I grew weary of whiteness many years ago, but I didn’t expect to grow tired of feminism as I have. How many ways can we — should we — shed our skin?

The fight for gender equality in America — currently called feminism by most, or often white feminism by People of Color — has undergone several iterations over the centuries, and it has waxed and waned in popularity. Yet some aspects haven’t changed much, and they need to evolve if we ever hope to achieve success. More than that, though — we need to re-think what we call success if our goal is truly equality. We need to answer equality for whom and why.

After several decades during which feminism was roundly vilified by the Right and deemed no longer necessary by many women on the Left, the movement roared back to the forefront recently with the 2016 election of Trump, a misogynist and alleged rapist who campaigned on promises to restrict women’s rights. Feminists quickly organized the first annual Women’s March for the day after the presidential inauguration, to a great turnout around the world. Yet almost as quickly, evidence of racism arose within the movement that has continued with each round of protest.

feminism:
1. the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes 2. organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests
 — Merriam-Webster

white feminism:
white feminism is an epithet used to describe feminist theories that focus on the struggles of white women without addressing distinct forms of oppression faced by ethnic minority women and women lacking other privileges.
–Wikipedia

This is problematic on numerous levels. For Black women and other Women of Color dealing with racism on a daily basis, certainly. For those of us white women who grew up during the Civil Rights Movement and protested along multiple fronts, this has also been distressing. By 2017, I’d somehow assumed we were further along. I’d gotten complacent and therefore complicit, like too many of us.

Still more white women, however, raised on patriarchal approaches to power — as well as a thick, long-simmering vein of racism — expected Women of Color to simply fall in line behind them. At the very least, many white women, often including those who’d self-identify as allies, failed to understand the depth and breadth of the issue and their role in it.

Meanwhile, the wealth of complaints by Black and Brown women have largely gone unanswered. And the few answers that have come have been fraught with the usual whitesplaining, talking over, and failure to listen. In my local Facebook Women’s March group, I witnessed a shrill and ugly argument between two white women who were each sure that they knew best what Black women would want — without actually consulting one. Nor did it end immediately when a Women’s March leader, a local Black woman, commented. Too many of us cannot figure out when to shut up or learn from our mistakes.

To be sure, the relationship between white women and Black women in America has never been a comfortable one. From the role of white women in the enforcement of slavery and Jim Crow laws to false white accusations of rape in the century that followed the Civil War, and now cries of concern about Black bodies in “white spaces,” white women have been as culpable as white men in the propagation of racism. It is unfortunate but not terribly surprising that the majority of white women (53%) voted for Trump.

Terminology notwithstanding, the history of white feminism is really as old as feminism in America. Following centuries of Black enslavement, early white and mostly middle-class suffragettes literally cut Black women out of the movement, fearing that Black inclusion would hurt their chances for success. Pioneer feminists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, widely lauded by many women today, were more concerned with women’s right to vote than the far worse plight of Blacks. Although Black men officially got the vote in the 1870s and women didn’t get the vote until 1920, the Black vote was effectively suppressed by Jim Crow laws until the 1960s anyway. Even now, gerrymandering is designed explicitly to minimize Black influence while white women continue to vote freely.

Beyond the voting issues, racism obviously continues to oppress People of Color along socio-economic lines. Black families today are falling further and further behind financially — from a net economic worth of 20% of the average white family in the 1950s to a mere 10% today. The reasons are extensive, including smaller inheritances than whites to build on (there were no reparations for enslavement to hand down), educational biases, hiring discrimination and lower comparative pay, reduced housing opportunities, increased incarceration . . . the list goes on.

It is not just Black people who get the short stick, though. Hispanics face some of these same issues, and are frequently told to “go back where you came from,” and “stop speaking Spanish,” while Native Americans have been misrepresented and treated as inferior since European invaders began stealing their land and killing them off hundreds of years ago.

These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg. The purpose of this essay is not to outline the effects of racism, which could and has filled tomes, but rather to demonstrate how the enormity of the differences in our life experiences are relevant to the fractures in the feminist movement.

In addition to the poverty and other problems facing non-white communities at large, Black women are much more likely to be the sole or primary breadwinner in their households, they are at much higher risk of domestic abuse, and they deal with much worse health crises than their white counterparts at the hands of a medical system that largely ignores their complaints. Black maternal mortality rates are literally three to four times that of white women.1, 2

All of this has left Black women at the bottom of the social heap and understandably angry, frustrated, and just plain afraid. Clearly, the issues facing Women of Color are on an entirely different level from their white counterparts. Yet traditional white, middle- and upper-middle-class feminists have typically talked in broad terms about the universalization of the female experience while marginalizing Women of Color and their racial struggles.

In response, the term “intersectionality” was first coined by Black feminist and legal scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989 to articulate how the various systems of oppression, such as race, gender, and sexual orientation, all intersect and cannot be addressed separately. It has since been explored in more depth by Black feminists such as bell hooks, who has argued in favor of inclusivity and the empowerment of all, versus a re-layering of the existing power structure.

While many white academic feminists have also talked at length about intersectionality, their conversations often sound like liberal lip-service that ultimately supports the existing hegemony. And, the concepts haven’t reached far outside the ivory towers of academia to trickle down into the thoughts and practices of white feminists on the street. Like Stanton and Anthony almost 200 years ago, we are still far too willing to divorce our own desire for equality from the plight of Black women and other Women of Color.

The average liberal white feminist would be horrified to be called the R word: “Racists wear white robes, carry torches, and light crosses — I wear a safety pin! I’m an ally!” But for people who are sick and tired of our own oppression, we are far too quick to say that, “Blacks have been equal since the Civil Rights movement,” “Why don’t they do more to help themselves?” and yes, even “All lives matter.”

Worse, we absent-mindedly reinforce systemic racism and exorcise our white privilege while denying that these issues exist. At our local march in Raleigh, North Carolina last year, we were smug to note that our local leaders were Women of Color, yet we apparently ignored and marched on past a Black protestor stopped by the police for having her sign on a stick — a violation of a local ordinance, but one that none of the white women were harassed about. We were horrified when an officer shot white Justine Damond to death in Minneapolis, but exonerated the officer who killed Philando Castile not long before. When Chikesia Clemons and Sandra Bland were assaulted by officers and Black women cried out in pain, we were silent.

White women cannot expect Women of Color to support feminism if we continue to dismiss their realities. And here’s the sad part: we need to be inclusive if we have any hope of winning equal rights. From a purely pragmatic point of view, we need physical numbers. If 53% of white women voted for Trump and elected a Republican-majority Senate eager to decimate Planned Parenthood and the right to control our own bodies, then we can’t afford to alienate a large voting bloc that aligns closely with feminist agendas. When two-thirds of white women in Alabama voted for Senate candidate and alleged child molester and bigot Roy Moore, they were only saved from major national embarrassment (although they probably weren’t appreciative) by their Black counterparts who overwhelmingly supported the opposition with 98% of their votes.

Second, Women of Color, who have fought oppression for hundreds of years, have a much better understanding of what oppression means, what they’re fighting for, and how to fight than white women do. While we’ve been known to turn our noses up at “angry Black women” and more grassroots activism, let’s be honest: writing our congressmen, being angry on Facebook, and marching a couple of miles once a year will not be enough in this political climate. As the second rung in the social hierarchy just behind white men, we are still relatively comfortable, and this ease shows in our tactics. There are no iconic photos of a white woman calmly facing down police in riot gear like the young Black woman in Baton Rouge did in 2016.

Third, to be utterly subjective for a moment, I believe there is much we could learn from our Black and Brown counterparts about how to be better, more empathetic people. Obviously, every person is different, but as a general rule, I’ve found our Sisters of Color to be more caring and supportive than many white women raised in our culture. (And quite frankly, you have to be a better student of humanity when it can be the difference between life and death.) As an extension of that, how can we justify our own demands for equality when we would deny it to so many others?

