Commentary: “Rebellion,1967” by Janet Luongo + Special Author Interview!

By Chava Possum

“In a corner of the basement, I saw Nanny’s old sewing machine, and thought, For all of her prejudices, Nanny completely devoted herself to my sisters and me. Every new school year, she bought us new clothes and mended our old clothes by adjusting hems according to the latest fashion. She walked to our house every morning with fresh-baked rolls and buns and watched us when our parents partied. I thought how could she be such a mysterious mix of love and hate?”

— Rebellion, 1967 by Janet Luongo

Editor’s Note: Interview questions and answers that came from my written list of questions, where Janet wrote out her responses in advance of our interview, are formatted to be centered, whereas questions and answers from our conversation are formatted to be left-aligned.

Janet Luongo— writer, artist, activist, parent, teacher— wrote her memoir centering the year 1967, a year of explosive change both personally and politically, a year of magic, loss, confusion, anger, sadness, loneliness, joy, and growth for our 18 year old protagonist living on her own in New York City.

About a teenager first embarking out into the world, Luongo’s memoir reminds us of the thrill and terror of beginning one’s own journey as an independent person at a time of great political upheaval in America. She faces what she calls “benign” neglect at home, poverty when she moves out young to take care of herself, men who love her and hurt her, career opportunities as an artist, and the trials and tribulations of activism in the civil rights and anti-war movements. We get a picture of a young woman, eager and hungry to live, yet faced again and again with a brutal world where racism, sexism, and imperialism can drain the life out of even the most alive of us. She learns about whiteness and political organizing from the Black and Brown organizers who become her dear friends. In those friendships, she is called out and confronts time and again her own privileges and world views. She faces the exploitative systems that govern our world and questions her own role in them, as well as the roles her parents and grandparents play.

A pattern emerges from Janet’s interrogations, a pattern I had the lucky chance to talk with Janet about directly in an interview. The pattern being human complexity— the good and bad of each of us. Confronting the mysterious blend of love and hate in people is central to not only Luongo’s memoir but to the experience of growing up itself.

On a sunny blue day in Central Oregon, I hop on Zoom to talk with Janet about her memoir. She is calling in from the East Coast. I pull out my copy of the book to read through some of my favorite sections again before Janet joins the call.

The cover of Rebellion, 1967 is a black and white picture of 17-18 year old Janet, looking directly into the camera. On her face is a slight smile, maybe even a smirk. Her brows are set evenly and she gazes at you with certainty. There’s electricity in those eyes— an expression familiar to many young women, no doubt, who know they must face a world that expresses hatred towards them every day. Determination, bravery, yes, but fear too. And love. More than anything, it’s love that defines Janet’s memoir.

When Janet’s face appears on my screen, I immediately recognize the young girl from the cover, but all grown up. Wiser, maybe, with tenderness clear in her expression. She smiles big, teeth white like her hair. I feel comfortable around her quickly, but maybe that’s the power of memoir; you get to know someone even before speaking to them.

I sent Janet my list of questions in advance (as you all can imagine, they mostly had to do with race, capitalism, white supremacy, and policing). I wondered how she would respond. Though her memoir is full of politics and I gained a fairly clear image of her values from her story, you never really know. A part of me worried the questions may be too blunt. I don’t have the chance to interview many writers, but I hoped she would be like me: eager for deep, meaningful conversation. Unafraid of tension and discomfort. I had no reason to be worried, as Janet emailed me prior to our interview regarding my questions and expressed genuine excitement for our conversation. (Isn’t it nice when people want to talk about hard things and it isn’t like pulling teeth?)

Many of my questions pointed out the parallels between the political events and trends she faced growing up, which my generation is again facing now, just in slightly different packaging. The protests against the war in Vietnam vs protesting American imperialism in the Middle East and Latin America today; Nixon vs Trump; police abuse in the riots of the 60s vs police abuse today and the resulting demonstrations across the country; prioritizing property over people; and the tension between individualism and community in America. I wanted to ask Janet about these things to glean any advice she may offer our generation.

Yet, amidst these large-scale crises in which many of us are complicit, Janet witnesses the humanity of individuals in her life— her grandmother, her father a police officer, boyfriends and lovers, mentors, and friends. The good and the bad. While the United States is destroying countries across the sea, imprisoning Black men and women in a form of modern-day slavery, and teaching us the values of white supremacy, regular people are living out their lives just trying to make it.

Janet captures the collective and the individual in her story, acknowledging the systems while also listening to and holding the individual people she encounters. This dynamic spoke to me, as someone who works hard to create spaces where we can do just that. I wanted to learn more about how we balance the individual with the collective from Janet’s perspective and how we build relationships that can sustain the hard work of decolonization.

We started by talking about the common ground we share in the defining political experiences of our generations.

“You’re interest, naturally,” Janet began, her New York accent apparent to my southerner’s ear, “is in your generation’s problems, which are my son’s problems and my granddaughter’s problems… It’s distressing that so much is the same: the police brutality, the racism, but there has been progress.”

