Thursday, June 18, 2009

get your agimatation on

Humid hot out, like only Minnesota knows how. It's reached the tipping point, now the inclination is not to stay inside air-conditioned buildings in front of glowing rectangles, but rather to relish the sun and heat for as long as you can stand it.

And here I am, in an air-conditioned building, in front of a glowing rectangle. Just a little longer, I hope.

Among other things I'm trying to get done are the finishing touches on a workshop this Saturday. I'm co-facilitating with Amee Xiong from TakeAction Minnesota, it's an introduction to racism and oppression as we see it in our communities. I've done workshops like these before but it's been a while, so I'm excited to get back into things and serve my folks here in the Twin Cities. But. This is also my first workshop not done with mostly white participants. As a matter of fact, they're Hmong. Every last one of them. Except for me.

Now instead of being mature and just dealing, I've been stoking all these weird complexes, cautionary notes, asking Amee questions all the time like "Do you think it will be OK when you switch back from Hmong to English as you present and then you translate for me because I can only do English? Is that going to suck?" And then I start fearing that I'm so obviously white or so obviously mixed or so clearly, absolutely not-Hmong and this is somehow going to manifest in all these terribly unknown ways in the workshop, because we are talking about Hmong culture and history and politics and I am so not on this playing field. Shite.

Amee has been remarkably understanding and so damn efficient I get embarrassed. She's reserved judgment on me for the most part (we've only known each other for a few months now), but then yesterday came around, and our final meeting before the workshop, with Dai Thao, who's leading an introductory session on power. They were explaining the different avenues for building power to be addressed in later workshops, including one-to-ones, locating people's self-interest, and 'agitation.'

"What's agitation?" I asked.

"Agitation happens when you get to know someone long enough that you decide it's time to make a judgment," said Amee.

"Right, so you're in a one-to-one with someone for a long time, and you're able to figure out what their self-interest is, you're with them the whole way..." added Dai.

"But you know that something's holding them back," continued Amee. "Something that's preventing them from moving forward and organizing, really starting to make change happen in the community. So agitation is when you name that thing, and you challenge the person on it.

"For example: Stevie, now that we've been meeting regularly these last few months and gotten to know each other, I've noticed that you think it's really important that you get people to like you."

I waited for Amee to say, "Now, in that example, you..." but she didn't. Instead, Dai shifted in his chair and propped his head on upright left arm, and helpfully piped in, "So, Stevie, why do you think that is? Why do you want people to like you so much?" And fixed me with an intent eye.

Holy Shit.

It lasted for about three full seconds, Amee and Dai staring calmly at me, and me with silent alarm bells in my head screeching "RUN! RUN!!!" and feeling like I could shrivel up or throw up or suffer a spontaneous sweat gland eruption. Then we broke into laughter as I said, only half-joking, "Are you serious?! Is that what you've figured out about me this whole time?!"

"No, no, no, let's get back to the agenda for today," said Amee, still laughing. "That's for a later time." And there was this knowing twinkle in her eye.

Well. And here I was, trying to do the correct antiracist thing by asking a lot of questions, expressing my fears about working with an all-Hmong group and whether it was appropriate for me to be there, and all Amee got out of it was that I have an annoying self-hatred complex or a fragile ego in desperate need of validation. She may not be far off the mark, actually. I mean, I felt pretty fucken, well, agitated in that room. Which is the point. Of Agitation.

I have me some wicked savvy and hella smart people in my life. Even if they throw me off a bit, they are still a blessing.

On the walk home from that meeting I stopped at Merriam Park Library, grabbed 4 books and a DVD, and sailed on past Blue Door Pub when I heard "Steve!" And it's an old high school friend, Christina Ackert, coming out of the pub to meet me. Christina was one of our posse, an unexpected but very compatible amalgamation of my friends and Sonya's friends in the last years before graduation. I don't keep regular contact anymore, Sonya does (she went on a roadtrip with three of them just last month), which makes for interesting and often awkward conversation when I run into them here, as so many still live in the Twin Cities where I am, and none live in Boston where Sonya is.

I told Christina where I was living, off Snelling and Selby above Patina's. "Oh, for funny. I live off Cleveland by the bridge over 94." She said "oh, for funny!" a few more times, which kinda threw me. Is this a Minnesota phrase or a Christina phrase? Anybody?

Hitting the Lake Calhoun beach in half a mo. Fellow Minnesotans, look out for the large hail.

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