Slow Progress

Waking Up

“Sight unseen: Research on a phenomenon known as inattentional blindness suggests that unless we pay close attention, we can miss even the most conspicuous events.”

Siri Carpenter

I wonder if you ever have the experience of being told about something important that happened during an event in which you took part, but you have no memory of it. Your children, spouse or friend may say, “You were there! Standing right next to me!” as though in disbelief that you can't recall the event. It happens all the time. We humans are capable of being distracted by so many things—particularly, our own random thoughts and emotions—that we simply aren't paying attention to where we are or what is going on around us. Lots of times, we lose track of a conversation because we have drifted into Neverland; a word, an image, or a memory jumps into our mind, and like a bird dog after a scent, we take off in that direction.

We also become habituated to certain phenomena in our culture to the point that we don't notice them. We simply don't pay attention because they seem “normal” to us. We are blind until someone points out what we said or did, and what that indicates about us. Racism falls into this category for many people. White Southerners, and many others, have lived forever, at least for four hundred years, in a society that systematically forced the separation of the races, in living arrangements, in educational systems, and in economic development. There is no getting around that; it is a fact of history and it is a fact of the present. We have circled around this truth since the first captive Africans were brought here in the 1600's. Progress has been made, but not in a straight line. It is more like a spiral in which we come back to the reality of racism time after time and attempt to rectify the situation—feeble attempts, at best. Today, we are trying to look directly at the facts of the matter, but selective blindness and habitual patterns are deeply ingrained and lasting. It will no doubt take as long for these patterns to dissipate and generations to be born who are not scarred by them, as it did to form them in the first place.

Selective inattention is a curable condition when it comes to society's problems. It requires that we all wake up to the truth—that we have done grave harm to others, and to ourselves. We must also commit ourselves to seeing what is right in front of our faces, to paying attention, to putting our focus on here and now, and being aware of when our inborn tapes get tripped. We can stop passing our blindness on the next generation. It takes courage and brutal honesty, but we can do this. We can change our culture one human heart at a time.

                                                                 In the Spirit,

                                                                    Jane