I asked about her advice for people like me— young people confronting these problems for the first time. She spoke to mobilization and how movements can be born even from losing a battle. She gave the example of Trump winning the 2016 election, which spurred a lot of women especially to get more politically active.

She quoted abolitionist minister Theodore Parker,

“The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.”

Janet adds, “We have to remember that and keep fighting for what’s right.”

We also talked about our personal stories of growing up, realizing we share so much. We both moved out of our homes before we graduated high school, due to men our mothers married who we couldn’t feel safe around. We left younger siblings behind in those situations, forced to choose our own safety. We feel guilt about leaving them, like we failed them. We were called “wise beyond our years” because we were raising our parents, rather than the other way around. Education helped us create new lives and safe spaces for ourselves, though for Janet it was hard accessing that education because of expenses and lack of support.

I shared with Janet that what I faced growing up made me value accountability as an adult in a way that had a thorough impact on my politics. My political compass is anchored in accountability: my accountability to myself, to other people all over the world, and to the other non-human creatures I share the planet with. My values aren’t governed by labels like Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Conservative. My values are determined by how I must honor myself, other people, and the world of living things all around us.

I asked Janet if her struggles growing up impacted her politically.

“The importance of family, community, education,” she replies, searching for a clearer answer. I asked if perhaps it impacted her value system with regard to communities taking care of one another. “Yeah, that’s true. The idea of community…” This of course brought us to individualism and the dynamic between individual actions and systems of power.

In the list of questions I sent to Janet, she made notes before the interview which I liked because it gave us more room in the interview to get to know one another and have a deeper conversation.

I asked,

Throughout your memoir, I can sense the confrontation between recognizing oppressive systems and individualism in your young mind. The systems are larger than any one of us, yet we are all complicit in one way or another. How do we balance facing our individual roles in oppression while recognizing one another’s humanity? Is there room for individualism when challenging white supremacy (and Patriarchy therein)? How do you think white feminists should navigate this question?

Janet answered,

“Start with facts of history. Unitarian Universalists study white supremacy’s values, and dissect them. We realize the push for complete individualism can keep us separated, judging and oppressing others. We aim for community. We like to stop “either/or,” “us /them” mentality, and think “both/and/also”.”

In our conversation, Janet elaborated,

“We [Unitarian Universalists] are really jumping all in studying and digging out the white supremacy within us. And I like the word ‘white superiority‘ better because when you say ‘white supremacy’ people do think of the Ku Klux Klan. I think it has to do with an attitude of superiority… I don’t know how anyone could dispute that our culture is about white superiority. We look at policies and individual growth, but we also look at certain attitudes of white supremacy— individualism is one of them. Other cultures, I forget where this was, but the leader’s role was enhanced the more he gave away— how generous he was— not how much he accumulated, which is the opposite in America. And the Orange Former President represented that greed and that false value of money for self-worth. The idea of individualism vs community, ‘us and them’ is all very capitalistic and about hierarchy and supremacy, rather than all of us together. Acceptance.”

Janet’s Unitarian Universalist faith is an important source of moral and political influence in Janet’s life and her memoir roots itself in the values of that faith. I, of course, wanted to learn more.

From my list of questions, I asked,

“I’d like to talk a bit about your Unitarian Universalist faith, which you bring up throughout your memoir, particularly in reference to the importance justice plays in your life. I’m Jewish and Judaism has a very similar emphasis on pursuing justice, which impacts my organizing work (and writing) every day. Today, Christianity (across all denominations) is being critically questioned for its role in colonization both historically and today. It seems to me the Unitarian Universalists are dedicated to confronting those questions, but not all denominations are like that. Some are burying their heads even deeper into the sand. What do you think Christians’ role is in decolonization?”

Janet shared,

“Yes, that’s correct, UUs encourage questioning. Unitarianism grew out of the desire for freedom of religious belief in Transylvania. In the U.S. it grew out of Christianity, and the message of Jesus to love our neighbors. I lately studied the Lessons of Paramahansa Yogananda, who wrote Autobiography of a Yogi. He made the distinction between Christianity (the original teachings of Christ), and “churchianity,” policies based on men seeking power over minds. Looking at history, it’s horrifying what the Christian Church did in the name of Jesus - everything from the slaughter during the Crusades, the torture during the Inquisition, the burning of women healers as witches, the conquerors wiping out religions of natives to proclaim the superiority of Christianity, using scripture to justify brutal slavery, the Pope’s silence during the Holocaust, and the more recent exposure of pedophiles being protected by the Catholic Church.”

“Problem: patriarchy. (UUs have women ministers and democracy is one of our core principles.)”

“Problem: discouragement of questioning. Belief without evidence. I feel these habits of mind in Christians who are the majority religion in the US has contributed to the anti-intellectual, anti-expert, anti-science attitudes that lead to fighting simple, sane guidelines to protect health - not only your own, but of the people around us, our community.” 

“I don’t believe in judgment. I believe in curiosity and listening and trying to understand.” 

