Category: FALC

I am listening to a Memoir "Educated" by Tara Westover. In it she mentioned the side of the oppressor, when someone is looking for equality.

Now, as unreal as this may seem, the way she said it had me looking more at the oppressors than at those seeking equality.

The oppressors ARE the ones who have reduced the equality in the lives of those seeking it. 

Whether it be disabilities, color, gender, sexual orientation, the oppressors ARE the ones who are withholding equality.

This changes the way I see the world.

And, who most often are the oppressors? 

The majority.

Tara was raised in a very strict mormon fundamentalist family. Where her education was to be the oppressor.

I would have to say that I too was raised to oppress.

Raised that we were the right ones.

The subtle,or not so subtle, way I was raised to feel that white was better or that heterosexual was the only 'normal' and that christians were going to heaven etc, schooled me to be the oppressor.

Being raised this way, you can't see the oppressor, because it is you. 

You only see those who are trying to make you wrong.

The reason we don't want equality, is more about making us wrong than the equality of others.

Each time we give up parts of our education in rightness, the less we know who we are.

It is humbling to realize I am the oppressor.

That some of my old beliefs held equality from others.

Here is the definition of Oppressor – "oppressor meaning: someone who treats people in an unfair and cruel way and prevents them from having opportunities and freedom."

I know I have touched on this before, but it was in but one way I was raised to oppress and I didn't see the broader education that I was raised in.  How it has inadvertently made me a champion of inequality.

I didn't feel the depth of equality.

The steep hill some are made to climb, is due to how the majority has schooled its children. The legacy of this is handed down generation upon generation. And, in my case, the church is still going strong. There are huge families still passing on the blueprint of oppression.

I am not sure those who have been relegated to the lower level of equality can ever work hard enough to change this.  What has to happen, which is highly unlikely, is for the majority to see their own wrongness.

To give up being right, the only church, the only race, the right sexual orientation and to adapt the inclusive mindset.

It goes against the whole teachings of the church. 

What would happen if they were not the only ones going to heaven, or maybe if there was not a hell? What would happen if they were to include all manner of loving, and if humanity was one?

What would there be to protest IF the oppressors were not standing there blocking the way?

Get rid of the oppressors and peace happens.

I know many feel that they are blocking and defending something pure and whole. They believe they are the peace keepers, the ones who are protecting the land from ruin.

Instead they are actually the cause of discord.

Who would Martin Luther King have to march against if there were not Oppressors?

He had to march, for the oppressors blocked his equality.

I have not a clue how to change the oppressor's minds.

How many marches must there be?

Can enough victims come forth and break their silences?

How many laws have to be written in order for equality to win?

If you can't see the oppressor, you may be it.

If you are not marching, you may be the oppressor.

If you have no rights to fight for, you may be the oppressor.

Interesting to sit with.

And, I am sorry for my education, for it taught me to un-naturally oppress.

Brene Brown goes on to say, in her new book "Braving The Wilderness" – about dehumanizing.

"Challenging ourselves to live by higher standards requires constant diligence and awareness. We're so saturated by these words and images, we're close to normalizing moral exceptions. In addition to diligence and awareness, we need courage. Dehumanizing works because people who speak out against what are often sophisticated enemy image campaigns – or people who fight to make sure that all of us are morally included and extend basic human rights – often face harsh consequences."

"An important example is the debate around Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, and All Lives Matter. Can you believe that black lives matter and also care deeply about the well- being of police officers? Of course.  Can you care about the well- being of police officers and at the same time be concerned about abuse of power and systemic racism in law enforcement and the criminal justice system?  Yes.  I  have relatives who are police officers – I can't tell you how deeply I care about their safety and well-being. I do almost all of my pro bono work with the military and public servants like the police – I care.  And when we care, we should all want the systems to reflect the honor and dignity of the people who serve in those systems."

