BART-Diablo Foothills Regional Park-Summit Trail

View from near Summit Trail, Mt. Diablo State Park

This week marks my first spring break experience as a graduate student. Initially, I thought that any “break” in grad school was really just a euphemism for “no class, so more time to get more work done.” I was surprised, however, to find that many of my peers (at least those who weren’t in the field or writing up their dissertations) took the break somewhat seriously. I received What’s App text pictures of their bicycle excursions abroad and hikes along gorgeous vistas from various state parks.

I had received offers to drive to the Sierras or to hike the Lost Coast trail with friends, but lately, I’d been itching for an experience of solitude and independent reflection on a backpacking or hiking trip. The only problem is that I don’t have a car, and so have always relied on friends with vehicles to get me to the trailhead or crag.

How can I live less than a 20 minute drive from high ridge walks and deep redwood forest groves yet feel totally stranded in the middle of my urban surroundings? What do I have to do to get myself and a backpack to a regional park and/or a campground sans private transportation (or a fancy lightweight bike)? To find out, I did what any good grad student would: research.

I came across this Bay Nature article from 2009 about taking BART to a campsite in Mt. Diablo State Park. The author, Ryan Branciforte, provides some great highlights about the trip, but details are sorely lacking. Frustrated, I looked for PDF maps, went on a wild goose chase through UC Berkeley libraries for an equally unhelpful East Bay park guide, and finally resorted to Google maps walking directions (arguably, and surprisingly, the best and most accurate method).

The fact that parks and wild spaces are difficult to access—physically and in terms of accurate information—is no accident. Environmental conservation has a long, ugly history of associated racism and continues to exclude people of color to this day (see: Black Faces, White Spaces by Carolyn Finney, “Woman of Color in Wide Open Spaces“; see also Outdoor Afro for positive examples of how to form POC community in outdoor spaces). But, more on this later…

I’ve been asked for the “beta” on how I put together my version of the hike that Branciforte sketched in his article. So here goes (for the quick directions, skip to the bottom of this post; if you’re into the semi-naturalist narrative, read on):

Prep:

I head out at 8AM on what promises to be a beautiful spring day—sunshine and 70 degrees. Still, I come prepared: 2 warm layers and a rain shell, 90+ SPF (light-skinned tradeoffs…), a liter of water, a headlamp, Swiss army knife, hat, sunglasses, my useless East Bay regional park guide, and a lunch of tuna fish, mandarin oranges, and a nut bar. I stop by the store for some crackers (Dr. Kracker—tastes a bit like cardboard, but is a good, sturdy, calorie-packed option for longer backpacking trips), an avocado, a ProBar, and cheese. A woman behind me in the checkout line is purchasing a few bottles of water and I fleetingly think about getting some myself. By the end of the day, when I’m parched and thinking about nothing but an icy Gatorade, I’d be kicking myself for buying a messy, unripe rock of an avocado and passing up the opportunity to bring more water.

Transit:

Around 8:20, I get on the Pittsburg/Bay Point BART to the Walnut Creek station. I had been
planning to walk from BART to the trailhead at Howe Homestead Park, which Branciforte describes as a “short stroll through a residential area.” I check Google maps for the route only to discover that the “short stroll” was still a 1.5 mile walk, which would add 3 miles to my hike, round trip. Edging on 9AM and knowing I have many miles ahead of me that day, I decide to cut out the half hour of urban hiking and take a Lyft line instead (one stocked with candy and bottles of water which, again, I neglected to take). This time, I took the quick and dirty shortcut. In the future, however, I would bring my bike on the BART and ride to the park. There is a community center just around the corner from where I started that likely has bicycle racks.

 

Howe Homestead Park to Briones-Mt. Diablo Trail:

The hike begins on Kovar Trail. Starting from the small parking lot for the park, take the gravel trail up into a neighborhood park. At the first fork you hit less than .10 miles into the walk, head left. If you need a bathroom or water before your hike though, take the right fork. The trail leads past some community gardens before heading uphill and east, scuttling very close to backyard fences. After traversing up the hill for a few tenths of a mile, the trail crests a shallow saddle. The trail to the right is the Summit Ridge Trail. To continue on Kovar, follow the middle trail that dips down to the other side of the hill (the trail to the left appears to just go to a view point).

I took the Summit Ridge to get some early morning views. While this trail does connect back to Kovar, a word of caution: the end of this trail is pretty sketchy—a very steep, rocky and narrow descent. At about .7 miles, you’ll reach another parking area and trailhead. There is a water fountain here. Drink some water and re-fill here—there is no water on the trail and much of the hike is very exposed.

I was grateful that there is pretty good signage and outposts with maps along the way. After looking at the map (and missing my opportunity to get water), I take Fossil Hill Loop Trail northeast. Stay left at the fork that appears and head down hill toward Bramhall pond. Keep going north (uphill) for another .1 miles to get to Briones to Mt. Diablo Regional Trail. Head east (right) on this trail and chill in the Shell Ridge Open Space portion of the hike, knowing that you have about 4 more miles of coasting along the same trail. You’ll encounter a number of trails heading north and south but each fork is marked with a trail post. Follow the signs for Briones-Mt. Diablo trail, which generally keeps E/NE.

Bramhall Pond

Briones-Mt. Diablo to Wall Point Road

Green understory near Indian Creek

Typically, this would be a walk through golden hills. Because of the drought-ending downpour we had this winter, however, my walk was remarkably and brilliantly green. I enjoyed dipping occasionally into low ravines near Indian Creek and catching glimpses of the sun filtering through early spring leaves and a tall grasses (these were also the only areas where I would have liked bug spray). Near Willow Spring pond, the landscape gets marshy and grasses grow to chest height. Perched among the cattails, I saw and heard the abrasive call of many red-winged blackbirds.

After veering up hill and passing under some electric lines, I reach another map station that details the trail to Borges Ranch. This also marks the beginning of about a 1.5-2 mile stretch to cattle grazing territory and the journey out of Foothills Regional Park. At this point, I had been hiking for about 1 hour, 15 min and was just starting to feel my feet and some stomach rumblings. I decided to push through the cattle gate and keep going to look for a rest spot, not realizing that grazing country is the last place you really want to stop for a break. This was my least favorite part of the hike. Tree cover drops to almost none, I was constantly hopping over muddy patches and cow pies, and the trail was so uneven after being cut up by cow’s hoofs that I had to watch my feet to make sure I didn’t roll my ankle on a clod of dirt. Most uncomfortable, though, was confronting the cows themselves. Although they were pretty quick to move out of my path, their skittish energy had something of a ripple effect across the entire field. Herds of cows within a half-mile radius would all pause in their grazing to watch me. Maybe this makes me sound like a big chicken, but there’s something incredibly eerie about being alone in a field of dozens of 1-ton pound creatures that are all silently watching you with attentive, intelligent eyes. (I swear they knew that I’d eaten steak the night before. Needless to say, I skipped my usual post-hike burger that night.)

Three screechy cattle gates later, 5 miles from where I started, and officially in Mt. Diablo State Park, I reach the loveliest stretch of fields and rolling hills yet. At first, I thought I was standing next to another power line, until I realized that the steady buzzing I heard around me was the sound of bees pollinating the spring flowers, with crickets intermittently chiming in as well. Besides being quite hungry, what stopped me in my tracks here was the unmistakable sound of wood thrush song (in this case, I believe it was the Swainson Thrush). This is, without a doubt, my favorite sound on the planet. Whether I hear it in the quiet depths of a redwood grove or an open meadow like this, wood thrush song has an echoing, warbling quality to it that makes it seem quite ethereal. I head off the trail toward a large, shady oak tree to lunch and watch the nuthatches defy gravity, hanging upside down on tree branches. Although clearly buzzing with insect life, I was surprised to find that this meadow spot was not buggy. From my perch under the trees, I was also able to observe the curious rock formation called China Wall; it looks as if a dragon’s tail is poking up through the earth’s surface. It forms a perfect gateway for the Summit Ranch trail heading south.

View of China Wall from my lunch spot

After a leisurely lunch, I continue along Briones-Mt Diablo Trail for a little less than a mile when I hit the junction with Wall Point Rd. Now being officially in Mt. Diablo State Park, the signage improves, detailing the mileage to the next major junctions. I take the left fork for Wall Point Rd. to Summit Trail for the next 3.8 miles.

Wall Point Rd to Summit Trail

?!?!

