Years ago, I realized that many of the people we call white in the USA are people whose forebears walked away — who left home. Sometimes it was grave danger they were escaping. Sometimes it was persecution. Sometimes it was a lack of economic opportunity. Sometimes it was a protest against some expected or required behavior. Sometimes it was because they were thinking differently than their family or found the culture stifling. Sometimes it was to escape from what was considered a negative reputation — a woman with a child and no marriage, for instance.
My Norwegian ancestors, for instance, left for North America about the time that the population had finally replaced the devastating losses of the Black Plague. Land was scarce, and thus so was the opportunity to make a living. Families were still by custom large. Younger sons especially had few opportunities. Daughters, in a time when marriage or care of parents was their destiny, had few good prospects.
And for other groups, there are variations. I think of the elderly African American man I met, who told me of his years of moving from North (Chicago) to South (Alabama). Born in the South, he left for the North to escape Southern racism. About seven years later, he tired of the different racism of the North, and returned to Alabama. Another seven years later, the Southern racism got to him, and he moved back North. And he repeated this multiple times.
That has some effect on US culture. Few have the expectation that you’ll stay in the same village, or marry into a nearby village, and stay put for generations. So we move a lot, often far from parents and grandparents. Modern transportation and communication makes staying in touch a bit easier, but it’s not the same as living in the next house over.
And so, we have a culture of walking away. We have thousands of religious groups, most created by people walking away and creating something new. If we get mad about something, we leave. If there’s more b.s. than we want to experience, we leave. If we disagree, we leave.
Sometimes walking away in protest helps — it is better than staying and committing violence out of revenge, but those are not the only options. And sometimes the power structure is such that walking away may be the only possible way to survive. But many cannot leave, so walking away can be an exercise in privilege, leaving those who remain to suffer. It can be an expression of hyper-individualism. “Let someone else do that work.” And if you’re not among those most victimized by the behavior you’re walking away from, that behavior and victimization continue.
Walking away and turning away are close relatives. They usually do not foster change, and thus become part of the problem. “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”
So if you walk away — what are you doing to create something better instead? And is it more effective to work to create something better, or to stay and try to reform or revolutionize what is there?
There are no easy answers — but walking away too often is the easy answer, I contend. And not a very effective one, most of the time. We often find that the next group is also all-too-human and has the same struggles. Do we continue walking?
When do we stop, organize, and confront?