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I’ve had many conversations these past few months with friends from all parts of my life. The COVID pandemic has led to a more urgent desire to connect with each other as we seek to find meaning in the current state of the world. But to be honest, I have not yet been directly affected by the pandemic as so many others have. I live in a rural area and already work from home, so my day to day routine is much the same. However, like many others, the murder of George Floyd and the growing momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement has pushed me to confront my own role in perpetuating the oppression of Black, indigenous, and people of color and the marginalization of their voices.
I grew up in a small town in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and both sides of my family were early German and English settlers of the area. I am proud of the long connections I have with the Pocono Mountains and have written about this place before, but what I failed to mention is that the town I grew up in lacks diversity…so much so that I can count on one hand the number of black families that attended my elementary school. I start here, because as I confront the long-road ahead of listening, learning, and action needed to dismantle my own white fragility and complacency towards racism, I must recognize how deep it runs.
I had the great fortune in the 5th grade to meet a group of girls who profoundly changed my life and my perspective. “The girls” as we called ourselves are my childhood best friends: Read, Jess, Kebra, Bridget, Van, Kirby and Sara. Even as young women, they pushed me to be more aware of the world outside of our small town…to write letters for Amnesty International, to read the New York Times, to talk about world events, to vote, to question, and to choose careers that would make the world a better place. We were inseparable through middle school and high school and I have never had a cohesive group of friends like them since. Although I have incredible friends, my adult friendships are largely forged from individual connections. We all went our separate ways for college, but remained in close touch until about 10 years ago, as time zones, personal losses, family priorities, and other factors made it harder to maintain a connection with each others’ daily lives. However, it is these friends who I have turned back to in these past few months, those who have known me the longest and whose perspectives on world events continue to be a beacon for my own self-reflection and questioning. We’ve been sharing resources on social equity and anti-racism, holding space for each as we vulnerably discuss and confront our own biases, and are holding each other accountable as we work to ignite change in our work, families and communities.
The sea change the world is calling for can’t be achieved alone or in the silos we have built around ourselves. So, I reach out to you all here to share the work that I commit to doing so that I may be accountable to a larger community.
As a historian, I am shifting my research to focus on retelling the white-washed narrative of American history to include suppressed voices. The dominant American history narrative highlights the successes of wealthy white men and silences the plight and oppression of those who were displaced in their wake. The stories of the Native Americans who were slaughtered and displaced by European settlers (including my ancestors), the black slaves whose labor was stolen to build white fortunes and power, the Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II, and the mothers, wives, and daughters who weren’t allowed to vote in this country until 1920. This dominant narrative is not just taught in small towns, but also in universities, and by omission in our public spaces and public processes. The laws and policies that govern the work I do in historic preservation have been largely interpreted to protect this dominant narrative, highlighting the southern plantations, president’s houses, and beautiful architecture of early America. Alongside this view are progressive groups and thought leaders fighting for suppressed voices to be included in the chronicle of our history…and the voices that aren’t recorded in the history books are the ones that need to be brought into the light.
As I consider where to take Senses of Place next, I admit that I have a lot of learning to do first. However my next project takes shape, it will be based in my own relearning of American history and listening to marginalized voices as I seek to bring greater equity and awareness into this work. Thank you for reading and witnessing my sincere efforts to label and act upon my own racial biases through this work.
I appreciate the outpouring of educational resources I’m seeing in my social media feeds and wanted to share a few of the ones I’ve turned to below. I encourage you to reply and share others that you have found, which I will share next month.
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