Last but not least, we white feminists have targeted some specific goals around gender equality over the years, such as winning the vote, but rarely worried about the end goal of what gender equality would actually look like — a polite way of saying that we can be obtusely white and power hungry. The fact is that we are the mothers, daughters, and sisters of white men: we are thoroughly steeped in the ways, workings, and privileges of a long history of white patriarchy. So for many of us, even as we decry the system, our end goal looks a lot like a female version of the patriarchy — a re-layering of the same-old same-old that is divisive and unfair to everyone else seeking the same rights.

It’s hard to envision something different than everything we know, but we need to challenge ourselves to work toward something less patriarchal and more like the nurturing and supportive archetype that women are reputed to represent — something that has us working alongside women of all shades toward the common good, and less concerned with who has more power than whom. Something, in fact, closer to the intersectional feminism espoused by Women of Color.

What would success look like then? Certainly women — of all colors — should have the same rights as men and control over our own bodies; corporate and Congressional demographics should reflect those of the general population; and if a woman wants to be president, then her gender should be a non-issue. But if a pure power push is no longer the epicenter of the equation and we open ourselves up to a consideration of other oppressed groups, then what other opportunities would that free us up to pursue? Could we appreciate the contributions of women (and men) who choose to run the household instead of working outside the home — and might that long-overdue respect buy us more support for feminism? How might we work with impoverished men, immigrants, or LGBTQ People for greater justice for all?

I don’t have all the answers, nor are they up to me. I certainly don’t have the ear of millions of feminists. It is clear, however, that white feminism is a problem, and not just for Women of Color but for all of us. Learning to include, listen to, and learn from our Black and Brown sisters would give all women more bargaining power, increased moral authority, and new ways of approaching the issues that might finally empower us all to achieve the equality we desperately need.

Love one another.

1 Roni Caryn Rabin. “Huge Racial Disparities Found in Deaths Linked to Pregnancy,” The New York Times, May 7, 2019.

2 Maternal Health Task Force at the Harvard Chan School. “Maternal Health in the United States.”

Originally published in OHF Magazine, Issue №1.

What’s Wrong with White Feminism? was originally published in Our Human Family on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

They say
You are
Far too dark
Sometimes too light
Unkempt hair
Everywhere
Features so . . .
Exotic?
Too fat
Too thin
Invisible
Missed by
No one
Not even
A ravenous media

You’re too
Colorful, loud
Overly proud
Angry
Destructive
Sexy
Seductive
Lazy
Crazy
An evil temptress
Get up
Off that mattress
Why did you
Have that baby
Without money
Without sanity
Without even
A baby daddy
Did I say
Angry?

Not good enough
Not pretty enough
Not smart enough
Not white enough
Not subservient
Enough
Put your
Black
Hand
Down

You dream
Of dreaming
Sometimes you
Cannot
Hope
For hope
You pray
(To whom?)
To be loved
To be worthy
To be seen and heard
In the white man’s
Whitewashed
Universe

But late at night
Wrapped in the
Embrace of darkness
You sense the history
The power, the virtue
Running through you
Aminatu
Makeda
Nefertiti
The Virgin Mary
Lineage of royalty
First earthly queens

You are
The genius
Of tracing the stars
Katherine, Mary,
Dorothy and Mae
Brilliance of
Bettye W. Greene
Jane C. Wright and
So many more
You are
Serena’s strength
The fleetness of Allyson
Drive of Simone
Harriet’s valor
You are
The unrelenting
Truth of Ava
The stories
Of Toni
The poems
Of Maya
Respect of Aretha
Talent
Of Shonda
Voice
Of Tarana
Black girl joy
Of Zora

You hold
The heart and soul
Of everyblackwoman
And then some
You are special
You are beautiful
You are
The seeds
The seedlings
The roots
The history
The future of humanity

Originally published in 2020

To All the Beautiful Black Women was originally published in Our Human Family on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In the past couple months I was near a couple of racist incidents involving Black women I know, and the incidents made me angry but also got me thinking about anger and how we deal with it.

The first was while shopping with Aisha, my Brazilian daughter, a former exchange student who’s now at Wellesley College on full scholarship but comes home to us for the breaks. She is very smart, as you might guess, with excellent English skills (she actually contributed an essay to Our Human Family’s Fieldnotes on Allyship when she was just seventeen!), and hopes to be a doctor someday. She’s also super kind, sweet, and bubbly.

Our whole family was shopping at a little boutique near my sister’s house in Illinois, each of us wandering around in different areas, and Aisha was bopping between us, looking at this and that. The store has a wide range of unique offerings, and I typically spend several hundred dollars there when we visit. I was already holding several shirts when my husband informed me that Aisha had left to sit outside and wait for us. It seemed a clerk was following her every step and glaring.

We have four Black Brazilian daughters we’ve gone various places with, and while I’ve seen hints of racism I hadn’t seen anything that overt. I think sometimes our white privilege extends to them, but in this case the woman saw her with us, referring to us as Mama and Dad, as she does, and it didn’t matter to the clerk.

We were furious. We dropped our potential purchases and walked out. Aisha, who has twenty-one years of experiencing racism, didn’t seem as upset as I was, but her sense was that the woman didn’t want her in the store.

We wrote a letter, and we won’t going be back.

The second incident was much scarier, although I wasn’t present. For some background, Earnest M. Lee was a Black folk art painter who grew up near Raleigh, North Carolina (where I live) and worked toward an art degree at St. Augustine’s University, an HBCU in town, until the grant program was pulled. He then moved to Florida where he died relatively young. His widow is friends with one of my besties and I also love folk art, so when she came to town to show his work at St. Augustine’s I had to check it out.

Choosing prints to purchase was difficult as Earnest had been very prolific, and many of them reflected sites in the Raleigh-Durham area, including families, farms, houses, forests, streams, and more. I narrowed my options down to a couple of prints and went up to pay, chatting with his wife Gloria, when I spotted a print that was unlike the others: a building and several Black folks engulfed in flames.

She said it was painted from an old article about the 1923 Black massacre in Rosewood, Florida. I assured her that I knew about Rosewood and asked her if she’d had any issues at showings around Florida. Just one, she said, her eyes turning dark and her voice trembling. Some men in one town told her “She’d better stop showing that painting” . . . and then that night, in 2023, someone burned a cross in the lawn of where she was staying!

The news is pocked with examples of racism, but I hadn’t heard of a cross burning any time recently — and I’ve never talked directly to a victim of something so heinous. It had obviously affected her deeply and she was still hurt and seething. What does one even say, besides “I’m so sorry”?

There’s always been a question of how, or if, even typically decent people understand empathy and others’ pain. Black people often ask why more white people can’t understand how they feel. We’ve all been angry! We’ve all felt pain!

If you’ve only read my essays here in OHF Weekly, you know I feel very strongly about human equity and equality. I will say that seeing racism directed at my daughter, and hearing from a victim like Gloria, really drove it home.

When I get angry, however, whether it’s about racism, misogyny, homophobia, or any other injustice, the response from many people has been, “I can’t listen when you talk that way.”

Why is that?

When a man gets mad, a white man, people stop and listen. The higher his perceived social standing, the more seriously we take his anger. He is passionate! He is earnest! He’s saying something important! Of course, men without the same social clout don’t get quite the same level of due, but particularly men of color. White people tend to have an unjustified fear of Black men in general, and when Black men are angry we tend to get scared. There are racist tropes about angry Black men–Black people, really–dating back to the first days of enslavement.

I know anyone who’s not a white man is typically considered much less influential when angry; I have observed this many times over the years, but studies such as this one from Harvard also confirm it. Black people’s anger is dismissed as “violent” or “uncivilized,” and irate women are considered “emotional” or “hormonal,” but the goal and the end result is the same — to dismiss the person and the reason they’re upset.

Think about the emotional constraints faced by Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama when debating or campaigning. Think about how many Black men have been killed by police because the officers claim to have “feared for their lives.” Think about how feminists have been called “angry lesbians” for several decades. (And yes, the derogatory use of “lesbian” is a whole other level of misappropriated insult.) Think about the fact that there are so many Americans who are dismissive about what happened to Aisha, to Gloria, and to my response.

