Purposeful Design Flaws

What does a screw on a hay baler, Rachel Dolezal, and advocating for Muslim rights have in common? The answer: Purposeful Design Flaw.

Before I get started, I want to first acknowledge that damage can be painful. Pain is pain. I am responsible for all of the pain I knowingly and unknowingly cause. You are too.

With that said, over the past few months, I have noticed the need for purposeful design flaws and have found it as ingenious as frustrating. It was while in Montana, learning how a hay baler works that the concept of a purposeful design flaw occurred to me and then quickly connected me to my feelings after reading Rachel Dolezal’s memoir, In Full Color, as well as a recent experience I had with Facebook when I posted, in response to Trump’s first iteration of his immigration ban, “Until this ends, I am Muslim.” I want to take each instance and get to the purposeful design flaw while also owning and claiming responsibility for the pain that is caused.

 Hay Baler

After getting to work with first responders, police, EMT, fire, and Park County, Montana employees on Conversations That Matter, I stuck around for a little learning of my own. Last was right in the middle of hay bailing season and I got to learn how this works on my hosts own land. A multi-phase process depended on heat, moisture, timing, and labor, I witnessed a “baler” being pulled behind a tractor slowly picking up “wind rows” of cut hay (another tool cuts the hay and the slowly twists it into these rows). The baler picks up the fallen hay and by weight measures automatically wraps pieces of twine around a bail and sends it down a shoot. About half way through a second or third bail (I can’t remember which) the machine poops out or drops off a bail.

An engine and a large wheel that keeps the rake like fingers spinning, etc. run the machine. The large wheel weighs more than 200 pounds and is on the side of the piece of equipment easily accessible. Just as I was about to ask if the wheel was a danger, I was told that this heavy wheel is a purposeful design flaw. There isn’t an axel to the wheel just a weak screw. If the hay gets too wet, the fingers pick up more than hay, or something goes wrong, the delicate screw will break instead of the entire machine getting damaged or possibly something or someone getting hurt. The screw breaks making the machine stop immediately, and once removed, the wheel can easily be replaced with a new screw at the center. This is a purposeful design flaw.

 In Full Color

Rachel Dolezal’s self identification as a black woman hit the main stream media a few years ago while she was teaching African American History courses at Eastern Washington University (EWU), and serving as President of the NAACP and a Police Watch Group. This case hit me a number of ways immediately and I really tried to focus on my reaction as a white women in general, as well as a diversity/social justice educator that goes to EWU to do training with the students, staff, and faculty. After she appeared on the Melissa Harris Perry show on MSNBC, I was forced to reconcile the comparison to the social construction of race and gender when Rachel’s experience was compared to those of Caitlyn Jenner as a transwoman. It seemed like a short time later, I heard he got a book deal, and I promised myself I would read it – not so much to get her side of the story, but so that other’s didn’t have to.

The book came out, and I had my local library order it. I read a number of attempted book reviews, no one that I read could make it to the end of the book. Most of the reviewers were people of color, and they shared that they couldn’t get through explanation with an absence of a justification. I wasn’t able to pick the book up in time, and then had to wait for someone else to return it to the library. (This made me feel better about having the library buy it.) Once I checked it out, it sat on my bedside table for a few days. My partner had just returned from a month long trip to Nepal (where he and his best friend served as Peace Corps Volunteers so they returned for a hike after 30+ years of service) and due to his jet lag, he picked up the book and read it almost cover to cover. As a Philosophy Professor, Loren reads (and writes) a lot, and he said that it was an easy read and was very interested in talking with me about Rachel’s story. I took it with me to Montana to read while I overnighted in Yellowstone National Park.

I have many many thoughts and feelings about Rachel’s story and have initiated a reach out to her to meet up in early September when I am back in Cheney for a diversity training at EWU. She was raised by “back to the landers” at the base of a mountain in Montana, so as I took in the landscape and her story, I couldn’t help but notice a purposeful design flaw. Rachel identifies with a black racial identity and has for a long time. I feel that the impression I got from the media stories was of deception, like one day she was white, the next she was black for nefarious reasons.

From this assumption, I wrote a story that she, like me, and other white women, when we begin doing social justice work, we distance ourselves from other’s in our group as if we are different and not responsible for our group membership (WRONG!). The purposeful design flaw was that I just had to read a book, and not live in the same community with her. I think I also expected her to just come out as some kind of race betrayer and that the hurt she cause(s/ed), would be able to heal. After reading her story, I have a very thorough understanding of Rachel’s background and evolution if not assimilation into black culture. In her explanation, I also noticed that I dismissed her story each time external validation of her blackness come up, or she included something that I would consider a stereotype of the black community, (of course your early childhood heroes were in Sports Illustrated and National Geographic Magazines).

