Modern Violence and Modern Repentance

My mother and me. We're not great at taking photos, so awkward selfies are what we have.

My mother said something this holiday weekend that hasn’t always come completely easily to her lips: “I’m sorry.” But that could sound wrong. She’s never had difficulty apologizing if she did something wrong in the moment, like stepping on someone’s toes. In those situations, she could easily acknowledge the mistake, and try to make amends. That part has never been in question.

This time, she apologized not for something she did momentarily, but for something she believed over the long haul. It occurred in the context of describing an adventure I had when, a week before Christmas, I drove into Kansas City to attend a concert. She expressed admiration for my ability to remain calm and even-headed driving on some of America’s worst urban highways, something that’s always terrified her.

“I’m sorry for holding you back,” she said. “I’m sorry for projecting my fears onto you. The conflicts of big-city living were always so intimidating for me, I know that when you were younger, you wanted the kinds of experiences that only happen in big cities. That scared me so badly, and I projected that onto you, and I know that sometimes held you back. And for that, I’m sorry.”

My parents grew up in small, close-knit Nebraska towns like Ogallala and Hay Springs, amiable communities where people knew and trusted one another. Mostly. For those willing to conform themselves to community standards, Nebraska can be an inviting, friendly place. But Nebraska has also sometimes been intensely violent. When we returned here in 1992, Nebraska was also an overwhelmingly White state. And that, my friends, has never been a coincidence.

For all her willingness to embrace new experiences, my mother never particularly needed to interact with diverse communities until well into adulthood. Until my father commenced his Coast Guard career when they were approaching thirty, they’d lived in a succession of small- to medium-sized towns with White Protestant heteronormative populations. That limited experience with diversity continues to influence her thinking to this day.

Though registered Republicans, my parents hold distinct egalitarian views, at least on a person-to-person level. They believe racism, sexism, and economic injustice are wrong, and need redressed. But until recently, they saw these problems as essentially individual. They saw racism, for instance, as an individual White person dropping an N-bomb in public; when it comes to populations, they rationalized away practices like redlining and racialized mass incarceration.

Riot police in Baltimore, Maryland, April 27th, 2015

When confronted with entire neighborhoods, many more populous than the towns they grew up in, that were functionally segregated along racial, social, or economic lines, my parents faced a society that remained deeply unjust. And, like most White people, this injustice reflected on them. This created a deep moral disquiet within their souls, as you can imagine. But unlike today, they lacked a framework to understand this disquiet.

Today, we often describe practices like redlining, unequal educational access, and other forms of half-legal racism as “violence.” Same for sexism, genderism, and other forms of exclusion. I think my mother unconsciously recognized this violence, but lacked the terminology to understand it. Therefore, faced with the perception of violence, but no clear bloody noses, she perceived the violence as directed against her.

It’s easy to pooh-pooh the defense of “it was a different time.” Some White Protestant heteronormative people in past eras understood injustice on the ground, so anybody, the reasoning goes, could. But that’s like saying all Black people could overcome racism because Oprah did. Not everyone has the intellectual framework, moral backbone, or community support to escape their social context. My mother deplored unfairness; she just couldn’t always see it.

Therefore, to restate: my mother saw and understood that living in diverse American cities, driving the crowded city highways, and taking the economic risks to pursue an art career, as violent. Because, at least on a psychological level, it was. But because she couldn’t clearly understand who caused the violence, and who was on the receiving end, she internalized the violence around her.

A lot of White people probably did this, and believed, not unreasonably (in that context), that the violence was directed at them. As parents do, they wanted their children to avoid the crushing psychological pain of violence. Therefore they defend what limited privilege comes from a society that defines Whiteness, Christianity, and heterosexuality as “normal.” They arguably aren’t malicious; they just don’t see their part in the violence.

My mother only wanted to keep me safe. Unfortunately we can only remedy this violence by acknowledging it, walking into its source, and challenging it where it lives. At her age, my mother can only repent her part in perpetuating this violence. I’m still young enough to take responsibility and walk into the fire. In a very real way, her apology gives me the freedom to do so.