WRITTEN BY Amanda Gross
What does it mean to be a white lady who co-owns a home with a white man and have tenants of color as housemates? Is it even possible not to play out the historic roles that are our legacies? When Black women pay me to live in the Big House can there be reciprocity? Justice? Accountability? Love? Is it possible for the place to be a Home and not on some level the Big House? The tone of our relationships that have been predetermined deep within our DNA, our beliefs, our perceptions, our actions, our choices made without our consent before and yet we make the choices still now and in our day to day we choose for the future. Time is not as linear as whiteness has us believe.
As a walking micro aggression, it is inevitable that in this dynamic I will do harm. I know this. I wrote this. And still my accepting it is half the battle. The patterns that come up for me internally (and often squirm their way out externally, much to my chagrin) are bent on maintaining my denial and my own self image of good, of sweet, of not intending to and not doing harm.
Good White Lady Number One
There are layers, which makes it seem complicated, but it’s really not. The layers appear and reappear, some take priority in certain moments and then in my laziness or exhaustion or wanting to get it right I leave one unattended and BAM! it demands my attention (again). This is where I am.
Trying to live in anti-racist ways in a mixed race household is in many ways a set up. Material resources are, have been, and continue to be unevenly distributed. And any giving or generosity on my part is still very much on my terms. The decision-making power, the resources, the options lie with me. Even to get to a point where this would not be the case, the privilege the power to give and to take away lies with me. I can be accountable (and I am trying). I can be committed (and I am). But at the end of the day the contradiction lives on in the porous walls of the basement. It is in the foundation even though we have set up rain barrels to keep the toxic mold at bay.
Denial Sleeps Beauty by Amanda K Gross
And then there is the matter of clarity. Who has the clarity, the wisdom, the experience to lead us out of this racist mind-fuckery? The exponential double burden of saving our collective souls falls again on the backs of those most impacted. In admiration I hesitate to put this superhuman undertaking, this beyond human feat on anyone and so I try to keep my dependency in check. I try to stand strong on my own. I try to push back the voices of doubt and worthlessness that creep in through my blondish brown ponytail and into the back of my mind. My grandmother’s voice argues with the self-doubt. “You must know,” she says pragmatically. And I do and I don’t. I know enough to know that I don’t know. I really don’t know.
For a long time my go-to strategy for not knowing has been hiding. This strategy has some merit. I approach new places, people, cultures with a listening regard. I enter as a guest. I tread lightly. I observe and watch to learn. But there always comes a point, when something does not fit quite right, something inside of me needs to express herself, something is happening and it’s making me uncomfortable. For a long time my strategy has been to push that down and accommodate the difference, to subsume myself out of respect, to be the best guest possible (Side note, there are no gold stars for this either). The goal for me is to emerge from the binary of host or guest. To no longer be a guest in my own life means vulnerability, as does no longer being the host. I have been positioned to host, a guest in host’s clothing. This land does not belong to me.
No Words Detail 2 by Amanda K Gross
Now I am trying to let more of myself through. Enter Vulnerability in all its sucking glory. Before I didn’t let the bad and ugly out (or at least I thought I didn’t). I pretty successfully kept the bad and ugly in until I was in a “safe” zone, where I could unleash the bad and ugly, usually on myself, but sometimes on my little brother or other conveniently located white men. Because then, at least I wouldn’t be harming someone who already gets it from every angle of the system. (See what a good white lady I have been!) Of course my safe zones as a white lady are much more extensive in this world than for People of Color, which is why I have had to learn and am still learning that Home is sanctuary.
Now that I am letting more of the bad and ugly through, waiting for me on the other side are all sorts of juicy lessons about the incredible extent of my impact on those living in closest proximity. I don’t know what I don’t know until I really do. Ultimately, I am grateful for the education, for the courage and energy it takes to tell me how I was harmful. The education is priceless and yet it has a cost. I am trying not to be dependent, and we are so interdependent, both the inhuman arrangement and our connected humanity were designed this way.
And then occasionally I do actually know, because my deep down Self has been trying to teach me too, if only I would listen, give heed, and surrender to Her. Like just this week, when I refused to have compassion for myself after some very difficult and intense conversations. Instead of honoring the voice inside that kept urging me to cancel my next conversations and give myself alone time to process a storm of emotions, I pushed through. I have so internalized a sense of superiority that I refuse even to yield to me, to my own fragile humanity. And what came out the other end jeopardized relationship and did real harm. There are consequences for my not making the slightest change in that moment just as there are consequences to not choosing vulnerability and consequences to choosing vulnerability .
We are trying not to repeat the pattern of slave and mistress when Mistress Syndrome is in the House. Stay tuned.
No Words by Amanda K Gross
Mistress Syndrome 