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I have not dared to travel outside of North America for almost 10 years. Let me be clear - I haven't had the cash or the need to leave North America, and 10 years without international travel isn't exactly something to whine about. What I mean though is that I couldn't conceive of it; I couldn't let my mind imagine my body elsewhere. Cash was one reason, another was that I have wanted to understand the upsurdly huge country I was born in before I expanded my brains too much. But guilt was the biggest reason that I couldn't imagine international travel. Internalized colonialist guilt. Shit's real. Allow me to explain.
I have been terrified of what it means to travel, as a United State-ian (what is the word for that? there is no word for that! only more colonialist-whiffing "american!" WTF?!?). How could i possibly eat authentic local food, when the words authentic+local+food are probably in a new McDonald's ad for McRibs, coming to a puebla near you? I was frozen with fear of extracting resources, cultural, spiritual, and material. Of furthering a well-worn pattern of American self-centeredness ("All the world is my oyster!").
I have been stuck in a stasis of guilt.
This is stasis, cause guilt doesn't do anything. It is an important stage to go through, cause it's so very sad what has happened in this world and it shows some useful empathy to internalize it just a touch. But guilt, in my case, has resulted mostly in fear and motionlessness. It has gone on too long. It was well intentioned, yay, awesome, but guilt doesn't change the screwy importation patterns and misplaced government spending; it doesn't undo cultural shame and imported diabetes. For me, guilt damned my learning about these issues to paper only. Without real engagement, all I could do was read zines and get mad, get more guilty. That is an elite, detached sort of learning that leads to out-of-touch non-profits. It was so obvious to me that to learn about helping the earth, I needed to get my hands into it. Why did my desire to heal some of the United State's international impact convince me that the best thing i could do was stay silent and as far away as possible?
I bring up this issue because I think it has pretty darn broad implications. People have guilt because they are cis-gendered men so they freak out and leave the room when rape is discussed. People have guilt because they are not a person of color so they start sweating and panicking as soon as they're the only white people in the room. This guilt has important roots, but it is distracting us from the work at hand. It is distracting us from the reality that oppression is not the end of the story. Oppression is the first step on the path to liberation, a path which we must actively create. No one else is going to do it.
I am asking, of me, of you, of your cat if that is somehow applicable, to take your tinges of guilt as an invitation. Here are some loose steps:
- Look at your guilt-moments closely. Those are teaching moments. They are telling you what your shadows are; they are telling you what boundaries your soul is secretly aching to press up against. This is not easy work! Guilt comes cloaked in many guises - you may feel offended, attacked, isolated, defensive, bored. Learning to identify when guilt is at play may take awhile.
- Press into your guilt - ask questions of those who trigger guilt in you, be humble, research more about the sources of your particular guilt. Read some history. Be honest about what you do and do not know. Mostly, mostly mostly mostly, listen.
- Be an ally. Talk to those cis-gendered dudes friends about what you've learned, talk to other United States-ians about what you heard. Help bring these topics out of the shadows. And, following all that most deeply satisfying listening you've been doing, see how you can help. No, you don't have to found an organization, but maybe you can contribute to efforts that are already underway.
This is serious healing work. In this gloriously changing universe, it seems we need to look at our wounds and our burdens, look at them honestly, and embrace the pain of healing. It will be uncomfortable. It will make you cry. It will situate you in the community of life and transform stasis into freedom. Change comes from tiny itty bitty individual actions - don't doubt the importance of this work, even if it seems self-involved. Everything that flows from it will be far stronger, wiser, and kinder.
So anway, I'm in Puerto Rico right now. Of course I start my international exploration by diving into the belly of the beast and landing in a modern-day colony. I have no grasp of what's going on. I'm only at the beginning of asking my questions. But in this quiet space of listening I can feel minute layers of my silence and ignorance evaporating.
I still have no answers, but I am no longer afraid to look for them.
