I have experienced a lot of intense emotion as I’ve watched the past few weeks unfold. I’ve watched my peers and more take to the streets, to their social media, and to their platforms to make statements demanding changes be made to our problematic systems.
I have felt the need to protest, and speak out, and also the need to work and take care of my health and keep those around me safe. I’ve worried about saying something but not having an artfully crafted message to share. I struggled with the realization that I’m not fully educated and I have implicit bias. I’ve felt scared, sometimes angry, and sometimes I just wanted to turn everything off.
I was absorbing the realizations that it is my privilege to feel overwhelmed by those things, to want to log off. I had to sit with the knowledge that is my privilege to bear witness and to re-educate myself, instead of enduring the injustice first hand daily.
Here’s the thing.
While my worries, emotions and actions are real…
This is not about me.
It’s ok if I don’t have eloquent words to say on the matter of racial injustices. I can speak, and I should be corrected. I should be reflecting on my own actions and implicit biases and doing the work to be better.
I can use my voice and any platform I have as long as I don’t speak over others who deserve to be heard. I can be a part of this movement so long as I am elevating the voices of communities who need to be heard, because it’s not about me.
I have deep gratitude for the BIPOC creators, academics, influencers, leaders, celebrities and more who have expelled extra energy to help educate me as apart of the white community seeking to be better – to be genuine allies. I recognize that it’s not your responsibility to educate me, it’s mine, and yet you still took the time to provide resources to help me start the journey anyway. Thank you.
Therapy (yes I said it) has helped me acknowledge that I’m not a bad person. In fact, I’m a pretty decent person. That does not, however, limit me from becoming better.
Something I read the other day struck me as important to share, I’ll paraphrase the best I can. Systemic racism doesn’t mean that everyone in the system is racist. It means that the system itself, and the way it was created is unequal. It was built that way – so in essence, the system was never broken. It simply wasn’t built correctly in the first place.
America has potential to be great. Sure, there have been moments in history where this country was pretty cool. But those moments were tainted by the underlying truth that while all these “great” moments were happening, there was pain. In fact, the “great” moments happened because the country and its systems were built upon the oppression, suppression, and insurmountable pain of Americans who labored but didn’t profit.
A resounding battlecry of our democracy, said famously by President Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address, reads, “democracy is direct self-government, over all the people, for all the people, by all the people”.
It is a beautiful sentiment, that our democracy is for the people, by the people, and no one is exempt. It touts autonomy, community, and integrity.
I would like this statement to actually be true as we move forward and fight for change. Voter suppression is real and it is a problem. Giving equal and fair voting opportunity to all Americans is a constitutional right. All citizens deserve the ability to cast their votes and be represented by legislators who keep their constituents’ best interests in mind – not a political party’s best interests. All citizens – including those with exorbitant wealth, those in positions of power, and especially those who swore to serve and protect – should be held to the same standards of the law as the rest of us.
Despite the centuries and generations of pain and prejudice, there is hope in this country. There is room for growth and change. In fact, change is long overdue.
It’s not about me, but that doesn’t excuse me. And I’ll be damned if we don’t see this change through.