In Unitarian Universalism, Janet informed me that one of their core principles is that we are part of an interdependent web of existence. “We are individuals within this connection.”

Janet continues,

“I think that when you are young there is a stage where it’s good and important to be an individual, because you need to differentiate yourself. Who am I compared to my mother? Am I going to be a flatterer of men, dependent on men? No. I’m this! But then after a while, you have to understand you’re part of a community too. And that was totally what our religion teaches us.”

Hearing this made me think about accountability. After attending a recent school board meeting where anti-vaxxers and anti-mask parents bombarded a listening session to voice their opposition to their kids being mandated to wear masks at school (which is being mandated here in Oregon right now as our COVID cases rise). I mentioned how many of the parents’ comments touched on the idea of “personal freedom” and how it’s their right not to wear a mask, even if mandated.

“I’ve been questioning this a lot myself lately,” I shared. “How do you honor community and taking care of each other while also honoring peoples’ rights?”

“That’s a perfect analogy,” Janet answered. “It’s horrifying to see the distortion of personal freedoms. Yes, you have a right in your own home to not wear a mask. But if you’re in community and could be infecting and killing other people, that’s where your right to that act ends. One of my friends once said, ‘Your right to swing your arm ends at my nose.’ It’s rude, ignorant, and dangerous with COVID.”

Janet’s father, an Irish American police officer, to me represents the crux of my question about how to hold people’s humanity while also holding them accountable for their actions or inaction. He’s one of the more complicated individuals in Janet’s story and perhaps my favorite character for the sheer intellectual stimulation I feel contemplating his person, someone who Janet describes as liberal, politically-aware, intentional about not passing down some of the toxicity he learned at home, and yet, was a police officer.

In the memoir, Janet shares several conversations she has with her father about race. This conversation occurs after James Powell, a Black child around Janet’s age, was shot by an Irish American police officer, Lt. Thomas Gilligan, in Harlem, in July 1964. The resulting riots lasted about 6 days and left “hundreds wounded, more than five hundred arrested, and one person dead.”

Janet writes about the riots in Rebellion, 1967,

“I couldn’t bend my mind around the cause of such mass madness. [Janet’s father] said, “No one cause, many deep problems.” He believed people exploded out of desperation— desperation over discrimination and families trapped in a downward spiral of poverty. Earlier Irish immigrants had faced hiring blocks, too, which led them to government jobs in fire and police departments. It was true the Irish filled the ranks of the NYPD. My father joined, not because policing was his dream job or because he wanted to act tough. He’d wanted to go to college but needed the steady pay and benefits for his wife and three girls.”

For some white people, looking back on how our ancestors may have been oppressed back in the old country and even here in America can shed light on the kinds of oppression we benefit from now because of our white skin. Janet’s father reflected on his identity as an Irish American and it led him to recognize some connective tissue between himself and Black Americans. It’s not equating, necessarily (though some people make the mistake of trying to do that), rather it’s an attempt at understanding.

Of course, I needed to ask Janet more about this.

“You talk throughout the memoir about your Irish family and the brand of oppression Irish people have historically experienced in both Ireland and America. What has learning about your roots taught you about the nature of white supremacy? What is your advice to white, Irish Americans today who are beginning to explore their privileges that come with white skin?” 

Janet wrote back,

“Lauralei, each of your questions could take volumes to answer properly! LOL. It was hard hearing that the British had massacred and enslaved Irish people, and that my ancestors were termed the Blacks of Europe. In the 1160s Anglo-Norman barons claimed dominion of Ireland. After the American and French revolutions, the United Irishman advocated universal male franchise and Irish independence. In revolutionary uprising in 1798, it’s estimated 30,000 were killed.” (“Ireland and Opposition to British Rule”, University of Kansas) 

“The potato crop, which the Irish depended on, was struck by blight in 1945. The response of the British was slow and half-hearted, blaming the farmers themselves, calling them lazy, slurs used on poor People of Color today. In the 1840s, the Potato Famine killed more than a million people, and a million more emigrated - including my father’s ancestors who landed in NYC about the time of the Emancipation Proclamation in America. The poor White Irish immigrants had to compete with the newly freed slaves for manual labor. Rivalry grew and exploded in the Draft riot of 1863, which I relate in my memoir - A mostly Irish White mob rampaged through the City and randomly killed many Black people, including children.”

“History is multi-faceted and when we look at it from many perspectives it can become complicated and intriguing. Imagine being Irish emigrating to create a better life and finding America in the middle of a Civil War. Would you want to identify with the poor, maligned Black people, or the well-off, respected white people? During the waves of immigration, ethnic groups known as Italian, French, Spanish, left their cultures behind and melted into a created group termed White.” 

“In that way, the Irish joined the privileged class. Which meant they placed higher on the hierarchy, and received benefits, advantages, respect and preferential treatment. In 1967 I felt enough privilege to confidently walk through Black neighborhoods, mostly because I understood deep down that patrolmen would guard my safety. It didn’t cross my mind that Black people in 1967 would not feel the same confidence strolling through a White neighborhood, until a Black high school friend, Rudy,  educated me. It pained me to consider the dangers Rudy had risked while walking with me to my father’s house, when news hit decades later about Trayvon Martin, who, while walking in his own father’s neighborhood, was murdered  by a White vigilante.”

