About That Hoop Skirt

Last night, I was in bed with my children thinking of how much I treasure these nights — nights when my boys are snuggly and want to be close. My four-year-old was telling me about Star Wars because his “head is full of stories.” So full of stories, in fact, that he often tells me he can’t remember where his socks or his mask are because the stories are taking up all the space.

My seven-year-old was drowsy and curled into my back, exhausted from a day that included playing outside and painting the tunnel at school with a new girl in class.

I had all of the cuddles, and I was loving it.

Then it occurred to me that the mother of Daunte Wright would never hold her baby again. Because of an air freshener and racism.

The truth is that my boys only have to achieve mediocrity, and they will probably be fine. Meanwhile, Black children have to be the best just to survive. The injustice of it all is heavy and heartbreaking.

I don’t think I can be a good mother if I don’t worry about what all mothers go through, so for me, that includes caring about racism and immigration, and poverty. White mothers have to do better.

We can’t keep championing our ancestors because we loved them. Our ancestors are long gone. They’re OK, whereas there are babies yet to be born that will bear the very real consequences of the decisions we make today. We can’t keep letting Black mothers and fathers bury their children for simply existing.

Let’s be clear: I have no idea if I’m doing this right, and I’m not trying to make a systemic issue about myself. I just happen to know and be a privileged white woman, so I feel comfortable speaking to other privileged white women.

And maybe we white ladies should start with our own inventories.

When I was 17, I participated in an organization called the Birmingham Belles. At the time, Birmingham Belles touted themselves as a civic organization tied to the history of Birmingham, particularly an old plantation in the city named Arlington.

Alone, I probably never would have thought too much about the Birmingham Belles because it played on two things I cared about very much at 17: being chosen and being in an exclusive group. I could concoct 10–12 lies about wanting another volunteer organization on my resume or being acknowledged for my academic accomplishments, but the bald truth is that I liked being picked to be in something that not everyone got picked to join. (There is a whole other essay in the fact that most people who weren’t picked had some horribly glaring flaw like being from the wrong suburb.)

Fortunately, I had a US history teacher from Canada that saw things differently. I’ll never forget how he asked, “Has anyone thought about what it means to spend so much time celebrating the antebellum South?”

I never had.

“You know that antebellum means ‘pre-Civil-War,” so what does it say to glorify the period before the Civil War?”

The list of questions I hadn’t asked was long.

“Do you think it says something to want to go back to a time when slavery was legal?”

Sometimes the Socratic method is a bitch. (And some of you reading this essay might think 17-year-old Laurel was one, too.)

So, it started to click in my head that maybe dressing up in a hoop skirt to hang out on the front porch of a plantation wasn’t at all harmless and that it certainly couldn’t be just about “pretty dresses” or “having fun.” (As a 41-year-old, typing the phrase “dressing up in hoop skirts to hang out on the front porch of a plantation” hurts, and I almost can’t believe how little thought I put into that very idea. But now I also know how easily anyone can adjust to racism and other unjust systems of oppression.) And maybe that hoop skirt said I was fine with a period in history in which one group of people owned another group of people.

Now, I’d love to say that this caused me to pull out of Birmingham Belles, but it didn’t. I’d also love to say that as a newly-enlightened Southerner I began to see the racism all around me, but that would be a lie.

Here’s a short, but not fully complete, list of problematic events from my past:

· Our elementary school held slave auctions for the student body as fundraisers. I either purchased or won (via raffle) my P.E. teacher and then made her take us to the park dressed in a Hulu skirt and wig.

· A fraternity I was aware of didn’t just host an infamous party tied to antebellum themes, rumor was they also hired little people to staff it. (Because in the ’90s and early ’00s, what was better than having fun at the expense of other people?)

· I knew someone who went one step short of donning Black face for Halloween. While he never named his costume, he heavily implied that he was dressed as a Black person. He later got called on it during a class and was not phased.

When facing up to the past, I’m left with two options. I can either say, “Hey! I did these things, and I don’t think of myself as racist, so I must find a way to justify the things I did.” Or, I can say, “I participated in racist things. Maybe, as Avenue Q says, I’m a little bit racist.”

I’m choosing the latter. Because as uncomfortable as it is to say, “I might be racist,” I can both hold an opinion of myself as a good person and admit to my mistakes. Were they normalized at the time? Sure. Does that make it OK? No.

Also, at the end of the day, it isn’t my discomfort that matters. Who gives a shit if I’m uncomfortable? I should be. What matters is that racism is very prevalent and costing people their lives. The important thing to do is dismantle racism and the systems that perpetuate it. The discomfort of white people is nothing compared to that.

Fellow white ladies, we have to do better. A lot better. We’ve been helping to hold a system in place that is dangerous and morally reprehensible. We can’t keep voting straight Republican tickets or blindly defending the police or crossing to the other side of the street when we see a Black person without acknowledging the very real and very awful consequences of our actions. Regardless of what you think about pro-life candidates or the police officers in your own family, we have to admit our current systems are not working.

When you look around and see that all the people being killed by the police share one skin color while all of the people holding managerial titles and sitting in board rooms share another, maybe it isn’t that certain people worked harder than others. Maybe it has to do with power structures and implicit bias.

My inventory begins here: I’ve worn a hoop skirt, and it was wrong. I will do better.

P.S. I think “cancel culture” is like “the war on Christmas,” largely fabricated to make middle America afraid of change. Most adults know that people make mistakes and most people that genuinely apologize seem to be just fine. Please don’t bring “being canceled” into the conversation.