Nathan Phillips, Omaha Elder vs. white supremacy and toxic masculinity
This story is not about me.
But, peripherally, it touches my experiences in ways that have been, for me, incredibly unsettling.
My FB is my space, and while I have endeavoured to keep the focus, as much as I can, on Nathan Phillips and his calm in the face of provocation, on his expression of STILL BEING in the face of the descendents of those who slaughtered his people and millions of other peoples, there are things I need to say for me in addition to that.
I have been just as guilty as anyone of dismissing these boys as products of Kentucky, of The South.
But I also want to show maps. Covington Catholic, which is just outside Covington, KY, is latitudinally NORTH (based on latitude) of St. Louis, Missouri. It's a mile from Cincinnati OH. These are not Southern Strongholds. My own bias that The South holds a corner on vicious racism, anti-Semitism, and sexism is exaggerated. Based on my experiences, I don't believe my perception is utterly wrong, but I know it is exaggerated.
I live in Chicago. I've never had an address that was not in the state of Illinois. But Illinois is longer than most know. I grew up 2 hours south of St. Louis, only 45 min from the nearest parts of KY (closer as the crow flies). But parts of Kentucky, including Louisville, including Covington, are significantly north of where I grew up. And the southern mentality ascribed to Kentucky (by me and popular assumption) was just as strong in the southern third of Illinois.
My near-south/mid-south upbringing exposed me to toxic male cruelty and indifference. These boys, their stances, their faces, their expressions...they look like the kids I went to school with 40 years ago. This teen's smirk just CREEPS me out beyond what I can express. It makes my skin crawl. And for good reason: these are the people I grew up with. These are the kinds of people who hurt me, often. These are the kinds of behaviors still passing for "boys will be boys" in the town where I no longer live.
It's not that nothing has changed. Things are better in many ways and in many places. I moved to an urban area much farther north. However, *where* things haven't changed...they SO haven't changed. And where those changes haven't advanced as much as they have in cities, the pressure from the areas that are doing better by women, by people of color, that pressure makes this pushback from those still mired in their sense of entitlement and supremacy even more desperate. And desperate people were scary and dangerous from the pressures they felt in the 70s and 80s.
That kid's face...it made me *shiver* in place. I am afraid of people who smirk like that.
Nathan Phillips is a hero to me, for standing between black men these boys were targeting, for offering up healing to unwilling and uninterested kids because it was right, for proving his survival and presence calmly and with love in the face of an overt threat. His healing did not seem to touch these boys (at least, not yet...I do have some hope). But his healing touched me, and his bravery gives me a droplet more courage of my own. This entry was cross-posted at https://amilyn.dreamwidth.org/845703.html.
But, peripherally, it touches my experiences in ways that have been, for me, incredibly unsettling.
My FB is my space, and while I have endeavoured to keep the focus, as much as I can, on Nathan Phillips and his calm in the face of provocation, on his expression of STILL BEING in the face of the descendents of those who slaughtered his people and millions of other peoples, there are things I need to say for me in addition to that.
I have been just as guilty as anyone of dismissing these boys as products of Kentucky, of The South.
But I also want to show maps. Covington Catholic, which is just outside Covington, KY, is latitudinally NORTH (based on latitude) of St. Louis, Missouri. It's a mile from Cincinnati OH. These are not Southern Strongholds. My own bias that The South holds a corner on vicious racism, anti-Semitism, and sexism is exaggerated. Based on my experiences, I don't believe my perception is utterly wrong, but I know it is exaggerated.
I live in Chicago. I've never had an address that was not in the state of Illinois. But Illinois is longer than most know. I grew up 2 hours south of St. Louis, only 45 min from the nearest parts of KY (closer as the crow flies). But parts of Kentucky, including Louisville, including Covington, are significantly north of where I grew up. And the southern mentality ascribed to Kentucky (by me and popular assumption) was just as strong in the southern third of Illinois.
My near-south/mid-south upbringing exposed me to toxic male cruelty and indifference. These boys, their stances, their faces, their expressions...they look like the kids I went to school with 40 years ago. This teen's smirk just CREEPS me out beyond what I can express. It makes my skin crawl. And for good reason: these are the people I grew up with. These are the kinds of people who hurt me, often. These are the kinds of behaviors still passing for "boys will be boys" in the town where I no longer live.
It's not that nothing has changed. Things are better in many ways and in many places. I moved to an urban area much farther north. However, *where* things haven't changed...they SO haven't changed. And where those changes haven't advanced as much as they have in cities, the pressure from the areas that are doing better by women, by people of color, that pressure makes this pushback from those still mired in their sense of entitlement and supremacy even more desperate. And desperate people were scary and dangerous from the pressures they felt in the 70s and 80s.
That kid's face...it made me *shiver* in place. I am afraid of people who smirk like that.
Nathan Phillips is a hero to me, for standing between black men these boys were targeting, for offering up healing to unwilling and uninterested kids because it was right, for proving his survival and presence calmly and with love in the face of an overt threat. His healing did not seem to touch these boys (at least, not yet...I do have some hope). But his healing touched me, and his bravery gives me a droplet more courage of my own. This entry was cross-posted at https://amilyn.dreamwidth.org/845703.html.