lindsay gordon

Action Action Action

8/16/2017

I was away for the weekend so I missed all of the horrifying events in Charlottesville. I've been reading about what happened over the past two days but it wasn't until I watched this 20 minute documentary that it fully sunk in. I HIGHLY recommend it. Reading about Nazi chants was very different than hearing them for myself.

White supremacy is also coming to San Francisco on the 26th at Crissy Field. I'm not sure what the best response is - there are counter-protests planned, some city officials are trying to revoke the permit, etc but I haven't decided what is the best action to take yet. I'd love to talk to you if you're in the same boat or have ideas about the best response in this case. You can also come to an Indivisible meeting on Sundays at 1:30pm to talk with a lot of other engaged people about the appropriate responses and action to take to combat white supremacy, I'd love to have you join.

If you're looking for actions to take, below are a few that I know of.

If you're scared, currently inactive but want to be taking action, overwhelmed, etc, please reach out to me and I'd love to help get you moving and plugged in and supported and aware of your own power.

Two ideas have really stuck with me lately about the importance of being involved and taking action:

"I’ve said it many times, but if you ever wondered what it would be like to be alive in the Civil Rights Movement, you are living in that time right now! And if you ever wondered who you would be or what you would do in those circumstances, the best indication is what you did this weekend. If you watched and said nothing, if you normally watch and say nothing, if you only share an occasional Facebook post here and there, and that is the extent of your activism, then that is an indicator of who you’d be if you were alive in the 1960s. Because we are LIVING IN THAT TIME right here, right now." - Shaun King
I can't find the exact quote or the source at the moment, but there's a quote that basically says 'the longer you're inactive, the less likely you are to take action'

ACTIONS TO TAKE:

If you're anywhere in the US:

Show up to meetings at organizations fighting against inequality, racism and white supremacy or enabling political action in those areas (two national groups I know of are Indivisible with 6,000 chapters around the country and SURJ with chapters all over the country)
Diversify your media
Educate yourself

If you're in California - there are two pieces of legislation that we need to pass, SB 54 and SB 10 (not using state funds for mass deportations and bail reform)

Participate in the August 19th Day of Action across California through the ACLU (attend a phone bank in person or virtually, watch a screening of The Bail Trap, etc) - find events at map.peoplepower.org
Host a screening of The Bail Trap, a powerful 30 minute film that will teach you all about the need for bail reform

If you're in San Francisco:

Join an in person phone bank at the ACLU office on Saturday the 19th from 2-4:30pm
Join a virtual phone bank at the ACLU
Join meetings at different organizations - Anti Police-Terror Project, YWCA , ROC-United, etc
Put your effort into renaming Justin Herman Plaza, a San Francisco monument to racism (resolution here)
More info on this topics from the epic doc here with a HUGE amount of actions to take
- How to find your supervisor: http://sfelections.org/tools/districts_lookup/
- Template email: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHImTElVYAAvfP_.jpg:large
- Background info: https://polkstpol.com/2017/06/22/sfsracistmonument/
- Sign the Petition: https://sf.curbed.com/2017/7/7/15938660/justin-herman-plaza-petition
Join my screening of the The Bail Trap, more info to come shortly!

Please help me add to this list if you have other specific actions to take!

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What I'm currently learning about

7/24/2017

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I've been listening to/watching/reading a lot recently and I want to share in case you're looking for resources:

12 part podcast - Seeing White: I'm just getting started on this one, I've made it to episode 2 and one of the biggest ideas I want to fully wrap my head around is that race is not genetic in any way (and that doesn't mean it's not real). Episode 2 talks about the fact that slave traders basically commissioned the invention of racist ideas - the creation of black people and then implicitly on the other end of the spectrum, white people.
Frontline video 'Life on Parole' (1hr) - The film follows four former prisoners as they navigate the challenges of their first year on parole. It was so uncomfortable for me to watch the power dynamic of the parole officers, to see how the institution of parole treats people (almost like children) and the statistics of recidivism. The video brings up the odd balance that parole officers are simultaneously responsible for supporting people to get back on their feet but also catching them in the act when they're not following the incredibly strict parole terms. I'm trying to learn more and more about mass incarceration, bail, parole, etc.
Book 'You're More Powerful Than You Think' - This is focused on civic action, written by Eric Liu (who served as a WH speech writer and policy adviser among many other things) and is a really powerful read for someone who spent all my life not engaging in civic life. "We are all giving power to others by our actions and omissions. When we surrender it unmindfully or heedlessly, our power tends to gravitate toward reinforcing the status quo."
A little behind the times but I'm watching both TV series made about O.J. Simpson - 'The People V. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story' and 'O.J.: Made in America' and both are incredibly insightful about race in America.
I'll be attending the SF screening of The Bail Trap: American Ransom, you can either host a screening or find one near you if you're interested