After passing through yet another cattle gate, the landscape changes markedly from grassy hills to chaparral and manzanita dotted scrub. The path widens and I pass many more mountain bikers. The slopes get steeper, beginning the foothill climb up the back of Mt. Diablo. By now, it’s high noon in the heat of the day, I’ve realized that I don’t have enough water, and it’s several tenths of a mile between shady spots. However, the views only get better, and I stop to turn to watch the receding skyline of Walnut Creek and the intense green hills (and disgustingly huge mansions) of Diablo and Danville to the south.

In a shady, poison-oak filled hollow and .8 miles from Summit Trail is a fork with Secret Trail toward BBQ Terrace Road. Had I been going to do an overnight trip, I believe I would have taken this fork. BBQ Terrace Road ends, on the map at a few campgrounds, including Wildcat tent campground.

I march onward until the next junction some .3 miles later, where I had the option to take a ridge trail for .3 miles to meet up with Summit Trail, or continue for .55 miles along Wall Point Rd. Since I wasn’t summiting Diablo that day, I decide to take the tiny dirt trail up the spine of a grassy, windy hill. It is incredibly steep and I pause frequently to breathe and look around at the view. Pushing up and around a slight bend in the trail, I catch the barest glimpse of the snow-capped Sierras to the east before plunging down to meet South Gate Road and the Summit Trail. At this point, it’s almost 2 PM and I need to head back if I want to make it home before 7. If you choose to summit Mt. Diablo, take Summit Trail another few miles to the top and let me know how it is!

Instead of going back up the ridge trail, I follow Summit Trail, taking a trail marked “Staircase Trail” to get back to Wall Point Road. This is probably ill advised, since it was quite steep and I had to do some brush-whacking at the end. If you do this though, when you reach the

Gobblers.

wide road at the junction, go right. This is Wall Point Road.

Keep walking and take these directions in reverse to get back to Howe Homestead Park. The wildlife highlight of my trip was right at the very end when I made it back to the parking lot at the community center. I was compelled to cut off the trail early when I heard the gobbling giggles of a huge rafter of turkey toms. They were fluffed up and preening, trying to attract the attention of some very unimpressed looking hens.

OVERVIEW

The Hike:

Meadow and hill-walking, gentle ascent through Diablo Foothills Regional Park in Walnut Creek to Mt. Diablo State Park. This is an 18-mile round trip hike that can be modified as an overnight trip or cut short. Regardless, an early start is advised.

What to Bring:

Do: Bring hat and sunglasses                                                 Don’t: Forget extra water

• Hat & sunglasses
• At least 2 liters of water per person
• Electrolyte tabs
• Bug spray
• Sunscreen
• Extra layers
• Snacks and lunch
• Maps/charged smartphone (there is service along most of the trail)

Transit Highlights:

• Take BART Pittsburg/Bay Point to Walnut Creek
• Walk, bike or Lyft to Howe Homestead Park
• (See above image for route)

Howe Homestead Park to Briones-Mt. Diablo Trail:

• Take Kovar Trail, keeping north through the city park
• At hill crest:
  • The trail to the right is the Summit Ridge Trail
  • To continue on Kovar, follow the middle trail that dips down to the other side of the hill
  • The trail to the left appears to go to a view point
• At about .7 miles, you’ll reach another parking area and trailhead.
• Take Fossil Hill Loop Trail northeast, staying left at first fork
• Pass Bramhall pond, walking North to the junction with Briones-Mt. Diablo Trail

Briones-Mt. Diablo to Wall Point Road:

• Follow signs to continue along Briones-Mt. Diablo trail for approximately 4 more miles
• Pass through 4 cattle gates
• Pass by Devils’ Spine rock formation
• Reach Wall Point Rd to Summit Trail junction

Wall Point Rd to Summit Trail:

• Go North/left at the junction, following trail posts for “Wall Point Rd. to Summit Trail” for about 3 miles
• At the 3.2 mile mark, you will have the option to take a small, quite steep ridge trail with stunning views that is .3 miles from the next junction with Summit Trail or continue along Wall Point Rd for another .5 miles.

Overnight Option:

[I did not take these trails, so these are my recommendations based on maps and articles]

• At the 3-mile mark, there is a junction for Secret Trail to BBQ Terrace Road. Take this trail to meet with BBQ Terrace, where you will go East/left toward the campgrounds.

Other hikes and info:

• Transit & Trails Options 
• Diablo Foothills Info:
  • Alt hike: http://bahiker.com/eastbayhikes/diablofoothills.html
  • Alt hike: Borges Ranch to Castle Rock (w/ pics)
  • Diablo Foothills Regional Park Map: http://www.ebparks.org/parks/diablo_foothills
• About Briones-Mt Diablo Trail
• Plant Guide

Responding to Fear: Reflections on Love & Inequality in the Midst of Turmoil

I woke up on Wednesday morning, November 9, 2016. Eight years of seeing someone who looked like me, someone who represented my values and background, in the White House made me forget that Obama was only ever an exception to the rule. That morning, I awakened to the reality of a country that is starkly racist, sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic.

For a moment, my whole liberal elite community woke up, too. More frightening than the hideous character now occupying the highest position of power, however, was how quickly this community reached to pull the covers up over their eyes again and pretend as if this nightmarish reality could be logically explained away, and smoothed over by extending an olive branch. On Facebook, I watched the posts roll in: What is this “really” about? What pain must blue-collar white communities be suffering to vote for such a bigot? How can we extend love in this moment?

Admittedly, I, too, felt the impulse to go back to sleep and pretend like disembodied political and economic reasons could be enough to explain the election results. To respond with love, however, requires that we open our eyes and hearts to the totality of what has happened: that Trump was elected not only as an individual who represents hateful values, but precisely because of those values. To mobilize love as a revolutionary force, we must come back to the body—a body that, if brown, female, queer, or undocumented, is at risk. To act compassionately, we must look to and become warriors who confront hate, greed and delusion with understanding, critical consciousness, and resilience.

I first want to respond to this idea that the election results must be about something “other” or more “real” than racism through the lens of revolutionary love. I think that love is being able to look at the truth of this situation and embrace every part of it, including that this election was every bit about race, gender, sexuality and nationality as it was about the economy. The neoliberal economic motivations for this decision are certainly important considerations. But focusing on these causes and not validating the ways that intersecting issues of injustice are integral to this decision exacerbates a harmful, colorblind liberal rhetoric.

We do not need to call Trump supporters racists to be cognizant of how this decision has been made possible by racist paradigms. Consider, for a moment, that the country was founded at a time when global markets were being mobilized to capture new labor and natural resource frontiers for capitalist accumulation. White agriculturists of the South and industrialists of the North all benefitted from the same exploitation of cheap or enslaved immigrant black and brown bodies, and they worked to create a democracy that served interests of Northern and Southern capitalists. Indeed, the very reason that Washington D.C. is where it is was so that George Washington could govern and oversee his plantation without the hassle of making the trip from Virginia to Philadelphia every week. What’s more, our very Electoral College system was established to ensure that slave-owning states had a voice, sparsely populated as they were by white, voting men.

In sum, the white communities being discussed in this election are the beneficiaries of a political-economic system that was built on the backs of black and brown bodies, built on the destruction of native communities, and built to serve the interests of the heterosexual nuclear family. To suddenly ignore Trump’s dog whistles and outright bigotry around race and nationality, and to try to explain the situation as something “more complex” than intersectional issues of injustice means that it is also okay to ignore the demands of marginalized communities—demands that illuminate the ways that immigrant, Latinx, Muslim, Native, black, queer, disabled, and female bodies are systemically predisposed to a lower quality of life and the shorter end of the economic policy stick. To uncritically uphold the narrative about this country as free, just, and unprejudiced is, perhaps, more dangerous and violent than Trump’s contemptuousness, because it appeals to a bootstraps national rhetoric that idealizes individual success, shames the poor by insisting that it is their fault that their lives are in shambles, and deflects blame away from entrenched capitalistic powers and onto non-white and immigrant communities.

So how do we demonstrate love while still pursuing justice? Exhausted by these events, many are losing hope and are tempted to focus instead on ideals of peace and unity. But the process of arriving at those states involves intense struggle. Martin Luther King Jr. too had a dream of harmony. But that did not mean accepting his oppressor’s terms violent cohabitation, guised as unity. Rather, he fought relentlessly, non-violently, with incredible love, honesty and compassion to arrive at a state of unity that was not blind to justice for black communities and the most vulnerable. In today’s fight, we need not immediately search for a middle ground—because that is to concede to the terms hate, greed and fear. We must instead become warriors of love.

