What To Do?
I’ve been stymied and overwhelmed as a white person who is trying to navigate learning to be anti-racist while emotionally supporting Black friends without adding to their daily exhaustion, and helping our children process and envision a world that is better for all of us.
There are an amazing number of resources out there for white folks to learn from. Here are a couple we’re using, or saving to use:
Women of Color For Progress Ally Guide
An Anti-Racist Reading List: This is from the New York Times, so not sure if it is available without a subscription.
For the links I posted, where I was able, I made a donation to these authors.
Our friend Logan is the one who awakened me to the importance of paying people for their written work, even when they are sharing it freely. As he enlightened me, this is difficult emotional labor, sharing the turmoil you have had to live. (He’s a white trans man, so knowledge of oppression in his own right, though different than my friends who are Black.)
Finally lots of white folks are realizing they need to be putting in the effort to learn how to be anti-racist themselves. Don’t ask your Black and Brown friends what you can do differently. Support them, and do your own work.
In addition, we had a family meeting about where we can be donating money to support organizations that are run by Black and Brown organizers. (In case you don’t know, white people, this is your time to follow, learn, and listen.)
We chose, in no particular order:
1) Bail funds, which includes the group here in Nashville.
The Nashville Bail Fund is here.
2) Black Lives Matter, the National Organization.
3) National Alliance on Mental Illness, toward African American support, specifically.
We are also continuing to support political campaigns for Democratic candidates around the country. A new administration won’t fix what’s wrong, but I pray they won’t worsen things as this one has.
For many of you, you’ve already been putting in the work. Some of you are living with the impact of racism, and some of you have been organizers and leaders and enlightened for way longer than me.
This post is not intended to indicate our family has it figured out. This post is to share what we’ve been doing to learn, and to make sure that in decades to come, when we are talking about George Floyd, and all who were murdered before him, I want the children to know we did SOMETHING. We weren’t just watching in horror, we were trying to do better.
