The Undercover Introvert

When History Hurts Your Feelings

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We’re arguing a lot about history lately, which seems odd to me, at least on its face. After all, history is nothing more than a narrative we share as a culture about what happened in the past. It’s not definitive or infallible, of course, because someone had to write it, actually more like multiple someones, and the agreed upon version based on those narrow viewpoints is what gets spread far and wide to eager students in kindergarten through 12th grade and beyond. And not just here, but all over, in every culture across the globe. Without history, we would be untethered as a people, anchorless, unknown.

So, why all the recent hubbub over our history here in America? It’s just what happened, right?

Years ago, when my elementary school teachers told me that a group of founding fathers courageously broke free from British rule and created this nation in order to give us all the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I bought that narrative, hook, line, and sinker. Of course, those teachers neglected to mention that most of those founding fathers so thirsty for their own freedom actually owned enslaved Black people, considered women second class citizens, and completely wrote off indigenous people along with all other people of color. So, that original brand of freedom turned out to be pretty limited, and it stayed that way for a long time. It didn’t even really include poor, non-land owning white men. Probably would have been worth lifting that up in class, don’t you think?

I’ve always had a soft spot for history, because it’s a story, and there’s little I adore more. As a writer, I think about the mechanics of storytelling quite a lot. As the author, I have complete control over what gets included and what gets left out. This isn’t usually a problem, because folks reading my work understand it as reflecting my unique and admittedly narrow viewpoint. But if I could somehow manage to pass off my subjective judgments about prior events as objective facts that then get taught to millions of impressionable others, what then? Think about the facts I could have unwittingly failed to include, given the limitation of my life experience and point of view. Even more problematically, what if my motives were darker and I purposely crafted a narrative that didn’t even bother to reflect what actually happened?

This is essentially what’s happened in the construction and retelling of our history. When I was growing up, teachers didn’t spend any time discussing the authors responsible for crafting the history they were teaching us. We were simply learning the facts, Jack. No need to question it or imagine historical events told from alternate viewpoints (imagine the glory of manifest destiny told from the P.O.V. of indigenous people; the American Revolution told from the P.O.V. of enslaved Black folks). It was only much later that I wondered how the authors of our shared, agreed upon history were chosen. Had anyone ever questioned their subjective judgment about the events and people “important” enough to get written into the narrative they cobbled together? Because it sure seemed like a lot of Black folks, women, and other POCs fell short of making the cut decade after decade. Why was that?

I’ve written a lot of fiction. In the little worlds I create, I possess godlike abilities. I choose the lens through which the story itself is filtered. I choose the heroes and the villains, the main characters and the supporting cast. I choose what gets included, and what isn’t important enough to mention. But, again, this doesn’t rise to the level of problematic because when you read a novel, you know it’s not real. However, history is taught in a way that discourages the questioning of its authors’ motives. You are just supposed to accept it as what happened. Period.

Since history is a sweeping story of all the things that have come before the present day, it’s natural that material gets omitted. We couldn’t possibly include everything and everyone. So, isn’t it also natural that we are perpetually revising the story to include things that were either omitted due to the authors’ good faith ignorance or, worse, purposely erased in favor of a much rosier narrative? One would think so, unless one were watching the news unfold in the present day. And then one would think that kind of revision is a threat to the very fabric of our nation and wellbeing of our children.

It seems that the story of what happened in America — the good, the bad, the ugly — hurts some (white) folks’ feelings, and they don’t want it to hurt their children’s feelings too. Now, I’ve raised a child, and I can tell you that she never came home emotionally destroyed because of something she learned in history class. Kids don’t really take that kind of thing personally. I’ve also been a child, and let me just say that math routinely caused me undue emotional distress because I hated it and it was hard. Under no circumstance would I suggest we remove math from the curriculum because some students can be made to feel bad about themselves.

To this, some might reply:

This is different! My child is being taught to be ashamed of being white because of slavery or…

Yeah, I let that trail off at the end because it’s such bad faith B.S and repeating it here would just make me tired all over. Feel free to fill in the blanks, y’all.

Let’s get real: the whitewashed version of history, written by white historians, is what we all grew up learning (America is the very best nation in the world and has NEVER done anything wrong), and anything else is a threat to the collective psyche. We can point a finger at the Nazis for the horrors they inflicted upon millions of innocent people, but we can’t accept that our own country imprisoned Japanese people in internment camps during that same period. The systematic genocide of indigenous people is barely discussed. Slavery is mentioned in our childhood history books, but we’re quickly taught that Abraham Lincoln took care of that evil, and the Civil Rights Movement tied up whatever loose ends remained. Problem solved! We didn’t learn anything about the legacy of slavery and how that echoes into the present day, codified in law, attitudes, and culture.

Why is a more robust and truthful version of our history so scary to so many? Why is the inclusion of those that were purposely left out of earlier versions of the story we tell ourselves about America creating such chaos in the modern day?