I think of two exemplary women who exhibit what I mean by “warriors.” Alice Walker tells a story about her quiet, but fierce contribution to the civil rights movement. She was living in the South at the time, registering black people to vote. What’s more, she was one of the few black people in her neighborhood and resided there with her white, Jewish husband. When she and her family were horrifically threatened and harassed, instead of moving or retaliating she stood her ground. Instead of spitting vitriol at her tormentors or begging for unity, she defended her family and went on with her work, saying simply, “These white people just don’t know no better.”

Mildred Loving shares a similar story. Mildred, a black woman, was forced from the bed she shared with her white husband in Caroline County, Virginia, and eventually, in 1958, was compelled to leave the state for Washington, D.C. But within 5 years, she returned to face the courts in Virginia and fight for her right to raise her family with whomever and wherever she wanted to be. She did not give in to laws of hate.

Love for these women meant recognizing ignorance, not falling prey to it, and facing it head on. They saw the ways that hate and fear twisted their communities, but did not try to appease it. They embraced those who did not welcome them as their neighbors, who acted out of fear and misunderstanding, and were unrelenting in their mission for justice. They held fast to love, to their families, and did their work.

To those searching for compassion–yes, reach out to your neighbors, your Facebook friends, with the understanding that they are grappling with the everyday demons of fear, delusion, and anger. But let us not drop systemic inequality from our critique. We cannot afford to ignore the role of racism in this election outcome by masking it with incomplete stories about the ways that white communities have been economically or politically “left behind.” The pain we are all suffering is really about confronting a national narrative based on a legacy of oppression. The work toward justice is uncomfortable and exhausting, but love calls on us to be brave. Love is calling us to awaken—to the truth, to the pain, and above all, to one another.

Boundaries and Boundlessness

I started writing this during the summer of 2015 and I never posted it because it just didn’t feel complete or quite right. Since then, I’ve spent the last 10 months working learning what my own boundaries are and the creative challenges I need to grow. Ironically,  I think that this piece is a bit sprawling and not yet complete, an idea which has been holding me back. I’m challenging myself here to put my words out there even if I don’t think it’s perfect. So, to be continued…?

“We don’t shape the world…the world shapes us.” –Toni Morrison, A Mercy

Redwoods, older than any of the cities I’ve ever lived in, spiral in tall, broad circles above me. I crane my neck, trying to ascertain just how high they stretch, but my head is stopped by the bulk of my pack behind me. Frustrated by this inconvenience, I twist my neck to the side and lean backwards until I nearly topple over. My dad flutters his hand constantly over the visor of his baseball cap that blocks his view, himself craning to get a look at the giants around us. We both laugh at the compromise of our situation. Here we are, 7 miles in from the winding camp road we left yesterday, deep in the heart of one of the oldest redwood groves in California for the express purpose of experiencing its grandeur—and yet we are incapable of fully taking in the breadth of our surroundings.

What we can absorb of this place is pure awe. The woods that spread above and around us seem boundless and wild. There is a sense of deep mystery here—in the way that the light is filtered through motes of ancient dust and springy evergreen, the way that it shuffles through the lush carpet of sorrel underfoot, the burble of a creek echoed somewhere miles away by the warble of a wood thrush. It’s easy to feel the sublimity of the moment here, to feel so small and unimportant in the midst of such….Such what?

Freedom is the word that comes to mind, but I pause here to consider the burden and the fallacy of that word.

Freedom in this country is invariably tied to the myth of the American Dream—it brings up some passed down story of so-and-so’s great great grandfather who came from nothing and worked hard to become somebody. It is both a legend and a cautionary tale. Legend in its frail fictionality, cautionary tale because it presumes that it was freedom that inspired so and so to follow his dreams. But was Anne Pierce, my great great grandmother who, as story goes, grew up in slavery but was the first in our family to go to college, really free? On the contrary, most would argue that she was hemmed in by significant limitations, which may have actually encouraged her to strive for something better for herself and her family. We pass on these dreams of freedom and then become disappointed when we look around and see our kin so privileged with choice that they don’t know where to turn or what to do with their time. We, like all living creatures—even redwoods—need a structure to live within to make sense of this otherwise purposeless and amorphous existence of ours. Says Stephen Nachmanovotch in the book Free Play, we need those limitations in order to truly take advantage of our own creativity. In writing about art and form, he states:

“Working within the limits of the medium forces us to change our own limits. Improvisation is not breaking with forms and limitations just to be “free,” but using them as the very means of transcending ourselves. If form is mechanically applied, it may indeed result in work that is conventional, if not pedantic or stupid. But form used well can become the very vehicle of freedom, of discovering the creative surprises that liberate the mind-at-play.” (84)

But herein I’d like to draw the line between constructive limits and imposed limitations.

The limits that we set ourselves are the boundless trajectories of our dreams. But then there are those boundaries that we do not cross—places that we do not look and actively avoid: The eyes of a homeless person on the street because we’re too afraid not of their desperation, but our own callous shame reflected there. The neighborhood just west of the freeway, where we fear the broken glass and, more so, the people we have broken and whom we have confined there, in schools or behind bars. These are the limitations born of minds as they reference our pigmentation, gonads and economic status. These are the limitations that my great grandmother dared to cross when surely people spit at her face for keeping her head high. What she gave me was the opportunity to set my own boundaries instead of being roped in by others; she has handed me the ropes that held her own mother to a whipping post and told me to make something better of it.

Dare I ensnare someone else in this noose? Out of fear of losing the ground we have apparently gained, this is many a reaction. And we have paid the consequences for doing so.

While we think that we have the power to shape our lives, this world, the environment, we are, in many ways, limited by what the world presents to us. The way in which we use this limited space determines our creativity—limitations that prevent us from taking up this paintbrush are injustices imposed upon us by a grasping people. This grasping is a fixture of the human element. Because how often it happens that in the sublime of creation and our struggle for a sense of self-importance, we look out across something that we feel we may become lost to and, instead of embracing wholeness, we try to grab hold of something and control it, claim it, own some small piece of it.

I want to emphasize. There are natural limitations within which we must all live & without which we cannot thrive. I am a tutor at a Sylvan Learning Center, meaning that I teach English lessons to students from 1^st to 12^th grade. I’ve noticed that right around middle school, kids begin to grapple with their own power, as well as their own impermanence. They begin to test the limits of what they know and push the boundaries their parents have set for them. Grappling with the realization of their own mortality and ability to manipulate their own life can lead to some very deep and occasionally dark conversations with these students.

During a lesson on personification with one such student, an example that came up said: “the sun sleeps…” I explained how, because the sun cannot actually sleep like people can, that this is a way of using personification to create an image. The student looked at me, a look of gleeful defiance glinting in her eye, as she said “but the sun could sleep.” Despite myself, I ask her how such a thing would be possible. “Well, the sun could just never rise. Or it could explode…” “True…” I said cautiously. “But then we would all die. If the sun never rose on one side of the planet, it would get very hot on one side, and very cold on the other. And if the sun died, we wouldn’t have an energy source any more.” “But what if the planet stopped…” The “what ifs” continued and I patiently explained the very precarious balance that we are in. Even the slightest changes affect our climate, our food, our energy, and our basic survival. The limitations in place are the only ones, to our knowledge, within which we can live.

What exists on our planet is all that has ever existed since the Big Bang and it has sustained us graciously ever since. The delicate balance in which the materials hang is an energy that hums fervently in the background; most times, we do not take the time to listen. But in those still spaces between thoughtless chatter, between the cogs of capital lurching mindlessly across the planet, between the explosions of fear and greed that we launch at our neighbors, is that hum, a siren song that tells us that division does not exist. While constraint is a necessary feature of the landscape, division is the creation of the human mind. It is the one that says that “I” am different from “you,” that “we” are different from “them” and that humans are different from the soil we’re buried in.

In Lauret Savoy’s recollections of the land and stories of its inscribed boundaries, she understands the fallacy of absolute freedom within the strictures of American life. She states in her book Trace, “As a young adult I felt little integrity or wholeness of living because so much of my acquired knowledge came from inculcated divisions. Only slowly did I come to see that I would remain complicit in my own diminishment unless I stepped out of the separate trap: me from you, us from them, brown skin from depigmented skin, relations among people from relations with the land.” (43)

We must cross invisible borders to know what boundaries serve us and which have been created out of fear or greed. In the borderland, we seek the ether where new lines may be drawn in ever shifting sand.

