It's Not My Fault

That’s correct.  It isn’t.  No matter what the topic.

When people are talking about institutional and systemic inequity and racism and are asking you to reflect on your own privilege, you might hear blame.  You might not like how you feel hearing the word, especially how it relates to you, and resist.  After all, you are progressive and want —possibly even have worked for civil rights.  It isn’t your fault.

Or maybe you haven’t thought about it much until now, but how could it possibly be your fault?  You were just arbitrarily born white, you have never obviously discriminated against people of color —at least to your knowledge.  You have black friends (real friends) and/or have donated to black causes.  How could it possibly your fault?

Having this conversation in the context of blame will be super challenging.   Because it isn’t  your fault.  

Yet you have contributed to the issue.

You and I and all of us must be willing to consider how we have contributed to the system we have now.  We must be willing to take a look at how we —even unintentionally, play a role in the distress that our black and brown friends (and not friends) might experience in systems of justice and government based on power-over where they  have very little power.  And we must consider our own contribution to those systems.  

The easiest and perhaps the only ways to do this is to stop looking for whose fault it is, or someone to blame.  Once we are able look at the situations we face outside of blame there is just curiosity and information.  In this context we can talk about anything.  If you really want the world/USA to be different then dropping out of blame and shame is required to have the conversations necessary to build something else.

I made up an example to help us think this through:

I invited friends over for dinner.  We had a group of 6 and I was doing all the cooking.  These are people I knew pretty well, yet they didn’t all know each other and I was excited to have them meet each other.  I asked if there were food considerations and didn’t hear back that there were.  I made a homemade onion dip with crudité to begin, and then a delightful lasagna with Caesar salad and garlic bread, made with my homemade butter.  I ordered dessert from the great local bakery.  Some sort of chocolate mousse cake.  It was all very delicious.

I discovered the day after my gathering that one of my friends didn’t really eat much because she was on a vegan diet and there wasn’t much for her at my dinner.  Yes, there was crudité.  And yes, she had a bunch of celery and carrot sticks.

Inside the blame/shame game, I could blame her (and I absolutely want to so I don’t have to feel bad (shame) because she didn’t let me know.  I felt justified in my menu planning because she didn’t tell me.  It wasn’t my fault.  I was good.  Or was I?  I still felt bad.  My mind was going from I should have made something for vegans (blame myself) to she should have told me (blame her).  It was exhausting to think about.

If I could literally drop out of blame and shame thinking and consider the needs of both my friend and my own, then I could invite a different conversation and a different outcome. And find connection again with my friend, who I am basically mad at for not telling me.

Identifying my own needs I was attempting to meet by making the dinner:  comfort, fun, nourishment, shared reality, friendship (belonging).  Some of these may have been met and others not so much.  Plus now knowing she didn’t want to eat at my place, without me knowing why, other needs are showing up for me:  honesty, care and understanding.

Identifying my vegan friend’s needs by coming to dinner:  fun, nourishment, shared reality, friendship (belonging).  Again, some needs may have been met, others not.

Taking the step to connect to what the needs are offers me/us an opportunity to talk more freely about what happened with a new purpose —getting needs met!  I make the call; “Hey Leslie, I am feeling a bit sad because I made a meal last night that I now realize you weren’t able to eat much of.   I was hoping that we would all have fun and be nourished together.  I sent out an email asking you to let me know if you had food concerns or limitations, or specific guidelines you were following.  When I received your reply, I didn’t read anything about that.  I’m wondering if you missed that, or if you didn’t, if you will share with me why you didn’t mention that you were vegan.  Will you talk about this with me?”

Inside the conversation she revealed to me that about a month ago, she overhead me saying to another friend something like, “that I understand how challenging it might have been for my mom to make holiday meals when I was vegan because she wanted everyone to be happy yet it made her life more difficult considering making more dishes.”  My friend didn’t want my menu planning to be difficult.  

Hearing this from Leslie, I have identified how I contributed to the situation of my friend not eating, and both of us having an experience where some of our needs didn’t get met.

I will likely have a variety of feelings acknowledging this.  I feel happy because my need for understanding is met.  I feel regret/sad that something I said contributed to a friend not wanting to speak up and share what was important to her.  I feel happy because I know that my friend cares about my need for ease.  I feel sad that my need for ease came at the cost of honesty and connection.  

And now that we had the initial conversation, I am going to consider how I showed up in our relationship (whether implicitly or explicitly) that she thought it better not to tell me her truth.  How I contributed to the situation.  If I want her to be honest, and feel safe, and speak up, then this is required.  

This whole example is to demonstrate how to have a conversation outside of blame and shame, and very much steeped inside the needs curiosity and responsibility.

Back to the current events of systemic injustice we are trying to navigate.

I have contributed to my black friends having the experience of less than, or not mattering likely in more ways than I can possibly imagine.  Whether I think it, like to think it, I must have.  I am a part of it.  Probably you have as well.   Additionally, there are lots of people of color so each one might experience me differently.   I will be considering my responsibility in the systemic story, and my contributions to my friends who might be black/brown as well as people I don’t know, yet come in contact with every day (people on the street, clerks in stores, or the bank, people who I employ, or work with, or work for).

Here’s a short list of I am thinking about:

1.  I am white.  When people of color see me they may automatically think, I don’t trust her.  I haven’t even given this one thought.
2.  I am white.  I have different literal experience of the world in terms of rights and expectations.  I haven’t given it much thought.  Or maybe I have, and feel bad, yet have not taken much or any action to make things different.
3.  I have grabbed my purse close when walking by a group of young male people of color. 
4.  I haven’t asked my black/blown friends how they feel coming to my place?  Do they feel safe in my neighborhood?  Do they feel content in my home?
5.  I have shopped at Amazon for books, when I might have gone to the locally owned/person of color owned bookstore.

Likely this list will continue to grow.

The point of this blog is to help us to understand how we contribute can only be explored outside (or at very least next to) the BLAME/SHAME conversation.  It’s the way to having conversations (like the example above) where we can talk about our needs freely, accept responsibility (again, not blame), and make new choices that serve our values and meet everyone’s needs more effectively.  Leading to feeling powerful enough to support the changes required in our culture.  Not to mention talking things through this way is often deeply enlivening, and connecting, and enriching and nourishing.  

 It actually feels good.