Rather than make this somber day a once a year observance, make it a practice. Daily.
Yes, many words to read and reflect upon (I’ve spared you all my own wordy reply to @janessasaidso!). It takes work, a lot of work, with a myriad of tiny steps, that will be completed by others beyond most of our lifetimes, to build a cathedral. But we must continue or start. It’s critical to our humanity.
I often use a reflection that I consider to be a prime directive for all biological life: go forth and propagate the species; all else is commentary. Now go: learn, do, and teach the work. Think of anti-racism work as a component of the propagation of the human species. Future generations and their very existence depend on it.
#Repost @janessasaidso
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Stop Scrolling and Read.
There is no one ANTIRACIST certification course that will fix this. There’s no DEI, EID, DBE, D&I bookclub that will stop racist behavior overnight. There is no checklist that will absolve a nation from reacting to the conditions it had cultivated. But there’s still so much more work to do.
I believe that It takes the practice of decentering “whiteness.” Whiteness as an ideology which does not always mean the whiteness of a skin color. The kind of ideology that to be treated well, acceptable and valued you need to be more “white.” I challenge people to think about the whiteness in them, the “white” ideals they uphold, the “white” they portray instead of finding empathy via unmasking of “blackness.”
I know this may go over people’s heads or may not sit well with many “online educators” but I’m more interested in how we (all of us) move through the world unconsciously validating supremacy. Because teaching people to identify/empathize with a group of people with no lived experience of walking a mile in their shoes is too big of an ask for many in a society filled with selfishness. #powerandprivilege
It’s called cultivating opposites. It’s a lifelong practice. It’s like brushing your teeth, it’s habitual. It’s like breathing, it’s necessary for the sustainability of humanity.
Stepping off my soapbox… #antiracismeducation #diversityequityinclusion #oneyearlater
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