I also want to note that I attended an Indivisible SF meeting for the first time last weekend (there are ~6,000 chapters all over the US if you want to find one near you!) and I was really impressed and motivated by how organized and effective they are. One really awesome thing is that Indivisible SF has weekly meetings with our Member of Congress' staff (Harris, Feinstein, Speier and Pelosi) and anyone in the group can attend. This past week I went to their weekly meeting with Senator Feinstein's State Director and it was a fascinating experience to be so close to the process and get to understand how to bring issues and requests to a senator. Please join me at a meeting in SF if this sounds interesting and/or if you've been looking for a group to get involved with.

I would love to support anyone getting more involved in civic life, in any way, at any level (I still consider myself incredibly new to all of this) so let me know if you have questions, want to talk about how to do it, etc.

Please also let me know what you're learning about or any other resources you've found recently!

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Piloting an Action Accountability Group

5/6/2017

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Even though it's been quiet on the blog for a while, I've been thinking and learning and taking a lot of action over the past 6 months. Lately, I've been mulling over how I might be able to increase my impact and make it more than just a solo journey.

Here's what I've come up with as my first attempt, I really want to test out an action accountability group that is focused and has a fixed timeline. Here's how I think it might happen so far:

The pilot is open to anyone anywhere (since it'll be virtual) who would like to be taking more action in area of politics and/or racial justice. It is especially for people are feeling resignation in response to what's happening in the world, anyone who got really fired up in November but have been unable to translate that into action, anyone who is overwhelmed and ends up doing nothing even though they'd really like to, etc.
The pilot lasts 6 weeks and each person in the pilot commits to one action per week. We meet once a week, virtually, to declare the action to the group for accountability and support and to check in with our follow through on the past week's action.
The action can be anything that is meaningful to you (and ideally pushes you slightly past your comfort zone each time) - one phone call to a senator, attending a rally, doing one thing to diversify your media intake, volunteering with a group you support, etc.

Here's some additional context:

1. I've spent a lot of time thinking about how I might be able to create more impact in this area and I've decided to use my professional skills (since coaching is all about action and accountability). People often tell me they're really impressed with how much I take action I take in my life, but the truth is, I'm often confused by this comment. Taking action, for whatever reason, is something that comes really easily to me. I have not practiced it, I have not intentionally focused on it, it just happens because that's how my brain is wired. So I love sharing this with others, and is actually a big part of why I love coaching so much, precisely because it comes so easily to me and not necessarily to others.

2. This request is also partly selfish. Yes, taking action comes pretty naturally to me, but I can also drag my heels on uncomfortable growth. I want to create a community for my own accountability as well and be surrounded by people taking action. For example, several months ago, I watched this short video from 'This Matters' about how black parents explain to their kids how to deal with police. For me it was a tiny window into a topic where I don't have any insight and it was really difficult to watch. I wanted to learn more, so a few weeks later I recorded a documentary 'The Talk - Race in America' on PBS, but have conveniently avoided watching it. Sometimes I get tripped up on taking action based on my own discomfort so I could benefit from an accountability group as well.

So, if you or anyone you know falls into the category of feeling resigned or disappointed with their amount of action since the outrage they felt in November or generally wants to be a guinea pig for an accountability action group focused on political action or racial justice, please get in touch. I'm curious to see if this is something that people are interested in.

To participate, please:

- Use the contact form on this site or message me through Facebook to let me know you're interested
- Let me know why you're interested in joining and give me a bit of context
- Sign up by Sunday May 14th

Please share this with friends, family, etc and I'll let you know what happens!

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The distraction of being a "good person"

11/7/2016

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On December 18th 2015, I bought a Black Lives Matter yard sign. It was exactly 16 days after Mario Woods was murdered by police in San Francisco (my catalyst for wanting to get involved in racial justice) and the impulse purchase was prompted by an email offer from SURJ to support the movement.

The yard sign sat under my desk for weeks. I wasn't sure I was ready to put such a visible sign in my window and I didn't really know how to talk about it with my husband and so I just ignored it for a while. If I didn't leave my job in January 2016, it may have never made it home.

