Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Another post from Amber who just turned 42 and gets wiser than me everyday even though I am turning 50 next Tuesday

(Which is  the best present of them all, now that I think of it). Thank you Amber! And here are 42 wishes from my June heart to yours! Thanks for the post!
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How do I understand the white privilege I benefit from? What are those benefits? Benefits, to name only a few: not getting shot by police, being mostly ignored by police my whole life, not being followed by store employees who are making sure I’m not there to steal anything, being able to get home loans. My white privilege means that the deep roots of racism in our systems were meant not to be seen by me, it means I went through a long uncomfortable period of extreme white fragility and defensiveness and learning, reading, listening. It means learning to understand the difference between flagrant individual prejudices and the systemic racism that I was blindly channeled into to help keep it in place. Systemic racism is insidious and my white privilege means I now work to tear down those racist systems, learning what those systems are and how to elevate the Black voices that have been doing the dismantling work for decades while also shouldering the burden of racism daily. I’m learning what my role is as a white person and what role is best-suited for the person I am? What can I do and not break myself? What can I sustain? I’m learning.

1 comment:

  1. If I'm any wiser than I was yesterday, it's because of friends like you :)

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