History isn’t therapy, friends. It’s not a support group. It’s not supposed to soothe your feelings and shore up your self esteem. But it’s also not a personal attack or a value judgment about who you are or aren’t. It should be an account of what happened, and when new events or accounts come to light, we add them to what we already know to improve the accuracy of our shared story.

If what happened in history hurts your feelings, dig into why that is. Because it’s not really about you, is it? Or, at least it shouldn’t be. It’s not about your kids, my kids, or anyone else’s. It simply is what it is.

We really have to ask ourselves: do we want to do better as a nation? Do we want to continue moving closer to the promise laid out in our founding documents? Because if we do, we have to know and reckon with what came before us. There’s no doing better without knowing better. Isn’t that a lesson worth teaching our kids?

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A Journey Through Time and Space

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History is a funny thing. It’s behind us by definition, but it also never leaves us, even when we willfully shy away from it. And there are times you can feel the weight of centuries taking up space, intruding on the present, a physical force that quickens your heartbeat and cools the blood rushing beneath your skin.

A few years ago, I found myself in Washington DC for several months for work. I’d never spent much time in our nation’s capital, and I decided to make the most of it. That meant an aggressive schedule of museum visits and as many trips to historical monuments as I could muster in 90 days. My second weekend there, I booked a boat ride to Mount Vernon, the famous home of George Washington. I’m a history nerd going way back, so I was truly excited to finally visit the sprawling estate of a central founding father. I also possess the ability, fostered by 12 years of public K — 12 whitewashed education, to fawn over our country’s rich history with one breath and then criticize it with the next. You can’t grow up in this country without developing this ability, a kind of compartmentalizing that allows me to bask in the carefully crafted glory of our collective past while also acknowledging that I, as a Black woman, wouldn’t have lived very well outside of the last 50ish years. Even within those 50 years, it can be a crapshoot.

The morning was brisk, but the boat ride on the Potomac was lovely as experienced from my warm seat nestled safely below deck. Upon our arrival, I stepped out into the chill air and took stock of my surroundings. Besides the boat, everything was much the way it might have looked back in the 1700s when Washington was still alive and kicking. I felt transported hundreds of years into the past, which was thrilling, and then I felt something else as we disembarked. It was visceral, and it stayed with me for the rest of the trip, niggling at my insides, casting shadows in the far corners of my eyes, as though the very space I inhabited was crackling with all that had come before this moment.

I had to walk up a path through the trees to get to the mansion at the top of the hill. I went quickly, stepping around groups of people as I tried to identify that nagging feeling. It twisted in my gut and settled on my shoulders, a heavy sensation that followed me as I climbed higher. By the time I reached Washington’s tomb, I knew where the feeling was coming from, though I couldn’t name it. The heaviness trembled in the air around me. It was everywhere.

I wasn’t welcome here.

No one was yelling at me or telling me to leave. No one was even looking in my direction. And why would they, when the grand, brick-enclosed tomb of our nation’s first president was right in front of us? But the unsettling un-at-homeness of the place was filling my lungs as I inhaled, and it didn’t leave me when I exhaled. I wandered away from the tomb, craving a bit of separation from the cluster of tourists excitedly snapping pictures of Washington’s final resting place. In a shadier, much quieter spot, I found a more modest marker, dedicated in 1929, which read:

In memory of the many faithful colored servants of the Washington family buried at Mount Vernon from 1760 to 1860. Their unidentified graves surround this spot.

I glanced around where I stood, alone, my eyes tearing. In that space was no trace of the generations of men, women, and children that had toiled on this land. No marker naming them. No place for flowers or remembrance.

Faithful colored servants.

It struck me that the biggest difference between these Black folks and myself was the passage of time. There was another difference that weighed on me: I had come here willingly and would leave without obstacle as soon as my tour of the main house was completed.

I went on to the house at the top of the hill and my tour, that sense of being unwelcome, of sharing space with the nameless, faceless people that had come before me never lifting. It had been these people, bound in slavery, that made Washington’s life possible. Beneath his every success, the ones we read so much about in school, there were these folks, tending the land, cleaning the house, cooking the food, caring for the animals, making the place hospitable for a never ending stream of guests. Yet, the history I learned in the first 12 years of my education never made a single mention of these so-called faithful colored servants. They stayed in the background of history, and, upon their deaths, were buried in unmarked graves, taking their names and stories with them. But I could feel them in that space, on that land, where I wandered, a little stunned to be in a place where they had walked, and lived, and wept, and dreamed. A place that had not been their home, not really. A place that was never meant for me to visit, free as any white person.

On my way back to the boat, I stopped again by the hallowed ground where so many people had found their harsh freedom from a life of forced servitude. I stood near the marker, sharing space with them one final time, letting the air vibrate with that feeling of unwelcomeness. These men and women had built this place, had turned it into a thriving estate, a destination for millions to come and stand in reverence of the great George Washington. But I would never know their names. History would never tell their stories. Still, I could feel them as that heaviness pressed into my shoulders, a sense of the past bleeding into the present, of hands reaching across the void of time.