Janet’s father,

“… went on to reveal he did regularly hear other cops make jokes or say hateful things about Negroes. He figured they’d heard it at home, as he had, which poisons generation after generation. He had determined to break free from the ‘cycle of hate’ and deliberately taught my sisters and me that prejudice is not only wrong, it’s stupid. ‘Prejudice means, pre-judging,’ he said. ‘You don’t judge a book by its cover, and you don’t judge people by their color.’ For that, I felt proud of Dad. But what about the other cops who regularly made racist cracks? Wouldn’t they be more ready to use a night stick, or a gun, against a Black person? Wouldn’t their individual hate and prejudice rot the entire police department?”

Janet’s young mind is recognizing her father’s humanity and individuality within a larger system that operates in a manner radically in opposition to many of his own values and the values he taught Janet and her sisters. This prompted me to ask Janet more about her thoughts on the system of policing, beyond the scope of her father as an individual.

I asked,

“One of the recurring topics from your life that you explore in the book is your father’s position as a police officer. Over the course of the story, you show the evolution of your perspective, beginning with ignorance and growing towards a more critical, but still loving outlook. With all the recent organizing to defund and abolish the police as well as public outcries against police abuse, has your perspective on the police continued to evolve? How does your relationship with your father affect that perspective today?”

She wrote,

“My Dad passed 22 years ago. To this day I admire how he did the hard work of recognizing the poison of prejudice that his parents passed on to him, and how he decided to NOT pass poison down to his 3 daughters. I admire his attention to current events, history, and recognition of racial bias among his fellow police officers. Having joined the U.S. army to fight the Nazis, he understood civilians had a right to review use of force by agents of government who carried deadly weapons.” 

“I think that “reform” the police is a better term than “defund” and “abolish” the police. If our goal is that all communities trust the police to keep them safe, a radical re-education is needed, especially by police unions. You can not claim to be honorable and lawful, when you take no action to reign in racism and disregard of human life, as was the case with George Floyd. Though he was being videotaped, Derek Chauvin stared down the camera, kept his knee on a man who couldn’t breathe, his face set on showing the public his power— his power to take life— and he would not be accountable because he was a cop and no cop had ever been convicted. It was a turning point in history when Chauvin was sentenced to prison for murder.”  

“Police, we learn, formed originally from slave patrols. Police were meant to protect the rich from the poor, and to enforce, especially in the South, the caste order of power of White over Black. A phrase in the amendment that abolished slavery, “except for punishment for a crime”, allowed the mass incarceration of Black men. We look in prisons, see a lot of Black faces, and promote the lie that Black people are inherently criminal.”

“When I worked in poor schools, I saw a White officer chase a Black high school student for an offense that should have been settled in the Principal’s office, not criminalized. We need more social and mental health workers, domestic abuse specialists to answer calls, rather than police who are too quick to take out and shoot their guns multiple times.”

One of Janet’s friends, Rudy, introduced her to new perspectives on the police. Janet’s memoir talks about one night, after walking Janet home, when Rudy is invited inside for a Coke by Janet’s father. They end up having a short conversation about the problems in neighborhoods around them.

In her memoir, Janet writes,

“[My father] agreed that Negroes deserved ‘a fair shake’. I watched Rudy’s face as Dad shared his observations: landlords there don’t maintain buildings; men who can’t find employment hang out on the streets; despair leads some to drugs and alcohol. Ignorance prevails. Dad described an incident. ‘A girl got hit by a car. She wasn’t badly hurt, but, still, I had to write the police report.’ At the word ‘police’, Rudy bit his lip… Rudy, holding his body stiff, nodded politely and stood to leave. I followed him outside. He said, ‘Is your father a cop?’ I told him he was now a lieutenant in Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. Rudy chided me, ‘Why didn’t you tell me your father was a cop?’ ‘Oh. You can see he’s a liberal. I wasn’t hiding it. I just didn’t think his job mattered.’ He looked at me in wide-eyed disbelief. I then learned how ‘police’ even the word could trigger visceral fear in Black men. ‘Of course, you’re right,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry. I should have told you before.’”

Later, Rudy and Janet are walking together to a coffee shop, when they encounter a cop.

“His feet planted wide, he glowered and smacked his night stick in his gloved hand. Rudy whispered, ‘Let’s drop arms.’ Though afraid, I held on tighter, in defiance. Tense, we walked gingerly past the cop. He followed us. Rudy and I ran and ducked into the first coffee shop, slid into a booth, and caught our breath. ‘What just happened?’ I said. ‘That cop scaring us! His job is to keep us safe.’ ‘Your father taught you that?’ Rudy asked. I answered yes. A smile flickered on his lips, and I asked what he was thinking. ‘Janet, every TV show— Western, crime, even the news— teaches us that cops are good guys going after bad guys.’ I waited for his point. He said, ‘That cop saw me as a bad guy.’ ‘Outrageous.’ He shrugged. ‘Don’t worry. I’m used to cops assuming I’m a criminal.’ I said, ‘Rudy, you’re one of the most gentle people I know.’”

