Vol. 66: (Mis)understandings

Author

Allison Punch
January 31, 2023

Editor’s note: Last week’s newsletter was accidentally titled Vol. 64 when it was Volume 65!

Over the weekend, I read Camonghne Felix’s debut poetry collection, Build Yourself a Boat. In the acknowledgments, she writes to her mother: “When I was twelve, you told me, ‘It’s not the world’s job to understand you, it’s your job to understand the world,’ and I'm pretty sure that statement is what made me choose poetry as my vessel of understanding”

WHAT.

Read that again: It’s not the world’s job to understand you, it’s your job to understand the world.

One of my biggest anxiety triggers, particularly over the past three years, has been feeling misunderstood. It’s a vicious cycle - when I’m unsure if my point is coming across how I want, my chest tightens, my breathing is jagged, and then it’s harder for me to regulate and communicate.

Have you ever been in a conversation where you realize that you and the person you’re speaking with are saying the exact same thing, in different words? I feel like that in 75% of my work meetings, and we have a very meeting heavy culture. As I begin my thirties, I committed to saying, “Yes, that’s what I’m saying” when I experience this. While I think it’s important to advocate for myself and my ideas - as a woman who has been socialized not to - after reading Camonghne’s mom’s advice, I’m going to work on releasing my desire to be understood. Those I admire most have a curious mind, and I want to nurture it within myself.

I never realized, prior to reading this, how inherently self-centered my fears about being misunderstood are - rooted in MY opinion, MY beliefs, MY ego, rather than in the relationship with others and the world. And also - I’m privileged enough to have a handful of loved ones who truly see & understand me. Shouldn’t that be enough?

While we’re on the subject of understanding the world, there’s a lot I don’t. (CW: Police brutality, anti-Black racism, murder). There’s a lot of injustice that while I partially grasp its roots in US history, I don’t get the continued lack of humanity. I don’t understand why, still, we - and I mean specifically white people, because that’s the community I’m a part of - need to watch videos of Black people being brutally murdered in order to realize that policing is a problem in this country. 

The race of the officers who murdered Tyre Nichols is a moot point to me; the origins of modern day policing are in slave codes, meaning that because policing was founded to maintain the same anti-Black racial order the United States was built on, hiring Black officers was never a long-term solution.

I wasn’t alive when Rodney King was beaten, but I was in college when Trayvon was murdered. I was a recent college grad when Michael Brown was killed. Philando Castille. The list is far too long. I think Alton Sterling was the last video I ever watched. Studying history, we learn that white American gathered around lynchings and treated them as a social occassions. Postcards of brutalized, murdered Black people were sent as mementos. So much of my TikTok For You Feed over the past few days has been Black folks remarking on how much of the lead up to the release of this video reckoned back to lynching postcards. I didn’t watch George Floyd’s murder. I didn’t watch Ryan LeRoux’s murder. I’m not watching Tyre’s murder. If you’re white and still watch these videos, I would love to be in conversation around what they provide that you didn’t have previously.

I saw some videos of Tyre skateboarding and links to his photography pages on social media. While I want to celebrate his life and honor his humanity, I don’t want to inadvertently lean into the perfect victim narratives that valorize his innocence while implying that others who are heavier or who are engaging in illegal activity deserve to be killed by the police. He - as well as the lives lost before his - should be alive, period. 

This is me being vulnerable here, but lately I’ve felt like my antiracism journey has plateaued. Some of it could be that we had so much public conversation about police violence after the murder of George Floyd only for cops to kill more people in 2022 than ever. I read, I donate, I write my lil newsletter. I say this not for abdication but for solidarity that if you’re white (or not) and feel similarly, you’re not alone. I’m committing to curiosity. As Mariame Kaba says, Hope is a discipline.

Abolition reading recommendation: 

The above links are affiliate links - please also consider checking them out from the library or buying from your favorite Black owned bookstore. Should you purchase at the link above, any proceeds from affiliate income will be donated to Harriet’s Dreams. 

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