As I was carrying the sign home so many weeks after I bought it, I suddenly realized why I was so uncomfortable with it. My unconscious motivation for buying the yard sign was to have the most visible way of showing people that I was a good person and that I had finally emerged from my 30 years of privileged silence on race and racism. I saw it as the easiest thing I could do to jump on the racial justice train even though I didn't know the first thing about being an ally or the hard work and dedication it takes to join this conversation.

I was so ashamed by this realization that I immediately took the yard sign, crumpled it up and threw it away.

From that moment, I vowed to find all the non-showy ways of adding my voice to racial justice and to never take the easiest action available to me.

On September 21st 2016, I bought a Black Lives Matter t-shirt as part of Wear Out The Silence, a campaign "asking white people to wear Black Lives Matter t-shirts every Friday as a way for us to bring the racial-justice conversation deeper into our daily lives [...], to move more white people into action, and to make visible the many people supporting the Movement For Black Lives".

This time I was 9 months into my racial justice journey and had educated myself a lot in that time. I knew that wearing the shirt was the next step of maintaining my discomfort and hopefully it would enable me to have more conversations about race with white people. Admittedly, it also sat in my drawer for a few weeks before I wore it but on October 14th, I wore it while taking BART down to the airport. My biggest fear was that it would invite confrontation and then I wouldn't be able to defend the movement or my viewpoints adequately.

It was a rainy cold day so I was wearing a sweatshirt and rain jacket over it, but I tried to leave the zippers down low enough to expose the message. As I was on the train, I realized that even though the whole point of the shirt is to start conversations with white people, my immediate hope was that a black person would comment and make me feel like a good person.

Ugh. Really?

Yep, I can't deny it. 9 months later and I'm still hoping that I look like a good person by speaking out about injustice. This is one of the biggest known obstacles to having productive conversations about race with white people and I fell right into the trap:

"If we are against racism and unaware of committing racist acts, we can’t be racist; racism and being a good person have become mutually exclusive." White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism
Quora question 'Can a good person be racist?'
"For years as my children grew up, I lived in a mostly white community, telling myself I was a good person, an empathetic person, and I was not a racist." - Jodi Picoult, Are You Sure You’re Not Racist?
"It is why we need to look more closely at what racism really is and how it works, so that we can see more clearly what it has to do with us. Including how dangerous a good person can be." The Racism of Good White People
"White person: I’m a good person who loves Black people. I’m not racist! Me: No one is saying you’re not a good person, but you need to take responsibility for how racism continues to exist. You can be a good person and do that." 3 Reasons We Cannot Cater to White Friends Who Say ‘I’m Not Racist’

What a humbling reminder that I'll continually be making mistakes and finding uncomfortable thoughts and feelings despite how much I learn and practice.

I've worn the shirt on 3 Fridays and haven't had a single comment yet but you can be sure I'll keep you updated.

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Diversifying my media consumption

10/27/2016

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As I've been learning more about racial justice, it's become clear how important the media is in our understanding of race and other cultures. I don't have specific news sources that I read and I'm not big into social media so the media I get is whatever finds its way to me and it tends to be pretty homogenous. Another concept that really resonates with me from Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race, is the idea of fighting against a mountain of stored negative data:

My personal interactions and real experiences with people of color are far outweighed by the negative images that have saturated my data field through the media. While I have a multi dimensional and nuanced understanding of the range of white people in my life I have a narrow definition that fits neatly in a file labeled for one race or another [...] I am fighting against the tide of stored negative data [...] Though today I am still taken aback by intrusive racialized thoughts, it's happening less often and I no longer find them bewildering or judge myself for them. How could I live in a racially organized society and not have filed away racial stereotypes? [...] Like a personal information processor my cultural iceberg stores biases and beliefs as hard data whether or not they are reliable. The good news is that as we get more complete and accurate information our ability to interpret what we observe can evolve and improve

How can we live in a racially organized society and not have learned racial stereotypes? From the media that I've absorbed over my life I've absolutely been taught to believe that black people are criminals or drug dealers, black people are dangerous, black fathers are absent, etc. I also worry about what stereotypes and racist beliefs I'm picking up about Muslims given all the Islamophobia that is so visible. It doesn't feel good to know that I have a lifetime of stored negative images and thoughts but they're there and I want to do something about it.