I went back to the boat, and my life, that otherworldly feeling staying with me long after I returned to DC. In many ways, that visit mirrors the experience of being a Black American. People that looked like us toiled for centuries, building a country that was never meant to belong to us. And, yet, here we Black folks are today, left to reconcile the brute expanse of history with the realities of our daily lives. It catches us off guard, rising up and settling heavily onto our shoulders: millions of stories, of lives, of experiences and shared spaces that bind us together, but are unknowable. What else can we do, besides carry the weight of that shadowy past along with us into the future?

Open Letter to Those Ruining it for the Rest of Us

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When I was in school, there was little I looked forward to less than the dreaded group project. Teenaged me operated beneath a relatively simple directive: get all schoolwork done and behind you so you can move on to the things you actually enjoy doing, like hanging out with friends or reading for pleasure. That’s not to say I wasn’t also a habitual procrastinator, but it helped that neglecting schoolwork wasn’t an option. The crackdown from my folks would have been swift and all encompassing if I brought home poor grades, so I chose to simply handle my business, even if I was handling it at 2 AM the night before an assignment was due. But group projects added a layer of complication to this straightforward formula of powering through until I reached the lightweight feeling of momentary freedom at the end of a pile of homework. I (mostly) had control over myself. But I had zero control over the actions of others. When they decided not to shoulder their share of the work, there was very little I could do about it besides just pick up the slack if I wanted a good grade.

Think of American society as the ultimate group project. First, no one has a choice but to be part of the group. Second, no matter how much you keep your head down and focus on simply handling your business, someone else can come along and fuck the whole thing up. Then we all get a failing grade. Now we’re all grounded! Or, worse, we get stricken with a deadly virus…

So, yeah, this is for those of you who are actively fucking things up for the rest of us.

Just a point of clarification before I lean all the way into my tirade: this is directed squarely at those who have adopted a loud and proud me first and fuck everyone else mentality, not those immuno-compromised folks that can’t actually get vaccinated. Herd immunity is what’s supposed to protect these folks, so it’s even more infuriating that perfectly (and momentarily, TBH) healthy people are selfishly refusing to protect them and all kids under 12 years old that can’t yet get the shot.

Okay, back to the rant.

We were forced to start a new and rather challenging group project in the beginning of 2020. No one was given a choice, but we were all fully in control of how we responded to the unique parameters of the project. I responded by going into self-imposed quarantine and wearing a mask for my biweekly trip to the grocery store. For months, I did very little outside of the house besides shop for food at 7 AM when the store opened and was not busy. I didn’t travel. I didn’t see friends outside of Zoom happy hours. I worked from home and waited for it to be over. It wasn’t fun, but it was necessary. Yes, I was protecting myself and those I lived with, but I was also making sure I didn’t get sick and spread the virus to others in my community.

As soon as the vaccine was made available to my age group, I got it. Two weeks after my second shot, I reentered the world as though exploring an exotic locale. I went to in-person meet ups with friends. I ate at a restaurant for the first time in over a year. Cases were going down and things were opening up again. It felt like we’d lived through the worst of the pandemic and were finally coming out on the other side. It felt really good, like all my (admittedly minimal, in the grand scheme of things; no one was asking me to parachute into a warzone or anything) sacrifices had been worth it. This was a once in a century pandemic, and we made it through. We had our lives back. Praise science!

Sure, it wasn’t great to see folks refusing to get vaccinated or continuing to turn this into an unnecessary political debate, but I felt hopeful we could still get to herd immunity without them. But then the Delta variant rolled onto the scene and it seemed like we were right back where we started, even despite the vaccines.

And you know why?

Because some of y’all didn’t do your part of the project. And your selfish bullshit is now taking down the rest of us.

And don’t come at me with that freedom nonsense.

I value my freedom as much as the next person, but we live in a society. My freedom extends only insofar as it doesn’t infringe upon yours. And, last I checked, giving you a deadly virus that might land you in the hospital counts as infringement. Your ‘freedom’ to be a dumbass might result in a variant that my two shots of the vaccine can’t protect me from. You aren’t free to drive drunk, because you could hurt or kill someone. How is this any different?

Living in a society means we sometimes have to do things we don’t want to do. That’s just how it goes. The world does not revolve around you, me, or any other single individual. When you do or don’t do things, it affects others. If those effects are negative, you need to stop, and this has nothing to do with freedom. And, anyway, freedom has never been absolute, even in this so-called Land of the Free. There are laws, social norms, expectations, guidelines, and common courtesy.

We’re stuck doing this group project. There’s no getting out of it. We can succeed together or we can fail, dragging your dead (perhaps literally, because this is a deadly virus!!!) weight behind us. Unlike the group projects I quickly learned to despise in high school, this is a matter of life and death. My 2 shots of the vaccine protect me, you, and those that can’t get the shot, either because of health reasons or because they’re too young to receive it right now. Can we set aside the B.S. and just get this done? There are millions of people in other countries who would kill to have the easy access to vaccines that we’re actively taking for granted as a society.

Vaccines are safe and they work. There’s no disputing that. We just need everyone who can to get one. Let’s get an A on this project, y’all, so we can move on to the things we’d rather be doing.

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