Where I Stand

 

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Black lives mat­ter. White suprema­cy is an insid­i­ous prob­lem that will not go away unless we active­ly work towards stomp­ing it out. White suprema­cy is present in near­ly every part of our soci­ety—even down to how inter­states are laid out.

As a white per­son, I must do bet­ter. All white peo­ple must do bet­ter. It is uncom­fort­able, but what is the alter­na­tive? Stay silent and watch more peo­ple die? Not only at the hands of police but by death of a mil­lion cuts;  sys­temic racism all but ensures that Black peo­ple strug­gle to get ahead in a soci­ety not built for them (but cer­tain­ly built by them).

It is impor­tant that white peo­ple do the work to dis­man­tle white suprema­cy by com­mit­ting to be anti-racist. If you’re a white per­son, it is not on any Black per­son to edu­cate you on the his­to­ry of racism and the racist poli­cies that have made it pos­si­ble for Black peo­ple like George Floyd to be mur­dered by a police offi­cer in broad day­light, as he was plead­ing for his life.

If you need a place to start, this Google Doc called Anti-racism resources for white peo­ple has books, pod­casts, and movies for you to con­sume and social media accounts to fol­low. (And more.) If you are finan­cial­ly able, donate mon­ey to orga­ni­za­tions that sup­port Black lives. Some sug­ges­tions: your local Black Lives Mat­ter chap­ter, The Bail Project, the NAACP, the ACLU, and Col­or of Change.

Social media sen­ti­ments and post­ing mean­ing­ful quotes won’t get us any­where if we don’t act on them. I have donat­ed, I am begin­ning to tack­le my (audio) read­ing list, and I am going to make space on this site as well as my Insta­gram to share the cre­ative work of more Black people.