I never said anything here about how much White Fragility shook me last year because..what if I said the wrong thing? What difference would my words make? This is a place for things I like, and wow does talking about race make me uncomfortable. Maybe I could sign a petition or two instead?
Well, guess what? It’s not about me. Being able to ignore race because it doesn’t affect me, or makes me uncomfortable, or to read one book about racism and call it good, is a massive privilege. As for what difference my efforts would make, I have to go back to seeing the Dalai Lama in 2016:
You should not think of world problems as huge and that one individual cannot do much. This is wrong thinking. A peaceful world/[an anti-racist world] starts with one person, then spreads to one family, then 10 families, then 1,000 families and whole communities.
So I apologize for my past silence. It needs to be talked about. Like I saw once in a tweet about therapy, “Everything you ignore just goes down to the basement to lift weights and get stronger.” White America has 400 years of racial violence we’ve organized, benefited from, and ignored to address now.
I’m going to start by reading and posting about the essays in The 1619 Project at the New York Times every week. Then I want to work through the original (free!) Me and White Supremacy Workbook by Layla Saad. Then I want to work my way through the reading list here.
I want to learn. I want to listen. I want to be able to speak up. I want to do better.
(I found all of these resources through this Google Doc, which has everything from books to podcasts to social media accounts to follow. There are literally hundreds of links to anti-racism resources being shared right now; just search.)