GAIL McCORMICK
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TRUTH TELLING
There was a full house. I stepped onto the podium and turned to face the crowd. The tableau of brown faces sent shockwaves through my heart. After a stunned pause, feeling vulnerable and naked, I took a deep breath, raised my voice to the mic and voiced a shameful truth: “My ancestors were dreamers with guns and the prerogative to kill dark-skinned Natives whose land seemed an answer to their prayers.” I had hoped to reach a racially diverse audience with the story I’d written about the social injustices of my northern European ancestors. That opportunity came when it was published in Santa Fe and I was invited there to read excerpts to an audience that would include Native and Latino people. I had practiced for this moment, reading aloud over and over to get the tone and pace just right. When I approached the podium my confidence felt solid. But I hadn’t anticipated a tsunami of shame and fear to strike. Until this moment, I hadn’t considered the personal ramifications of exposing my history in front of this multihued group. The packed room went still, as though everyone had ceased breathing. Or was that my imagination? Concern dizzied me. Why hadn’t I realized how awkward this would be? With no warning, a burst of adrenaline distorted my vision. I could no longer see the people I faced, not even my husband. My legs quivered as if I were a criminal, standing before a jury, confessing to a crime. No longer anonymous, I was a woman raised as a white AngloSaxon Protestant in America’s heartland, speaking about race to descendants of people some of my ancestors had feared and maybe even killed. This was personal. A legacy of fear and violence had flowed in my mother’s blood. On our Midwest farm, she’d slept with a gun under her pillow and a shotgun by her side. Over the years I’d told the story of my gun-toting mom many times, humorously describing her as a fearful but gutsy woman with a pioneer spirit. Yet her proclivity to keep firearms at her bedside whenever Dad was away had stoked my own anxiety as a child. I had tried to accept her behavior as normal and reasonable for a woman with children on an isolated farm. Now, as if guided by an invisible power that had steered me toward this moment, addressing
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Volume 16 • 2021