We all have the right to express our anger. We all deserve to be taken seriously when we are. And we all have the most basic right to express our feelings and perceptions — but then, that means others might have to acknowledge that the injustices that upset us have validity. Maybe Black people and women do have a right to equal pay . . . equal housing . . . bodily autonomy . . . not being followed in a store or facing a burning cross in the middle of the night.

Nobody knows this better than Black women, who are on the receiving end of the obvious double whammy that has arbitrarily placed them at the bottom of the social heap, making “angry Black women” such a common trope it almost sounds redundant. After racist incidents like the ones above, however, white people should all be angry for them instead of at them. Because make no mistake: the people committing those racist and sexist acts are often our friends, neighbors, and family.

Black women in my experience have been nicer and kinder than many people I know, despite the extra burden they carry. So let’s speak up when we hear people perpetuating well-worn tropes, and speak up even more loudly when we see racist incidents.

Sherry Kappel
Our Human Family Managing Editor

Anger, Racism, and Black Women was originally published in Our Human Family on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The latest version of The Color Purple is touted as a “celebration of sisterhood” by some, which is certainly a major theme in the movie, but what still strikes me the most is how sad Celie’s life is for several decades. Unfairly labeled as dumb, ugly, and lazy by her father and then her husband, Celie accepts these labels rather than fighting back like the women around her do when mistreated.

Memes, self-help gurus, and the like will tell you to ignore what others say about you; how you should focus on your virtues and feeling good about yourself. It’s what Shug and Sophia do in the movie and it’s a lovely idea, but the truth is that most of us are influenced by what others say about us — particularly when short, succinct labels are used, and especially when those labels carry sociopolitical implications.

The meaning may vary based on who applies them and to whom. Sometimes they make you feel better, and sometimes worse. They may make you question your values, or simply make you defiant. Oftentimes they’re even self-applied, whether accurate or not. But words are important, and our identities frequently coalesce in reaction to these terms. Having a label makes it seem more . . . real.

You know the words: progressive, liberal, ally, libtard, snowflake, atheist, left-winger, right-winger, religious right, conservative, evangelical Christian, extremist, blowhard, racist, bigot, misogynist, white supremacist, sexist, homophobe, and a few I can’t even type . . . it’s a long list, with new words added regularly.

What Qualifies as “Liberal”?

I am not a fan of labels; as a general rule, I fear their power, but especially that of those listed.

Although I’ve always voted in one direction, I’m a registered independent. As those who follow me know, I’m also not a fan of the term “ally” because too many people do those one or two good deeds and then wear the moniker like a medal forever, a kind of virtue signaling. Being an ally should be an ongoing commitment to helping those who are oppressed or even, at times, endangered, and doesn’t require a label. This isn’t to say you need to commit every waking moment to it, but that one time you spoke out for your one Black friend does not an ally make.

I used to think the term “liberal” was realistic. It requires, at a minimum, generally voting on the Left and supporting individual rights. Believing in gender, race, and LGBTQ equality, if not perhaps also equity, reparations, and the like (which seem to fall more under the umbrella of “progressive” these days — left of the Left, if you will). Liberal means caring about your fellow human beings, regardless of what you have in common, following the example of Jesus and other religious icons, whether the liberal in question is religious or not. Not perfection, because we are human after all, but working to be the best and most fair people we can be.

As the right keeps moving further to the right, however, and as America has become so politicized, people feel the need to declare themselves definitively “right” or “left,” right or wrong, one or the other. Liberal has moved to the middle, and progressive — which would have been labeled common, everyday liberal in the 1960s — is seen as extreme.

Are We What We Say?

The result of these moves disheartens me and dilutes the very heart of liberalism. You can’t really depend on liberals being, well, liberal!

Feminists are a good example. During the “down years” when many women didn’t recognize the continued need for feminism, more of us who continued the good fight also recognized the importance of equal rights for other demographic groups (although it should be noted that feminism in general has a very spotty history in this regard). These days, however, it seems to be simply a selfish concern for the loss of rights we’re currently experiencing:

• When feminist rallies began again several years ago after a long drought, white women shut down their sisters of color.
• Amy Cooper, aka “the Central Park Karen” and self-defined feminist, called the police on Christian Cooper (no relation) for asking that she follow the leash laws — saying ‘an African American man was trying to kill her.’
• Locally, when a Black woman was harassed by the police during a women’s march several years ago, the white women just kept marching on by.

More broadly, I recently read an op-ed titled “This is the Actual Danger of D.E.I.” (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), in The New York Times by a self-avowed liberal that left me angry, fed-up, and full of despair. In it, he professed to support the idea of DEI and decried the ways in which the right is turning it into another “catchall boogeyman,” but went on to spend the bulk of his article lamenting the ways in which “D.E.I. efforts are undermining American constitutional values” as a means to the end — particularly the rights of white, and especially white male, Americans.

I don’t advocate exchanging one wrong for another, of course, but the article was rather one-sided; it felt like the rhetoric about the Right was simply there to cement his position as a “liberal.” He focused on the downside of DEI implementations, vs. DEI itself, and never talked about the good DEI programs do; there was a shortage of comparative statistics. But even worse were the responses from all the self-defined liberal New York Times readers — well educated people who vote to the Left, but who couldn’t manage to find anything good about DEI. Some said simply, “Great article. It needs to go away”!

Let’s Try to Do Better

I imagine there are several reasons for labeling oneself liberal when it isn’t very accurate, virtue signaling among them but also trying to do better. Unfortunately, we can’t see our blind spots very well.

So what’s the solution? Although I dislike labels, they do have constructive purposes, and I don’t think it would be possible to do away with them even if we wanted to — humans are hard-wired to assign words to make sense of our world. But we can be kinder, gentler people when assigning them. Americans have become very vitriolic when talking to and about the “other side,” and nobody is setting a good example. Many of us on the Left have become the very things we’ve been accused of at times (I know I can be very mean). Most of us have good and bad in us, but if we focus only on the bad in someone, it makes it harder for them to evolve.

Beyond that, we need to be more honest with ourselves. I don’t know where one would draw the line between virtue signalers, liberal wannabes, and actual liberals (or liberals vs. progressives), but we can all do better.

There is a ton of great information out there about racism that most white people don’t know much about; read up — starting here with articles at Our Human Family, books in our Reading List on OHFweekly.org, or what our authors say elsewhere! Then (and only then) have open conversations with your Black friends where you listen to their concerns and their reality. Rather than focusing on your retort to a feminist, hold your ego back long enough to listen and learn why they feel the way they do. Try to imagine just how hard it still is to be gay or transexual in our society; look at the homeless and suicide rates. And even though white men are at the top of the patriarchy, most of them are struggling too.

It may be a cliche that honey works better than vinegar, but it’s no less true and we’ve lost sight of that. Let’s worry less about the labels and more about the messy, complicated people behind them.

Love one another.

Sherry Kappel
Our Human Family Managing Editor

Liberals, Allies, and Other Misnomers was originally published in Our Human Family on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Everyone has a strong opinion about what is happening in the Middle East, and very few are open to discussion. “Hamas is a terrorist group.” (Okay, no one really debates that one.) “Netanyahu is a terrorist.” “Israel has the right to defend itself.” “Palestinians have been living in apartheid conditions for years.” “Jewish people deserve reparations — i.e., Israel — after the Holocaust.” “Palestinians didn’t deserve to be thrown off their ancestral homeland.” And on it goes. Anyone who disagrees is the enemy, even if they’re neither Israeli nor Palestinian.

But what if they’re all right?

As someone who grew up in a Jewish neighborhood and has extended Jewish family, I am sympathetic to their history and the repercussions. Many have horror stories, many have lost family members in the worst possible ways. I’ve been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. And I used to walk past the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh every day, where there was a mass shooting several years ago. Even in America, Jewish people can’t ever feel safe.

