I wrote this for Wheaton's new, hip student publication, "The Pub." It was rejected on account of being too long and rambly, but hey, I liked it.
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I am from a culture of shame. Shame that breeds fear. Shame that breeds silence.
Before I came to Wheaton, I was taught to conceal my home life. My family went to church with smiles pasted on our faces. We always sat in the front row to show our devotion and spiritual maturity. My mom would listen attentively and take notes during the sermon. My parents would cry together and pray at the altar at the end of the service.
Then we would go home. The television would turn back on. Something minor would happen to set my parents off and they would scream at each other for hours. Sometimes they would push each other into walls. I remember how my stomach would knot up then. It was funny—I could handle their screaming without even flinching. But as soon as those scuffling, muffled slamming noises started, fear and anger would numb my entire body.
Often times, my parents fought because my mom is a terrible housekeeper. Our house was always a disaster until my sister and I got old enough to clean. Even then, it was hard to work around the years of clutter that had built up and that my mom refused to part with.
I never brought friends over to my house. I was terrified of their judgment. I grew up in a semi-poor neighborhood. It wasn’t government housing or a trailer park, but it was right next to government housing. Our neighborhood was still home to gangs, a child molester, and plenty of drug-abusing families with deadbeat parents. Kids in our neighborhood were either hard and cruel or ashamed and quiet, like me.
We never had a lot of money, even after we became Christians and my step-dad gave up drinking, marijuana, and crack. Neither of my parents went to college. I was the first person in both my mom and my step-dad’s family to go to college. My step-dad worked as a bricklayer, making sporadic money during the winter months. In Northwest Indiana, winter makes up a good portion of the year. My parents often made our financial situation worse by spending the little money we did have frivolously. My mom is a compulsive spender. I’ve always resented the useless trinkets and pieces of clothing she’s brought home for me, even if they were on sale at Wal-Mart or Good Will.
Growing up in public schools, I was ashamed of my off-brand clothes. I was ashamed that my family received food stamps and Medicaid. I was ashamed that we shopped at Aldi for our food instead of more expensive grocery stores where everyone else could afford to shop. I tried to cover up my shame by keeping people at a distance. I rarely allowed my friends to meet my family. I never hosted parties or sleepovers at my house. If people were ignorant about my personal life, I wouldn’t have to experience the shame so intensely.
And so I became a master at concealment. Because I was trained to keep everyone at a distance, it’s still hard for me to open up and trust people. Jerry Root would say that much of the way I am now is the result of the anesthetizing behaviors I formed in order to survive my childhood and become a relatively successful, normal adult.
I couldn’t bring myself to talk to anyone at Wheaton about the details of my family life until sophomore year. It’s still hard for me to own up to the things I’ve been ashamed of for so long. I’m still used to hiding.
Whenever I come home from visiting my family, it takes several days to warm up to my roommates again. I remember sophomore year when I came home from Christmas break, my roommate touched my hand and I flinched. I felt so disgusted by her invasion of my personal, private space. I had reverted back to my safety net of hiding and distancing, and it took several weeks for me to admit to myself that I didn’t need those self-preserving behaviors at Wheaton.
Over the past few years, my journey at Wheaton has included an eye-opening experience of learning about social and racial inequality. I have attended seminars and lectures and movie discussions that have challenged my dormant knowledge of how the past has affected the present. I’ll admit it—I was one of those white kids who came to Wheaton thinking that the Civil Rights Movement solved all of America’s race problems.
As I listened to my non-white friends share experiences with me and as I heard non-white speakers share testimonies, I realized that I had been sheltered in my predominantly white town. I thought race wasn’t an issue because where I’m from, Hispanics are poor, but so are white people. There are certain parts of my town, like the neighborhood I live in, that aren’t nice places to live in. Those are the places where Hispanics live. But those are also the places where white people live. We don’t have visible lines drawn between races. Our lines just revolve around what you have and what you don’t have. Class is a basis for discrimination, but race never seems to come up.
In fact, black kids were the cool kids at our school. The hard and cruel kids I mentioned earlier who come from poorer parts of my town idolized stereotypical black culture. They dressed like gangbangers, used inner-city slang, and would only listen to black hip-hop. If I had any conceptions about race when I was growing up, it was that black people were too cool for me. I was one of the ashamed, quiet kids. I could never bring myself to booty dance at school dances. I listened to hip-hop, but I didn’t carry myself with the kind of attitude that made anyone suspect that I did. I was too timid.
Because of the fetish with black culture that I grew up around, when I came to Wheaton, I was surprised to hear black women talk about feelings of insecurity and inferiority. I was surprised to hear black speakers talk about racial inequality still present in America. But after I got over the surprise, I listened. I cried. I realized that the world was bigger than my little town in Northwest Indiana. I realized that as a whole, white people do have it quite a bit easier in this country and in the world.
