Sensory overload + emotional triggers + inadequate coping ≠ preferred and productive environment

So, in the wake of a tumultuous week, I find I have “fifty million” thoughts in my head yet I have nothing to say. Ah...the irony of it all.

That’s not entirely true, I do have a lot to say…it just seems everything wants to come out at once.  I want to be heard.  I want to be understood.

The gerbils have been racing through my cognitive map-maze trying to make sense of, cope with, and draw from familiarity, in the days since the curtain closed on the 2016 Presidential election.  But there is absolutely nothing familiar or preferred about this environment. This chaos is definitely not an environment I chose to create nor chose to be in.  Hundreds of acute stressors trigger upending emotions and terrifying memories for which I find few coping mechanisms for. Terrifying because life's structure is becoming less and less coherent, the complexity of the social (national) environment is overwhelming, legibility brings up distinctly unpleasant memories and, under these conditions, I dread exploring the mystery of the looming future.   Herein lies the crux of my turmoil. 

It’s a fact; I’m a product of the 70’s.  But, I’m truly a child of the 80’s…when expression was measured by how high your hair was and phone service was limited by the length of its cord.  

It was during the early 1980’s when I experienced my first bit of racial terror; although, at that time, I had no idea what it meant.  

Originally born in Flint, our family lived a short while in Ann Arbor so my Dad could attend the U of M’s School of Engineering. I remember meeting really cool people-bonding because of our differences in color or language.  Cognitive maps were created through all of the fascinating experiences and adventures of trying to find common ground.   I was a bit sad to leave Ann Arbor to head back to the Flint area….to Grand Blanc, which translates to “Great White”.  I later learned it was originally named because of the expanse of bare, snow-covered landscape the French settlers encountered – not the prediction of an awesome 80’s hair band. 

I also later learned the subtlety of the city and its namesake.  I vividly remember sitting on the bus heading to school one morning as it was making all of the stops around our Blue Collar neighborhood (we always joked it was “the other side of the tracks” in Grand Blanc because the central part of Grand Blanc was considered "the rich side").   You could feel it first….the evil emanating from some unseen source.  Then it came into view as the bus prepared to stop to pick up Diana (name changed), the daughter of one of the first and few black families who came to live in Grand Blanc in the early ‘80s.   Diana wasn’t there, though.  And her house told the story as to why.  Spray painted all over it was the letters “KKK” and pictures of swastikas.  And hanging in the trees were the tattered remnants of charred fabric.  I remember the tears streaming down my face all the way to school.  And I remember not really realizing why….I just knew it was evil. 

That’s my earliest recollection of experiencing racism.  This presidential election has triggered the same response and caused a meltdown of my very psyche…leading me down a cognitive path I never ever wanted to revisit.  This time, however, I cry and I know why.  I understand racism is a reality but it is one that does not exist in my reality.  And let me tell you why….before anyone cries “White silence is violence” or “White privilege” affords me that luxury. 

In many of the classes I’ve encountered, the same theme keeps popping up; “we must re-frame our language so the populace can change their anthropogenic behavior and combat climate change”.  (Although I wholeheartedly argue and believe anthropogenic behavior only influences the rate of climate change and no “battle” will ever “defeat” climate change – it’s going to happen regardless of human influence.) If we’re schooled on re-framing language to reach out to the preferred “rational actors 2 and 3” for this behavior change, we can apply that notion to this enormous thing called racism. 

Let’s define racism first to familiarize ourselves with what racism truly is defined as.  

• “rac·ism, ˈrāˌsizəm, noun. The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.   Alternatively, prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.” (English Oxford Dictionaries, 2016).

I am not a racist.  I absolutely know this with every part of my being and would never support someone who felt this way.  As of late, though, I’m shaken by seemingly “familiar” people (my friends and acquaintances) voting for someone who acts in ways which support and perpetuate racism.  I would like to believe many of the people we love and have friendships with would not support that either.  But many did. I can’t control the actions of others…they are walking the different paths of their own unique cognitive maps. 