It’s Rudy who introduces Janet to Stan, a Black community organizer/activist whose work and politics had a big impact on Janet. They meet at a community center regularly with a group of other organizers, mainly focusing on programs under The Great Society: Head Start, Medicare and Medicaid, Food stamps, VISTA, Job Corps, Legal Aid, Community Service Block Grants, and Neighborhood Youth Corps. Their vision was of an America free of poverty and racism. It’s here, in this group of friends, that Janet hears discourse over protest strategy, particularly regarding riots, especially in the wake of police brutality. Is violence ever justified? In the midst of the civil rights movement, a non-violent protest, folks wondered if the strategy could work or if non-violence was holding them back.

“Clarence said, ‘Why only Black folks supposed to be non-violent, when violence is all we get?’ Arthur nodded, and Stan said it was a valid question. But when Clarence added, ‘Burnin’ and looting is fighting back,’ Stan intervened. He said, looking stern, ‘When you damage your own neighborhood, son, you’re not fighting back. You’re giving up.’ I breathed easier. Stan said, ‘Violence is not what we promote here. Cool down.’… Stan told me he was sorry about Clarence. He said he acted tough, but underneath he was consumed by fear. I tried to understand, but thought, How can I possibly grasp what a young Black male faces in his life?”

This conversation reminds me of a book I recently read called “The Black Kids”, talking about the LA Riots after the police abuse against Rodney King. While it’s a fictional, young adult novel, Christina Hammonds Reed writes about the confrontation of ideologies regarding resistance: peaceful protest versus rioting. Though the novel doesn’t clearly land on one side of the fence or the other, Reeds does a fantastic job pointing out the validity in the different ways of thinking about rebellion. One theme that comes up time and time again is the distorted value of property over people. Those watching the riots on TV were more concerned about destruction of private property than the loss of human lives to police abuse.

Later in her own book, Janet speaks to this very thing. She expresses dismay and confusion upon hearing peoples’ concern for property over human life during the riots in Detroit. So I asked her,

“With the demonstrations after the murder of George Floyd, we’re facing the exact same value system again: property over people. What advice do you have for young organizers about how to alter public perspectives that center life over commodities/property?”

Janet answered me,

“I do see a problem with the influence of the values of unbridled capitalism, the so-called American Dream that every person can get RICH if they work hard enough (rags to riches, “self-made men.) Defining “success” as being rich, with all the material possessions and accoutrements (trophy partners included). Donald Trump was a manifestation of that corruption and greed, along with so many other bad things about our country, such as racism and misogyny and sexual aggression towards women (12 have accused him of sexual abuse.). I wish more people would remember the childhood story of King Midas. Money proves to be useful, but money cannot love you. It’s a means to an end and our country makes it all about money. To the point of insanity. There’s no other way to describe the global greed of oil companies and other polluters to make dollars even while knowing well, they were killing off species, causing dangerous planetary warming and destructive unpredictable weather patterns.”

“My background of activism in the Sixties was centered  around the nonviolent protest promoted by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, and before, Gandhi. He believed and I agree that sometimes we must break laws (unjust ones) but then we must accept the consequences of arrest. The hope is that the drama will get media coverage and then change hearts & minds and change in laws. Which indeed did happen with the 1965 Voting Rights Act, when finally America began living her own democratic ideals.” 

It’s apparent that the conversation between Stan and Clarence had an impact on Janet, as she added,

“People before property is an essential principle. In the case of protest, I do think that people who loot and cause destruction should expect to be arrested.”

Janet writes in her memoir,

“I remembered Dad arriving home from duty in Harlem in 1964 and telling mom that some cops, some Irish, had called the Black rioters ‘animals’. They obviously knew nothing about their own beastly history.”

And yet, at several points throughout the story, Janet shudders when she hears people refer to cops as ‘pigs’. Here again we see the “both/and” of Janet’s world views, acknowledging the bigger picture, while still holding out for individuals.

And while I agree with this worldview, I think it’s important to call out that I don’t believe cops can act as individuals within the police force. It’s not their fault; it’s just the way systems work. If you are a cop rebelling against the status quo of the police state, even then you’re not a “good cop” because the system doesn’t let good cops exist. If you’re doing things that would make you a “good cop”, then you’re likely to face the consequences, including unemployment. The system punishes individuals who act outside the values of the system. This is the reason there are no good cops: not because they are bad people necessarily, but because the system will not allow them to exist.

I refer back to a groundbreaking essay published in Medium, “Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop” wherein the first line reads, “I was a police officer for nearly ten years and I was a bastard. We all were.”

