Oh, I thought you meant those other white people.
Hey,
I have some resources to share with you, which I’ll link at the bottom.
First, let me explain why I’m sharing them.
…
I have watched this Toni Morrison interview clip before, and I caught it again yesterday:
In it, she says, “If you can only be tall because somebody’s on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And my feeling is that white people have a very, very serious problem. And they should start to think about what they should do about it. Take me out of it.”
“Yes!” I said in times past when I watched this clip. “So as a white person, I need to get together with some other good white people so we can talk about how we are going to get those bad white people over there to do something about their bad, white racism!” I didn’t put it in those words.
But those were my actions, and I know actions speak louder than words.
I didn’t want Morrison’s words to be about me. She couldn’t be talking about me! I was “examining my consciousness,” as she puts it in the interview. … Wasn’t I?
No, I was not. I am moving forward now to do a better job. For my business, that means I am examining my services and my marketing and the ways in which they have made black women, indigenous women, and women of color feel excluded.
Two articles that you might find helpful if you are white and you are thinking about how you can do more.
And this one: Why White Parents Need to Do More Than Talk to Their Kids About Racism
As several people have pointed out over the past few days, our systems - housing, justice, health care, education - are not broken. They were designed this way. That’s the part that’s broken.
I have realized that I cannot fully contribute to the work of breaking and rebuilding them without holding myself accountable for my reluctance to examine them because I benefit from them.
M