Hope Through Action

“I think we have to try to get people to understand that when we confront this history, we don’t have to fear punishment...Until we tell the truth, we deny ourselves the opportunity for beauty. Justice can be beautiful. Reconciliation can be beautiful. Repair can be beautiful. It’s powerful to actually experience redemption. And we deny ourselves that when we insist on denying our broken past, our ugly past, our racist past, when we insist on avoiding the truth.” –Bryan Stevenson, Founder/Executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative

Now that you have completed the emotional and historical groundwork, you can review the materials below with your own truth in mind.

News of violence and discrimination is inherently traumatic, particularly for members of the Black community who experience it at disproportionately higher rates. When people of various races, backgrounds and experiences enter the conversation, layers of difference can add even more tension to the dialogue. Fear of saying the wrong thing often keeps people from wanting to engage in a discussion about race and inequality in the first place. That’s often because while the payoff of such conversations can be unclear (dismantling systemic racism), the risk (rejection of your own beliefs) is much clearer.

In addition to following the "Three Questions" technique mentioned in the emotional groundwork, a good method for successfully participating in these difficult conversations is to consider the impact rather than the intention of your statements. Be prepared to understand how your own experience, because of your race and background, will shape what you bring to and take from the conversation.

Microaggressions are everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults (intentional or not) that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership. While most commonly related to race, microaggressions exist for all other intersections of marginalization. Most experience microaggressions constantly from a variety of sources and have likened the feeling of these interactions to 'death by a thousand cuts.'

Watch Derald Wing Sue of Teachers College at Columbia University talk about the ways that everyday microaggressions can affect people:

Below are common examples of workplace microaggressions and the impact they have on their target(s):

Watch the video below by Ken Tanaka. It illustrates extreme versions of common microaggressions committed by white people and highlights their offensiveness and absurdity:

An ally acknowledges the limits of their knowledge about oppressed people’s experiences but doesn't use that as a reason not to think and/or act. An ally does not remain silent but confronts oppression as it comes up daily and also seeks to deconstruct it institutionally and live in a way that challenges systemic oppression, even at the risk of experiencing some of that oppression. Being an ally entails building relationships not only with people oppressed by their identities but also with people privileged by their identities in order to challenge them in their thinking.

If you want to be an ally, saying sympathetic words to your Black friends isn’t enough. Rather, you must sacrifice in some way and use your privilege to take action against racism. An example is the white woman who demanded police officers to check for a pulse and declared “I have your name tag!” as they killed George Floyd. Knowing her confrontational words to the police would have no repercussions to her as a white woman, she used her privilege in an attempt to intervene. In order for a white person or non-black person of color to be an ally and thoughtfully engage in discussions about race, it’s crucial they do their own work to understand the privilege that shapes their world view and educate themselves on the things they need to personally learn and unlearn in order to be a better advocate.

Allies don’t have it all figured out but they are committed to non-complacency.

The term "anti-racism" was popularized by Ibram X. Kendi’s memoir, How to Be an Antiracist. In his book, Kendi articulates that the underlying tenet of anti-racism is the belief that all races and ethnic groups are equal and deserving of the same opportunities. Kendi argues that, without the capacity for honest self-reflection and critical thinking, we'll remain a nation of Americans who swear they "don't have a racist bone" in their body all while racism and white supremacy persist unchecked, destroying communities and lives.

It's not enough to say, "I'm not racist," and often it is a self-serving sentiment. Kendi says people constantly change the definition of what's racist so it doesn't apply to them. By reflexively defining yourself as not racist, or beyond racism's firm grip, you're making it impossible to see how your own ideas, thoughts, and actions could be indeed racist. Moreover, being anti-racist means moving beyond the "not racist" defense and instead embracing and articulating decidedly antiracist views and beliefs.

It is a critical time in the fight for justice and equality for Black people. An important aspect of anti-racism work is the consideration that there are many layers to Black identity. True anti-racist work recognizes the ways that race intersects with other marginalizing factors to reinforce and deepen a racial hierarchy. Because race intersects with multiple aspects of people's identities, including their gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, it's imperative to use an intersectional approach when being anti-racist.

In his address to supporters after the Iowa Caucuses in 2008, then Senator Barack Obama offered the following message about hope:

"Hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it. Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be."

One cannot strive to be antiracist without action and within that action lies hope. Only through our actions and open communication can we begin to see positive change and growth. Thank you for beginning this transformative work.