How do we do better?
I’ve been silent when I should have been loud.
I’ve been loud when I should have been silent.
I’ve done too much.
I’ve not done enough.
And, I need to do better.
For those of you who don’t know, I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, right over the river and just a few miles from where George Floyd was murdered three weeks ago. Typically (in non-pandemic times,) I regularly drive down the street where his life was taken, and past many of the businesses that burned during the following unrest. Some of the destruction in Saint Paul was just down the road from me.
I can’t explain to you what it’s been like watching my city burn, and our country in fresh turmoil over another killing of an unarmed black person by those who swear an oath to protect and serve. I am inarticulate when it comes to trying to express the justified pain, fear and rage gushing out of our communities right now. I don’t have words for how much it aches to see neighborhoods that were already struggling during the pandemic become instant food deserts. I can’t describe the overwhelming sense of hope, immediately juxtaposed with intense helplessness, when seeing the donations and helpers pour into a hurting community, while knowing that all those donations and help pale in comparison to what’s actually needed.
It’s been a hard few weeks. And I, like many of my white friends and colleagues have struggled to know what to do or say.
How do we acknowledge the pain without appropriating the experience?
How do we express our solidarity without the words sounding hollow?
How do we speak up against injustice without taking over the conversation?
And how do we even begin to grapple with the reality that the pain and discomfort we’ve felt over the last two weeks is nothing compared to what many BIPOC people experience on a regular basis?
If you’ve become accustomed to the Honestly newsletter, you know that I try to be as open and honest as I can about hard things, in hopes that those reflections might help you think about your own hard things productively. This is no exception.
So in case my relative silence has made you wonder, let me be clear: George Floyd’s death was wrong. His life, and the lives of so many other black people who have died at the hands of unjust systems, mattered. These systems we have built are broken, and their power continually goes unchecked and unchanged, despite the staggering number of lives that have been wrongly taken.
This is not okay. It has to stop.
Please also know that when I am silent, it is not an indication of disregard. When I’m silent, it comes from a need to shut up and listen. When I am silent, it’s because I know I need to reflect, learn, and think before I speak. When I am silent, I am also trying to share the incredible work and powerful voices of black people who have been living this reality much longer than the few short weeks of discomfort I’ve experienced.
So, how do we do better as white people?
We keep listening to, learning from, and sharing the work and voices of black people from across various fields, environments, contexts and life experiences. We lean into the discomfort we feel, and remain open to the change that comes with it. We try our best, make a lot of mistakes, learn from them, and then try again.
And we commit to doing these things on an ongoing, long-term basis.
Then, we start using our power to change the systems that we operate in. This change work is multi-faceted, layered, and requires us all in different ways. There is no ONE right way to work for change. This will look different for different people, and that’s okay.
But we commit to doing these things on an ongoing, long-term basis.
And honestly, I’m not entirely sure what engaging in change looks like for me yet. I’m not sure what action steps I’ll be taking, but watching the Reimagining Small Business Town Hall gave me some great ideas of where to start, especially as a business owner.
Know that I’m wrestling with the question of how I can do better, and that action steps built to help hold me and my business accountable to change will be coming.
As I continue to reflect and learn, here’s a few resources I’ve found especially helpful so far:
For those who want a structure: Justice in June - by Autumn Gupta & Bryanna Wallace - a month-long break down of different things to read, watch, listen to or act on depending on if you’ve got 10, 25, or 45 minutes a day to devote to the process. This is GREAT for you planners out there who need to schedule time in to make sure this work happens regularly.
For those who want an entry point: Brené Brown with Ibram X. Kendi on How to be Anti-Racist - if Brené Brown is a voice you appreciate, this conversation with author Ibram X. Kendi is a great entry point into the ideas and work around anti-racism. (Plus, if you, like me, can’t get your hands on his book How to be an Anti-Racist yet, this is a good place to start!)
For those who want to know how to be a better ally: How to be an ally by long time YouTube creator Ahsante Bean is a great video on some of the primary ways to be an ally for people of color.
For those who want to learn how to be better small business owners: Re-Imagining Small Businesses Town Hall - This. Was. AMAZING. For anyone who has a small business (or even if you don’t,) this event provided great viewpoints, action steps, and a clear pledge to keep you accountable to the work of becoming more anti-racist.
For those who want to learn from some local (Minneapolis) voices in mental health: In the Wake of Violence - A discussion with four passionate and knowledgeable black mental health practitioners in north Minneapolis about the effects of trauma on the mental health of young black men.
Lastly,
Friends, this work is ongoing, long term, and takes time, patience, forgiveness and care. It is not done overnight. I will need to take breaks. So will you. I will need to tap out when I’m spent, and tap in when others are spent. So will you. I will mess up and say or do the wrong things. So will you. I’ll need a community, and safe spaces to talk about and process these difficult realities I’m engaging with, some for the first time. So will you. And there will be times where I'll want to stop working to change because frankly, it's easier not to.
So will you.
But I'm asking you to join me in this long, hard change process together, because we must do better.
Let’s get to work.
Note: The photos in this post are of pieces of street art using the plywood boards covering many business's windows around the Twin Cities. I took these photos when I was in Minneapolis last week. For a great resource documenting these incredible works of art, the George Floyd and Anti-Racist Street Art project is trying to map, cite and document the art springing up both locally, and across the country.
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