I also have Muslim and Palestinian friends. One in particular, a sweet, soft-spoken sixteen-year-old exchange student when I met her several years ago, is now a college student in Canada but the rest of her family just fled their home in northern Gaza. Back when she was here, we went to a baseball game followed by fireworks and she made an off-hand comment that was one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard: “Sounds like bombs.” Not scared, not upset, just nonchalant — because that sound was part of her existence. And yet Palestine had not been officially “at war” with Israel for quite some time at that point; this is just life in everyday Palestine.

I remember when I was young, a Jewish American friend was preparing to serve in the Israeli army because she felt it was her responsibility as a Jew. I asked her to explain the conflict. A fair and educated person, she walked through the history in detail, noting that “Palestinians have a lot of valid points.” And yet she felt the need to support Israel.

Since then, I’ve heard many narratives — some fair, most less so, many of them brutal.

There are More Than Two Sides

In any given situation, most people have divided everyone involved into two groups, although that generally means stuffing quite a lot of people into a box where they don’t really belong. Israel vs. Palestine. Israel vs. Hamas. Israelis vs. Palestinians. Jews vs. Muslims. Jews vs. Arabs. Anti-semites vs. anti-Muslims. Liberals vs. Conservatives. Progressives vs. Liberals. Hawks vs. Doves. Yahweh vs. Allah vs. God. I could go on all day.

To many, voicing the horror of genocide is to be anti-Israel, and anti-Semitic. To worry about the hostages is to be anti-Palestinian or even anti-Muslim. The simple act of tearing down the hostage posters here in the U.S. is to choose a side, risk being blasted on the news, and potentially even be expelled or fired from your job. Jewish- and Muslim Americans here have been targeted due to the war over there.

In reality, there are lots of Israelis who don’t agree with Netanyahu. There are plenty of Palestinians who are anti-Hamas. Jewish Americans advocating for peace in the Middle East. Muslims who are anti-violence as a central tenet of their religion.

What About Gray?

It would be very nice and neat if everything fit neatly into two buckets. Right vs. Wrong. Day vs. Night. Black vs. White. It would be really easy to figure out who the good guys are and pick a side.

The problem, as suggested above, is that you end up with two buckets bulging with people who don’t really belong in either. And because we’re so fixated on right vs. wrong, we tend to entirely dismiss everyone in the “bad” bucket, even if half the people in either bucket are sitting squarely between the two. Do we really want to negate Israelis who are, say, against the occupation, or Palestinians who simply want to live in peace? Or half our fellow Americans, who, to be quite honest, don’t know jack about the history of the region anyway?

Beyond the unfairness and the arbitrariness of it all, here is what happens when we boil it down to two buckets. We yell at each other. We hate each other. In the case of Hamas and the Israeli military, we literally bomb each other nonstop, murdering thousands of civilians, including small children and babies, unwilling to even acknowledge these are war crimes against humanity.

What we don’t do? We don’t listen to each other. We don’t mourn the others’ losses, as human beings should all do. We don’t consider compromise or look for solutions. And so it goes, on and on and on and on. Israelis and Palestinians have been fighting since the day Israel was established seventy-five years ago, and it shows no signs of ever ending short of complete genocide.

Are we not all gray? Can we not do better?!

This Isn’t Just Gaza or Hamas

This is Humanity.

It’s a funny thing. Americans have a tendency to consider everyone in the Middle East extreme and therefore bad. When someone (really, anyone other than our ally Israel) commits a barbaric act, we label them terrorists: the Taliban, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Al-Qaida, Hizballah, Boko Haram, the PLO. We shake our heads in sorrow at Russia versus Ukraine. India versus Pakistan. Everything in Syria, Nigeria, Afghanistan . . . the list is long. “Over there,” there are people who don’t belong to any of these groups; people just trying to survive. But they’re not as newsworthy and we tend to forget about them. Everyone “over there” is a terrorist.

In America, we come up with more palatable names. Lone wolves bomb federal buildings, commit mass murder in Black churches and grocery stores, and patriots storm the Capitol Building. Terrorists are brown and Black, they have accents; but that shooter was just Joe and Suzy’s boy! He may be a little off, but he don’t mean no harm by it! So he and his friends, they’re Proud Boys. Boogaloo Bois. Oath Keepers.

Somehow, we white folks struggle to call the worst of the worst white boys in America terrorists, but if a group of Palestinians does something bad, we condemn all 2.3 million of them. By that logic, are we not all guilty of storming the Capitol? Do we not all bear responsibility for every mass shooting?

If anything, we do the opposite when it’s a white guy. He was a loner. He was mentally ill. We may even feel bad for Joe and Suzy, who are good Christians. Whiteness? What does that have to do with anything?

Divisiveness Kills

Hopefully we can all see the hypocrisy of condemning others based on their demographics, while finding loopholes for our own. When we divide people, intentionally or deliberately otherwise, people die. We blamed a country for Al Qaida, and innocent Iraqis died. We say Ukraine is corrupt anyway, and people die. We blame a country for Hamas, and Palestinians die. We ignore the faults of our own demographic, and Black people die. Immigrants die. Gay people die. Capitol police die.

The problem is only getting worse as the world becomes more authoritarian and one of the tactics of authoritarian leaders is to drive fear of difference. Different country? Bad. Different religion? Bad. Different skin color? Bad. Different political beliefs? Bad — and not just bad, dangerous! It’s no wonder that the pundits talk about World War III and people keep buying more guns.

We all need to break free and think for ourselves before more people die. We need to figure out empathy before more children and babies die. How are we similar — do we not all have the same hopes and dreams? The vast majority of us just want to find love, earn enough money for food on the table and a roof over our head, be healthy, raise a family. Where we were born and the color of our skin mean little in comparison. And, if we can find the humanity in each other, can we not find solutions to our issues or, at the very least, compromise?

Love one another.

Sherry Kappel
OHF Weekly Managing Editor

The World Is on Fire was originally published in Our Human Family on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This spring, I set up a thirty-seven-gallon fish aquarium.

I’ve been raising fish for a while. I got goldfish for the mantel several years before grad school, and I’ve had a betta there since I got married over thirty years ago. Bettas generally live by themselves, so there isn’t much to learn about them — nor are they very active. They simply hang there most of the time looking gorgeous, and last for several years. I’ve named them all after athletes, with my current betta being a purple stunner named Brent Burns, a hockey player for the Carolina Hurricanes.

My daughter got a ten-gallon tank in high school and then left it behind when she went off to college. It was a rather murky, algae-filled tank, high schoolers being what they are, and I set about making it clean and comfortable for her remaining fish — mostly a variety of silvery tetras. When one would pass, I’d buy another, because we all need friends, right?

I grew very fond of the little guys, as one might guess from my background with fish, and eventually decided they needed a bigger home and more visibility than my daughter’s room tucked upstairs. It’s so peaceful and beautiful to watch them swim back and forth, seemingly floating in and around the plants and such. The new aquarium is in our bedroom and visible from the living room chair where I work from home.

It’s been a learning experience.

In reading up on aquarium care, I learned that new tanks needed to “cycle” — i.e., build up “good” bacteria before moving the fish in. I also studied up on the different types of fish, adding live plants, dealing with algae, the many versions of filters, the hows and whys of water changes, nursing a sick fish . . . and have practically earned a chemistry degree sorting out the chemicals one might or might not add (helpful hint: snails don’t like any additives other than slime coat, and if the package tells you it’s fine, it’s not).

All my fish are tetras, but there are hundreds of tetra types and I have five or six. Some look substantially different from the others, ranging from one to three inches and in black, silver, white, orange, and even neon red and blue, but I’ve always viewed them as kind of the same. They’re not really, though, and although they mingle well enough (the tetras at least — not all fish!), some require some of the same to form schools.