As this Nation is currently very focused on racism and sets foot to a path with a divisive future, segregation of all people increases; leading to increased inferiority and superiority complexes.  At the moment, I feel very inferior.   And I also feel this path is leading (me especially), away from what I "came here to do" environmentally and artistically.

I have been considered racist as of late.  According to many non-white people, I’m condemned to that fate because I was born in white skin.  But I have to believe racism serves no evolutionary purpose and therefore racism hasn’t evolved generation to generation in anyone’s DNA.  Nor is it "automatically wired" into our cognitive maps from birth; since we develop our maps from repeat experiences.  

On an emotional level, I’m really grappling with this.  The only coping skill I can turn to is to “numb out”.  I have no cognitive map, no experience to draw from on how to deal with this personal accusation.  I've certainly had prejudices held against me, but I've never been considered something so abominably evil.

And numbing out is a very interesting coping mechanism.  I believe, as a society, we have effectively created generations of completely desensitized individuals.  How could we not?  Again, a child of the ‘80s, I remember when Tipper Gore succeeded in leading the charge to warn of “explicit” lyrics on albums (albeit, explicit differed greatly ‘back then’). There were, and still are, cries of censorship and First Amendment injustices involving her “Parents Music Resource Center” warning label.  And I remember all too well when the Nation was graced with “The Faces of Death” movies - “Your senses will be numbed when you witness actual footage of a human barbeque….”.  Why. Why do we need to numb our senses?  Why do we need to engage in activities that promote the numbing of our senses? We should be outraged this was available! We should be outraged that numbing of the senses is encouraged! Look at the consequences today! 

I hear people saying, “Oh, give the president-elect a chance, don’t be so bitter your candidate lost”.  OMG.   I try not to have a non-rational temper tantrum.  It’s not about losing….like a game of Monopoly or something.  It’s not about giving trump “a chance”.  It’s about completely overlooking and accepting a leader who has actively demonstrated hateful, negative, racist, misogynistic, and prejudiced behaviors.  The same language and behavior that would warrant a PMRC warning label on a music album!

I’m a Libra.  I need balance.  I need Peace.  So, how do I achieve this?  I truly don’t know. 

But I do believe a true stance against racism starts with restructuring our language instead of being prejudiced about a white person for what is perceived as inaction on inequality.   This is applicable to promoting pro-environmental behaviors, as well. We must stop using language perpetuating segregation of any sort.  I know it begins by not looking at a situation as “us” and/or “them”.  And I struggle with this minute by minute….facebook post by facebook post.  Even the safety pin movement, of which I have several laid out on my dresser but have not donned.  I wanted people to know “I wasn’t necessarily ‘with her’” but I’m definitely not “with him”.  Then I thought it might make me a target of some sort of president-elect supporter meting out justice in the name of their führer.    

So, alas, I find myself struggling with the “day to day”.  I had replied to Erin’s blog, “No sleep for the weary”, mentioning how my personal clarity has become very clear over the last week. But it’s certainly not helping to cope.  My individual exploratory assignment explores 6 methods of mindful meditation.  Even though it is meant as deeply restorative, I feel this is going to take a ton of directed attention…at a time I’m deeply attention deficit and fatigued.   But maybe that's the coping mechanism I need.  I am open to trying...and, perhaps in my next blog assignment, I will be a little more focused, a little more grounded and a lot less defensive.  It’s a choice, I know.  In the gracious words of Mother Teresa, “If you want Peace, then focus on Peace”.  

References:

English Oxford Living Dictionaries.  2016. Retrieved               from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/racism.  2016 Oxford University Press.

Humanscape, Chapter 7, Stress and the Failure of Preference, pp 194-199.
Humanscape, Chapter 8, Coping strategies: Choice and Control, pp 324 - 330.

Kaplan, Richard, Stephen Kaplan, and Robert L. Ryan "Some human characteristics," in With People in       Mind: Design and Management of Everyday Nature.  Washington, DC: Island Press, 1998, pp 7-16.

Lecture on Evolution and Human Information Processing, 09.12.16

Lecture on Rationality, 10.24.16