I’m not always political on the internets, but when I am, it’s going to be a long post. This is why Twitter doesn’t work for me. 😉 Up front I’m going to say if you read this whole post and this post offends you, then please unfriend me, but just know that, that probably means you are part of the problem. To my White friends, I know most of you are on the same page as me and trying hard to check your own privilege and unconscious bias on a daily basis and educate yourself about issues of racism so that you can vote and act accordingly. But if you don’t know what privilege, unconscious bias or systemic racism is, it is your responsibility to educate yourself. Just because you have not experienced something or witnessed something yourself doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. That in itself is a privilege. If your are looking at that photo of that officer kneeling on an African American man’s neck and I ask you, how would you feel if that was your son and your very first instinctual thought is “that would never happen to my son” that is privilege. If you go out jogging at any time and any place you please and never consider that you might get shot for it, that is privilege. If you get pulled over by the police for running a stop sign and you aren’t terrified that you might get shot when you reach for your license, that is privilege. If you can put on a virus mask and your biggest worry is that your glasses will fog up, not that you will be mistaken for a criminal, that is privilege. You and I can never truly understand what it is like to be a person of color in America. But the only way to build empathy is through knowledge and understanding. I am of the opinion that most people in America are truly ignorant about most of American history. The history of African Americans in this country involves 400 years of brutal slavery, 100 years of Jim Crow, and only about 55 years since the start of the civil rights era. If you don’t think there is still scars and trauma from 500 years of oppression that can’t be erased in 55 years, then I don’t know how to explain it to you. I am a student of history and a librarian by training so if you are interested in learning more about these topics, my go to move is going to be to recommend some books and a couple of podcasts. You can’t get all your information from Facebook or clicking around the Internet. Sometimes you have to read some books. You don’t even have to read them anymore. Most of these books are available as audiobooks and you can probably check them out for free from your local library. White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin D’Angelo. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy The Children in Room E4: American Education On Trial by Susan Easton Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum Plus the two part series that This American Life did called “Cops See It Differently Part 1 & 2” (link) Also, understanding redlining is a good way to understand how systemic racism works. (Link)