 

The Great Divide: Howard Street

I consider this part 1 of a piece that goes into more detail about my mixed geographic and racial identity and the connections I am seeking to make between that and the process of gentrification. I wrote this in August of last year (2014) as a spur of the moment piece of reflective prose not meant to be shared; however, I find many parallels between this experience in my neighborhood in Chicago/Evanston and my new home in Oakland that I would like to explore here. 

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I step out from the cool shade into the heat on Howard. The wet, smoky smell of barbeque wafts from somewhere and keeps me company as I walk the familiar, gum stained concrete. Someone’s building something out of plywood in the lot that’s stood empty for years on Callan. Two people stand in the heat and watch, shading their eyes, a look of consternation pinching their brows. I walk on to see that the storefront building that shelters the lot now houses large, wide glass windows. They protect high oak stools, dark turquoise paint, plush re-upholstered couches with gold buttons for finish and a gleaming bar laden with high quality whiskeys and vodka. The whites of the barman’s eyes follow me as he wipes glasses behind a chic unfinished wood paneled bar. Two white men in crisp button downs sit just past him, their belt buckles shining in the sun that catches them through those cool deep windows. The Peckish Pig. Flyers paper the glass here, announcing the opening of their new patio—come celebrate with cocktails and a $75 four course meal. The woman’s pinched face from the unfinished patio comes back to me, and I realize that it now mirrors mine.

I reach the end of the block, looking for 701. How long have I lived here and yet the corner store that faces me, while familiar, seems foreign to me. Matte blue, sun bleached paste announces their various services but it’s tackier than the aquamarine, velvety air conditioned turquoise at The Peckish Pig. I pass it. Pause. Return. It is indeed 701. I thought I was picking up a package? I hesitate another moment at the door before pushing it open. My stride catches as I look around. High ceilings make the long room look emptier over the low, dingy shelves. To my right, it appears that the stuff that crowds the shelves tapered out where the rows neared the wall. It’s dark, hung with a few dusty, cobwebbed kids backpacks. Boxes crowd the floor beneath before disappearing into darkness at the back of the store. Two people are waiting patiently at the counter as the store owner, a dark South Indian-looking man, rolls a mellifluous language out of his mustached mouth like dice into an old cell phone. I catch a few words here and there, curving Sanskrit pieces like “achaar” and “pagal”. Maybe I’m only hearing what I want to hear though, since the store reminds, with a settling comfort, of the Nepali grocery stores I visited after school while abroad: stark, but stocked with snacks and oddball necessities. The young black boy in front of me has a pile of small candies spread out on the counter and he looks around aimlessly as he waits for Mr. Mouth to finish talking. Except for the stirring of a dark green, steel ceiling fan, the place is still and dim. The sense of hurry that followed me in the sun outside seems to have faded away, time slowing to a crawl. When he finally finishes his conversation, he scoops the candies into a plastic bag and hands them to the boy, who quickly dashes out the door. I didn’t see an exchange of money, no ring of a cash register, no receipt. Someone bustles in behind me, looking to buy some mints from the front, so I move in closer behind the second black man. The store owner moves swiftly over to the man, who hands him a bill, though again, I didn’t see the transaction, and requests a $5 bingo card. Mr. Mustache pulls a sheet from a roll hung behind the counter and hands it to him. He leaves. It’s my turn. I want to know if they pick up packages here. I can see the haphazard pile lying on the floor behind him, but I’m still skeptical. Afterall, who picks up their mail from a corner grocery? He mutters a confirmation and asks to see my ID, pulling out a plain notebook with what looked like 20 names written in a neat hand. I can see my name written there, his finger tracing down the list stopping at Heitz. Somewhere along the way, the other black man who came in behind me has handed Mr. Mumbler some money and walked out of the store. Again no receipt. No questions. Barely a word said. Just in and out. Mr. Magic Money shuffles through the packages on the floor, picking up a few and letting the contents roll around in an ominous sounding way. Dissatisfied, he walks back to the dusty, dim part of the store and brings out a box larger than those behind the desk. That’s the one. He pulls it behind him to his station. Someone else has walked in, another young black boy. He’s placed a frosty glass of Coca-cola and a candy bar on the counter. This time I see 3 bills pushed into Mr. Melliflous’s hand as I sign off for the package before the boy dashes out.

On my way back, I decide to take Howard street again to see what else I have missed. As I trundle awkwardly along the sidewalk with my oversized box, I see a young white woman dressed in a gray tank and black jeans clomp down the other side of the road past Popeye’s Chicken, past the hock shop, past the police cameras, past Buffalo Joe’s…. I glance at her before staring openly, my head turning to follow her part way down the street, just like the whites of the barman’s keen eyes. She’s around my age, dressed in a tastefully grunge sort of way, dyed blonde hair and headphones. I gawp. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen someone who would look more at home in Wicker Park on Howard. Yet in her presence, I find a kinship, a certain recognition that I haven’t felt since I was a little girl playing double-dutch with the neighbor girls in the park around the corner, their braided, spangled hair clacking as we jumped….and yet with this stranger, from across the asphalt river dividing Chicago from Evanston, I trade pawn for pawn, black skinny jean white girl for flowing skirt Chaco’s sandals mixed girl. Touche. I turn away, shame on my brown, freckled cheeks and I spy another cavernous new oak paneled bar next to the Evanston Police Department on my side of the street.

I reach the shaded streets of Callan again, the shouts of children and their equally noisy parents replacing the rumble of busses, and wailing sirens of Howard Street. Reggae greets me, still beating from a seemingly endless source deep in the block. I look with a sad smile as a naked, brown skinned and fuzzy headed baby, clad only in a pair of diapers and socks runs into the middle of the empty street, holding his shoes. Euphoric. In his sudden escape, he grins at me with full shining wonder. Planes roar overhead, birds chirp. And a woman shouts from a parked car to grab him and a young man follows after the baby and scoops him up, an annoyed look on his face. The baby cries in glee, lifted in a gruff and short-lived ride. Leaves shush in a gentle sway, brushing unkempt curls across my face and tracing the deepening sadness in my smile as I watch the young man trying to shove the baby at the woman through the car window. His stockinged feet catch the steering wheel at an odd angle. I’ve seen enough, and so turn away from hungry pigs and ravenous time. The gates to my apartment are close.

Wake Up! On Anger, Understanding, and Justice

Reflection

I had joined the protest where it had gathered in Daley Plaza, melting wordlessly into the crowd. As it surged forward and we chanted variations on “Black Lives Matter,” someone handed me a flimsy cardboard sign with the now famous hash tag inked into it, a surrogate for anyone who anyone in the protest who lacked a prop. It was a simple gesture, honestly less an act of kindness than exasperation that this person had to hold an extra sign. But it allowed me to feel tangibly connected to a movement that I could previously only relate to through the artificial plasma of computer and television screens. I felt a warmth begin to spread in my chest. I closed my eyes for as long as I felt sure that I wasn’t about to run into something and let this feeling radiate and move with the rhythm of our march. People on the news had talked about anger and senseless violence. But this feeling, this gathering, wasn’t fueled by unchecked anger; rather it was one revolution past anger toward a kind of compassionate sadness and understanding. People both afflicted and untouched by structural violence and oppression could feel the pain of this incident—of this history—and were crying out together. It touched within me a space that I consider sacred and, most importantly, awake.

 …

I cannot speak for the thousands who partook in the various nationwide protests that have erupted since the unjustified deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner. However, I think that this collective outpouring of emotion—grief, fear, and yes, anger—has been incredibly eye opening for both participants and onlookers because it is honest. It is an awakening both political and spiritual because we are looking not only at the issues that cause this pain, but at the pain itself.

So often, people of color are not validated in their pain. We begin to doubt our own judgment—did that white man really just see my skin mistake me for the maid, or was he just making a passing comment about how I, like any other unfamiliar face, might have been the maid? Instead of analyzing the situation or allowing the indignant anger to show itself, we bury those feelings deep and smile to shield ourselves from their anti-racist pleas and accusations. This becomes oppressively normal.

