don't give up, part 1: be actively antiracist

As peaking summer temps drain us, COVID realities demand we again limit our behavior, school decisions loom and confusing messages about protests abound, it is easy to stick our heads in the sand, ignoring injustice and the painful realities others face. Feeling legitimately overwhelmed, it is easy to shrug our shoulders (either because we don’t know our own power, or because we listen to fear, or because we can’t support some of it so we decide to bail on all of it, or because apathy is so much easier), and turn away. I will offer more ideas on what we are accomplishing and why we have to stay at the work of paying attention to the words and actions of those around us later.

For today, I’d like to gently remind us that we are the people we’ve been waiting for. That your changed action is the spark that could revolutionize your community. That people are being treated differently because of their skin color on your watch, in your city. I will remind us that disagreeing with a pillar or fearing what you see in another city does not mean that your city/business/school/police department/neighborhood/house of worship/drugstore/university/city council/school board suddenly corrected the old habits that protected white supremacy and norms at the expense of brown bodies and their futures. Even if you detest what is going on in some other place, pay attention to what is going on around you.

Let’s keep our eye on the ball. Slow down, breathe, and pay attention to what is happening in your part of the world. Don’t take the easy exit ramp a bad actor across the country revealed; stay on your path, and do the right thing that you see before you right now. This requires you to

a) Pay attention. I know you’re tired. I know the instability and decisions facing your own family are enough to crush you. Lift your eyes and look around anyway. Find people more vulnerable than you who are facing similar challenges, and hear them. (Also, pay attention to local elections and how your school board will care of students whose families have limited resources).

b) Be creative. Creativity and beauty are fierce rejectors of hate and evil. Muster the courage to keep your family talking, showing up, noticing the injustice around you. Creatively think of small (or big) ways your family can speak up for and stand up with people who are hurting. Do the same at work, and in every other room you enter. Teach your kids how to do it too.

c) Be antiracist. Hit pause and hear the things you think or say. Notice and reject statements about “them.” Actively expand how you define “us.” If your us is small and similar, then give your kids and community a chance to thrive in the years to come by expanding that us.

If you noticed yourself leaning in to hard conversations a few months ago about how policing works, about what they are expected to do for and in our communities, about the realities of suspicion and abuse that black folks endure, then commit to staying at it. I’ll remind us how far we’ve come and how we might keep marching on in later weeks. For now, enjoy these suggestions to help spur you to antiracist thinking and acting. Allow them to help you pay attention, and then get creative as you decide how you will engage.

I know you’re tired. Don’t Give Up.

Suggestions to help you become actively antiracist:

(Curated from @ExpandYourUs Tweets in 2017-2019)

Recognizing racism, denouncing its ‘cultural symbols’, is important work, but it quickly becomes a distracting sideshow if we don’t also act as antiracists who dismantle the system of oppression built with racial hierarchies in mind. Be antiracist with yourself, not just a pointer outer of racism in others. To learn more about the work of antiracism, understanding what it asks of you and how it is different than not being racist, read the work of Ibram X. Kendi. In Stamped from the Beginning, he frames the actions and perspectives of historical Americans as either segregationist, assimilationist or antiracist. In How to be an Antiracist, through exploring his own story, he explains the difference in racist and antiracist thinking in every single American mind. All of us, members of every race, ethnicity and religion, have to work to recognize toxic racialized thinking, and then commit to thinking and acting in antiracist ways instead.

Ideas to be actively antiracist

1: Don't say "failing school" (or overlook other coded language like this). Ask instead, "why is our community failing these kids? What can I do?"

2: Own & embody this fact: Interrupting or identifying racist undertones is not bad manners. It's a basic good.

3: Replace judgment with curiosity. Hearing one's different experience poses no threat to your existence. Never ask someone to “prove it” when they share their pain.

4: Recognize that life is incredibly limited if you disregard the experience of others. Pursue diversity by valuing diverse perspectives.