The anonymous ex-officer adds,

“The reforms aren’t working. Incrementalism isn’t happening. Unarmed Black, indigenous, and people of color are being killed by cops in the streets and the police are savagely attacking the people protesting these murders. American policing is a thick blue tumor strangling the life from our communities and if you don’t believe it when the poor and the marginalized say it, if you don’t believe it when you see cops across the country shooting journalists with less-lethal bullets and caustic chemicals, maybe you’ll believe it when you hear it straight from the pig’s mouth.”

Janet, if you’re reading this, if you have not yet read this essay, I highly recommend it. Again, it’s just one person’s perspective. But it’s another individual speaking out about the system, demanding that cops hold themselves accountable for their actions. We can hold our cop fathers and mothers close, we can see them for the full human beings they are, but we must also see them for the cops that they are too. Both/and.

Conversations about the police are difficult to hold, because a) we know so little about our history, b) we are trained to see individuals, not systems, and c) due in large part to police unions, policing has become one of those controversial topics that people are scared to approach. As thin blue line flags pop up all around me here in Central Oregon, I see that people want to support “heroes”; those they believe sacrifice everything to keep them safe and comfortable. They support cops, firefighters, nurses, veterans, and soldiers. When they see someone making a perceived sacrifice for them, they want to express gratitude. And that gratitude begets loyalty. No one likes to hear that their hero isn’t really a hero after all.

So how do we talk about this with people who disagree? In general, how do we find new and better ways to talk about systems like white supremacy and capitalism?

Janet described during our interview a past experience where she read a few excerpts from her book to an audience. In one excerpt, she is helping take a group of Black and Latinx kids on a field trip to a museum. Janet wrote candidly about a conversation she had with a friend who was also helping with the field trip, where she said that the children were “culturally deprived” in that they didn’t have as many opportunities to access museums on a regular basis. Her friend calls her out on the white saviorism inherent to her comment.

“In his gentle Quaker manner, he shared his view: These kids are steeped in culture— their own very rich community. Their extended family and neighbors watch out for them, share traditional foods, tell them stories, and expose them to many languages and dialects.”

I asked Janet in my list of questions,

“You share a story about taking a group of Black and Latino kids to a museum and a conversation you had about the kids being “culturally deprived.” You are honest and vulnerable with readers about that conversation, one where your view was misguided and your friend calls you out on it. There are more conversations like this in other areas too. What did it feel like writing about those older perspectives you held at one time but don’t necessarily hold anymore? I imagine writing about my 18 year old self, especially my politics at the time, and cringe! If someone came to you and asked how to reflect on their past honestly, as you did, what would you say?”

Janet’s answer calls upon knowledge from other authors who write about race & racial justice.

“Dr. Amanda Kemp, a Black woman who I invited to address our Unitarian Universalist congregation several years ago, wrote a book called, Say the Wrong Thing. It’s true I believe that when people are relaxed with each other they can get to know and like each other better. When race is such a hot topic and people are afraid to say the wrong thing, they get stiff and avoid conversation. Dr. Kemp encourages people to speak up - say the wrong thing - and then understand why. The next step is critical - to repair the damage and change our view and behavior. I also had the honor of working with a friend of Dr. Kemp, Sonja Ahuja, who has recently passed.. She led, with a White male activist, [a program called] Eliminating Racism and introduced me to Dr. Kemp. Sonja’s approach was similar.”

“If it’s a given (which I believe) that we live in a culture and society where “White” is considered superior, then that’s the message that is communicated to children and all of us - through families, education, religion, and media. When this sense of superiority pops out Sonja would say, ‘Of course it pops out.. That’s what we were taught.’ The work is to become aware of the superior mentality, analyze and challenge it’s truth, and roots. And then expel it from our thinking. Time after time…”

Janet writes directly about her embarrassment at the time over her comment. But as she reflected afterwards, a new revelation hits her. She writes in her memoir,

“Rudy and Woody got me thinking about my friends in Queens Village, the neighborhood I knew as a child. We spoke only one language; we got our stories from commercials and cartoons while we ate packaged TV dinners; we lived in single homes isolated from other relatives in small ‘nuclear’ family units. Neighbors didn’t sit on stoops, play music, dance in the streets, or watch out for each other’s kids. It struck me that white, middle-class culture could be another form of cultural deprivation.”

To which I replied in the margins of my copy, “AMEN!”

I felt surely this sentence alone (“White, middle class culture could be another form of cultural deprivation.”) caused an uproar from some readers. Janet explained how, after reading the excerpt in front of an audience, she invited them to participate in a brief writing exercise about their own growing up— specifically what they were taught.

She asked them, “What did you hear? Or what did you not hear? Like did you ever learn about Black accomplished people in school? Leaving them out is also a message that no one was accomplished.”

Janet continues,

“That worked. They sat and wrote their own stories. Having them reflect, rather than telling them, ‘You were brought up with white supremacist thinking.’ ‘No I wasn’t.’ Don’t even start like that. Start with, ‘Well what do you remember you were taught about the ‘other’?’ It could be religion, color, nationality, whatever. Recalling in an open way where you’re not criticizing people. It’s very important not to criticize, because you’re asking them to open up. If they feel they are going to be judged, then of course they won’t open up.”