In her book The Black Notebooks, Toi Derricotte covers twenty years of her painstaking process to uncover the deep emotional scars, traumas and pains that stand as the emotional byproducts of centuries of racialized psychological repression. In her search for this truth, she discusses the necessity of interrogating our own anger and emotional responses instead of repressing them:

 I want to talk about anger, about how important it is as a part of the process of coming to one’s voice, about how it is inevitable in a diverse classroom. I want to talk about how powerful it is, how dangerous it is, how mysterious, about how suddenly real feelings start to emerge. If we don’t recognize anger, if we don’t allow for it, if we’re not ready, if we don’t, in fact, welcome it as a creative force, then I think we’re going to end up blaming and dividing people even more. …

At the same time that we move toward clarity about our differences, it is also possible to move toward clarity about what makes us human, the same. (p. 125)

Our awareness of our emotional responses to issues on injustice is important to understanding the root of our anger and how to overcome those systematic obstacles that block our way to wellbeing. Without recognizing it, without letting it out in a safe space, anger sizzles beneath the surface and becomes the underlying vitriol in our words, the negativity in our perspective, the defensiveness in our relationships. We’ve carried this pain around with us for so long that we don’t even know it’s there; yet it’s why we feel so tired, disconnected, and misunderstood. Unexamined, this pain becomes us.

What Derricotte discusses here in awakening to our feelings is also a fundamental tenet of meditation practice. When we become aware of our feelings of pain, anxiety, grief, or anger, we begin to recognize how to use this emotion, rather than allowing it to use and define us. Derricotte and Buddhist monk, Thich Naht Hahn write that these emotions are, indeed, destructive when left unexamined. But to analyze this energy is to begin to transform a destructive force into a constructive one. Says Hahn in Being Peace, “When we get angry, we have to produce awareness: ‘I am angry. Anger is in me. I am anger.’ That is the first thing to do…we have to convert anger into some kind of energy that is more constructive, because anger is you.” (p. 47)

Upon recognizing anger and how it motivates our actions—indeed our very selves—we can convert this energy into constructive forces by understanding the root of that anger. Thich Naht Hahn and other Buddhist texts state that in order to let go of anger (and have it release us), we need to be able to understand that which our anger is directed. This doesn’t just mean knowing basic intellectual facts about that thing or person, but truly becoming one with it. By putting ourselves in another’s shoes, we recognize the motives of another’s actions and we have little reason to be angry anymore. By practicing compassionate understanding, we can convert this negative energy into powers for love and constructive healing.

However, our anger is an old one, directed not toward white people exactly, but whiteness, and the power that it represents. The unjust construction of the invisible system that controls our physical lives is an abstract concept, which creates a diffused, abstract anger. In her book Being Black, Angel Williams suggests that we address this pain using Buddhist practices for thoughtful, careful awareness of our own and others’ perceptions of the way the world works. If we can think beyond ourselves to understand how this system affects others, we might begin to understand why, for instance, white communities are more likely to defend the police and and their actions than communities of color.

 Black people and other people of color really need to be active in their analysis of both their individual situations and the situation of their communities. We each need to become event more engaged than we are. We need to participate in the world and have our voices heard beyond our own backyards, streets, and neighborhoods.

 We cannot afford to be lazy thinkers, because there is too much to be lost when we take that route. If we are not careful to think about the situations that we see around us, we cannot address them. Part of enlightened being and living responsibly is acknowledging that we are essentially in a relationship with the rest of the world. If we leave ourselves in a position in which we can’t respond to the needs of others, we contribute to a breakdown in communication, in harmony, and in peace. This is how we create dysfunctional relationships in our lives, the lives of our families, at our jobs, in our communities and in the world. (pp. 76-77)

Williams advocates strongly for the pursuit of justice. But we must do so from a place that is free from perceptions that are informed by emotions, ignorance, or illusions (Hahn, p.48). Analyzing and understanding our actions and emotions allows us to take right action with a clear mind. We are also able to communicate our needs, feelings, and ideas more effectively to those who do not share our perspective.

Even Obama agrees that communities of color have profound legacies of emotional burden that we must learn to see through in order to make tangible change. In a recent interview about his latest State of the Union address, the President was accused of sounding angry and was asked if his position on issues of race was at all influenced by his multi-ethnic lineage. He responded that his ability to identify with multiple perceptions has helped him to understand Americans of various ethnicities and their motives.

…it also makes me mindful of the fact that there’s misunderstanding, there’s mistrust, and there are biases, both overt and sometimes hidden, that operate in ways that disadvantage minority communities. And that’s a carryover. There’s a long legacy in this country that has gotten enormously better, but is still there. And when you look at what’s happened in law enforcement across the country over the last several years, that’s not news to African-Americans.

I have been inspired by these protests because I see them as the numen of our collective re-awakening. Being aware of our anger, our pain, our grief is a powerful first step; it forces an honest look at the sources of these feelings and has pushed us into dialogue with those who do not yet deeply understand these feelings. This communication, this critical compassion, is the next step on the road to converting this anger into constructive forces for healing. This does not mean that our anger will go away—it is very much a part of us. But it need not control our actions. Looking our anger in the face and understanding it as the seed for something transformative is to be awake. Using that energy positively to communicate and create our own vision for the world is to be revolutionary.

Sources:

Derricotte, Toi. (1997). The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Hahn, Thich Naht. (1987). Being Peace. Berkeley: Parallax Press.

Williams, Angel Kyodo. (2000). Being Black. New York: Viking Compass.

Shwartz, Ian. (Dec 21, 2014). Obama: Being Mixed-Race Gives Me a Different Perspective. Real Clear Politics. Retrieved from

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/12/21/obama_being_mixed-race_gives_me_a_different_perspective_on_race.html

EMERGE-ing Identities

MERGE Mission Statement: “To provide a safe space for people of mixed heritage in which we may discuss issues of multi-ethnic identity and to raise awareness within the Claremont University Consortium community about the multi-ethnic experience.”

In the fall of 2010, I began my first semester of school at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. Like my peers, I was shuttled between activity booths, clubs, activist organizations and affinity groups by an administration eager to help their students feel at home on campus. They were particularly keen on easing this transition for the more “diverse” quotient of the student body. As a result, I was sent a letter from the Black Student Affairs office that encouraged me to visit their center and indicated that I would be receiving a black student mentor. A mentor? I thought that this seemed unnecessary and a little impertinent, but I wasn’t about to turn down an offer of friendship so early in the game.

I met with my black student affairs mentor over dinner later that week along with two other girls from my class. When our mentor saw us, she descended upon us like a mother hen coming to roost, telling us to call her mom and herding us protectively to a table near the windows. The other girls and I, who I noticed almost immediately were also mixed with light skin and curly hair, looked at one another sheepishly, each of us silently thinking, “What did we just sign up for?”

My fellow mentees, Katie Robinson and Sophie Howard, and I, became instant friends through our shared sense of unease with the enthusiastic induction to the black community that our “mother hen” had impressed upon us. The next week, we met up to discuss our initial perceptions about campus life and, more importantly, our struggles to identify as mixed race in a space that did not recognize us. We bemoaned the lack of an organized multi-ethnic presence at the Claremont Colleges and felt equally resentful toward the black student affairs office for assuming that we wanted to be a part of an exclusively black community. “Well hey, what if we started our own club?” As fledglings in an entirely new environment, the idea seemed ambitious, but also amazingly simple. All we needed was a space and enough interest, which, from our interactions with other students, seemed to already be present.

The following semester, after a number of forms had been filled out and ads printed, we had a room booked and a steady following of a grand total of about five students. A few months after our first meeting, we had a name: MERGE, the Multi Ethnic and Racial Group Experience.

Challenges Arise

During the second semester of MERGE, we received our first, and thankfully only, piece of hate mail. At that time, we had been sending out our meeting notes on a public email forum that was open to all students at Pitzer College. A student responded to the notes, commenting that she did not see the purpose of creating another race-based group on campus that only succeeded in further dividing the student body. ‘Why create MERGE when there are plenty of other ethnic groups on campus?’ Having somewhat naively created the club under the assumption that it existed more as a support group than a haven from insidious racism, the comment came as a startling wake up call. Admittedly, we had titled MERGE as a “safe sapce” as more of a nominal formality than a serious consideration of what we felt we needed to be safe from.