But in the midst of my attempt at solidarity with blacks, Asians, and Hispanics at Wheaton, one thing always bothered me. No one seemed to leave any space for poor whites. I heard lots of people say things like, “White Christians want to go from the suburbs to the inner city because they’ve romanticized it. They think they can save the day because they have all the answers. They’re too busy trying to solve problems without really identifying with poor people.” I’ve heard speakers say that minority students bring important, unique issues to the greater white community at Wheaton—issues like poverty, oppression, and social justice.
When I hear these things I feel bitter and almost betrayed. I thought racial reconciliation and social justice involved opening our eyes to the “other.” I thought it meant realizing that the world isn’t a neat package we’ve invented based on our own personal experiences and expectations. I thought it meant acknowledging that people who haven’t had power socially are still worthy of respect, that they still have a valid voice.
And yet in the midst of all of these forums, discussions, articles, and seminars, I found myself being lumped into the rich, suburban, Wheaton community. I found a black girl telling me that I romanticize poverty and that I’m just like all those other annoying white people who think they know what it’s like to have problems but really don’t have a clue. Why? Not because I haven’t experienced poverty or abuse or broken families or gang fights down the street, obviously, because I have experienced those things. So what’s left? I’m white.
After studying ethnicity in my Sociology of the Family class a few weeks ago, I realized that I’ve become extremely ashamed of my ethnicity. I hate being white. I hate being white because it means I can’t have an authentic voice concerning social justice. I hate being white because it gives me an automatic stigma at Wheaton that I’m wealthy, suburban, and ignorant.
My shame over being white has created this odd desire in me to broadcast the things I used to be ashamed of. Instead of trying to cover up the poverty and abuse in my past, I feel like I need to highlight it so I can justify this sin of being white.
In the past, I was ashamed of not having enough. I was ashamed that my step-dad couldn’t make it to the hospital when my little brother was born because he was so strung out on crack. I was ashamed that I fantasized about suicide more times than I can remember. I was ashamed that even when he hit her, my mom refused to leave my step-dad. I was ashamed that their screaming could be heard three houses away in the summer time. I was ashamed of so many elements that make up my life, my experiences, who I am. But I was never ashamed of my ethnic heritage.
Now I’ve also learned to be ashamed of being white. I’m ashamed that my ancestors oppressed the ancestors of some of my closest friends. I’m ashamed that kids who share physical features with me have called my boyfriend names when he was a kid. I’m ashamed because I realize that when a non-white person looks at me, their default assumption is that I didn’t experience the past that I did experience. I’m a poor white kid at Wheaton College, the Harvard of the evangelical world, and we just don’t have a box for people like that.
I don’t usually share my life story with people until they’re extremely close to me. I can count on both hands the number of friends who know most or all of the details of my past. And so to most people, my skin color speaks for me, and my skin color says that I have power and opportunity. My skin color says that I shouldn’t know what it’s like to wonder if the heating bill will be paid next month. My skin color says that my parents should be supportive and educated and loving.
And even when I try to justify myself and say that I have a heart for reconciliation and social justice because I know what it’s like to feel like I’m at the bottom of the barrel, I still have this suspicion that my words don’t matter all that much. My skin color is louder.
I’m poor and white. I still struggle with feeling shame about my past. I still struggle with praying for my family members, all of whom have renounced Christianity over the past four years and have entered back into their old patterns of drinking, drugs, promiscuity, and intense poverty mingled with horrible financial decisions. It’s hard for me to admit these things to people at Wheaton. It’s harder that I feel like they would be more significant and easy to talk about here if I had a black face to go along with them.
I’m not bitter. I don’t want to keep this battle of blame between whites and non-whites going. I’m just sad. Sad that I have to hide. Sad that I have to justify. I’m tired of feeling ashamed. I’m tired of hiding.
Love. I like love because it’s so personal. I don’t want you to love me because I’m white. I don’t want you to love me because I care about social justice. I don’t want you to love me in spite of my whiteness. I just want you to know me and to love whatever you find there, even if it’s not what you expected.
And I want to love you. Not because you’re white or black or Asian. Not because you agree with me and understand me. I want to love you because you’re human and you’re made in God’s image. I want to get past the bitterness, past the shame, past the anger and see what really matters. I want to see you. If you’re bitter, I want to see that part of you, but it can’t stop there. Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Gentleness. Faithfulness. Goodness. Self-control. These aren’t unattainable fantasies, are they? I have to believe and pray that someday when you look at me and I look at you, the lenses of the Spirit will take precedence over any other lenses.
“Now we see but a poor reflection, as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” --1 Corinthians 13:12-13
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