"But then, if it's the case that we can care about the citizens and the police, shouldn't the rally cry just be All Lives Matter?  No.  Because the humanity wasn't stripped from all lives the way it was stripped from the lives of black citizens.  In order for slavery to work, in order for us to buy and sell, beat and trade people, like animals, Americans had to completely dehumanize slaves. And whether we directly participated in that or were simply a member of the culture that at one time normalized that behavior, it shaped us. We can't undo that level of dehumanizing in one or two generations. I believe that Black Lives Matter is a movement to rehumanize black citizens. All lives matter, but not all lives need to be pulled back into the moral inclusion.  Not all people were subjected to the psychological process of dehumanizing and being made less than human so we could justify the inhumane practice of slavery."

"Is there tension and vulnerability in supporting both the police and the activists? Hell, yes. It's the wilderness.  But most of the criticism comes from people who are intent on forcing these false either/or dichotomies and shaming us for not hating the right people. It's definitely messier taking a nuanced stance, but it's also critically important to true belonging."

"Another example of straddling the tension of supporting a system we love and holding accountable comes from one of the research participants, a former athlete from Penn State. He took a strong stand as an advocate for the abuse survivors who suffered due to the silence of the football program and Joe Paterno's protection of Jerry Sandusky. He said he couldn't believe how hateful some of his friends were, friends he'd known for thirty years. He said, "When you love a place like we love Penn (State), you fight to make it better, to own our problems and fix them. You don't pretend that everything's okay. That's not loyalty or love, that's fear."

"When the culture of any organization mandates that it is more important to protect the reputation of a system and those in power than it is to protect the basic human dignity of the individuals who serve that system or who are served by that system, you can be certain that the shame is systemic, the money is driving the ethics, and the accountability is all but dead. This is true in corporations, nonprofits, universities, governments, faith communities, schools, families and sports programs. If you think back on any major scandal fueled by cover-ups, you'll see this pattern. And the restitution and resolution of cover-ups almost always happens in the wilderness – when one person steps outside their bunker and speaks their truth."

"As we think about our journey from "fitting in" to striding into the wilderness of true belonging, we will be well served by understanding and recognizing the boundaries of respecting everyone's physical safety, and not participating in experiences or communities that utilize language and/or engage in behaviors that dehumanize people. I think calling the latter "emotional safety" is inaccurate. We're not talking about hurt feelings; we're talking about the very foundation of physical danger and violence." Brene Brown

Okay, where do I begin to begin.

What I love about this, is she has put language to what I have been experiencing from family and church.

My frustrations have been when others can't see how when they worry more about the reputation of the institution/group etc, they are turning away from the treatment that has been dehumanizing.

Can it really be a group of substance and value, when you are working to cover-up or uphold its reputation AFTER knowing abuse and dehumanizing acts have happened??

What are you upholding???

When church members, past and present, come in and try and convince me of the holy reputation of the First Apostolic Lutheran Church, I know they are not seeing the abused. They are instead choosing to uphold and be part of keeping its pristine reputation alive.  Meanwhile, I am speaking out as a victim of sexual abuse.

The two pathways have no common ground.

As my family continues to gather, celebrate and connect – maintaining its family like qualities, I stand back, doing what Brene writes about.

"we will be well served by understanding and recognizing the boundaries of respecting everyone's physical safety, and not participating in experiences or communities that utilize language and/or engage in behaviors that dehumanize people."

How else can we change the pattern and humanity?

I am rehumanizing Me.

I am reclaiming my human rights.

And, in doing so, I have often found myself alone in the wilderness;

Belonging to Me.

I am no longer an active member of my family of origin.

"You are only free when you realize you belong no place – you belong every place – no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great"           Maya Angelou.

I began reading Brene Brown's new book "Braving the Wilderness.

I love this part.

"Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance."

"This definition has withstood the test of time as well as the emergence of new data, but it is incomplete. There's much more to true belonging. Being ourselves means sometimes having to find courage to stand alone, totally alone. Even as I wrote this, I still thought of belonging as requiring something external to us – something we secured by, yes showing up in a real way, but needing an experience that always involved others. So as I dug deeper into true belonging, it became clear that it's not something we achieve or accomplish with others; it's something we carry in our heart. Once we belong thoroughly to ourselves and believe thoroughly in ourselves, true belonging is ours."

