You cannot change what you are unwilling to see!
And it begins with you looking at yourself, deep within yourself, and admitting to a few unpleasant things. It’s not a good feeling admitting to unpleasant things about yourself.
Admitting that you have racist ideas about people who don’t look like you.
Admitting that you behave differently around certain people of color.
Admitting that these racist ideas and behaviors were taught to you by your parents, relatives, or friends.
Admitting that there are certain people you don’t trust, simply because of their skin color.
Admitting that you seldom ever interact with people of color, other than work.
Admitting that when you look around the table at staff meetings that you don’t even notice there is either none or only one or two other employees of color or worse, you saw, but it doesn’t bother you.
Admitting that the school districts you want your kids to go to are the “better school districts” and that these “better school districts” are the “whiter school districts.”
Admitting that it makes you angry every time you hear the words, “black lives matter.”
It is essential to point out that many of these unconscious fears, stereotypes, and biases are based on racist ideas and held by many white persons.
I get it! These are not things people want to admit to about themselves. It takes courage and a great deal of honesty, transparency, and self-awareness to truly self-examine oneself and admit to having unconscious fears, stereotypes, and biases.
And yes, this blog is primarily focused on White America’s discrimination and oppression of Black America, because like I said before, White America has most of the power and influence to discriminate and oppress. So, for real change to occur, White America must be self-aware enough to indeed admit to a few things.
Black America and other marginalized groups have these unconscious fears, stereotypes, and biases too. We need to be self-aware also. We need to self-examine and admit to a few things.
Our fears, biases, and prejudices are not as harmful and oppressive because we do not have much real power or influence to create racist systemic practices and policies that oppress large groups of people, but still, we have them.
Once you can admit, just like a drug addict or an alcoholic must always do, there is an opportunity for real change. Even then, it’s not a comfortable journey to be a better you!
An example in my own life may make this clearer. In my earlier advocacy years, I made an effort to always be inclusive in my thinking and action. As someone who fought against discrimination, I made it a point not to discriminate against anyone. I knew the sting of it. I experienced it too often.
I remember this well — I had an opportunity to go to an LGBTQ pride parade. I remember saying to myself, “if I go, people will think I am gay.” This fear of what I thought others would think stopped me from going and fighting on behalf of another marginalized group, my LQBTQ+ brothers and sisters.
I thought about it, and I had to realize that I was being prejudiced against the LGBTQ community for no real reason. No one from this Community never did one thing against me — and as a matter of fact, they sought social justice just like me, wanting to be treated as a human being, deserving of dignity and respect.
From that point on, I became intentional with learning more, putting myself in a position to fight on behalf of the LGBTQ+ Community. And most importantly — I started to speak up, and I didn’t care about what others would think!
You will need to be intentional with your plan of action. For an alcoholic, he or she must go to AAA meetings, change their day to day activities, and change the people they associate with daily. He or she must feel no guilt in standing up and saying, “I am an alcoholic.”
To ensure racial justice, you must be intentional with your plan of action. You must go to the library, go to black history museums, documentaries, webinars, etc. to better educate yourself.
You must change your day today to be more inclusive in your thinking and behaviors to ensure that not everyone you interact with looks like you.
And most importantly, you must stand up and use your power and influence and say, “racism doesn’t have a hold on my life anymore — I stand for racial and social justice!”
That’s how real change happens!
