Barbara Beckwith

Bringing up Boys Not to Be “Men”

I’m sharing my still relevant 1980s article in Sojourner: The Women’s Journal, although I’m now aware that I interviewed only white women, leaving out important voices.

“Ha ha, I’m a boy,” Molly Lovelock is sure her son Timothy cried out on the day of his birth.

It can feel ironic for your child to be a boy, if you are also a feminist. Especially if it took ten years, as it took Lovelock, to decide to have children “because I had to get over the idea that I might have a boy.”

She did decide and he was a boy.

What is it like, being a feminist and the mother of a son? To spend half your energy fighting male dominated institutions and the other half nurturing a man-to be? “Can you be sure he won’t grow up to be a macho male? […]

Apology to my Husband re: his racial justice activism

In the final session of the White People Challenging Racism workshop I co-lead, I shared my appreciation for a couple who attended together and could support each other in carrying out the action plans they co-created and committed to.

To heighten my appreciation, I added: “I’ve been co-leading this workshop since 2001 and I can’t even get my husband to take it!” My flourish got a good laugh. But I’d embarrassed myself, knowing that I’d dissed my husband simply for effect. So I sent the participants a mea culpa, since the truth is that my husband, Jon, has been a racial justice activist in every sphere of his life for many years.

His racism awareness dates back to the 1960s, when he worked as a researcher at Paris’ Pasteur Institute. At the time, he also hung around Paris cafes and jazz clubs. By developing friendships with expatriate African American writers and musicians, he came to understand their political concerns. When we returned to the U.S., especially after the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, Jon became engaged in issues of racial discrimination.

As a molecular biologist (PhD, not medical doctor) at Harvard Medical School, he fought with others to increase black admissions to Harvard Medical School. Later, when his department head opposed the recruitment drive, declaring that African Americans were unqualified and “a danger to patients,” Jon and other faculty members successfully pressured the dean to replace the man. Dr. Harold Amos then became the med school’s first African American department chair. […]

Welcome to my blog, which I use as a website, not for daily blog entries, which are not my style. I prefer conversation in person or via the printed word. Everyday Racism: Questions & Quandaries, my third collection of personal essays pondering everyday racism (including my own) is now in print. The racial justice publisher Crandall, Dostie and Douglass Books will distribute it starting this fall. Check out www.cddbooks.com for their full list of books including my two earlier booklets in what has turned into a What Was I Thinking? series. Or contact me at (BeckwithB@aol.com).

The characters in Sue Katz’ Lillian’s Last Affair and Other Stories, may be 65+ in age, but after reading these six stories (www.suekatz.com), you’ll never again assume that you know what a “little old lady” is thinking or doing. These fictional characters face challenges anyone may encounter, from gold-digging lotharios to neighbors who block shared hallways, plus challenges that mostly come with age: ingrown toenails, chemo, widowhood, arthritis, Meals on Wheels, and grandchildren you’re expected to devote yourself to, but which one character sees “small people trying to climb up and colonize her.” Katz’s characters are also always aware of class: from how easy it can be for a rich woman to divorce a boring husband, to sympathy for the tough job of a driver given a lousy van to transport seniors. These women aren’t simple-minded: as one says, “Life never gives you a chance to feel one pure emotion at a time.” One character’s annoyance at her partner’s habits vies with distaste or her own petty irritation. They may say “please” but think fuck you” when those in power patronize or ignore them. They value honesty (“there was plenty of chatter, mind you, just no candor”) and are not above engaging in power games. They also often encounter unexpected lust: one gets “shivery and hot” at a mere pat on the hand. Being from a generation that rarely talk about experiences involving their “privates,” they can be surprised by who and what turns them on. The six stories manage to cover a variety of sexual proclivities, and the sexual scenes are wonderfully elliptical (“he zeroed straight to the most sensitive crevices”) Sue Katz, as a seniors dance and exercise teacher, knows what seniors are capable of, and lets it all hang out in these six delicious stories.

Earlier this month, on the National Writers Union book forum, I wrote that that all blog tours seemed to be expensive scams. I was mistaken: Sue Katz author of Lillian’s Last Affair, available on Amazon, responded that she was participating in a writer-organized Writing Process Blog Tour that is no scam; nor does it involve money.

A week later, Leslie Brunetta, who’d been invited by Katz to post on this tour (Katz also invited prolific writer/editor/publisher, Ken Wachsberger) and Adina Schecter to join the tour.