But it was not just from faceless white students that we felt hostility. A few semesters later, Katie reported back to the club about an incident that occurred in one of those very “other ethnic groups” on campus. At the time, students from one of the cultural resource centers on campus were hosting a weekly discussion group for members to have an open dialogue about a selected topic. Katie had decided to attend the fishbowl style discussion meeting on mixed race identity. Ideally, anyone sitting outside the fishbowl—who were the observers of the discussion— could opt to take a seat in the inner ring of chairs to join the discussion, regardless of their self-identified race. As could be expected, however, it was mostly mixed students who made up the inner circle. The discussion leaders had, perhaps inadvertently, had alienated these mixed students by making them suddenly highly visible, separate, and the subject of open scrutiny. While being ogled by a circle of her monoracial peers, Katie said that the most demeaning question she received that evening was “What’s your favorite part about being mixed?”

These examples demonstrate a marked lack of understanding on campus about being mixed. Students seemed to think that it was a trivial delineation of racial identity rather than a complex experience worthy of serious attention. This also showed me that there was in fact a need for a club like MERGE: to improve education around the topic, and, first and foremost, to provide a platform from which students could convene to tactically discuss these situations.

In response to questions regarding the viability and importance of a group like MERGE, I have chosen to write about my observations of mixed student academic and emotional needs and how well this club met those needs. Using my own observations, research, and an informal survey conducted within MERGE, I found is that, at the Claremont Colleges, mixed race student spaces function as safe spaces for students to share their experiences and form communities out of which educational outreach may occur.

The conversations had within the inner sanctum of MERGE often regarded sensitive, personal or painful topics. Through the process of forming our own self-defined identities, we developed a close sense of community with others who could share in the collective sense of pain and joy that accompanies the mixed experience. So, MERGE was necessarily advertised as a “safe-space.” This is a contentious term that has generally been used to indicate a physical or metaphorical space in which members of a victimized, minority group may seek protection and community. The controversy exists in that safe space movement has been criticized for being separatist and non-inclusive. This sets up an interesting dilemma for mixed-race student groups, which through intentionally fostering cross-cultural discussions, are to a certain degree inherently open and accepting, yet still require the distance that “safe space” implies.

I argue that sensitive, discursive spaces need only be open to those students who can engage with the experience of being a part of multiple racial or cultural categories. Despite the overarching goal of clubs like MERGE to question the importance of racial categories, to a certain extent, race must be used to create boundaries within which these identity constructions can occur. The educational platform of the group, while important, need not interfere with the creation and defense of safe space; education is instead a discrete entity of the organization that is created organically from and secondary to safe spaces.

Defining “Mixed”

When Katie, Sophie and I sat down to write out the mission statement for MERGE, our conception of a mixed identity initially seemed fairly straightforward. Our goals for MERGE were to make it into the niche that we couldn’t find when we arrived on campus, in which people who didn’t feel like they fit into just one ethnic category could express the fullness of their own proclaimed identities. We were careful to avoid using the word “race,” however, erring on the side of cautious consideration. We recognized that not everyone who could contribute valuable insight on the mixed experience defined that perspective by race alone. Cultural or ethnic plurality was in fact possible while still maintaining a monoracial identity. And indeed, we attracted a few transracial adoptees, exchange students, and American students who had spent most of their lives growing up in another culture. These students came into discussion groups with a similar understanding of what it meant to exist outside of a single ethnic, cultural, or racial category.

Gloria Anzaldua’s definition of a mestiza or mixed consciousness perfectly captures these ideas because it expands our notion of transgressions against hegemonic identity categories to include all those experiences which embrace plurality. The mestiza consciousness, she says, “constantly has to shift out of habitual formations; from convergent thinking, analytical reasoning that tends to use rationality to move toward a single goal (a Western mode), to divergent thinking, characterized by movement away from set patterns and goals and toward a more whole perspective, one that includes rather than excludes.” (2004, p. 141) Anzaldua clarifies a perspective of many types of people whose experience has allowed them to see the world through a lens of wholeness in multiplicity rather than segregation and divergence.

However, there is a balance to be had between embracing indefinite borders and enforcing boundaries. While Anzaldua uses the mestiza consciousness as a platform for establishing “bridges” between constructed racial borders, she recognizes the inherent function of those borders saying, “Effective bridging comes from knowing when to close ranks to those outside our home, group, community, nation—and when to keep the gates open.” (2002, p. 3) She effectively illustrates what Larana et al identify in their study on “New Social Movements” as boundary maintenance. Collective identities, they argue, are formed out of an identity movement; through members’ commonalities, a shared “we” is defined. This is naturally accompanied by an “us” vs. “them” mentality which distinguishes the group and their frame of reference from others who, in this case, do not share a mixed identity. These boundaries “can be thought of as activities and definitions that reinforce collective definitions through we-they distinctions, which are often marked by differences in physical appearance, dress, speech, demeanor, and other behaviors.” (Larana et al, 1994, p. 20)

These boundaries become complicated when we consider that part of the underlying goals of the club are to deconstruct the validity of racial categories. Says sociologist Judith Lorber, “We want to erase the boundaries between categories of race, gender and sexuality, but to do so, we have to use them, for without clear categories, you can have neither a politics of identity nor a politics of transgression. Categories are needed for group power and boundaries are needed to transgress against” (Lorber in Bernstein, 2009, p. 729). It is necessary to create restrictions on who is allowed to participate in informing the creation of new identities. Thus, when validating the distinction of a mixed race identity, only those who are typically categorized as belonging to more than one racial, cultural or ethnic group should be invited to participate in this in-group discussion.

While a mixed race identity may be theoretically broad-reaching in validating many types of plural identities, in practice, there must limitations on who may allowed to contribute to the collective identity. The boundaries MERGE drew were sometimes too soft, allowing non-mixed people to join conversations. However, the group made itself primarily available to anyone who did not feel as though they belonged to a single racial, cultural, ethnic or national identity. It is only within insular “safe spaces” that students were able to confront the challenges that a mixed race identity brings and define it within their own counter-hegemonic parameters.

Safe Spaces

Tantamount to the creation of a mixed race identity is the creation of a safe space where a consciousness of counterhegemonic plurality may be nurtured and validated. Within the protective sphere of like-minded people, peers may begin to understand and share with one another how their relationships and the ways in which the world sees them have also shaped their perspectives on the world. Creating a safe space is necessary for maintaining a collectively formed identity based on this “between the cracks” perspective.

Literally, the phrase “safe space” is attributed to those physical and psychological spaces in which members of an oppressed group may find shelter from harassment, pain or discomfort caused by their association with that group (Stengel, 2010). It is a notion that Fetner et al stated as a relatively common sense reaction to “the negative consequences of social isolation and marginalization.” (2012, p. 189) In the case of MERGE, this means that mixed race students may find recourse from criticism they may feel from their student peers or monoethnic resource groups.

More abstractly, in response to the constraints of imposed ill-fitting racial categories, mixed race students have created ideological safe spaces that allow for the generation of a collectively created identity that defies those expectations. Creating a collective counter-hegemonic identity has been fundamental to social movements (Polleta & Jasper, 2009). For instance, in her book on Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill-Collins recognizes safe space as crucial to rebuffing harmful images perpetuated about black women and creating frameworks authentic to a more heterogeneous experience of racial identity. They encourage the re-conceptualization of racial frameworks, advocating for a “unique and authentic voice in which “[marginalized groups] must ‘jump outside’ the frames and systems authorities provide and create their own frame.” (p.110) Much like the community of black women Collins discusses, safe spaces provide these students with the opportunity to lean on one another. Through the expression of common experiences and frustrations, students use the space to validate their own definitions of their racial and/or cultural identity. Actual safety from harassment, while still a potential threat, is less of a concern than the ability for students to give voice to radicalized notions of their racial identity.

Gloria Anzaldua complicates this notion of safe space in her essay “(Un)natural Bridges, (Un)safe Space.” She argues that it is in the nature of mixed race identity that people act as bridges between the communities they represent. However, I’d like to draw an important distinction. The type of “bridging” that Anzaldua advocates relies upon the movement’s outward, educational mission. While this is an important element of the mixed race movement, safe spaces form the foundation in which this type of movement must necessarily be rooted. Says Patricia Hill-Collins, “safe spaces rely on exclusionary practices, but their overall purpose most certainly aims for a more inclusionary, just society.” (p.121) It is only following the creation of these intimate circles, then, that bridging may effectively occur.

The Survey

To determine how well MERGE was meeting the ideals for a mixed-race safe space, I developed a survey at the end of the 2014 school year and distributed it to members of the club. I used an online survey service for the question platform and distributed it as a post on our group Facebook page. I chose this forum as a way to restrict participation to existing group members. This was a completely voluntary and anonymous response survey that was open and available for Facebook group members for approximately 1 month. (See Appendix A for the full list of survey questions.)