I then found another purposeful design flaw, in that explaining why she wasn’t a liar, deceiver, or make believer (Thank you Talia Mae Butcher for theses words), it became harder and harder for me to validate her identity, in spite of her good intentions and community work. However, when I am doing a trans ally training, this is the piece my participants seem to struggle with the most too. In this context, I state that validation is about believing someone knows themselves better than we know them. I knew nothing of Rachel’s story, but I knew (is this past tense?) that she couldn’t be black because she had white parents. I once told a student, they couldn’t be transmasculine because they had pretty eyelashes. None of this makes sense, and really, to be an ally is to trust that someone knows themselves better than I know of or for them. I am not a psychologist, and it seems to me that if someone finds a home, be it an escape or an arrival of sorts, in something different than how they were raised or identified early in life by others, we should celebrate the feeling of home, while acknowledging the need for an escape from something wrong. Like the hay baler’s weak screw, does a system break down to prevent further damage when 100% of someone’s history isn’t revealed? Moreover, outside of an explanation, if a moral sense of responsibility is (re)claimed for the damage, hurt, and pain caused by what feels like lies, deceit, or fantasy make it all better like replacing a weak screw? Can our complicated systems of identity, relationships, oppression, and community work truck along with ease and be dismantled with a misunderstanding (on either side of this story)? Is the social construction of race, gender, and the like, a screw that is or has come across too much weight forcing us to replace it so that everything else can keep running while we wait for the next purposeful design flaw?

 “Until this ends, I am Muslim”

 As Trump’s administration rolled out their first immigration ban, I was contacted by several folks asking me to post on Facebook, “Until this ends, I am Muslim.” I did so immediately. I was told that 1) this would alter my Facebook feed so that I could stay abreast of what was happening that night, 2) as a frequent traveler, my status would some how show up as an ally working against this ban, and 3) it would call attention to the ludicrous of the ban itself. I will add in that as an ally, it also cost me nothing to bring attention to the real pain and suffering other’s (I am not Muslim) were and are facing, while I wrapped up a day at work and prepared for bed.

My only hesitation in doing this, was that to claim another’s identity, specifically one that I don’t come close to knowing enough about or identify as, is in itself a use of privilege that seems irresponsible. No matter my intention, there is evidence and room for unintended and painful impact. I posted the one line, and in the comments, posted something to this effect. Immediately, my Facebook feed shifted to include many more stories of what was happening at airports around the world. To this day, the algorithms of the Facebook feed include more Muslim related articles and posts than before and I am more aware and able to be more of an ally on a public platform and keep those that follow my posts more aware.

Three women of color, two that identify as Muslim and one that doesn’t but was/is a closer friend, were outraged by my post. One woman unfriended me almost immediately. One later apologized to me and said she was very stressed out and pregnant. One, the closer friend, said she was triggered by my explaining, and we haven’t really talked since. Yes, a much larger number of people, including women of color that do and do not identify as Muslim, reached out to thank me for helping make others aware, being an ally, and being supportive of them. I of course, really just replay the conversations over and over again with the three challengers from that night. Perhaps this is yet another purposeful design flaw.

Nothing I can do will ever take away my group membership as a white women. This bonds me to Rachel Dolezal, though she rejects this identity, as well as the woman that showed me how a hay baler operates. A white woman, claimed an identity that she doesn’t have with good intentions and negative impacts. A white woman, if validated by others and can see quantifiable reasons her choices were correct. A white woman explains her choices while outsourcing responsibility to “I was told to do this.” All of this is me. No one should have to apologize to me for having a reaction to this pattern, no matter my individual intentions or direction. I am as much “just another white women” as I am someone that is working to not follow these group membership patterns and do better. I may have lost friends or connections over my choices and I will. My choices are my responsibility.

Even a choice that I soundly support, can be enough weight to break the screw holding relationships together. It is possible, with time, things will be working as usual again, but the memory of the work it took to replace the screw will still be present for both me and my friends. Eventually, it isn’t worth replacing the screw or it becomes too much work – too much pain – to keep this up. As someone with a lot of privilege and power, I must remember what it is like to keep a stash of weak screws around, just in case, something happens and a minor repair is needed again so that more damage isn’t done.

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Copyright 2017, Jessica Pettitt. Jessica Pettitt is the “diversity educator” your family warned you about. Through teaching, writing, and facilitating tough conversations, she has figured out how to BE the change she wants to BE. Now it is your turn!

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