5: Speak about others-strangers & friends-the way you would want your kids to hear people speak about you.

6: Don't look for a reason to be right about your suspicions of others. Look for reasons to be wrong.

7: Transform your desire to "do something" into a desire to know & learn from someone different from you first.

8: If you are new to seeing the reality of systemic racism, own it & then sit at the feet of those at work.

9: Explore your own story in CONTEXT with others, recognizing the hardships & privilege you find there.

10: When you hear stories about America you didn't learn in school or at home, educate yourself before denying them.

11: Utter aloud (to yourself) the stereotypes & prejudices you instinctively believe. Do strangers deserve them? (PS: they sound as bad as they are when you hear them out loud)

12: Witness someone's story without editing it. Resist the temptation to erase her experience.

13: If we don't explicitly reject evil, we walk in step with it, stand in the way of it, and eventually sit down entrenched in it. #rejectracism @mikaedmundson

14: In [a house of worship] look for evidence of actively addressing racial divides & injustice. If not, ask ?s @dukekwondc

15: Don't refuse to others what was freely offered to you. Recognize the access you've been given, & share it.

16: Examine words you use & avoid. Are you unwilling to utter some ideas because you've been told they’re "political"?

17: Fully embody citizenship by informing yourself about your city. Visit night court, learn crime and education stats, ask ?s about why things are the way they are.

18: Trust the shared experience of a person of color more than you trust your perception of their experience.

19: Talk openly (with yourself) about the deficits that come when you share trust & break bread only with people like you.

20: Resist the temptation to make all exposures of racism about you. To be an ally, decenter your self & story in order to see the bigger picture.

21: Know you have a role to play in pursuing equity & justice, & can ask for help in figuring out what it is.

22: Consider the impact of policies on communities of color before boisterously supporting them. Expand your us.

23: Use whatever platform you have to expose injustice through speaking up, asking a question, or passing your mic to an "other." For those of us reluctant to weigh in on advocating for marginalized others, for what are we waiting? For what are we saving our "capital"?

24: If you want to pursue justice, you must sit at the feet of people who identify with marginalized people. Increase your proximity to the powerless until you know them.

25: Hold your tongue before you ask a person to prove their experience of injustice, ostracism or hurt. Listen.

26: Acknowledge & change your instinct to label the box someone fits in. This instinct makes empathy impossible.

27: Figure out how to leverage your power (not just to make money, but) to advocate for those forgotten by others.

28: If someone feels the need to challenge the status quo & protest perceived injustice, LISTEN (don’t just dismiss or tell them to calm down).

29: Find a way to confront bigoted comments/jokes/assumptions in a way that allows the relationship to survive. Blowing up relationships will not reconcile us.

30: It may seem counter-intuitive, but those seeking to examine white evangelical culture and behaviors should actually ask black and brown folks. Our status as "other" (in their eyes) and minorities means we've had to learn their patterns for our own safety and flourishing. @JemarTisby

31: Be willing to admit your mistakes while walking with people whose mistakes define them.

32: Be more about where you stand--not who you distance yourself from.

33: Share your grief/sadness/revelation openly with people you have never “gone there” with you before. Acknowledge all is not well. They might be thankful.

34: Telling ourselves the truth about who we have been, who we are now & who we are committed to caring about is a courageous act of resistance.

35: Rather than taking stances only against people or ideas, what are you for? Who does it help? Who does it hurt?

36: Dream about how you can leverage your assets to take care of folks in your community (rather than thinking of them as tools for your own security).

37: If you want to take care of kids across the country/world, consider investigating your local school or housing situations. Invest in the kids within your proximity who suffer from food insecurity or who are overlooked and undervalued.

38: Be specific in your praise and resistance. “They” are not a thing.

39: It is crucial to know that it is NOT contributing to partisanship to resist systems and norms that are unjust.

40: Recognize difference. It isn’t racist to do so.