This transfer from tank to tank . . . it’s not as simple as plucking them from one and dropping them in the other. In addition to needing good bacteria, there are half a dozen other factors I test the water for regularly. Also, the temperature change. Who knows what else? Most of my larger fish, although several years old (they live to five at best), have made the transition. The neons and snails? Not so well. (Turns out, everything that says “safe” means safe for all but snails!)

I’m finally at the point where they’re all thriving, but it’s been traumatic. It’s heartbreaking and nerve-wracking to find a friend floating lifeless every other day. Even worse, I’ve learned that even friendly fish will eat a companion when it becomes ill. Bad enough to realize the count has gone down; worse to find pieces of a friend who’d been swimming happily not that long before. I was greatly depressed and considering giving up when the tide thankfully turned.

Not Quite a Vegetarian

Like many young people when they really start equating cows with beef and pork with pigs, I declared myself a vegetarian in high school. Unlike most, I still try to keep my meat eating to a minimum, although my rather carnivorous family has limited my success. (And I do believe in the circle of life, but we need to be responsible stewards of our place on this earth.) I have found a variety of tofu dishes they actually like, and we minimize the red meat in favor of chicken and fish.

All of this came crashing down on my bleeding little heart, though, the last (thankfully!) time I found a half-eaten fish in my tank. Unlike the previous victims, this one still had a spine and ribs. It still looked way too much like the little fish I loved and fed just hours before, and . . . way too much like my own dinners.

The Boxes We Build

So what does all this blabber about fish have to do with anything?

This may seem hard to believe but, even though I know so damn much about them, I’d never really equated the beloved floating pets in my various aquariums with the tasty and nutritious fish I’ve served. To those who don’t raise fish, that might sound silly, but it’s the kind of crazy mental gymnastics we do to make quick decisions, gloss over hypocrisies, and get through life.

Not all boxes are bad, and in some ways they’re a necessity. Indeed, one might view them as applied learning. We see or hear or experience something in the moment that we then extrapolate to a broader group amongst whom we see similarities. If we see BMWs driving rather recklessly, as one tends to in my neck of the woods, we eventually become more cautious (and perhaps a little irritated!) around them. It might be an unfair assessment of every BMW we pass, but it keeps us safe.

Sometimes, however, these boxes can conflict with each other. We see this a lot with political affiliations. The right will point out inconsistencies in leftist ideology (think, for example, about white feminists not supporting their Black sisters) and then call them hypocritical; conversely, the left will point out the hypocrisy of, say, supporting a fetus’s right to life but then not supporting them once they’re born. Again: mental gymnastics.

The same thing happens around “fact” vs. “opinion.” We convince ourselves that the things we want to believe are “facts,” often simply because our tribe says they’re so, while people with whom we disagree are merely expressing (erroneous) “opinions.” I remember when the neighbor of a friend posted something on Facebook that was, well, ludicrous to me. I pointed out, as nicely as I was able, that it wasn’t actually true and included a link to Snopes. Her reply? That it didn’t matter if it were true or not — it was plausible enough that it could be true.

The Bigger the Box

To all but the most dedicated vegetarian, the inconsistencies in my relationships with fish are quite trivial — perhaps even amusing. My friends are certainly amused by my views of BMWs, especially given the way I drive (uneasy grin). When we get to political views or fact vs. fiction, the need for a more consistent worldview becomes much more important.

Far worse, even, is when we put people in boxes — and worse still when these boxes are used to hurt the inhabitants. You might remember when the body of Alan Kurdi, a two-year-old Syrian refugee, washed up onto the beach in Turkey, Americans were horrified and outraged. Less than five years later, when almost-two-year-old Angie Valeria washed up on the shores of the Rio Grande with her father, many Americans simply said, “they had it coming; it was illegal immigration.” The situations couldn’t have been more similar, but people put them in different “boxes” based primarily on their countries of origin.

Now? Texas has put barbed wire in the Rio Grande to deliberately hurt those who’d attempt to cross. Their box is officially “less than people.”

Little Pink Houses

Hopefully you’ve made the connection by now to racism, racial equity, and racial equality.

Far too often you’ve heard (or, if you’re white, caught yourself saying) something with an implicit “for a Black person” at the end of the sentence. “You’re so smart (for a Black person)!” “You’re so articulate (for a Black person)!” “You’re so well dressed (for a Black person)!” It’s also the basis for telling that one Black friend or coworker, “You’re not like other Black people!” Of course they are; they’re simply not like the speaker’s idea of what Black people are–the invisible box that defines them.

As with poor little Angie Valeria, white people have different expectations for folks in the People of Color box than they do for other white folks. When a couple of different teens I knew were caught with illegal drugs, lawyers were arranged, lessons were learned, records were expunged (because they’re kids! No need to ruin their future!). But when Philando Castile was stopped for a taillight and might or might not have been high, it was appropriate to shoot him dead? Similarly, Michael Brown.

Even when white folks are sympathetic, it’s a seven out of ten at best. When Dylann Roof killed a room full of Black parishioners, sure, we were sad, but we didn’t weep and wail and call out en masse for an end to white supremacy. When George Floyd was murdered, white people finally marched but they couldn’t be bothered to investigate the systemic racism in our justice system. What happened to George was wrong, but to some it wasn’t as wrong as the murder of a white person. Even when we white folks think we’re responding sympathetically, it’s subdued.

Of course, these boxes are as old as enslavement. We didn’t allow Black people to be educated, then labeled them intellectually inferior. We bound them and beat them, then said they couldn’t be trusted when they tried to run away. We sold their children and now we accuse them of not being responsible to their families. If someone did any of these things to white folks, we’d immediately be appalled.

Even as these less-than boxes continue, we’re creating new ones as fast as we can. Progressives, socialists, woke people, fascists, climate deniers . . . the list is long and ever growing, and we add them to another less-than box, unable to learn any lessons from our racism.

The next time a Person of Color, an immigrant, a gay person, a woman is mistreated or upset, pause to think about your reaction. Would you be more likely to believe them if they were white / straight / male? Do you look for reasons to blame the victim? Is your sorrow somehow less than? And if so, why?

The truth is, like my fish and my fish dinners, we all create boxes and they often collide. We are complicated, messy, and inconsistent beings. But these boxes we so easily and unconsciously put people in are dangerous and frequently lethal. We have to develop the moral fortitude to interrogate our reactions, expose the contradictions, and treat all people as . . . people.

Love one another.

Sherry

I imagine most of us have a few insecurities of one type or another — as well as a few transformative events in our lives that can raise us up or knock us to our knees. Oftentimes we may know that we’re perfectly fine on an intellectual level, but it’s still hard to convince ourselves emotionally when the world says otherwise.

Genetics (“nature”) is certainly a factor in who we are. But there is also a whole lot of “nurture” that goes into who we become, whether the world shapes us or we shape ourselves in defiance of the world.

My parents were born during the Great Depression, my dad never went to college and my mom didn’t finish until after three children, yet I am sure they meant it when they told us kids we could be anything we wished if we put our minds to it. There was the assumption that we’d go to college and possibly further, regardless of gender.

When I think about everything I’ve been given that enabled me, though, it would be hard to dismiss my whiteness — a false construct of race that has been far less kind to the Black community.

Of course, as much as parents would like to believe otherwise, a parent’s influence wanes a fair bit when we start school and the other kids like us or they don’t, the teachers call on us or not, the subjects come easily or we struggle. We might be decent athletes but few are Olympians, and yet that’s the standard too often held up: “Work harder. Don’t you want to be Simone Biles?” We play a chord or two on the piano, at which point someone mentions Carnegie Hall.

It’s not enough to build some coordination and learn to be a team player, or have an ear for music; one must aspire. And even if you’re a star sprinter or you can play all of Beethoven’s concertos, those don’t compare to being the starting quarterback or the lead singer of a rock band. There’s a hierarchy to everything, and it all goes into who we become as adults and where we go from there.

I have been blessed, I dare say, with as much as one could hope for in life with middle-class roots. I could not be a Kardashian, even if I wished, but we’ll come back to that. Certainly, this life has had ups and downs, but again — it’s been good enough. When I think about everything I’ve been given that enabled me, though, it would be hard to dismiss my whiteness — a false construct of race that has been far less kind to the Black community.