Why did students become involved?

From its inception as a club in 2011, members expressed their need for a space where they could openly discuss issues that pertained to the mixed experience. Their primary goal was validation of an identity that existed outside of normal racial parameters through the creation of community of similar people. This came up most prominently in the meetings following the controversial email that had questioned the role of MERGE on campus. Students re-affirmed that a shared consciousness of being mixed is what brought people together; someone was quoted from this meeting as having said that mixed people have, “No shared history or culture…Being mixed is its own culture.” (2011, personal communication) Being mixed, for these students, appeared to transcend categorical racial differences. The experience of being mixed race mattered much more than the given race of any member of the group.

This idea was reinforced in the survey answers I collected. Students stated that they were primarily concerned with finding a space in which they could feel comfortable discussing common experiences of being mixed and find a sense of connection, belonging, and/or community. They frequently used language like “comfortable” “acceptance” or “open” to describe their desired environment regarding developing their mixed race identity.

When asked if they thought that MERGE had achieved its mission of creating a safe space for students to develop this sense of acceptance and community, 11 out of the 13 total respondents replied unequivocally that it had. A few provided reasons for why they felt this way; one student stated that, “I felt like it was a safe space for me to talk and everyone was there to listen to what I had to say. It was also comforting to know that others shared the same experiences as me.” Other respondents echoed the importance of feeling that their position and experiences were well received by the group. The only time that students felt that this safe space had been breached was when a non-mixed student entered the group. A majority of respondents said that they were comfortable with this occurrence but also implied that discussion would necessarily shift to become educational “learning spaces” rather than an exchange of common experiences. “I think that since spaces for mixed race folk are limited, when they do exist it’s important for them to be specifically for mixed folk.” This is important to note because it demonstrates the importance of racial boundary maintenance in the formation of safe spaces.

In some cases, this need for community seemed to arise as a result of students not feeling that mixed identity was given enough validity within the campus setting or that mixed race narratives were often silenced. Said one student, “I grew up feeling inadequate, being forced to identify as a specific race/ethnicity/culture. And [the college administration] has just made that three million times worse. ZERO attention has been paid to mixed students. I’m constantly being boxed in by the institution. And MERGE has provided a community where I finally feel accepted as a singular identity that is comprised of many different identities.” On the same topic, another student said, “I think often times the narratives of mixed individual are silenced and a group like MERGE could help combat that specifically at the 5Cs and beyond that due to influence. It both serves as support for those whose narratives may be silenced, or who may feel silenced at times, and to fight against that silencing.” The act of creating a space specifically targeted toward students from a multi-ethnic background worked to simultaneously generate a supportive community and a platforms for taking action against identity silencing. 

Why was MERGE a necessary presence on campus?

As a result of developing a positive community support base, students felt empowered to take on the role as educators for their mono-racial peers. While survey respondents did not feel like organizing was a primary goal of the group, they implied that educational works resulted as a natural outgrowth of being a part of a safe-space community. Rather than feeling isolated in their struggles with mixed race identity, their acceptance into a group of people with similar experiences inspired them to seek recognition for an identity that suddenly seemed larger than themselves; respondents commented that they felt that they had something to stand for and comrades to stand with. “I think it’s presence here has made me feel like there’s more than just me – that I’m not speaking up merely for myself but for a group of people on campus who are affected by the politics of mixed race and identity. It’s motivated me more to speak up when I feel like mixed identity isn’t a part of a conversation it should be a part of.” At the very least, it has encouraged these students to bring their ideas into the foreground of their consciousness and given them the confidence to constructively confront issues of prejudice or ignorance amongst their peers. MERGE’s presence on campus encouraged many mixed-race students to give voice to a silenced perspective both as independent activists and as a part of the group’s educational campaigns.

How did we accomplish this?

The importance of forming a safe space for the discussion and validation of mixed identities is also evident in the way that we prioritized each semesters’ agenda. Much of the first semester of the year was devoted to community building through discussion based events and mixers. These were crucial to building a support base and forming trust within safe spaces. A smaller percentage of our energy as a group was devoted to outreach and educational activities.

Discussion groups served as MERGE’s organizational backbone. We hosted these safe-space gatherings regularly, discovering that discussion events every 2-4 weeks garnered highest attendance while still meeting the needs of the community. Each discussion had a theme and a moderator who kept discussants focused on the given topic and encouraged equal participation from members of the group. Every year, discussion topics fell into a regular pattern. New members, especially younger members, who had not had the chance to discuss things like being asked “What are you” before joining MERGE, needed to have these common experiences validated before moving on to more nuanced or complex topics. Other common subjects included discussions on the meaning of words like “hapa” or “mulatto,” surveys that force a “choose one” option, “passing,” mixed privilege, and interracial dating. Less frequently, we discussed colorism and the role of race in forming our identities. Chiefly, however, members used the space to bond with one another over shared experiences rather than to deconstruct, question, or deeply investigate mixed race identity.

The outreach events that we hosted were similarly focused on validating a mixed race identity. By partnering with cultural resource groups on campus, we were able to develop programs, discussions and events that allowed members to reach out to those minority communities they struggled to feel like they belonged to. These were usually small and only open to people from MERGE and the associated cultural center. This largely eliminated white student participants, but, as evidenced by Katie’s experience at another resource center’s discussion about the mixed race experience, it was not exemplary of a safe space for mixed race students because it required them to educate their non-mixed peers.

Other programs, like movie screenings and speaker series, were open to the general public, which helped to generate discussion and awareness about being mixed beyond our immediate circles. Because of the size of these kinds of events, mixed race students were not required to speak about their experience at all. As such, these events were more impersonal and educational.

The discussions that we had as a group were intimate and dealt primarily with individuals’ personal struggles with being mixed. These in-group dialogues are the best example of building a safe space for mixed race students because students could rely on one another to validate their experiences and identities. These types of events had the largest effect and benefit on the mixed race student community. Other programs, like joint discussions with other cultural centers and large events open to the general public, offered students the opportunity to educate and create a bridge between the mixed race community and other communities. This was important for the advancement of the group, but could not be possible, or at least would be less successful without first having a safe space in which students could find a community they felt they belonged to.

…

When Katie, Sophie and I began MERGE, we felt like mavericks in Claremont’s small sphere of student organizing. Unaware of what other nationwide groups had done, we set out to create a space in which we could bring together other mixed-race students to deeply discuss some of the issues we faced as college students trying to make sense of our racial identities. We blazed forward, energized and excited to see others take interest in our intimate, seemingly obscure group because it allowed us to continually recognize and take ownership of a marginalized identity. Through the discussions we had amongst our peers we, along with our peers, learned to translate personal experience into a political, educational motive. In this fashion, I believe we ultimately succeeded in creating a safe space for this type of growth, communication and empowerment to occur. But it cost us far more time and energy to reach some semblance of solid ground than it could have. The extent to which this type of discussion has taken root around the country is staggering. It is important, therefore, that organizers understand how these discussions and movements evolve on different campuses so that we can successfully foster safe spaces for mixed-race college students and powerful movement organizing tactics. My hope is that the study and conclusions I presented here are used as a reference point for other university group leaders or for further academic study.

Appendix A: Survey Questions

1. What is your school and class year?
2. How did you hear about MERGE?
3. Why did you decide to get involved?
4. How long have you been involved and do you plan on continuing in the club?
5. Do you think MERGE is a necessary group at the 5Cs? Why or why not?
6. What could be improved?
7. How do you racially/ethnically identify yourself?
8. Are you a part of any other race/ethnic-based resource centers at the 5Cs? If so, how does your experience at those centers compare with your experience with MERGE?
9. Do you ever feel uncomfortable during discussions? Why or why not?
10. How do you feel when someone who does not identify as mixed-race joins a discussion?
11. Do you think MERGE lives up to its mission statement in providing a safe space for mixed students to convene? Why or why not?
12. Do you think the politics of mixed race issues are socially relevant and important? How, if at all, do you think MERGE has prepared you to motivate change or educate peers around this topic?

Bibliography

Anzaldúa, Gloria, and AnaLouise Keating, eds. ““(Un)natural Bridges, (Un)safe Space.” This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Anzaldúa, Gloria., and AnaLouise Keating. The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10382984.

