When Will Racism Leave Me Alone?

Photo credit: Kendra Berglund 

What has the power to discombobulate, immobilize, cease and jolt you all at once? This is not the start of a riddle but a sincere question. One I had never asked myself until four days ago.

I sat in a conference room with a handful of other faculty and staff as we watched a webinar about microaggressions. I had been excited to attend, see what new training materials were being offered and if I could  incorporate any of it into my curriculum. Afterall microaggressions are something we were discussing in my Nonverbal Communication later that week.
The webinar was doing a great job defining the term and describing how it effects people and then we had a one minute break to talk with our neighbors about microaggressions we've seen or experienced.

One minute is not nearly enough time to expose oneself and then unpack the listeners reaction and enter safe dialogue but we tried our best.

After this short interlude, where I had shared one microaggression I had experienced, hundreds of others began seeping back. I pushed them off and continued watching the webinar. I ignored the physiological sensation that was long underway in my body. I called it low blood sugar as I watched the screen, even though I'd had lunch moments before. What was wrong with me? Immediately after the webinar I had to go teach. I felt light headed, my hands were shaking, my face grew hot and then cold. I was sweating as I lectured. Again I blamed my blood sugar. It wasn't until I got home that I realized what was happening, my body had entered a state of panic.

I had been triggered.

I'm embarrassed to write that. Even as a proponent of mental health and an avid believer in removing the stigmas from mental illness, I realize that I felt like I was above this. I had embraced my identity as a black woman. I give training's on embracing diversity and inclusion in the the classroom yet I couldn't sit through a webinar about one aspect? What was wrong with me? Am I really so weak? But more to the point, when will this stop? When will racism and prejudice release its hold on people like me? What date will we be able to exist without the constant fear of being controlled by a racist system? Of losing control of our own faculties due to a word, phrase or action? When will it no longer be "too soon?"

This is the work I choose to do. It is the work I'm good at but it takes a toll. It physically impacts me and it is dangerous for my health and in the moment I forgot that. When I try and minimize its effect I fall victim to it. This time I saw spots. Thought I was going to black out in front of my class but I pushed on through the PowerPoint slides. Holding onto the edge of the desk for balance as my memory tried to play, like on a reel, all the things I had been told or had been whispered under breaths as I walked by. Statements about my otherness, that inherently made me less.

We think we are past our past but it is also our present and flirts to be our future.