After this post, I am putting this issue to bed. I am tucking it under the sheets, turning off the light, saying good night, and closing the door.
Seeing and typing the words will help me acknowledge reality.
What do you think? Are you lost and confused? Read the next sentence.
Between the environment and multiple interactions with people, I must concede to living in America.
I live in a country with abundant resources, but people without homes lack critical support and must ignore geographical boundaries. American citizens live on city, suburban, and rural streets. The housing crisis is unacceptable.
This is a place where diversity programs get slashed; people get criminalized and deported, while others are convicted of felonies and become presidents.
Despite access to the latest technologies, tragedies persist. Young lives are lost in school shootings and airplane crashes.
America is not perfect or great. If we are honest, it is good for some and worse for others. Think about it for a moment before proceeding.
Have you read Dr. Spencer Johnson’s book Who Moved My Cheese? It's a fictional book with nonfictional implications for handling change. I found it on my bookshelf, among other titles, when I arrived at my new job.
Johnson’s ideas about transitions are helping me process this move. He suggests that adaptability is a survival skill. Without it, our chances of managing work and life changes weaken.
Many days, I feel like a stranger in my home country. Although I was born and raised in the US, eight years abroad have altered my worldview and identity.
In the 1900s, W.E.B. Du Bois discussed double consciousness in his classic book, The Souls of Black Folk. Read his words.
“One ever feels his two-ness, - an American, a Negro; the two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of its strife, - this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.” (pp. 364-365)
This quote is from the 1986 collection of Du Bois's writings, describing a desire for security through a collective identity.
As I picked it from the library shelf this week, Du Bois's double consciousness rang true again today. The words resonated but with a slightly different tone.
A triple consciousness forms through experiencing marginalized identity, reading, writing, spending significant time abroad, and returning to your home country.
Let me give you a casual example.
While abroad, many of my communal interactions with locals were pleasant. Greeting people on the street was common, almost expected. I can recall only a few times being out and not acknowledging another person.
In Antigua, it’s customary to greet others with “Good Morning, Good Day, Good Afternoon, or Good Night.” The “Good Night” greeting often confused me because I associated it with sleep. People rarely said, “Good Evening."
Manners matter in the US South. You also have the overt intersectional challenges with race, gender, insert your marker of identity here, impacting how you move and live.
When shopping, working out at the gym, or running in my new neighborhood, most often, the people I encounter avoid eye contact. They frequently don’t respond when I say hello.
Maybe they share a vision prescription similar to the current president. Their narrow views of diversity limit abilities to see people and matters of interest outside their worldview. Whatever the case, some choose to ignore greetings.
Of course, on the day I wrote a draft of this piece, every person I encountered on my run waved or said hello. It’s strange how that works.
In this post, I shared observations, not judgments. So, please, don't judge me. I said this was the last of these references to life abroad, but I lied.
More reflections will return next week. God willing, I will turn back on the light and open the doors to new ideas and topics relevant to you. Subscribe to guarantee you won't miss the post.
Watch the video from my family's return to the States below.
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