Bernstein, Mary, and Marcie De la Cruz. “‘What Are You?’: Explaining Identity as a Goal of the Multiracial Hapa Movement.” Social Problems 56, no. 4 (November 2009): 722–45.

Fetner, T., Elafros, A., Bortolin, S., & Drechsler, C. Safe Spaces: Gay-Straight Alliances in High Schools. Canadian Review of Sociology. 188-207, 2012.

Hill-Collins, Patricia. Black Feminist Thought. New York: Routledge Classics, 2000.

Ifekwunigwe, Jayne O. Mixed Rae Studies: A Reader. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Laraña, Enrique, Hank Johnston, and Joseph R. Gusfield, eds. New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994.

Polletta, Francesca, and James M. Jasper. “Collective Identity and Social Movements.” Annual Review of Sociology 27 (2001): 283–305.

Renn, Kristen A. Mixed Race Students in College: The Ecology of Race, Identity and Community on Campus. Albany: State University of New York Press. 2004.

Root, Maria P. P., ed. The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier. London [Enk] ; Thousand Oaks, Cal: Sage, 1996.

Stengel, Barbara. “The Complex Case of Fear and Safe Spaces.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 29, no. 6 (2010): 523–40.

Tatum, Beverly Daniel. “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”: And Other Conversations about Race. New York: Basic Books, 2003.

Zack, Naomi, ed. American Mixed Race: The Culture of Microdiversity. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1995.

———. Thinking about Race. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006.

From an Intimate Distance: A Mixed Perspective on Embracing Gratitude

“The problem is not that we all have these different view of things, it is that we each consider our views the only reality. We forget that life is truly a matter of perspective.” –Angel Williams, Being Black

I was on the phone with my friend, Lily, the other night, delving into one of our many uniquely personal and academic discussions, when she says, “Forget hallucinogens. If you want to go on a real trip, try becoming a woman.” As a biracial cis-woman, I am unable to comprehend what this transition must be like, but I laugh, recognizing that at the root of her comment is a shared an experience of mixed marginality—of being able to see the ugly truth about race and sex in this country from both sides of the binary.

When I met Lily, she was still coming to terms with her gender identity and has only recently come out as a trans-woman. In our discussions about her transition and some of the challenges she now faces, we found in one another a new commonality of perspective unique to those who find themselves an outlier, a categorical anomaly, within the strictures of our black/white, male/female binary system. “Sometimes I’m read as male, sometimes female, “ or, often, she describes simply being stared at as people try to figure out what she is. While I understand that there are quite a few significant differences between trans and mixed people’s experiences, there are also a striking number of similarities that exist as a result of being cast into a liminal identity. Being stared at, fetishized or ostracized for being something outside the realm of puritanical gender categories is something that I, as a mixed black/white woman, can certainly relate to. Often, we mixed folk bemoan the weight of expectation people unfamiliar with our unusual, unidentifiable looks place upon us. Certainly we have every right to complain about being asked again and again what we are instead of being recognized for the people we know ourselves to be. This is part of our experience. But with our liminal perspectives, also comes a grace and maturity of wisdom that deserves equal attention and celebration. What Lily expressed to me that night as she discussed her experiences of living once as a man and now sometimes read as a woman, was her unique ability to really see and understand how being a man or woman in this society affects your quality of life. And isn’t this similar to many interracial families and mixed people’s understanding of how deeply one’s perceived race truly affects one’s life?

As incredibly difficult a journey Lily is on, I deeply respect her ability to find cause to celebrate, or at least appreciate, her unique perspective on gender. This, I think, is something that we in the mixed community can also draw from. The “Tragic Mulatto” trope has been used to dissuade people from entering interracial relationships by conveying mixed children as perpetually lonely and confused outsiders. To be mixed, then, is seen as a weakness. But after having attended the Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) Conference in Chicago, I, along with the 600+ other attendees, would probably have to disagree. We are clearly not alone and if we are outsiders, we are only outsiders to a structure that has historically been used to perpetrate structural inequity and oppression.

This conference helped me to recognize that our tragic flaw is also our fundamental source of strength. It was affirming, for instance, to see so many mixed people positively sharing and discussing their experiences and research on being mixed. Panels and roundtable discussions explored everything from historical mixed race communities and the emergence of Diasporic mixed communities to contemporary analyses on creating safe spaces and support structures for mixed race students, and the future of the language surrounding mixed race in an age of post-racial color blindness. We talked about Mexipinos, Blaxicans, Hapa Black Hawaiians, “Hafu” Japanese, and so many other varieties of mixes that I didn’t have a chance to get into. There was an underlying assumption through all of this discourse that I rarely experience within a monoracial setting—an understanding of the mutability of race. It’s understood that race is inescapable in structuring our social and professional lives. But we are graced with a perspective that enables us to see beyond these physiognomic divisions, to question our own assumptions about race and discuss issues of race with an understanding of the harm and alienation that picking sides perpetrates; we have the incredible gift of seeing beyond these structures in a way that people blinded by color cannot. What I found at this conference, then, was a complete rejection of the Tragic Mulatto that insists that we are relegated to a life of lonely wandering between our various ethnic/racial/cultural communities, never quite fitting in. Instead, here was a community of people celebrating mixed heritage and trying to figure out how to use the privilege of their in-betweeness to discuss new perspectives on an antiquated system that arbitrarily divides communities and families.

I am certainly not the first to draw attention to the power of perspective. Kristen A. Renn’s study on mixed race college students calls this strength “positive marginality.” She observed that many mixed students have the ability to adjust their racial identification depending upon what a situation calls for. This is evident of “a highly evolved skill requiring emotional maturity and cognitive complexity.” (80) This is more than just flattery, but recognition of a multiracial person’s ability to understand race as an indefinite and often inaccurate social qualifier of difference. Out of this awareness, she states that mixed people are capable of “increased tolerance for difference and appreciation of commonalities, as well as multiple points of reference.” (18) Gloria Anzaldua also recognizes the power of maintaining a mestiza, or mixed, consciousness in the face of Western modes of binary thinking. In her book, Borderlands/La Frontera, she writes, “La mestiza constantly has to shift out of habitual formations; from convergent thinking, analytical reasoning that tends to use rationality to move toward a single goal (a Western mode), to divergent thinking, characterized by movement away from set patterns and goals and toward a more whole perspective, one that includes rather than excludes.” (141) We as a community can embrace a huge variety of perspectives; diversity, for Anzaldua, is not about our differences as they divide us, but the way in which this variety strengthens and unites us as a whole.

To be clear, I am not advocating that we recognize the privilege of our perspective out of any sort of post-racial, anti-affirmative action nonsense. Quite to the contrary, I think that becoming aware of our “positive marginality” enables the mixed race community to remain conscious of race and to resist color-blind rhetoric that seeks to assimilate and, essentially, lighten/whiten communities of color. By virtue of our birth, origins, and families, we cannot ignore the presence that race plays in our lives. Nothing about a mixed racial identity is intrinsically assumed. It is complicated, a process of constant personal upheavals and daily confrontations with people trying to mentally shuffle us into the correct racial category. We are never a who, but a what. To be able to understand the fluid and faulty nature of race on such an intimate level affords us an incredibly unique perspective on those invisible fissures that have for so long appeared to divide us.

We can endlessly argue about systemic racism and complain about the various microaggressions we face. We need to keep up discussions around how cases like that in Ferguson are a part of the same white supremacist trappings that frustrate, hurt and oppress us in the mixed community. This is entirely necessary to discuss and often underpins our identities as mixed race individuals. But how often do we stop to give thanks to our families for bestowing us with such a unique blend of cultural traditions, lineages and stories, including and/or in spite of the racist views that come with it? How often do we ever look at ourselves in the mirror and feel grateful for being so damn good looking despite being exoticized as a result? I think that we can be brave, like Lily, and embrace this discomfort and these challenges with strength, humility and gratitude. Moreover, we can do this together; meet-ups like the CMRS conference have made me even more grateful for the mixed race community and our ability to collectively celebrate our many heritages. This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for being mixed and all the strength and wisdom of perspective that comes with it.

Sources

 Anzaldua, G. (2004) La Conciencia Mestiza: Toward a New Consciousness. In Ifekwunigwe, J. O. (Ed.) Mixed Race Studies: A Reader. (pp. 139-141). New York: Routledge.

Renn, K. A. (2004). Mixed Race Students in College: The Ecology of Race, Identity and Community on Campus. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Williams, A. K. (2000). Being Black. New York: Viking Compass.