It’s Time We Had a Talk About Your Identity

Buckle up, friends. We’re talking about identity and for many, that’s a tough conversation. I think about this all the time as I walk around; What I should have said to that person or what I wish I had the guts to say on my social media posts. But I’m a writer, so here it is.

I don’t remember a time in my life when one’s identity can be announced with such freeing proclamations of “I Am” from the masses and at the same time, masses of voices yell angrily back, “You are not!” I’m exhausted by this identity debate, friends. And I’m a cisgender, white woman living in a bubble in the Northeast in a comfortable suburb by the ocean.

I am also a Gen X-er who grew up in a rural, conservative part of the country. I didn’t pay attention to the identities that weren’t reflective of my own. Actually, let me go back on that statement and be more precise: I didn’t scrutinize the identities that weren’t like mine. I have a Black sibling, an Asian brother-in-law. None of my nieces and nephews share my skin tone. My high school graduating class was under 80 students, but my little school had just enough diversity that I was aware that some of my friends worshiped differently, loved differently (and let’s just say it, secretly at that time), and voted differently. I just didn’t make anything of it. I spent the ‘80s with my fellow progressives, organizing sit-ins and listening to my parents’ protest music, and the Brat Pack contemplating their unfair lives. My conservative friends didn’t call me names or throw things at me. We all just wanted the bell to ring and go hang out somewhere away from the ‘rents. Now as an adult, living far away from that home, I am smacked in the face with the truth about what was happening in those hallways at school. The truth I didn’t notice; The bullying about being poor. The horrible gay jokes. The lessons about sexuality. The exclusion. The powerlessness felt by my own friends. How did I miss all of this? I knew Iwas naive, but I didn’t realize I was so clueless.

Today, I silently stare at adults who use ugly adjectives and make sweeping generalizations and gather facts from the air. I scroll in awe of those who publicly admit they don’t like so-and-so. Why would you say that out loud? Why would you even think that? My inner school-age child is wide-eyed and horrified. This lack of awareness is called privilege. Yes, friends, it’s a thing.

I had a conversation recently with my father about this. It was just recently that he told me the reason we grew up 12 miles from town on a farm was to keep the family safe from racist hate. Turns out, the mass of voices yelling and being violent were at my doorstep. I didn’t know as a child that my family was experiencing the hate of strangers. There is a story of violence against my sisters that we don’t speak about, so I don’t know the details.But I know there were men and women and their children, people who’s faces I don’t recall, strangers—who hated us because my family existed. My Black sister lived a very different life in the same house as I did, where we were raised by the same parents, had the same cousins/aunts/uncles/grandparents, the same chore list, the same rules about waiting until we turned 12 to get her ears pierced, who had to sit through the same lectures from our father about smoking and drugs and farts. I had no idea her experience was so different. My oldest sister, who is married to an Asian man, confessed recently that her family is very cautious when they visit a new place. They know what to look for when they walk into a restaurant or bar and know if they need to turn around and leave if they think there could be trouble for them.

This is called being awakened. Yes, friends, I am woke. I don’t wish I could go back and look around my childhood again and find what I missed the first time. I don’t. I am glad I had that naivete because it shaped me. But now I know. And I’m not done living. And for the sake of my non-white, non-cisgender, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, agnostic neighbors, I’ve decided to become loud about what I know and have always known, but didn’t know I knew so many who didn’t know. You know?

And I’m 50, I’m tired of it. And to the ones who make me feel this way, here’s my retort: I’m no longer interested in editing myself so that you feel better about me or her or them. I’m aware of how you feel, you were loud about it, we all heard it.

Ok, I’m not good at being mean or confrontational, but I’m still mad. I could use some help, so send me your best comebacks, I’m open to advice. Tell me how you wake up the sleepers. As a writer, I always know where to go for answers to my questions. One of those new friends is Jin In.

Jin is a researcher, a scholar, and a change-maker who calls herself a Storycatcher. I’m a Storyteller, so we are a match. I had a top 5 best conversation of my life with Jin recently, and she told me, “Remember, Bridget, you can’t be empowered unless you first were powerless.”

Holy rudimentary, Batman! I thought. Of course!

Next, I texted my friend Tess Foley, a DEI consultant at Brave Space Consulting. The work she does is being scrutinized at the top level

right now, and that’s an essay I hope you will read when she’s ready to write it. But for now, I asked her, “How should I do this?” I want to know from her, because she’s a Mexican American woman, but also because she is a resource that isn’t an algorithm or AI. This is what she

told me: “You eventually are going to get called out for messing up. Accept this as part of the work. Listen without defense. Learn to apologize.”

Some of you read this and get defensive, “I don’t have anything to be sorry about, I didn’t do it!” I think what Tess is trying to tell me is that it’s not about how “it” lands on you, but about how it lands on her.

“Consume content (books, media, etc) from underrepresented identities,” she said. “Believe their lived experience. Amplify them.”

You and I are off to a good start; I’m being open and honest about remaining woke and you are reading this all the way through. You have subscribed to this collection of stories to learn the truths from a transgender woman, a gay Black woman, a Black woman who was actively miscarrying in a hospital while medical personnel told her she wasn’t, young women who miss school because public benefits don’t include tampons, a woman who wasn’t allowed to get a loan because she didn’t have a husband. We will continue publishing your stories because we I have blank pages. These pages have always been for you. And there’s this: When you say, “I am” you can trust that I will listen. I’m not going to debate you and I’ll never say, “No you’re not.”

When I told My oldest sister that I was going to talk about how tired I am of being too worried about saying I’m woke, she said “Finally, Bridget’s saying f*ck you! This is who you are and you never shouted that before.” I’m 50 and she’s right. Also something I’ve never said out loud (now it’s documented, sister).

I hope the f*cks I yell are loud enough to be heard by my childhood self.