The topic of judgment resonated with me, as a Restorative Justice practitioner, where a huge part of my job is to create non-judgmental spaces for conversation and conflict-resolution.

“How have you navigating creating spaces where people don’t feel judged?”

Janet returned to Dr. Amanda Kemp, telling me more about the program she referenced earlier, Eliminating Racism, where they simply talked about race and listened to one another. Frequently people in the group would share something candidly, then say, “Oh, I’m so ashamed I said that!”

“Because racist ideas come out,” Janet recalled Dr. Kemp explaining to the group.

“It was out in the open. People are doing the hard work of being honest. It was such a warm environment and we learned a lot about listening, being curious rather than judging, asking people, ‘Please help me understand why you believe this. Has anything happened to you that made you believe that?’ Even the people I detest for their actions, even the former Orange President— he had a tough life with the horrible father he had. His father was always pushing him to be a bully, be the best, never lose, make money. His father was at Ku Klux Klan rallies. It’s not that I approve it, but you can have a little compassion as to why he’s like that. Being hateful isn’t good for us either.”

We also talked about how to have controversial or “political” conversations with people in real life, including family. She shared a bit about a family member who lies somewhere on the other side of the political spectrum than herself.

“I made a point to call [family member] regularly. We decided at one point to talk about political things. We’d share articles, share points, or ask questions, or try to discuss in a calm way our points of view. And I think that’s good, even though you rarely change minds, people see you. Like he may not see me so much as a “New York liberal nut” but as a good person who wants similar things as he wants, just has a different idea, maybe erroneous, you know. So you see each other as people, even though you may not change hearts and minds, you don’t see the other as a demon.”

Janet added,

“They say, infuriatingly, for those of us that love facts, that facts don’t matter to people who have beliefs. You’re not gonna change that— but the stories might. Writing these stories helps you understand yourself. But secondly, understanding your family, society, and other people. It’s really a wonderful thing writing. I highly recommend that people journal or write their stories and share them.”

I asked if Janet thinks writing is a good tool for examining our stories, while, of course acknowledging that writing can be scary in that you’re exposing personal things that people may reject you for, even family or friends.

“You notice as you’re writing that it’s away from you; it’s not eating at you anymore. It’s on the page. You can see the light on it.”

Janet shared that her own writing was made possible by journaling, which her father encouraged her to do. She returned to the “both/and” perspective she holds, especially with her parents. I asked her what good things she learned from her parents that have helped her be a better parent today.

“I really do see “both and”. I’ve always been like that. I see the good and bad in a person. With my parents, I’m like that too. I love them and I think they loved me too. They were just dealing with their own issues. The things they gave me I’m really clear about: my religion, attitudes towards race, interest in history and politics, love of literature— I didn’t mention my father introduced me to the Harvard classics— encouraged my writing, keeping journals. Really, it was the journals that led to the book. I think he’d be glad I have the book. My mom was warm, loving, social. She delved into her feelings. She spoke and expressed her feelings. She taught us how to do that. She had style. She loved beauty and art. She was elegant.”

Unfortunately, my hour with Janet (which turned into an hour and twenty minutes) ended and we had to say goodbye. After I closed out of Zoom, I sat there with my thoughts for some time. I was surprised because, despite how much of my mental focus had been on Janet and her father, my mind wandered to Janet’s grandmother, whom I referenced at the top of this article in the quote from Janet’s memoir. Though Janet and I didn’t talk a lot about her, I feel Janet’s question about her grandmother deserved a second glance: How could she be such a mysterious blend of love and hate?

Nanny, Janet’s mother’s mother, was of Hungarian origins. Reading descriptions of her, I’m swarmed with images of the quintessential Eastern European grandma: old-fashioned, whips up goulash like it’s second nature, and perhaps a bit blunt for American sensibilities. They visit her a few times in Janet’s memoir, her home being a haven for Janet and her friends.

Janet describes taking 3 Jewish friends, including Vera, who is Jewish-Romanian, to Nanny’s house for a visit. Janet and her friends, Vera, Annie, and Alma descend upon the country house.

“In the evening we gathered around a fire Nanny built in the room overlooking the lake. Vera looked at me and said, ‘How remarkable that my first American friend has a grandmother born in my hometown of Cluj!’ She said that Hungarians and Romanians had been terrible enemies, and that disturbed me. I said, ‘In America we fight over race, while in Transylvania, they killed each other over ethnicity.’ Annie said, ‘Then throw religion into the mix!’ Vera said that during the Holocaust in Hungary two-thirds of the Jewish population were killed. Nanny said nothing. She offered us popcorn to pop over the fire. I had feared she might spout off anti-Semitic remarks, but she seemed to genuinely like my Jewish friends once she’d met them. She asked Vera about her family in Transylvania. Vera shared the story of her family before she was born. Her father suffered in a concentration camp and friends offered to hide Vera’s mother along with her daughter Marion and baby Agnes. But the baby cried too much. If the Nazis found the friends harboring Jews, they could all be killed. Her mother was forced to put Agnes into an orphanage. Nanny asked if they all survived. Vera said, ‘My father, mother, Mario survived. Not Agnes. The orphanage was bombed.’ I saw Nanny, who’d never recovered from losing her child, Pauline, mop her eyes.”

