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Making Space for Vulnerability in an Age of Call-Outs
Our stories of learning are essential because all of us are problematic
“I was a real horse’s ass.” This was one of my grandfather’s favorite refrains. He relished telling stories about his own failings—what he learned, how he grew.
That learning was evident in his life. He grew up in Depression-era Libby, Montana, before moving to San Francisco, Guam, and Oregon. He grew up with passively conservative politics and spoke openly about how his experiences in World War II made him revisit those beliefs to center pacifism, feminism, even LGBTQ justice. He told stories of meeting gay men in the army, sex workers during the war, and people in developing nations who had been condemned to poverty by international trade policies that placed the U.S. squarely at the top of the food chain. He talked of proudly buying his first home and getting his bachelor’s degree, and then meeting other veterans, veterans of color, to whom the GI Bill simply didn’t apply.
They weren’t stories he enjoyed telling. He still burned bright with rage at the continuation of policies that systemically disadvantaged women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and anyone who wasn’t white, straight, and Western.
His favorites were the smaller stories. When he cursed out his daughter for cursing too much. When his eldest son called him out. When his wife told him he was full of horses***. He often brought himself to tears, crying with laughter at how ridiculous his judgments or actions had been before someone finally put him in his place.
His morality tales were always about his own thoughtless missteps and unexamined hypocrisy, and a celebration of the change that had taken place. Like the rose bushes he kept, he had been pruned back many times, and that was what allowed him to grow.
I was a real horse’s ass.
I steeled myself when a family member brought up immigration. Our previous discussions had been thorny. Me, a staunch supporter of immigrant rights. Her, meeting my every remark with I don’t like people who cut in line or How hard can it be? Just file some paperwork and be done with it. But I had underestimated the impact of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies on her politics.
