidence of black and brown children facing down racial epithets from their hosts, encountering both physical and sexual abuse, experiencing the repeated trauma of displacement, feeling like enslaved Africans on display as they, tagged and trotted out, waited to be paired with their hosts. One Fresh Air child had to listen to his host exclaim at the pick-up point, “You didn’t tell us this kid was gonna be no nigger.” Looking back on her experience as a child, a former Fresh Air child exclaimed, “It was two weeks of being afraid, two weeks of people staring at us, poking at us, asking us ludicrous questions.” Still another could not get her host mother to touch her hair.
I also found evidence of an African-American critic calling for “stale air” programs in which white suburban kids could be bused to the inner city. I read of a columnist who lambasted Fresh Air programs for giving black and brown children a week’s worth of access to suburban neighborhoods “which lock them out the other 51 weeks of the year.”
Of course, the children fought back, challenged their hosts’ racist stereotypes, and maintained an active rumor network through which they informed each other of the best ways to survive while on a Fresh Air trip. But their actions could go only so far in the midst of the adults’ positions of authority, financial resources, and institutional power.
Rather than a narrative of sweet, innocent contact between brown and black children and their white hosts, a complex pattern of one-way, tightly controlled, age-capped, paternalistic hosting ventures emerged.
This was the story that the Fresh Air Fund — I think — tried to hide.”

timeline.com/amp/p/3eaa365a741b
2017



theconversation.com/amp/the-fresh-air-funds-complicated-racial-record-78733

Not only did Chicagoan Janice Batts have to deal with feeling like she was at a “slave auction” when the white Iowan hosts came to pick up the tag-wearing African-American children in the 1960s and 1970s;, her host siblings would ask questions like “Why is your nose so wide? Do you sunburn? Why is your hair curly?”

She experienced severe trauma as well; a host father sexually abused her over the course of two consecutive summers. After a series of sexual abuse lawsuits in the early 1980s, the Fresh Air Fund finally began to vet hosts to screen out potential abusers.

Another concern to many of the people who participated in the program as children in my study – a concern that Fresh Air alums who took part in the program more recently have shared with me – was the assumption that, because they were from the city and nonwhite, they were not “equal” to their rural host families.

For example, Cindy Vanderkodde, a Fresh Air guest from New York hosted by a Michigan family in the 1960s, remembers thinking at the time, “Oh wow, this is family, they love me.” But when she moved into the hosting community a dozen years later as a college-educated social worker, things changed. “Once I became an equal … there was just no interest there,” she told me.*

Wow, this apology wasn't really an apology, was it now, OP? Geez.
Performative allies aren't allies. It's not a POC's job to educate us. If they decide to put in the emotional labor we are not entitled to, instead of getting defensive (and I've been guilty of that myself but I'm working on it) shut up and listen. Do your own research. Reflect. And WORK ON YOURSELF.
I'm mostly a lurker here but I've seen some of your posts Olan, and I appreciate you taking the time to do the work we don't deserve. I'm sorry they tried to call you out here with a fake apology.

This^^

This is really horrible.  I believe every word.  Thank you, again, Olan, for educating us when we don't deserve it.

I’ve mentioned this before but I am educating myself about race in America and what that means for me as a Black woman navigating that landscape. I read it then I share it with you.

I’m from Indiana so I’ve heard of the Fresh Air Fund but hadn’t heard of the research Tobin Shearer did in 2017. I didn’t participate in FAF but did spend an entire summer in rural area with a white friend and her family. When I tell you I’ve had an intimate view on racism 😳 you would not even believe the stories I could tell about just that one experience as a young Black girl.

A funny one..Her family took me to a Corn feast one day and alllll the young boys were staring. Olan was making googly eyes and feeling like Whitney Houston! Then her aunt took a small pistol from her purse and said we needed to leave the grounds before someone hurt me. Corn was spelled with a Capitol (see what I did there) K I guess.

While it’s my experience I wouldn’t want my ex-friend to come across my accounts as it does involve sensitive family information. Though basically I was a bodyguard and distraction from a very dangerous family dynamic. My parents were not clued in but they get no passes (they are dead so it’s fine) cause ummm it was Southern Indiana in the 90’s mom and dad. Hell its dangerous in 2021. To this day I can’t eat at an Arby’s without feeling triggered. The cheese sauce reminds me of this yucky unsafe feeling. I wonder how they stay open?

Also someone is deleting responses.

Is your epic post your apology.  It is not an apology it is a take down. You need to stop talking and start listening if you truly want real growth!

I followed your links re the Fresh Air Fund Olan , thank you and I also went to their web site and I'm pretty much speechless at how repugnant it is.

Was it? Where?