Some white folks claim racism went away when enslavement ended after the Civil War, while others point to desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement. (Any Person of Color knows neither moment came close.) Still, others have some sense of the impact of redlining, unjust justice systems, gerrymandering, and other inequities that continue today.

The effects of systemic racism on Black children and their opportunities in life cannot be underestimated. Although experts say the rate of illegal drug use is similar across racial lines, the laws and their enforcement are stacked against Black folks, a major factor in a third of all Black males experiencing incarceration and with longer sentences . . . which means cutting the income of an affected household in half . . . kids without a father figure . . . a mother who’s often absent as she struggles to pay the bills. A disruption of the family dynamic for a generation.

Then there’s housing, where predatory lending, racist home valuations, the housing bust of 2008 (which hit Black families far harder than white ones), and biased selling practices make homeownership financially difficult or out of reach for even most two-parent households. Less housing options often relegate Black children to tighter quarters, more frequent moves, sometimes less than ideal neighborhoods, and frequently in places with issues like contaminated water, lead paint, and other environmental hazards.

Clean water, some space of one’s own, and the ongoing presence of a father are more than just “things” one does or does not have. One can’t just work around them. Imagine, if you will, having a single mom who must work during most of your waking hours, dangerous streets, pests in the home, moving more often than you see your father. Sure, it’s a worst-case scenario, but not uncommon. Imagine, if you will, how much time a child in those circumstances will have to devote to schoolwork. How much encouragement or support they’ll receive. How hopeful or confident they’ll feel.

And these are just some of the more quantifiable effects of systemic racism — the stats that should alarm anyone paying attention.

Now let’s think about “the talk.” The effects of having to tell a child, whether rich, middle class, or poor, that “officer friendly” — as the schools sometimes call them — is to be feared and mistrusted, because they hate your skin tone. That in the eyes of someone society sets on a pedestal, you are not worthy. That you will be followed every time you walk into a store.

Let’s think too about that school experience. My husband taught at urban schools for many years, then at a school where poorer kids were bussed in — the same schools my daughters attended. While we were driving our kids, some of their classmates were spending hours on a bus every day. I heard how the Black children get called on less often in class. How teachers would shake their heads at how “loud” these children were. How their lunches were often less than nutritious. How they’re encouraged to excel at sports and nothing else. And ironically, the kids who “caused problems” were given a free pass because the schools are afraid of being publicly accused of racism; however, it also tells the child they aren’t worth saving.

. . . we can even help the banking and auto industries, but heaven forbid we help those we’ve hurt (are hurting) the most.

There’s more . . . a shortage of Black dolls . . . a lack of dark-skinned models and actresses . . . the click of a car lock when a Black person walks by. And more. Plenty more . . .

What is a kid, a mere child, but a human being and a contributing member of society in training, to make of all this? How is a kid supposed to develop a healthy sense of self-esteem, to rise up with so few of the basic supports I enjoyed, and in some cases many less? What if the village is unwilling to nurture? What will that child pass on to his or her own children?

Americans — especially white Americans — love to talk about “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps,” often in reference to the impoverished or Black-on-Black crime, oblivious of the advantages they’ve had as white folks. Why can’t “they” do better? Without acknowledging “they” are also us. We can help our farmers, we can help our college kids, we can even help the banking and auto industries, but heaven forbid we help those we’ve hurt (are hurting) the most.

Why don’t poor white folks “pull themselves up”? And if we go back to the Kardashian example, why don’t those of us who are middle class “pull ourselves up” to be a Kardashian, an Elon Musk, or Bill Gates? Because it isn’t that easy.

Just as it’s hard to pull yourself out of poverty if that’s all you’ve known (especially if you’re treated as less than), it’s just as hard to make yourself rich. It’s a different education, it’s differing expectations and support, it’s what you inherit, it’s who you know, it’s money growing money. Sure, some people manage. The Black community as a whole has done a remarkable job, all things considered, but that doesn’t make it easy.

Racism hurts. Obviously, it hurts Black people and other People of Color the most. Side note, it also hurts white folks’ ability to be the best people we can be. It hurts our country’s reputation and our future. But most of all it hurts the bright-eyed Black children, many of whom still dare to dream but must either succumb to the weight of generations of inequity or climb mountains to overcome it. We can and must do better by them.

Love one another.

When “Nurture” Is Anything But was originally published in Our Human Family on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Editor’s Letter

Our Human Family is all geared up for an excellent discussion about racial equity, allyship, and inclusion, and we hope you are too!

Our session:

Saturday, Aug 12, 2023
10:30 a.m. — 11:00 a.m.
Register in advance.

If you’d like to help make America — or really the entire world — a better place, this is the session for you, and we have some wonderful panelists.

William Spivey is an absolutely amazing historian and social commentator you should already be familiar with and following. Really, everyone should read him in Florida and across the country. He does meticulous research, he includes the good, the bad, and the ugly, and you can trust him to tell the truth. You might not like what he has to say sometimes, but he’s a highly reliable messenger. If you want to know how something really went down, start with William.

Terra Kestrel . . . wow, what a writer. I’ve had the pleasure of working with her on a couple of projects, and she is brilliant, funny, warm, and empathetic. Although she has been writing less for the moment at least, she was one of the very first people I read on Medium many years ago, pulling me back to the importance of being an antiracism advocate. She’s an excellent resource for thinking about the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality, as well.

You almost certainly know Clay Rivers as editor-in-chief of Our Human Family — a caring and motivated person who is dedicated to the fight against oppression of all types. What you might not know is that he knits and bakes, he’s absolutely meticulous, he takes good care of his mom, he used to be Donald Duck (seriously!), and he’s a funny, silly, religious, thoughtful, generous, and sometimes grumpy but always affectionate person I’m proud to call my friend. Also? He’s an excellent public speaker! You won’t regret tuning in.

Aaand, there’s me, Sherry Kappel. I’m just an aging white woman who cares a lot about humanity. I’ve always enjoyed diversity, whether it’s in the food I eat, the places I travel, or the friends I’ve accumulated, so I’ve surrounded myself with an exquisite rainbow of human beings. My only requirements for friendship are honesty, integrity, and caring for other people, which cross all demographic lines but are sometimes sadly in short supply. I guess I fall in the “ally” bucket (more on that below), and I’ll be happy to help answer any questions about allyship you might bring to our session.

Seriously, Not an Ally

If you’re a Black person or other person of color, you probably have a lot of opinions on this topic already!

If you’re a white person who’s interested in racial equity and equality, you probably know there are categories, or names, for people who are working to make a difference.

One term I’m seeing more and more of is “antiracist” or “antiracism advocate.” What I like about it is that it doesn’t differentiate between people of any color (which is not to say I don’t see color!); I’ve heard people of every background and shade refer to themselves this way and I’d like to think of antiracism as a shared goal even if there’s a shortage of white folks on board. I also prefer the addition of “advocate” because it’s more active — it means (or should mean) the person is actively doing something to improve the situation.

The term you hear more often is “ally,” which applies primarily to white people who are working to support the cause. It’s the most popular term, which is why I used it above, even though I am not a fan of it! It’s a great word on the surface, and who doesn’t want to have allies, but it suggests that the problem of racism belongs to Black people and we white folks are just helping out. Wrong: racism is a white problem! We invented racism, we perpetuate it, we’re the majority of the population with almost all the power, and so we’re the only ones who can end it! We’re not helpers, we are the problem and we need to be the solution. We. Are. It.

Black people are helping us by providing the education and sharing their experiences!

Beyond that, it seems to me that way too many liberals wear the word like a merit badge without really doing anything. (It’s for this very reason that while Black folks encourage people to be allies, they don’t trust us very much. We show up on occasion with pretty signs when the cameras are rolling, then disappear back into the woodwork when the going gets tough.) Antiracism efforts should be an ongoing effort — lifelong, really — or, better yet, way of being.

