As the performance of "The Invisibilty Project" in SARUS festival fall eqinox draws near I am becoming more and more deeply affected by the sheer volume of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations that I have been holding and exploring for the last year and a half. My Facebook newsfeed has been trained to send every internet article on white privilege, cultural appropriation, and the effects of racist propaganda to my overwhelmed eyes everyday. I sometimes want to squeeze my eyes shut and pretend that we have fixed this already. I long to be transported to the ever elusive "kumbayah" moment when all the races live together in harmony seeing each other for all their fullness of strength and vulnerability. I long to be comfortable. Isn't this what we all want? We as the white community rail against the white supremacists and the Neo Nazis that have emerged from the shadows in recent months because their visibility has shattered our ability to believe in the comfort of having moved past our shameful history. We want so desperately to believe that "we are better than this". We want to render our white privilege invisible. We want to personally be able to lay it down and take it up again at will like some invisible accessory without acknowledging the institutions and history that has made it more like a tattoo. A tattoo that is all too visible to my African American peers who feel the effects of these legacies in every aspect of their lives. They cannot and should not deny and minimize these realities any more than a victim of domestic violence should. In my field of social work when we encounter a battered and bruised woman do we tell her that she has not been hit? That she must have imagined it? Of course not. Yet we look at our African American co-workers, neighbors, and business owners who bear the wounds of racist ideologies at work in our society and claim that nothing has happened, that "we are better than that". How they must desperately long for that to be true so they can finally begin to heal from the intense anger, frustration, and sorrow that comes from being on the receiving end of centuries old violence. How they must long for true safety. No matter what we tell ourselves, no matter how much effort we exert to obey the old adage of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" we cannot escape the fact that our American history of racism and oppression has shaped how we see ourselves and those around us. There is a first appraisal, a first, almost involuntary, visceral response that occurs when we encounter someone who looks like our ancestors' respective slave or master.
In the 1890's the residents of Wilmington tried to move forward, tried to forge ahead and past their own "kumbayah" moment and their horrific failure lives in the Port City's current institutions. Those of us who live and work in the city feel it. We don't always know quite what to call it but we feel it. Throughout the process of making "The Invisibility Project" the cast has had many difficult conversations regarding this phenomenon. We have tried to honor our initial responses, staying with what happens in our minds and bodies before we tell ourselves it's not ok to respond that way. We have committed to remaining authentic with one another, knowing that we cannot move forward unless we are honest about where we are. My only hope is that the audience will be willing to follow our lead, for while it is messy and uncomfortable it is more than worth it to conquer the cognitive dissonance of our ancestors that led to the massacre of 1898. This is so very important. For as the current propaganda ramps up, if we don't take a deeply honest look at ourselves and make changes in our hearts and minds we will be destined to fall right in the footsteps of the previous residents of the Port City and the river will again be plagued with our dead.
In the 1890's the residents of Wilmington tried to move forward, tried to forge ahead and past their own "kumbayah" moment and their horrific failure lives in the Port City's current institutions. Those of us who live and work in the city feel it. We don't always know quite what to call it but we feel it. Throughout the process of making "The Invisibility Project" the cast has had many difficult conversations regarding this phenomenon. We have tried to honor our initial responses, staying with what happens in our minds and bodies before we tell ourselves it's not ok to respond that way. We have committed to remaining authentic with one another, knowing that we cannot move forward unless we are honest about where we are. My only hope is that the audience will be willing to follow our lead, for while it is messy and uncomfortable it is more than worth it to conquer the cognitive dissonance of our ancestors that led to the massacre of 1898. This is so very important. For as the current propaganda ramps up, if we don't take a deeply honest look at ourselves and make changes in our hearts and minds we will be destined to fall right in the footsteps of the previous residents of the Port City and the river will again be plagued with our dead.
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