Warning: Trigger Alert

Last year around this time, Dr. Kathy Obear, an expert on triggers, was on our campus.  She presented a day-long workshop on naming and navigating triggering events, especially triggering events based on a subordinated group identities. I was a key organizer of the event, so my participation in the actual workshop was limited.  But I know that over 220 higher education professionals, students, and community member’s worlds’ were ROCKED because Kathy challenged everyone to think about not only naming triggers, but also responding to our triggers in ways that are conducive to understanding and reconciliation. 

My default, when triggered, is to shut down.  For instance…

Once, while staying in Vegas, some friends of mine, all White, began to share that upon check in, there we all given the option to upgrade to a suite.  And in one instance, the upgrade was free of charge.  This happened not to one of my friends, but all of them.  Six different White folk told exactly the same story.  So, I decided to tell my story of NOT being given the option to upgrade and defiantly not getting an upgrade for free.  I was taking a chance.   I didn't want to bring it up because I thought that maybe I was over reacting, or that other people wouldn't understand what I was feeling, or maybe I wasn't the only one who didn't get this perk.  But it was on my heart, so I went there.  And what I got was a someone who told me about her story of feeling left out, or without voice, OPPRESSED.  Not what I wanted to hear. I didn't necessarily want to hear anything from anyone...I just wanted to be heard...

And another time…

All I can remember are snippets:

Three White women

Ignored every suggestion I had to offer

This is my program!  I’m just letting ya’ll on for the ride

Doesn’t anyone hear me?!?

Wait, so what I suggested five minutes ago now sounds like a good idea because you, White girl, said it

And this one other time…

A speaker was coming on campus who had some very sexist and heterosexist views.  My friend and colleague, she’s angry.  Highly upset.  And I guess my reaction wasn't at the level that she thought was appropriate as Director of The Diversity Center, a social justice educator, and as plain ol' angie.  She says to me "if he was running around campus saying these things about Black people, people (hear: especially you, angie) would be more upset."  I'm triggered.  But I didn't have the words to express why I was triggered.

Why we gotta play identity politics?

Why do I have to be as angry as you?

Why do you have to include race, MY RACE, when it wasn't necessary for the conversation?

In each instance, I remember shutting down, sitting with me hands crossed in front of me, before I finally rose quietly and left the room.  I was shaking.  I started to cry.  Then I got angry.  I texted one of the few Black women on campus.  We went for a walk and I cussed, and screamed, and talked a lot of shit.  Gradually, I began to calm down.  In the next couple of days, each woman, recognizing that I was triggered by something they did, tried to figure out what happened.  One did it in passing, one did it in a card, the other came in my office and asked.  Every time I tried to talk about it, I re-triggered myself and started to cry.  It was like I was re-living a trauma and I wasn’t able to go back there.  The only people I wanted to talk to were Black people, people of color.  People who I didn’t have to explain why I was upset – I just had to tell my story.  Every one of them nodded, understood, felt my pain.  Not trying to fix it – but allowed me to sit in the shit; they sat in the shit with me.  And it felt good.

White people need to learn how to sit in the shit.  To let the nastiness of oppression and racism, and classism and all that other crap just wash over them.  To feel it.  To see how messy it is.  Because in that one moment, when the shit was getting thick, she ran to the edge of the stream and instead of riding that nasty wave with me, I had to once again ride it alone...

I’m taking more time to get down to the root of my triggering moments.  As I have been reflecting and dealing with other situations, I think the root of some of my triggers is the stereotype that Black woman have to be strong all. the. time.  Lately, I have been feeling incompetent, a fraud who’s going to be found out.  This feeling of incompetence has left me frozen with fear, where I can’t complete some of the simplest tasks at work.  This “strong Black woman” gets tired and weary too.  Ya feel me?