Let’s think, in fact, about better ways of being. When we imagine our friends and family, we (ideally, at least) see them as mutually nurturing and supportive relationships. We don’t, for example, label ourselves “a great sister” and then do nothing to earn it. We wouldn’t stand silently while someone bullied our brother. We help our children learn and grow in the hope that they’ll have a bigger, better future than we did. We go out of our way to help our friends, and it doesn’t even matter why they need it; we don’t look at them and say, “Bummer you got hurt but I wasn’t driving,” or “Bummer you got cancer, glad it’s not my problem!” And we wouldn’t just show up when they had the cancer, they would know that we’re dependable in case they got cancer.

We need to start thinking about our Black and Brown friends the same way when it comes to racism. If we’d stand up for a white friend when someone talks down to them, we should stand up for our Black friend when they’re confronted by a racist. If we’ll go to bat for our kid when their apartment complex tries to take advantage of them, we should be willing to argue with a realtor who lowballs the price of our Black friend’s house or has an issue with showing them a house in a white neighborhood. And if someone we love questions our motivations and causes us to dig deep into our psyche, we should do the same when a Black person points out that our opinion is tinged with racism.

The issue of racism is always the lone outlier. I know a lot of otherwise wonderful white people who can’t acknowledge or even see the racism in their views, let alone support a Black friend who’s dealing with racism. I believe that those who mean to do well are so aghast at the very idea of racism they’re unable to address it. And many of these same people would call themselves allies.

Despite reading about and focusing on racism for many years now, my opinions continue to evolve and I continue to refine my thoughts on allyship. What are your views? Where would you agree or disagree? My main concern is making progress against this disease that has harmed so many innocent people and is tearing apart America. If you are able to attend our panel talk, let’s discuss!

Love one another.

Sherry

Medium Day Is Almost Here! was originally published in Our Human Family on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Editor’s Letter

Politics have become a major topic of discussion the past few years but we don’t always talk about how, why, or even if people vote. According to Census.gov, sixty-seven percent of Americans voted in 2020; this is a five percent increase over 2016, but still means that one-in-three of us didn’t vote.

My ten foreign daughters (former exchange students) hail from five different countries and they’re all appalled at our voter turnout rate. The Pew Research Center says that even though our turnout has soared in recent years, we still rank thirty-first compared to other countries. Considering that we pride ourselves on our “democracy” and not every country allows some or all of their citizens to vote, that’s rather sad.

Lots of Reasons

The reasons for low voter turnout are myriad.

People at the poorer end of the spectrum — disproportionately Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) — often can’t take the time off from their job to vote or struggle with transportation, child care, etc. This is exacerbated by legislatures that deliberately make it more difficult with gerrymandering, limited polling hours and locations, mail-in ballot restrictions, and more.

Some would-be voters are simply disenfranchised. “None of the candidates really represent me.” “My generation doesn’t have any say.” “My one vote won’t matter.”

On the one hand, I get it. On the other, it aggravates the hell out of me.

Based on the results of the 2016 election, in which the winner of the popular vote lost the election, it’s difficult to believe that everyone hasn’t been affected by some aspect of the changes since then. The Supreme Court now has a super majority. BIPOC, women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, and other groups (i.e., the majority of the population) have all taken a hit to their rights and freedoms, and it’s quite likely to get worse. And, we endured a pandemic that was almost certainly exacerbated due to all of the misinformation from top officials.

As we teeter on the edge of fascism, there is a lot at stake right now and quite possibly the existence of America as we know it. Voting is a privilege we need to exercise! But beyond the question of if someone votes, it’s important to ask why they vote the way they do.

Decisions, Decisions

In these sharply divided times, it’s easy to think we know why people vote as they do: on the one side, it’s common to believe that the other side consists of only racist, sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic evangelicals who hate everyone but themselves. It’s also a fact that evangelicals only comprise twenty-four percent of the population and their numbers are waning, so it’s more than just that. The majority of Americans believe in some reasonable level of access to legal abortions. Most white people do not believe they’re racist (and most men probably don’t identify as sexist), and it seems unlikely that they all look for a racist (or sexist) candidate. Some still believe in smaller government, states’ rights, and reduced spending (as opposed to “handouts” in their view).

On the other side, a lot of conservatives think of liberals and progressives as immoral atheists, communists, and socialists with too much money and suspect education. They are prone to believing an assortment of accusations that would have many believing liberals are criminally suspect in myriad ways. Many fear people on the left wish to take away their “freedoms,” particularly their guns, leaving them defenseless. They find liberals too controlling of the economy, big business, climate control, etc. They feel like civil rights have gone too far. Those on the other side of the aisle are not tough enough on crime, and law enforcement doesn’t receive enough support. They see the other side as anti-democracy, even though we know the reverse to be true. I will say this: we’re all imperfect.

Obviously it’s all more complex than what we see on the surface. Lies, disinformation, and disillusionment are also factors. Lobbyists pay to play, billionaires bankroll campaigns behind the scenes.

So how does one decide?

Sadly (to me, at least), some people consider themselves lifelong Republicans or Democrats and simply vote accordingly, often voting straight ticket while remaining clueless about the issues. I’ve known people to complain bitterly about issues their own party is responsible for!

The “lifelong” part is especially problematic given the socio-political shifts over time. During the civil rights era, for example, the parties essentially changed sides; and since then, the entire country — both parties — have taken several big steps to the right. What we call “progressive” now was really quite moderate in the 1960s. For that matter, we shift as individuals, as well! Some people who were all about “peace and love” back in the day, altered stances as their nest egg grew. (Why do people with lots of money work harder to protect it than those who have little?!)

There are numerous problems I won’t go into with what is basically a two-party system, but a big one is this: it forces politicians and voters to go along with all sorts of things they might not otherwise, to support a few issues they care about most (or what’s more likely to get them elected…grr!). It splits the public into two big buckets that have been stoked to fear and hate each other when we might in fact agree on many things. Instead, it just makes us “other.”

For all of these reasons and more, I’ve been a lifelong independent. I’ve found it’s important to look at each candidate as an individual and select the one I align with most, regardless of party affiliation. There are some vast divides within each party; surely you don’t agree with all? On rare occasion there’s even an interesting third-party candidate who idealist-me finds appealing, although pragmatist-me gives in to support a candidate with a more realistic chance of winning, instead.

Another common approach that drives me a little crazy is voting the same way your friends and family do. I mean, seriously — do you agree with them on everything?! I wish I had that kind of influence!

I remember one of my daughters’ friends complaining about the anti-abortion movement, but freely admitting she was voting for the same party pushing it because “that’s how her family votes,” and even though her dad sounds rather racist and sexist when she is not. For her, “going with the flow” took all the work out of voting, even if it meant going against some of her own interests.

Another way people often vote is for a single issue — they feel so strongly about that “one thing” that it eclipses everything else happening in the world. This is, in my humble opinion, crazy. How can you be, to go back to the previous example, anti-abortion and yet also anti healthcare, anti prenatal care, anti childcare, anti school lunches, anti education, anti gun laws . . . and dare I say not racist, since these issues hit Black women the hardest?!

Yeah, I thought so.

Your Empathy Could Save Us

The way I try to vote is, strangely enough, one we almost never hear anything about: for the good of the country and the majority of the people in it.

For example, many people have been convinced that universal healthcare is “socialism.” As a cancer survivor with decent math skills, I know for a fact that a single diagnosis would wipe out the savings of the average American family and send many of them reeling into bankruptcy even as they struggle with life and death. Although I might have the money to get through it, it would be unconscionable to ignore the plight of millions.

These same people are the most likely to get hit by a hurricane or tornado, but they don’t believe in climate change.

Statistically, an AR-15 is more likely to hurt its owner than help.

LGBTQ folks have a crazy-high rate of suicide.

And systemic racism is embedded in everything and killing our future — and by “our,” I mean it is killing America.

