OUR CHILDREN: A Story About Youth, Learning Race, and Tending Our Garden
This textile piece, OUR CHILDREN, that we’re talking about today explores how we’re taught about our racial identity, gender, and sexuality from a young age. It’s a part of a collection I’m calling Southern White Amnesia which explores the stories that Southern white families tell (and don't tell) about their own family histories.
In this SEAMSIDE conversation, I share thoughts about:
① the first time I realized I was White
② the lingering legacy of off-handed comments
③ how to reprogram all those internal messages
WHY LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE?
In this episode, we dive into OUR CHILDREN, grounded in personal anecdotes that connect with broader themes of race, identity, and the invisible forces shaping our perceptions from an early age.
REFLECTION PROMPTS:
Consider the "whispers" or internalized messages you've received throughout your life regarding your identity, race, or status. How have these influenced your beliefs and actions?
Think about the concept of "turning switches back on" as Zak describes. Are there parts of your identity you've suppressed due to societal norms? How might you begin to reintegrate these aspects into your life?
Zak uses the allegory of a snake in the crib to discuss inherited beliefs and biases. Reflect on any "silver tongue seeds" you've discovered in your own life. How can you work to recognize and remove these to foster a more inclusive and empathetic worldview?
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ZAK: [00:00:00] Hey seam siders. Today, I have another talk about one of my quilts in the Southern White Amnesia collection. If you're new to this collection. Uh, Southern White Amnesia as a body of work that I've made in the last couple of years. That explores the stories that Southern white families tell. And don't tell. About their own family histories. The particular piece we're talking about today is called OUR CHILDREN and it serves as the preamble or the foundation For a piece I talked about recently called SNAKE HANDLER. You can also find another quilt. Talk on silver dollar. All of these are pieces in Southern White Amnesia collection. For today though. Back relax. And I hope you find good points of inspiration and reflection as we discuss. OUR CHILDREN.
I got a question I like to ask sometimes in conversations with another white person. And that question is when did you first realize you were [00:01:00] white?
BIPOC folks can often remember the moment when they suddenly felt different from the white folks around them. But it's not a question that us white folks have to think about very often for ourselves.
So today. I want to tell you a story about the moment I first realized. I was white.
I was in kindergarten, so it must've been 1985. And I was on the playground at recess, palling around with my friend Lakisha Jenkins. Who I still remember to this day would wear those elastic hair ties and one with Two big plastic balls on them. And she would coordinate those hair ties with her outfit. I mean, this was next level and kindergarten.
Well that day on the playground. Lakeesha gave me the most poetic pet name I had ever heard. And to this day. Is still one of the sweetest ones I can think of. It's right up there with the Spanish me Rita. My life. I remember Lakeisha and I were playing [00:02:00] on the playground.
And in a moment of pure unbridled joy, I don't know what it does happened.
She looked at me and called me honey child.
And I thought. That was the best, the sweetest. Thing I'd ever been called.
So one night soon after it might've been the same night. We were at the dinner table as a family, me and my parents and my younger brother.
And I looked at my younger brother and I said, Would you pass the mustard, honey child.
And I don't remember exactly what my dad said after that. That's lost to history. I can tell you how it lives in my mind.
And that is. We don't say that.
And when I reflect back on that moment, The way it lives in my memory. I see so many things coming together. For that young five-year-old sack sitting at the table. Who just. Loved his [00:03:00] brother. I wanted to give him the name that he had been given. That was so sweet.
In that moment. I internalized a lot of different messages. One was definitely about race.
That I, as a white person, don't say things like honey child. One was about gender and sex. That I, as a male. Don't use such.
Tender. Terms of expression.
And there was definitely messages about sexuality.
That using terms like honey child.
just, wasn't something boys and men did.
And as I think back on that moment, I wonder. What parts of me. Did I turn off as I internalize these different messages.
I wonder the next day when I got to school. Did I look at Lakeesha differently.
I don't know. I hope not.
I do know that I don't think I ever said honey child again.
Which makes me [00:04:00] wonder. Why did I make myself smaller?
Why did I not say, you know what, though? Actually I like honey child. Actually it's got a lot go for it. I'm going to own it. But that's not what five-year-old meat did.
So as an adult, the work is to turn those switches back on.
To look back. On all the switches that have been turned off. And find ways to turn them back on.
That's why I do so much of this work that I do.
I have another story. I want to tell you. Another one about race and realization. fast forward. Now about 15 years I'm in college, I'm feeling cute. I'm at a party I'm sitting on a couch with a young black woman. And our arms, our forearms are kind of resting, you know, we're holding our drinks and our arms are kind of resting side by side.
And we both had this moment. I don't know who called at first. Where we realized that she and I shared the same skin tone.
[00:05:00] Yeah. People called her black. And they called me white. And that was a moment for me as a young person. Where a light bulb went off. And I realized that I'd been living in some kind of artificially constructed. System. that said, oh, the differences between white and black folks are very clear. Except here in this moment. On that couch. They weren't.
So what made me white? And heard black.
That leads us to OUR CHILDREN.
OUR CHILDREN. Is a, preambled a SNAKE HANDLER. And if you haven't listened to that conversation, I'd encourage you to go back and do that. You can do it after this.
OUR CHILDREN introduces the snake. That SNAKE HANDLER ask you to handle.
This textile piece, isn't technically a quilt because this is a single layer. It was made all from materials from the same [00:06:00] thrift store in spruce pine, North Carolina. That I made the SNAKE HANDLER piece out of.
The foundation of this piece. Was a large scar from the south Asian country may be Bangladesh.
