Editor’s note: This commentary is by Kerry Fantelli, of South Burlington, who works at the Center for Health and Wellbeing at the University of Vermont, where sits on the diversity council for the Division of Student Affairs.
[I] am white. I was raised in a white world. I carry privilege. It has taken me time to see, learn, feel, understand and “get” racism … as much as a white person can get it.
I do not have a white daughter. I do not have white family members. I have a blended family. The blending of color in my family has opened me in many ways. Having people of color in my family opened my mind and eyes to matters of race, but it truly was not until I had my daughter that my heart broke open. Often I was asked, when I carried my child on me, “where did you get her from?”
Sometimes I was sassy and once I even said with a serious face “eBay.” Sometimes I snapped and said, “My uterus.”
It does not matter where she “came from,” what matters is that people had the audacity to feel they could ask these questions. Complete strangers felt that they could poke into my private, personal life.
My daughter is a sophomore at South Burlington High School, which has recently been in the spotlight. The sports mascot name, Rebel, has finally been approved for change.
After a couple of years of dialogue and deliberation, the school board agreed it was time for a new name and mascot. A community-wide message was sent out requesting input for the new name and it has yet to be decided upon.
The backlash to this change has continued to astound and upset me. I had to stop reading comments and posts by people who have not had to even think about what racial slurs or disparity truly mean. Perhaps I am making assumptions, but it sure seems that way to me.
When we all stand by and do nothing and wait for someone else to stand up and speak about how we need to right wrongs, we continue to allow harm to grow in our community.
When people say it is just a word, a name, it does not mean anything, that is saying that words don’t matter. But they do. That silly chant about sticks and stones has been on replay in my brain for weeks. They do matter, they do hurt, they do count.
This is why Dr. Maya Angelou stressed the importance of being mindful when you speak. “You must be careful. Care about calling people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance,” she said. “Don’t do that.” Words, she felt, have the power to seep into everything around you. “I think they get on the walls, they get in your wallpaper, they get in your rugs and your upholstery and your clothes,” Dr. Angelou said. “And, finally, into you.”
So is it “just a word?”
For those of you who say it only impacts a minority of students/people, why change when the majority are not affected. To that I say, when you feel the impact of being othered or biased against or discriminated against, would it be your wish to have folks band against you in their majority privilege and leave you hurting, harmed and oppressed?
I know, on a planetwide scale, this matter seems silly, when the sky is falling all around us and officials elected into power are frightening human beings. However, when we all stand by and do nothing and wait for someone else to stand up and speak about how we need to right wrongs, we continue to allow harm to grow in our community. Marginalizing and oppressing groups of people that historically have been biased against for years is wrong. Not becoming aware of what these messages say and how they impact people is wrong.
Let us all pause, stop and think. Let us consider how others are impacted by words, by actions, by laws. If you are not willing to look inside yourself, and ask, “How does this name hurt me or my child?” Because it does hurt. By not understanding how injustice and lack of inclusion hurts, you are turning a blind eye. Bias, prejudice and discrimination will continue and one by one we will all be injured.
This is a challenging time in our country and if we do not ask ourselves, how does this impact me, or my family, then history certainly will repeat itself.
Words hurt, they seep into us all. Please quiet words of anger and self-righteousness and think about the harm that names do cause.
The author is giving two presentations on implicit bias/microaggression on April 1 and April 8, 2 to 4 p.m., at the South Burlington Community Library. They are free and all are welcome to attend.