I of course agreed: Leslie’s quirky, essays inspire me, especially the way they spin philosophical and scientific insights together via metaphors that charm and clarify. One essay led to a book, Spider Silk: Evolution and 400 Million Years of Spinning, Waiting, Snagging and Mating, co-authored by spider scientist Catherine L. Craig (Yale University Press).

So what am I working on?

I’m struggling right now to convey my experiences with and thoughts about anti-Semitic stereotypes. It will be the final piece for my third booklet of essays. I started the series started with What Was I Thinking? Reflecting on Everyday Racism (2009) and then What Was I Thinking: Digging Deeper into Everyday Racism (2012). They’re distributed by the racial justice book publisher, . www.cddbooks.com.Crandall Dostie and Douglass Books

Why do I write what I do?

Because I’m white. Because racism is a white problem. Because I grew up never talking about it, and not until the 1980s did I act to counter it.

My essay topics come out of the issues raised in the workshop I took and now co-lead in Cambridge (MA) called “White People Challenging Racism: Moving From Talk to Action.” The course galvanized me to action in every sphere of my life. It also made me look back at my life as a white person (“Growing Up Oblivious”), and explore my failures of mind, heart and deed, with angst laced with humor and, hopefully, insight.

How does my work differ from others in the genre?

My essays ponder more than probe. When a question nags at me, I write to resolve it. One essay is about “aha” moments, when I’ve caught myself stereotyping. Another admits to misreading my mother’s attitudes toward eugenics, race and foster care. A third tackles the question: why read slave narratives? Others are about anti-racist jargon, nosy questions, and the power of a stare. One asks a question I continue to struggle with: as I listen intensely to others’ experiences, how can I stay honest to my own, although possibly flawed, understanding of reality?

I’m inspired by writers like Lois Mark Stalvey, who back in 1970 wrote The Education of a WASP, and more recently by Peggy McIntosh (Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack); Mab Segrest, (Memoir of a Race Traitor); Tim Wise (White Like Me), and Bernestine Singley (When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories); and most recently, by Debby Irving (Waking Up White) and Lee Mun Wah (Let’s Get Real: What People of Color Can’t Say & Whites Won’t Ask About Racism).

How does my writing process work?

My ideas most often come to me in the midst of everyday life: as I drive in traffic that’s going 20 mph over the speed limit, as I race around a court with my racquet, pursing a ball, or as I stare into space at a noisy café. I jot down my idea fragments, and when enough snippets accumulate around a particular topic, like iron filings to a magnet, I freewrite. Then quickly, before my penciled scribbles become unintelligible, I type out my gangly sentences, ironing them out as I go. Then I revise. But since, in my view, cut-and-paste editing doesn’t give an essay a chance to “regrow” and deepen, I try to type each draft from the start. I never know how an essay will end: I write to find out.

Now, I hand off this blog tour to two writers I want you to know about:

Lisa Braxton is a kindred essay writer. I met her at a Meet the Agent event that my National Writers Union Boston Chapter co-sponsored with the Women’s National Book Association, and saw that she writes the kind of relationship essays worthy of The New York Times’ Modern Love column. We swapped essays via email and liked our mutual no-nonsense feedback. We’ve continued to run our essays past each other, and offer submission ideas. You can read some of her essays and short stories at www.lisabraxton.org. On her blog, she shares writer’s life experiences (with embedded advice), from planning a book party, to being part of a book club, to holding a book signing, to promoting your work, to the importance having a writing space of your own. Thanks to Lisa, I’ve learned about the indie bookstore, Frugal Books in Roxbury.

Terry Farish writes fiction for adults, young adults, and children. Her most recent book, The Good Braider, is written in free verse and in the voice of a Sudanese girl, but reads like a dramatic novel. Terry, who is white, has a long-term relationship with the Sudanese community in Portland (ME), and bases her story on their oral histories. “The Sudanese don’t talk about trauma, but I was a witness to it, and wrote this girl’s story as a way to honor her life.” She also produced a bilingual folktale, The Story of a Pumpkin, with Nepali-speaking refugees from Bhutan, and her next book will be a picture book about a Dominican family. Her blog www.terryfarish.com shows her commitment to community. On it, she invites students to write “the next chapter” to The Good Braider. She recommends other writers of “verse novels.” She also writes for the social justice and children’s literature blog, www.thepiratetree.com.

Speaking of community, participating in the Writing Process Blog Tour has made me feel part of a community of writers willing to share what, why and how we write, in the spirit of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” I now pass that pleasure on to Lisa and to Terry.