It was velour on top and I've recovered the lore and an ivory colored silk on the back. There was hand embroidered beads and mirror work along each of the borders. It was gorgeous. I also picked up. a fleece blanket, a micro fleece blanket, just a shade darker.
Maybe we'd call this one toasted marshmallow.
I took the foundation, the scarf. And I cut away three sides of the seams so that it could fall open on the fourth side and create this large rectangular foundation of about four feet by. Seven or eight feet.
I then took the micro fleece blanket and began hand cutting out letters. For this allegory that I would like to read for you here in [00:07:00] just a moment. I applied those letters by hand, sewing them top to bottom and the letters of this allegory. Start off nice and neat, but seem to fall apart As they meander their way down the piece, which makes a little hard to read it kind of trails off. But here goes. I'll read for you. The text of OUR CHILDREN, which is what I call a fragment of an allegory that I wrote explaining how whiteness enters the world. And just to note, before we read that the word our in this.
Is spoken from the point of view of a white narrator. To a white audience.
Here it goes.
OUR CHILDREN. Are born with a snake in the crib.
This guardian serpent, whisper silver tongue seeds into the open ears of OUR CHILDREN that bloom later in life.
Whispers, like all this. Belongs to you.
Whispers like [00:08:00] you have all this. Because you work so hard.
Whispers like. They don't work hard. Like you.
I think what strikes me so much about this piece and what strikes a lot of people, when they would come into the studio while I was working on it.
Is the sumptuousness of the textures of the velour and of the micro fleece. Almost without fail. People that would come to my table would just start touching. Rubbing their hands over this fabric. And I love that. We see there, the magic of the textile, the technology of the textile. Right. If we think of technology, meaning. The application of science to get a result. Well here. I learned that I could use the texture of fabric to bring people into a conversation.
This was so soft. You couldn't resist touching it. So [00:09:00] here we are. Your hand is already on the piece. Let's talk about it.
This story, OUR CHILDREN. But the snake in the crib. Is really uncomfortable.
you're in the middle of a story, about a snake in a crib with a young child. If you were to walk into a room and you saw a literal snake and a literal crib with the literal child. It would be cause for panic, you would act immediately. Yeah.
That's not what happens in this allegory. In this allegory, this snake is a guardian serpent. And this guardian whispers things into the child's ears. That bloom much later in life.
The things, this guardian circuit whispers, these silver tongue seeds.
Art at all.
Thoughtful factual based observations of how the world works. Instead, their messages.
That the child [00:10:00] internalizes.
About their own. Position in society. Their own elevated position in society.
These whispers convinced the child over time.
That they can have anything they want. That they work hard. They deserve it.
And other people too, could have exactly what they have. If only they worked as hard.
I'm not sure that's true.
Depending on what study you reference.
The average worker who is black or in 75 cents. For every dollar, the average worker who is white earns. So here you got two people working side by side. Each of them working hard. One of them continuing to get the short shrift.
One curious thing. About this composition is the way the text is arranged.
The letters are arranged and a style, an ancient writing style called booster. Feed on. Which is [00:11:00] Greek for as the ox plows the field, you can imagine how an ox plowing a field would make one long row. And when it got to the other side would turn around. And make another long road back in the opposite direction.
Get to the other edge, turn around. And make another long road back in the original direction. Snaking its way through the field. This was an ancient way of writing, introduced to me by Weaver Alicia, man. And I'm so grateful.
What booster feed on does for this piece? Is that it introduces an element of. Almost hypnosis. Almost snake charming, if you will, because your eyes, as you read. It's a little challenging at first. Reading backwards and snaking back and forth, but your eyes do begin to accommodate the texts. And by the end, You just kind of weave it back and forth. Reading these [00:12:00] words. And when you're in that space.
I wonder what unlocks for you.
I hope what it unlocks.
in the viewers mind when they see this piece. The ability to see the silver tongue seeds that may have been planted and them. From a very young age imperceptibly. So. And once we see these silver tunc seeds. At work in our life. Germinated and rooted, growing and flowering. Once we see these seeds. That we begin to work to extract them from our garden. Because these seeds are truly weeds that are choking us out.
Choking us from the life that we're meant to live a life of unity and oneness with each other.
I mentioned earlier that. I do this work as a way of exploring how to turn back on all those switches that got turned off as a child. These messages that we internalize. Go deep.
And I [00:13:00] wonder what to service we do to ourselves when we shoe horn ourselves and have these tiny little boxes that say, because I am this. I have to act like that.
It creates a very narrow bandwidth for us to live our lives. It creates loss. Because it turns off so many other possibilities. For ways that we can move through this world.
If this is the dynamic that does not serve us, then why do we do it generation after generation?
I think the answer is to maintain a certain status quo.
And with all that said, I think you're ready to listen to SNAKE HANDLER. If you haven't heard that yet.
SNAKE HANDLERs, a piece that asks the viewer to examine. Privileged as they see it in their own life.
And to ask. What they're willing. To let go of in order to gain. Something so much greater.
And I suppose I'll wrap up all of this. Like this and that is. [00:14:00] The other day, when I was thinking about what I wanted to share with y'all.
I was sitting on a park bench. One of my favorites were often set. Looking over a large pond. And somehow I got to thinking about tattoos and how for years I thought, well, maybe I'll get a tattoo once I figure out what it is. I want permanently embedded into my skin.
But I've never come up with anything that seemed Where are the enough. Uh, such a long lasting position.
And then in that moment, I thought. Well, dang. Maybe it's honey child.
So y'all stay tuned.
Wherever you are. Listening. To this conversation. I hope that you're happy. Healthy. Safe and warm. I hope you're up to something good. And so on something good. And I hope to see you soon. Take care.