Please Help Me Understand
Living gratefully today, I am enjoying cool morning air on our back patio, listening to birds and our fountain, appreciating a slower pace to start this day.
I wrote this line in my post on June 1, referring to the racial unrest and all that has unfolded since the murder of George Floyd:
I would like to think that I am fairly educated and openminded. But I confess that I need help understanding my own sense of what race means and how I can best help at this time.
I saw these words on a sign at a local peaceful protest I attended last week: "I understand that I will never understand, but I stand with you." That struck me, as a white woman who has known privilege, security, accessibility, and availability of opportunities throughout my life.
One of my jobs at this time is to educate myself. I cannot say "not my problem" and throw my hands up. I have to literally and figuratively extend my arms out in support and solidarity.
Please help me understand. Others are helping me. Their words and actions. I appreciate reading again from Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. The subtitle summarizes what she is trying to help us look at more deeply and less defensively.
More recently listening to Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be An Anti-Racist has helped me understand. He writes about us all being either racist or anti-racist. He challenges someone saying "I'm not racist" as a racist in denial.
Both DiAngelo and Kendi are helping me to understand. My job is to continue to educate myself, to confront my own racist ideas, and to speak up when I hear racial undertones from others I am talking with, including family and friends if that is the case.
Not knowing what to do and doing nothing are NOT the same thing. I know what I can do in terms of listening to others and treating all with kind respect. But I need to go further. Now is the time. I feel more able to take right actions as I learn more, better able to take right actions as I admit lack of understanding and my own vulnerabilities.
Not knowing what to do and doing nothing are NOT the same thing. The first I can work on, the second is just letting the rest of you pull my weight when I should be pulling it myself. News flash: when we EACH pull our own weight, we ALL make timely progress.
There aren’t quick fixes, but there are things we can start doing immediately. Thank you Ibram Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, and so many others who are helping me understand in new ways.
I wrote this line in my post on June 1, referring to the racial unrest and all that has unfolded since the murder of George Floyd:
"None of us can sit by and let this unfold without offering to be part of the solution.
But how does that look?"
I would like to think that I am fairly educated and openminded. But I confess that I need help understanding my own sense of what race means and how I can best help at this time.
I saw these words on a sign at a local peaceful protest I attended last week: "I understand that I will never understand, but I stand with you." That struck me, as a white woman who has known privilege, security, accessibility, and availability of opportunities throughout my life.
One of my jobs at this time is to educate myself. I cannot say "not my problem" and throw my hands up. I have to literally and figuratively extend my arms out in support and solidarity.
Please help me understand. Others are helping me. Their words and actions. I appreciate reading again from Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. The subtitle summarizes what she is trying to help us look at more deeply and less defensively.
More recently listening to Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be An Anti-Racist has helped me understand. He writes about us all being either racist or anti-racist. He challenges someone saying "I'm not racist" as a racist in denial.
Both DiAngelo and Kendi are helping me to understand. My job is to continue to educate myself, to confront my own racist ideas, and to speak up when I hear racial undertones from others I am talking with, including family and friends if that is the case.
Not knowing what to do and doing nothing are NOT the same thing. I know what I can do in terms of listening to others and treating all with kind respect. But I need to go further. Now is the time. I feel more able to take right actions as I learn more, better able to take right actions as I admit lack of understanding and my own vulnerabilities.
Not knowing what to do and doing nothing are NOT the same thing. The first I can work on, the second is just letting the rest of you pull my weight when I should be pulling it myself. News flash: when we EACH pull our own weight, we ALL make timely progress.
There aren’t quick fixes, but there are things we can start doing immediately. Thank you Ibram Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, and so many others who are helping me understand in new ways.
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