Skin Tone

I arrived in the crowded room for our monthly meeting with a minute to spare. The standard chit-chat was being had around the table, with about a dozen of us gathered in service of our local community. As I set down my bag, a young white woman of highschool age across from me said, “Oh, what a pretty purse,” to an older white woman seated next to her. “What color would you call that?” I glanced down at the “dusty rose” purse to take a look.

“Why, thank you,” replied the elder woman. “I call it skin tone.”

I sat down with a thump. It was all I could do to keep my jaw hinged together as anger and astonishment gripped me. Did she really just say that? Could she truly be that blind to how non-inclusive that statement was? And did she realize that she was passing on white blindness to a 16-year old? I could not think of an appropriate comment in that instant, and I kept my exterior composure even though my interior was roiling—partly at myself for allowing the moment to pass without speaking up right then and there.

The meeting was a bit of a blur for me, and even after it ended, I couldn’t shake the scene or my anger. After discussing the incident with two trusted friends a couple of days later over a cup of tea, I came to see it was probably good that I had not said anything in that particular moment, since the meeting was just about to start, and “Dusty Rose” was running it. A comment from me right then might have caused her to shut down or get defensive. However, my friends did encourage me to speak up, saying the moment for learning was not lost. They helped me sort through the best method of communication under the circumstances, and I decided to write separate emails to both women.

I felt energized once I returned home, and I sat right down at my computer. It felt so good to have moved out of paralyzing anger and into action instead. And yet…these were not straightforward, transactional emails. I found myself writing a bit about my own learning journey with white privilege, and as I wrote, I discovered—underneath that anger—my own shame. Wasn’t it just a couple of months ago that I had asked someone who looked different from me the dreaded, “Where are you from?” question? (And yes, she answered “I’m from here.”) Wasn’t it just a few years ago that I realized all my closest friends were not only white, but also very similar to me in lots of other ways?

I also found myself feeling sorrow…sorrow that the town I live in doesn’t have a lot of diversity in skin tone, which makes these conversations slower to be had, and a far deeper sorrow about the vast history of racial inequities I am coming to see much more clearly now.

So it took a while, but my emails had a very different flavor to them than any off-the-cuff comment I might have made in the moment, and writing them caused a connection to click for me. I belong to an intimate women’s leadership group, and for many months now, we have been delving into issues of white privilege and owning our whiteness. At the most recent gathering, we found ourselves really grappling with a quote by mindfulness teacher Ruth King, who says, “Anger is initiatory, it is not transformative.” We discussed whether this felt true, as we have all experienced important impetus and action rise from anger, as I did in this circumstance.

Now, after this single tiny instance, I feel closer to understanding Ruth King’s words, because I see that although my anger did lead to action, in and of itself, it was not transformative. What allowed me to reach out with compassion, as a fellow learner on this long journey, was the pause and the recognition of what lived underneath my anger. I had to humble myself, and I had to sit with my feelings. 

I’m happy to report that I built a bridge instead of burning one in this instance. But the story doesn’t quite end there (and really it’s a never-ending story), because the universe is ever-wise and wily. I showed up for a training this week, where one of our texts is Pema Chodron’s Start Where You Are. Our homework was to read the chapter “Poison as Medicine” and write a poem in response. The chapter is dense and deep, so I tried synthesizing Pema’s ideas in a series of haiku poems. And as I wrote, all the threads came together. I could see the poisons: my aversion (anger), my attachment (righteousness), and how sitting with these feelings finally allowed them to become medicine: compassion. This is the work of transformation, tiny step by tiny step.

Spacious, not solid—
Ground of all experience
need not be heavy

Three poisons, messy
stuff: attachment, aversion
and couldn’t care less

Like, dislike, neutral.
Puppets to our preferences
if on automatic

When we awaken,
messy stuff is our richness
three seeds of virtue

Stay with raw feelings
Hold your seat. Hold your seat. Be.
Drop the storyline

Something extremely 
soft arises...compassion.
We open further