"Belonging to ourselves means being called to stand alone – to brave the wilderness of uncertainty, vulnerability, and criticism. And with the world feeling like a political and ideological combat zone, this is remarkably tough. We seem to have forgotten that even when we're utterly alone, we're connected to one another by something greater than group membership, politics, and ideology – that we're connected by love and human spirit. No matter how separate we are by what we think and believe, we are part of the same spiritual story."

DEFINING TRUE BELONGING

"I'm a qualitative grounded theory researcher. The goal of grounded theory is to develop theories based on people's lived experiences rather than proving or disproving existing theories. In grounded theory, researchers try to understand what we call "the main concern" of study participants. When it comes to belong, I asked: What are people trying to achieve? What are they worried about?"

"The answer was surprisingly complex. They want to be a part of something – to experience real connection with others – but not at the cost of their authenticity, freedom, or power. Participants further reported feeling surrounded by "us verses them" cultures that create feelings of spiritual disconnection. When I dug deeper into what they meant by "spiritually disconnected," the research participants described a diminishing sense of shared humanity. Over and over, participants talked about their concern that the only thing that binds us together now is shared fear and disdain, not common humanity, shared trust, respect or love. They reported feeling more afraid to disagree or debate with friends, colleagues, and family because of the lack of civility and tolerance."

"Reluctant to choose between being loyal to a group and being loyal to themselves, but lacking that deeper spiritual connection to shared humanity, they were far more aware of the pressure to "fit in" and conform. Connection to a larger humanity gives people more freedom to express their individuality without fear of jeopardizing belonging. This is the spirit, which now seems missing, of saying, "Yes, we are different in many ways, but under it all we're deeply connected."

"As I was defining the main concern related to belonging, I went back to The Gifts of Imperfection to look up the definition of spirituality that had emerged from my 2010 data:

"Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion."

"I kept reading the words "inextricably connected" over and over. We've broken that link.  And in the next chapter, I'm going to show you how and why we broke it. The rest of the book is about fixing it – finding our way back to one another."  Brene Brown.

This part really struck me, for I have often stood alone in the past 12 or so years.  

And, while I have been alone, more often than not, I did truly feel that I  truly belonged to Me. 

"Once we belong thoroughly to ourselves and believe thoroughly in ourselves, true belonging is ours."

This is so true in my experience.

And, I also believe that the main part of my estrangement IS the lack of spirituality – a deeper sense beneath beliefs and ideology of family – there seemed to be a lack of humanity.

In many dialogues, as we tried to make sense of the world of dysfunction, abuse, cults etc, we would often wonder about the humanity part.

How could humanity treat other humans this way.

So, there are two main components to my aloneness.

One being I wasn't willing to join a group and give up on my authenticity…and then, the lack of being able to connect on a human level. There just didn't seem to be 'something' beneath their beliefs.

It was as if nothing lived deeper within them.

Where I found, and connected to a little girl or a lady who was just waking up to who she was, others lacked this.

Or, perhaps never showed it to me.

Their agenda to save the family, stand by the parent etc, may have disallowed them to show me what lie beneath. Did their authenticity disagree with the group they were wanting to be part of?

It is as if the 'love' that the family defined was the only level there was. I couldn't tap into a deeper more individual self who belonged only to themselves. 

Mostly, it appeared, that their inner world belonged to the larger group called family and/or religion.

A woman, who was from the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church, I will never forget. There was nothing deeper than what she had been taught. There wasn't an individual who could speak or move outside of what her church had taught her.

Unless and until you are free and belong only to yourself; you will not be able to see the level of humanity lacking.

Unless you believe in their religion, there simply isn't nothing to relate to.

There is no humanity beneath.

Just as I felt in my family of origin. IF, I didn't agree with the family pattern, there was no land for us to relate to each other on. 

I could only see and feel the family agenda.

I can't wait to read how Brene writes in how we lost humanity and how we can get it back.

I also agree with her sentence "Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance."

What I have felt and experienced most is the low levels of self-acceptance. How this one place leaves you with very little to connect to.

How can we connect with each other, IF one of us has no real love and acceptance of who they are??

This just resonates deep within me. 

Imagine, "our belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance."  I know, that my full acceptance of all me, the abused, the confused, the mental, the denial, etc, helped me connect deeply and belong fully to me.

There was no part of me, that I didn't bring back to me.

I belong!