One can argue all they want or ignore these things as they wish, but the facts are irrefutable. I may be empathetic but I’m also data driven. Interestingly, a quote recently popped up in my feed that describes my view pretty clearly.

“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible for the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.” —Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry is an eccentric southern novelist and activist with whom I’d agree on some things while disagreeing vehemently on others, but he nails one important point: we need to consider what’s best for everyone. After all, what is the point of a social construct like voting if we don’t think about the greater good?!

Clay Rivers, my charming editor here, was surprised to hear about my moral compass when it comes to voting: Black women. But let me tell you, Candace Owens aside, these ladies hang tight! (Black men come close.) To be very clear, they do not vote on party lines, because their friends say so, or any of that stuff. This is because their lives depend on it. Their children’s lives depend on it. Their livelihoods depend on it.

And so, too, does America’s future.

One might argue that Black people are only thirteen percent of the population, and Black women just half of that, but what is good for them is good for Brown people. For Indigenous people. Gay and trans people. Muslims. Jews. Really, all women. And believe it or not, white men. Taking care of the people we white folks have oppressed the most means less prisons, less poverty, more jobs, a stronger economy, stronger nuclear families, bigger hearts, nicer neighborhoods, and better human beings across the board!

It’s Up to You

At the end of the day, there is no one in the voting booth but ourselves. Not the GOP or the Democratic Party, not our families, not our friends or our pastor. Only we know for sure how we’ve voted, and we must live with that decision. So please, take the time this coming year to listen to what all the candidates say, look at their records, watch the debates, talk to people from all different backgrounds (not just those in your neck of the woods).

And if all else fails? Have a serious conversation with some Black church ladies — they’ve got it going on, and America desperately needs their insight right now.

Love one another.

Sherry Kappel
Our Human Family Managing Editor

How Do “You” Vote? was originally published in Our Human Family on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Every American not living under a rock is aware that the Supreme Court killed Affirmative Action last week. But what you might not know is how devastating this is to the Black community. The court’s ruling destroys one of the major pathways to opportunities that also lead to a higher quality of life for Black Americans: a quality education. This tells Black people yet again how little the justices think they matter in this country. What too many white people fail to understand is not only how unfair this ruling is to Black Americans, but also how it hurts white people and America as a whole. Some may think they’re “winning,” but there are no winners here.

Another Step Back

At Howard University in 1965, shortly before colleges began using race as a part of their admissions criteria, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson stated the reasoning behind affirmative action: “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.”

Since then, despite this logical explanation (and long overdue support for Black folks), white people have fought tooth and nail to kill affirmative action — and they’ve finally succeeded. Sadly, the writing was on the wall, given the current far-right makeup of the Supreme Court.

Of course, as the media is quick to point out, race will continue to be a factor, by any other name, in college admissions. The decision doesn’t preclude the inclusion of race in an applicant’s essays, for example. And many universities recognize the value of a diverse student body. Some have already started doing things like removing standardized testing from their criteria, which had benefited the middle- and upper-class, and considering a combination of income and geographic diversity. This is basically race-based admissions thanks to our continued segregation and inequities in housing, hiring, and public schools… . (i.e., all the same reasons we needed affirmative action!).

Make no mistake, though: this decision does hurt the ability of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color to attend college, and push them further away from already inequitable employment opportunities. This is a step backward from eradicating America’s sins of enslavement. This is continued racism. This is privilege and white supremacy at work. The Supreme Court decision is saying, “We don’t see color” — which, as any Black person except Clarence Thomas can tell you, means the exact opposite.

This Isn’t Just About Fairness

All of my Black friends are upset, as they should be. America tells them every day and in every way that they don’t matter, but one still hopes against hope that an august body like the Supreme Court will do better. While full reparations are too much to dream of, Black people might retain this small drop in the bucket of equality. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson summed it up thusly:

“With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life. And having so detached itself from this country’s actual past and present experiences, the Court has now been lured into interfering with the crucial work that UNC and other institutions of higher learning are doing to solve America’s real-world problems. No one benefits from ignorance. Although formal race-linked legal barriers are gone, race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways, and today’s ruling makes things worse, not better.”

White people? Pretty damn quiet.

Historically, as a fellow white person, I’ve heard it all too often: “Slavery ended over a century ago! I’m not racist, but it’s not fair that I, my child, my friend, my neighbor, or anybody who’s white doesn’t get accepted and they do, just because they’re Black! If I’m smarter, I should get the spot!”

Before we get to it’s not fair, let’s start with if I’m smarter. There seems to be this crazy misperception that as soon as Affirmative Action started, universities rushed down to the nearest Black high school and said, “C’mon, y’all! This is your lucky day!” regardless of grades — while tossing out the applications of thousands of brilliant little white kids. Race was simply “A” factor, along with grades, test scores, essays, life experiences, and whose daddy was an alumni (which probably wasn’t the Black kid’s).

Universities aren’t stupid. They want to look good, they want a diverse population because it makes everyone there better people who can function in a mixed world, and they know it’s in their best interest to select kids of all races who will thrive — smart, talented kids who are driven to succeed. So they look at all the criteria. Add to that that Black people are a much smaller part of the population with very few rich alumni daddies, and the simple fact is that if a white person didn’t get in it’s because the Black candidates who did were better regardless of color.

Suppose this was about fairness, though.

• Was it fair to kidnap millions of people from their homes, never to see their loved ones again?* Fair to make them work long hours in brutal conditions their entire lives?
• Fair to rape their women and lynch their men?
• Fair to sell their children, never to know what became of them?
• Fair to keep them from reading, and reduce their chances to be educated even now?
• Fair to drive them from town — or worse — whenever they managed to be successful?
• Fair to charge them more for house loans, while depressing the price of their houses?
• Fair to keep them from voting, even to this day?
• Fair to pull them over more often, search them more often, shoot them more often, and give them higher bail with longer sentences?
• Fair that, to this day, the assets of the average Black family is only one-tenth that of the average white family?!

This ruling is about so much more than improving Johnny or Susie’s chances of going to their preferred school. The racial inequities are such that we white people shouldn’t even be able to use the word “fair.”

I am Personally Grateful for Affirmative Action

Beyond the importance of affirmative action to Black people, diverse interactions are critical for all students, and to the future of our country. We do not generally live together, we don’t work together, we don’t socialize much; and when we do, we rarely have meaningful conversations about race. Our best hope for interacting and opening minds is through our children and the education system.

As a child of the Civil Rights era and relatively forward-thinking parents, I was in favor of Affirmative Action but I had virtually no exposure to Black, Indigenous, or People of Color growing up. The one exception was a group of Korean friends in high school, but even then, we didn’t have discussions about race till I lived with some of them in college.

As for Black people? As an undergraduate, I’d see them hanging out together at the Student Union, but Black and white students didn’t interact (this was the ’70s when Affirmative Action was still barely a thing). By the time I went to grad school, however, in 1990, I was able to take Black literature classes, and for the first time, enjoy an array of friends who didn’t look exactly like me or share the same exact upbringing. I heard new perspectives, I learned new ways of thinking, and I gained a more nuanced understanding of our history and culture.

Yes, some of my friends were almost certainly there because of Affirmative Action, and incidentally, they were the best students in the program. And because they were able to be there, I became a better person.

My two bio daughters worked hard and got in almost everywhere they applied. If they hadn’t though, it wouldn’t have been because a Black kid did who was “less than.” My two Black Brazilian daughters (former exchange students) are brilliant. One got a full ride at Wellesley and Dartmouth, but was rejected at fifteen other schools. The other will be starting graduate school in Brazil soon, having been rejected at every American school she tried. I can assure you that she would have outperformed the majority of students here.

The truth is that half the country is so excited to be “superior” that they’re destroying our entire country. But you can never lift yourself up by pushing others down. We need to support the Black community to raise up all of America, and killing Affirmative Action is a giant step backward.

Love one another.

Sherry Kappel
OHF Weekly Managing Editor

Ending Affirmative Action Hurts Everyone was originally published in Our Human Family on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.