Kaitie Ty Warren, ©2022
In 2022, I was participating in a Disrupting Our Whiteness (DOW) cohort for Songleaders, led by Jennie Pearl and Dylan Wilder Quinn of Holistic Resistance. (HolisticResistance.com/Disrupting-Our-Whiteness)
This song, which came during the DOW series, was a shower thought – or a shower melody? By the end of the shower, it had become a full song. I expect it came through simply because I was actively opening my mind to examine the stories of assimilation, inter-generational trauma, and privilege in my own family line. I wasn’t really thinking; just watching the clean, clear water swirl down the drain, and thinking about the abundance to which I was born. My cup runneth over. Tell me, where does the water go?
I learned, before I could speak, the duality that many light-skinned folks live with: we have white privilege but carry ancestral trauma in our DNA from a time when we weren’t “white.” We remember, in our bones and through our family’s stories, the time when we didn’t have the safety we live with now. My grandfather would tell me how his ancestors escaped pogroms, how they led groups to safety, and how they snuck across borders concealing their identities. He told me how, growing up and in young adulthood he saw society change, and how he used his growing privileges to break social barriers and go to bat for folks of other races to enter job fields, leagues, and country clubs. When I was a child, he made a point to hire and support people in the immigration process, gave legal or financial aid to many who needed it, and taught me and his other grandchildren the importance of researching and being involved with charities of our choosing. While introducing us to privilege, he never let us forget there was another side to the coin.
So from this vantage point I live in – say, from inside this shower with hot, clean, running water – I cannot forget that every moment of this life I enjoy, someone else out there just as worthy as I, is lacking basic safety. I hope this song captures a bit of the complexity of being born to a family whose stability was formed by assimilation, and pays some homage to what my grandfather was trying to do.
Lyrics:
(background: ooooooo)
My grandfather filled his cup
he wanted me to have enough
and though I should enjoy my drink, he
still encouraged me to think how
others do not have enough
their water’s stolen and their cups were
handed to the folks like me
who now can walk this world with ease, ’cause
my grandfather, rest his soul,
he changed the things he could control
gave me a cup that overflows
but tell me where the water goes….oooo
Tell me where the water goes.
Living Room Choir ANEW 