Ian Williams - Disorientation

Ian Williams was born in Trinidad and raised in Brampton, Canada. In 2019, he won Canadas most prestigious literary award, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, for his debut novel, Reproduction. His poetry collection, Personals, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award. His short story collection, Not Anyones Anything, won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for the best first collection of short fiction in Canada. His third poetry collection, Word Problems, recently won the Raymond Souster Award. He lives in Toronto.

www.ianwilliams.ca @ianwillwrite

Reproduction

For my father
who will likely agree
and for Phanuel
who is free to disagree

I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.

A UDRE L ORDE

S WIMMING

My resolution this year is to learn how to swim. It was my resolution last year. And the year before. And, well, lets stop there. I imagine myself falling out of a burning airplane into the ocean like an action hero. I crash into the water, conscious for a hopeful moment, before floundering and drowning. The scenario is illogical, but I have my reasons.

I also have several reasons for why it is taking me so long to learn.

1.All the pools that Ive entered have been unpleasantly cold and I dont like the sensation of cold water on my body, especially my back. I dont like the sound of underwater in my ears. You can feel the current of conversations around race, particularly in America. Youre entering an environment that has cast you as rebellious, violent, and troublemaking, if Black, and as blameworthy, racist, and heartless, if white. None of this feels good washing over your head.

2.I havent learned how to swim because of a story, internalized from childhood, that my aunt told of a Black boy in England who was struggling in a pool. He could have drowned. And the swimming instructor said, Leave him. N dont float anyhow. I imagine the instructor turning away to deal with the white students while the Black child splashed and gulped. You already have an internal story that makes you reluctant or fearful to approach the subject of race. If youre Black, you expect any attempt to be met with pity or demands for proof. Youve learned early that any mention of a white person in a racial situation that affects you is akin to an accusation. So you bear the microaggressions. If white, maybe you witnessed another white person get eviscerated for a joke or watching out for the welfare of the neighbourhood. So youre just going to avoid Black people. If you see one leaning against a car, youre not going to call the police (thats probably for the best). Youre not going to say anything whatsoever about race, because youre not stupid.

3.The thought of learning to swim among six-year-olds with water wings could be an amusing future anecdote, but Id rather not endure the present awkwardness. I should know how to swim by now. So pride gets in the way. This type of pride is buoyed by shame rather than deflated by it. You should know more about race, but youre embarrassed to be counted among the ignorant, so you dont ask. Of course, there are adult swimming classes. My racialized friend attended the first session of one where the entire class comprised three shirtless racialized men. It was like Swimming for Immigrants, he said. You dont want to be in the company of people like you.

4.Lets say I survive the classes and learn how to swim. Once the lessons are over, where will I go swimming? Am I going to doggy-paddle in some public pool with Olympians zooming and sharking around me? Whos eager to get into emotionally murky waters with people whove been swimming a long time?

5.Im afraid of the deep end. I wouldnt mind staying in the shallow end where I could put my feet down. Maybe I just need to learn how to float. If the plane crashes and I survive the impact, I could float on the water until help comes. When I got tired, Id hold on to buoyant debris, like Kate Winslet in Titanic. You can keep your head above water with a few popular opinions. You dont need to look into the faces of slaves in photographs. You get it. Slavery bad, equality good. Respect Black people.
If youre Black, you believe that your experience excuses you from understanding exactly what happened back then. Youre Black and thats enough. This ones tricky. Your experience is important, yes, but its not everything. When you position yourself in history, you enter into a community of people with similar experiences and you observe how the racial climate changes over time. For white people, its worth learning some history and theory and more: its worth having experiences of disorientation and discomfort, as a means of empathy and as a way of accessing courage, which only grows from challenge and exercise.

6.I have a sensitive bladder. I am concerned that in a moment of stress I might piss in the pool and get banned forever. For starters, dont piss in the pool. There are places for that. Dont contaminate discussions by trolling around and advocating on behalf of the devil. Not pissing in the pool is for your own good too. There are Internet forums full of piss. I doubt you want to swim in the putrid opinions of narrow-minded folks. If thats what you want, you probably shouldnt be swimming. You probably should find a community of kinky people and have them piss on you.

Although Ive wanted to swim for an embarrassingly long time, I have no ambitions to be a lifeguard. In fact, if you told me that I should learn to swim so that I could save other people, Id say, Great, but whats in it for me? So much for the kindness of my heart. Of course, youre more likely to leave comfortable ignorance behind if there is a benefit to you and not just a benefit to other people. What does that say about you, though?

Our benefits are inextricable. Its benefit enough that I can be with you on land or water. No saving needs to happen. In water, we each look a little different because were both affected by the same element. The journey out of ignorance takes us intoforgive the mushy termself-discovery and into a deeper empathetic relation to the prevailing issues of our time.

* * *

I dont know where the scenario of my plunging into the ocean and needing to swim to safety came from.

It is estimated that at least two million Black people died while crossing the Atlantic Ocean on slave ships. Some jumped, choosing to drown rather than to be enslaved.

A P OLITICAL P ERSON

I do not consider myself a political person in any sense of the word. I turn away from CNN maps on election night. I care about race, but I dont march in the streets with homemade signs. Ive been to one protest, out of curiosity more than conviction. In truth, I care too much about the subject to see it batted between acquaintances as only a subject of conversation.

Despite this apolitical stance, offensive especially to people who view all politics as inescapable, Ive known which opinions to hold, how to shade them depending on the company around me. I havent always believed these opinions, Ive accepted them. Accepting conflict and conflicting perspectives seems a precondition for getting political.

How does one engage with the explosive world of race and privilege?

As a Black man, I could claim expertise. Race is one of the few places where white people actually defer to Black people without challenge. White people think race lives in Black bodies. They dont see whiteness as having meaningful contributions to make to racial conversations. The belief that race lives only in certain bodies is a powerful acknowledgement that the structures we live in are racist. Knowing this dynamic (and hesitant to take on the extra work of carrying race for white people), Ive protected my little life for the most part, though I sometimes subject my experiences to the glare of theory and terms, to the words