The Privilege of Uncomplicated Grief
The immature instinct to make complicated situations simple.
The violence exploding in Gaza and Israel continues to be unimaginably awful. In response, some of us have identified with one side over the other, however rudimentary these sides are defined. Others have taken a more universal approach, appealing to our common humanity and posting memes and photos of peace between Israelis and Palestinians which ignore generations of complexity.
Here in Chicago we are facing a different, less terrible but still difficult crisis. For a while the city has been a destination for buses full of Latin American migrants arriving from Texas and other border states. Individuals and families are arriving to an unfamiliar and ill-prepared city; many are being housed in formerly shuttered schools and active police stations.
As you might imagine, these newly arrived neighbors have provoked strong responses. Some have organized to provide clothing, food, and other needed items. Others have been quick to scapegoat the migrants, painting them as an economic or security threat. But there's another response I'm trying to learn from.
Our location on the city's south side means that the nearby areas where migrants are being temporarily sheltered are often in African American neighborhoods. These communities have experienced generations of systemic and racist disinvestment, including disrupting public transit and closing public schools and mental health clinics. Now, generally without their input or approval, some of these communities have been expected to welcome people who've arrived in this country with almost nothing.
We've read and seen accounts of community meetings in some of these neighborhoods in which residents express their disappointment or outrage at the city's decision to shelter migrants without considering this history. From one vantage point these reactions might sound like the kind of blanket disregard I mentioned above; certainly some of that is present, but there's something else too.
It's common to hear those who feel compassion for the migrants advocating for them by highlighting the humanity they share with the rest of us. "They're human!" Potentially implied in this kind of advocacy is this: those troubled by the resettlement happening in their neighborhoods must believe the migrants are less than human. Why else would they be anything but sympathetic?
But here's the nuance I'm trying to learn from. Many of the neighbors who are frustrated by the city's plans for housing migrants are not confused about the humanity they share with those who risked everything traveling from South and Central America. As people who have experienced persistent societal dehumanization, many African American neighbors are quick to voice their concern for those whose circumstances have forced them into extreme precarity. The value of their humanity is simply assumed.
But this assumed value and expressed sympathy does not mean the history of racist disinvestment will be ignored. It doesn't mean that questions won't be asked about why money can be found for some people and not others. It doesn't mean that it won't be noticed that some neighborhoods are more likely to bear the burden of hospitality than others.
What I'm noticing is the ability to hold multiple things at the same time: historical nuance and contemporary urgency, hospitality and advocacy, compassion and self-determination, sympathy and anger. I'm noticing the ability to experience complicated grief which comes from emotional maturity.
This has been one of the lenses through which I've wondered about the need for simple responses to migrants in Chicago and terror in Israel and Gaza. It seems to me that many of these simple, binary responses betray a lack of maturity born from cultural privilege.
Those of us with the privilege of standing at a distance from suffering, who can post opinions on social media or donate some clothes before returning to our warm apartments, seem more prone to grieve simplistically. It's this or it's that. Good guys and bad guys. This solution for everyone, everywhere.
But those neighbors who've lived in proximity to suffering, who understand history as a heartbeat rather than an ideology, often don't need the crutch of simplicity. These women and men can hold the complexities of grief in the face of terrible injustice. They are not held in a mushy middle, trying to figure out the right side or the best way or the good guys. Their emotional maturity allows for action and grief at the same time.
We're living through some grevious circumstances these days. If our instinct is to simplify our sorrow or to identify the righteous with whom to affiliate, perhaps we might wonder about the emotional maturity our privilege has kept us from.
Hannah Seo in The Atlantic writes about the connection between loneliness and our avoidance of the outdoors.
Relationships between racial and ethnic groups can have an especially strong influence on time spent in nature. In the 2022 study from Australia, Asians were less likely to go walking than white people, which the study authors attributed to anti-Asian racism. Surveys consistently show that minority groups in the U.S., especially Black and Hispanic Americans, are less likely to participate in outdoor recreation, commonly citing racism, fear of racist encounters, or lack of easy access as key factors. Inclusive messaging in places like urban parks, by contrast, may motivate diverse populations to spend time outdoors.
I had a wonderful time at the Mosaix Chicago conference a couple of weekends ago. It was fun to bump into some out-of-town friends, including Dorena Williamson, author of a bunch of fantastic children's books that should be on your bookshelves at home and church!