Wake Up, Becky

I want to talk about Becky. 

Becky is a work of art.  She’s beautiful, graceful, confident, maybe even smart and well-meaning.  Becky is white.  Becky is safe.

Becky is a mixed media piece I made last year and she is a product of some things I’ve been learning about myself and where I fit into the world. 

I know.  I’m too old to be having an adolescent, coming-of-age story.  I’m 45, a little overweight, going gray, can’t see or hear, and smile too much.  But I’m still figuring out where I fit in things.  I don’t think that’s bad.  In fact, that’s one of the things I like most about myself: that I’m still thinking about things, that I’m still looking around and reassessing what I “know.”  Despite how I present myself sometimes, I’m not infallible.  I don’t know everything.  I am wrong.

Josh says I never say it.  But there it is in black and white.  I FEEL it a lot, but I don’t always let it in – I don’t always explore what makes my blood pressure and voice rise in a discussion.  Usually, that means I’m defensive about something.  Granted, I think there is a possibility that those things happen when someone isn’t listening to the points I’m making; however, they can also happen when the points the other person is making are hitting some soft spots. 

Becky is about some seriously soft spots.  It’s really the first time I’ve explored something so directly in my artwork, which I why she gets a feature here. 

Here is your warning.  I’m going to talk about race here.  I’m going to talk about sexism.  I’m going to talk about white women and their role in white supremacy.  If that alone makes your blood pressure rise, well… you might need to stop reading and think about why that is.  You might have some soft spots.  If you’re still with me, great.  Please understand that I made Becky because I have those soft spots.  Not because I’m spot-free.

So, I’m struggling with my spotted self in this spotted world.  My brother and I share this self-examination gene and it often gets us in trouble, because we become mired in blame and disappointment because our expectations are not met in reality.  We analyze how we should be moving through this life pretty harshly.  I don’t think that’s what this is.  I think this is a reflection of what I see going around me and what I want my contributions to be.  It’s about learning.

And nothing’s wrong with learning.  Can’t think of a single thing.  OK.  Except maybe learning too early how horrible people can be.  Clearly that’s not the case here.  I’m way too old to be just getting around to this. 

Really, that’s part of what Becky is.  She is me learning about me.  And she’s me learning about how horrible people can be.  She’s me learning I’m part of how horrible people can be. 

Maybe that’s given you pause.  (And isn’t pausing a wonderful thing?!  That’s another essay.)

Am I saying I’m horrible?  I hope not.  But I’m not independent of all the things that happened before me.  I am dependent on all the things that have happened.  I am where I am because they happened. 

When I say that I mean:

My parents had the right to go to good schools in Alabama in the 50s.

My dad got to go to college and dental school because his parents benefitted from the sharecropper system that allowed them to own and farm land.    

My parents don’t really remember what Birmingham was like in the 60s.

I grew up in small town in Georgia.

I lived in a mostly white neighborhood surrounded by black neighborhoods.

My schools were not segregated, but the social groups were.

I was a debutante.

My family mostly attended Baptist and Southern Baptist churches while I lived at home.

I fill a traditional role in our family, as a SAHM (mostly) and the one who shops, cooks, etc.

Etc., etc., etc.

You probably have the idea.

If you look, these are all facts.  None of them bad, per se.  It is what it is and I am grateful for all the opportunities I have had and have.  I have benefited by these things in my life.  I’ve gotten peace, protection, money, love, inclusion, and… everything. 

BUT

This kind of life ignores – and even encourages – the kind of systems that result in the ugliest things in our society.  Because I have benefited from these ways of doing things, I am a racist.  There, I said it.  It’s kind of freeing.  I am a racist.  I’m not wearing a hood.  I want the best for all kinds of people.  I have a pretty good heart.  However, I’m part of the problem if I am not actively trying to break down some of these systems; that makes me a white supremacist.  I’m figuring out what I’m doing with that.  I won’t go into what charities I give to or where I spend my volunteer hours, but I’m doing something.  It doesn’t change the world, but it changes something, and it changes me. 

And Becky?  Becky is made of album notes.  The artist has a big ol' country beehive with one of those scarves my grandma wore between visits to the salon.  Becky is made of the lyrics to those country song -- racist, sexist songs that I sung without realizing what I romanticizing.  Becky is made of wedding lace and maps of witch country (Salem) between her legs, because I was taught white women are some sort of mysterious vessel.  Becky is made of pictures of buses from the 60s because that is my past’s past.  Becky is made of little white girls who are princesses and little white boys who are cowboys, because those are lives we are taught to emulate.  Becky has a chicken at the pit of her belly because I am scared to be wrong.  Becky has the word “sad” caught in her throat. 

Becky is naked, asleep, blissful, against a dark background, a black garden growing behind her that she doesn’t see. 

I am Becky.  I think that much is clear.  The face even looks like me a little.  I never really intended her to be a self-portrait, but she is in the way that matters.  She is my acknowledgement that I am the product of some sick shit. 

So I met an artist this week, a young artist I found on Instagram (@negress.supreme) who makes beautiful woodcut work of women of color.  She has this way of doing portraits that are looking right at you, so direct.  I told her they make me feel beautifully indicted.  She has this one piece where the woman is made up of motherboards, currents, and code.  It made me think of how we are all influenced by our programming, but it doesn’t MAKE us.  She calls her piece The Architect. 

I made Becky.  She is my programming, my code.  She is my distant and recent past.  She is some of my darkest secrets and regrets.  But Becky doesn’t make me.  I am the architect.  I will make my own choices, my own mistakes.  I will own the ones I’m made in the past (so many) and I will try to do better in the future.  I will make Becky my past self.  I will build the new woman from new pieces, new books, new articles, new hope.  I made Becky.  Now I will unmake Becky.  Wish me luck.