Continuing to Accomplish Small Things in a Great Way

In the days leading up to the upcoming Presidential Elections, it seems to be no coincidence that I would finish reading “Small Great Things”, a 2016 novel by best-selling author Jodie Picoult (known for novels like “The Pact” and “My Sister’s Keeper”) which discusses racism in America. It’s a story about an African American Labor and Delivery nurse by the name of Ruth Jefferson with twenty years of experience who is ordered not to act as the nurse for the newborn baby of a White Supremacist. When there’s an emergency with the newborn and Ruth is left alone with the child, being the only one around in the moment, she is forced to decide whether she should act and help the child, or risk disobeying her supervisor’s instructions; all of which will lead to a criminal case where Ruth is put on trial for her actions. This story is told from three first person accounts, Ruth Jefferson, the African American Labor and Delivery nurse; Turk Baurer, the father of the infant and White Supremacist; and public defender Kennedy, who is white, who doesn’t consider herself to be racist despite her more than apparent racial ignorance and biases. What these voices bring to the story is a realistic and believable account of the issue from all sides with one important point ringing true once you come to the end of the book. That racism isn’t just the angry white supremacists, though they do still exist as we’ve recently seen. Racism is also our own ignorance to the big picture, the way a white person might cross the street if they see someone color walking in their direction. The way a white woman might clutch her purse a little tighter if a black gentlemen steps onto an elevator with her. Or the way a white person might go out of their way to overcompensate how they speak around a person of color so the white person will not come off as racist.

Jodie Picoult put together a book that I think will be remembered as the boldest book of her career. The reason being , so many people are so uncomfortable to this day to talk about racism in this country and how important of an issue it actually is. White people don’t want to be called out or even made aware by the privileges they have, or if they are already aware, many of these white people don’t want to see their comfortable lives changed for the sake of someone else. What they don’t realize is the truth that much of their comfort came at the price of someone else’s pain. The way this book handles these issues is very realistic, and jarring. Turning into for me, not just another book to read, but a book that forced me to look at myself and how I have viewed racism in this country, as well as in my personal life.

I’m half Portuguese and half Irish, with some ancestry within Australia; in other words, so white I might as well be a ghost. I have dark hair, but I have blue eyes and skin that burns like no other. So it goes without saying, I have never had to experience the racism people of color experience on a daily basis. This however, never made me unaware that racism exists. From the time I was very young, I’ve had black friends, friendships I cherished to this day, and acquaintances that I respect as just any other person. I remember as a little girl Black History Month was among my favorite times in school, for the reason that I loved the story of Martin Luther King Jr., and what he was able to achieve in the time he had on this Earth. On top of this, I’m a person with a need to analyze things that I don’t completely understand. And the experiences of the day to day lives of people of color were obviously not experiences I could understand, and never will completely. As I got older, I got involved in community theatre and had the opportunity to meet numerous people from many different cultures.

When I was about sixteen years old, my mother and I were doing a show with our local theatre when a young gentleman of color was brought into the show at the last minute. He lived some distanced from the theatre and the local community college he was attending, so my mother invited him to crash at our place if he needed. More or less, we had another member of the family for around a month and a half if not longer. The time spent with him, were some of the best, most fun memories. He quickly became a big brother figure I never knew I wanted and needed. He made us laugh, and just made some of the harder days more enjoyable. To this day, I consider him a good friend. He’s a working actor in L.A. and has done well for himself in his art, though I can’t say I’m surprised. His ability to pick up choreography was legendary among our theatre peers, and he always jumped into his roles like no other.

Around this time, we also had a woman renting our spare room who was of mixed race, her father being black and her mother being white (if I’m not mistaken). She lived with us for about eighteen months and she also was a delight to be around. Her laugh is the most contagious laugh I think to ever be uttered on this planet. She was the reason I watched David Fincher’s “Seven” for the first time, among shows like “South Park” and “The Simpsons”. She also gave me some insight into what it was like to grow up biracial. “Sometimes you don’t feel like you fit in anywhere.” I remember her saying once to me. I remember not completely understanding why, knowing how much I loved her as a person and just enjoyed her company. With getting older and taking off some of my blinders so to speak, you begin to see the whole picture that is this culture of racism.

The reason I bring up the two people I mentioned is they are pieces of development as a person, who I look at people who might look different from me, or who might come from less fortunate circumstances than I have.

That’s one of the aspects of this book that I love. The fact that Jodie Picoult actually sat with women of color to try and understand their experiences and create the most accurate representation of what it feels like to walk in the shoes of an African American person. In her afterward, she wrote about how she had to look at herself and some of the things she’s thought over the years before actually sitting with the women who helped her with her book, and how she came out of writing this book with a whole new outlook towards the issue of racism. As someone who has read a number of her books (as well as met her briefly through emails, where I quoted her for a project I was doing my senior year about Illiteracy and how it connects with kids with learning disabilities) and have admired her as a writer for years, I found it beautiful to hear how humble she was to acknowledge that she hasn’t always been perfect, but that she’s willing to learn and help take the steps that will lead to change.

Being that times are more hostile than ever since the death of George Floyd, I don’t think it was just a chance that this book finally came into my radar. It was time to read it and to learn what I can do to help those who’ve fallen victim to systematic abuse because of the color of their skin. We need to learn from this time and move forward, to realize where we fall as part of the problem, so we can learn how to become part of the solution to end racism in America. If there's anything this book can do is simply act as the starting point of the much needed and long overdue conversation.