Nanny’s prejudices did not stop at the Jews. She was no fan of the Irish either. When talking about Janet’s father, Nanny said,

“That first husband was a no-good Irishman.”

Janet explains,

“Nanny didn’t like the Irish, and didn’t care for frivolous Frenchmen either… Nanny apparently approved only of White Catholics originating in countries from the former Australian-Hungarian Empire and Germany, the Axis that fought against us in World War II.”

Later, Janet describes a conversation she has with her father about racism. From the other room, Nanny overhears and replies,

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Why so much talk about Schwarzes?”

Janet continues,

“Her tongue rolled out a nasty trail of German words that I was glad I didn’t understand. She sounded like a mad woman, reminding me that the Black clergy had prayed at the Statue for more ‘sanity’ among White Americans.”

How can Nanny be both loving and hateful? There’s no good excuse for racism, just explanations for why people are the way they are.

Janet’s mother survived a bought with Scarlet Fever as a child, but her younger sister, Pauline, didn’t survive, though they later learned that she had actually died from an infection after her appendix burst. After her daughter’s death, Nanny in many ways rejected Janet’s mother, perhaps afraid to love her in the face of mortality.

“Grief twisted Nanny’s mind, rendering her unable to love her surviving daughter, Francie.”

From these passages, we witness both love and hate from Nanny. And for many of us, Nanny’s specific brand of racism isn’t unfamiliar. It captures what many of our grandparents were like in one way or another. Though my grandfather was the kindest, gentlest soul I’ve ever known, while also being the smartest person I’ve ever met, he didn’t have much of a problem with segregation. Though my grandmother is someone I look up to in just about every single way, she was still a relatively conservative person, who tended to vote Republican. (I believe both my grandparents voted for John McCain over Barack Obama.)

Just as young Janet grapples with the multi-faceted nature of her grandmother, so must we all at one point. Even if your grandparents weren’t racist, they probably still held some outdated beliefs about people. How could they not? They were raised and socialized within systems that taught them certain things. Again, this is no excuse, but an explanation.

So we return to our initial question: How do we love people when humanity seems so hateful? How do we hold individuals accountable for their words and decisions within systems whereby individual actions are but a drop in the bucket?

From my conversation with Janet, I will glean the following: Seek out peoples’ stories so that you can understand them, listen, be curious, and contemplate how their story relates to your own: what do you share? Yet, all the while, think critically, point out patterns, and as you build trusting relationships, hold others accountable and support them on their journey.

If you’re like me and these kinds of questions has been rattling around in your brain lately too, then this is a great book for where you are in your own journey. As I’ve watched toxic discourse over the COVID vaccine, CRT, masking, climate change, and just about everything else, the anger bubbling up in my stomach is simply too much to bear. I’m a fire sign and I have a hair-trigger temper, but I practice my patience and push myself to listen not just react. It’s hard and many days I can’t help but wonder, why do I even give these people a chance? Why do I entertain the idea of talking to them? But I was them at one point. No, I wasn’t out in school board meetings shouting about how critical race theory is an invention of Lucifer (literally something I heard at a school board meeting here in Central Oregon last month), but I was a racist, sexist, asshole with little awareness of systemic oppression and how I benefit from the genocides this country has perpetuated over the centuries. I got sensitive when people I knew called me out on my bullshit. I wasn’t the best listener. If I could change, then why can’t others too?

Furthermore, as a white person, it’s my duty to work with other white people, to bring them on board if I can, to get them involved. My anger at some people may be justified, but my anger can’t slam the door shut on people either.

Janet’s memoir reminded me where I stand: Love first and foremost, listen, don’t judge, be curious, and find ways to connect people on shared interests and values. Janet’s memoir also reminded me to be clear too. Loving doesn’t mean lying or sugar-coating. The truth hurts to hear, but accountability is all about truth. There’s no accountability for our conscious or unconscious actions without truth. And sometimes the truth is that the system may not be redeemable. But people are.

Personally, I’m always on the look out for books where especially white feminists critically examine themselves, their families, and their politics with regard to racism and capitalism. I also seek out books that talk directly about exploitative systems through personal experiences, rather than through academic theory/history alone. I especially love books that are unflinchingly critical, but equally loving and accepting of where individuals are on their journey. Talking about oppression AND humanity makes it so much more real and applicable to our lives.

If you’re like me, this book is for you.

You can find out where to buy Rebellion, 1967 here.

And if what Janet and I talked about resonated with you, if you want to keep the conversations going across the spectrum, if you want to learn more about how to communicate effectively and meaningfully, Janet shared a few programs that may be worth your while. Check out DemCast or America Talks.

Read on and keep loving.