To start to fight against my own tide of negative storage, I've been on a mission for the last 6 months or so to intentionally expose myself to more complete and accurate information of people of color. I chose to do this mainly through facebook so that every time I compulsively check it, I'm actually getting educated and actively fighting against my own racialized thoughts and behaviors.

I'll share with you the news sites/public figures/podcasts I follow and I'd love to hear what you've found useful for being exposed to points of view from more people of color.

W. Kamau Bell (website or facebook) Stand up comic from the Bay Area, Host of TV show United Shades of America, and host of many many podcasts (Kamau Right Now, Politically Re-Active and Denzel Washington is the greatest actor of all time period)
The Root (website or facebook) News from black thought leaders
Color of Change (facebook) Nonprofit that exists to strengthen the political voice of black americans
Blackish (TV Show) SUCH a hilarious show, such fantastic acting and also tackles really relevant topics like police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement
VerySmartBrothas (website or facebook) Commentary/humor on news, race and pop culture, love their humor
Colorlines.com (website or facebook) Journalism by a multiracial team of writers
Franchesca "Chescaleigh" Ramsey (facebook) Comedian, actor, YouTube personality, especially love her videos on racism called 'Decoded'
News One (website or facebook) News from a black perspective
Luvvie Ajayi (website or facebook) NY Times bestselling author, speaker, activist
The Edge of Sports podcast (website or facebook) I have ZERO interest in sports but this podcast mesmerizes me, the host is white but the podcast covers the intersection of sports and politics and talks a lot about race, gender, etc. I find it absolutely fascinating

This is just a start and I'm also on the lookout for more Muslim and Latino positive media and would appreciate any recommendations. The experience of diversifying my media has been incredibly eye opening and positive. I find that I know about a much wider variety of issues, I have so many more positive images of people of color and I've learned so much about my own experience as a white person trying to participate in more conversations about racism. If anyone else has had this experience or tries out the same process of diversifying your media I would love to talk more about it!

Also, in the spirit of education, plug for Ava DuVernay's '13th' documentary, on Netflix, and is centered on the criminal justice system and mass incarceration. A must watch if you're trying to educate yourself.

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What are the costs of racism to white people

9/21/2016

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There's a quote I've heard a lot since getting involved in racial justice:

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

It's often attributed to Lilla Watson, an Aboriginal activist, but she prefers it to be attributed to the group of Aboriginal activists she was part of in Queensland in the 1970s.

I'm still working on fully understanding the meaning of the quote and making sure I understand it in practice, not only in theory. I wrote last time about my conflicted feelings about helping (and I'm continually learning more about how problematic a 'helping' mindset can be), so the part I struggle to fully comprehend is the part about my liberation being bound up with the people who are being oppressed. I had never thought about how racism might be affecting me as a white person and I couldn't quite wrap my head around it.

Paul Kivel is someone I had the opportunity to learn from at an event in San Francisco recently. I find so many of his resources to be incredibly helpful, and one resource relevant to this topic is his checklist of the costs of racism to white people, from the book Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice. Here's a snippet from the section:

He goes on to explain that racism can affect our interpersonal relationships, it distorts our sense of danger and safety, it causes us to lose a connection to our own culture because they all get lumped together as "whiteness" and "our moral integrity is damaged as we witness situations of discrimination and harassment and do not intervene."

He then provides a checklist to help you evaluate the costs of racism to white people and see which ones apply to you personally. I'll provide just a few that apply to me and I encourage you to check out the full list to see what applies to you.

I don’t know exactly what my European American heritage is, what my great-grandparents’ names were, or what regions or cities my ancestors are from.
I have sometimes felt that “white” culture was “wonderbread” culture — empty and boring — or that another racial group had more rhythm, more athletic ability, was better at math and technology, or had more musical or artistic creativity than mine.
I have been nervous and fearful or found myself stiffening up when encountering people of color in a neutral public situation (for example, in an elevator, on the street).
I have felt racial tension or noticed racism in a situation and was afraid to say or do anything about it.
I have worked in a job where people of color held more menial jobs, were paid less, or were otherwise harassed or discriminated against and I did nothing about it.
I have seen a person of color being attacked verbally or physically and did not intervene.

It makes me so uncomfortable to look at that list but it helps me understand why I'm not here to "help". As Paul Kivel says, it is sobering to see "what it really costs to maintain such a system of division and exploitation in our society".

Are there any resources that have you helped you understand the quote? Any ways that you see how racism affects you as a white person?

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Conflicted feelings about "helping"

8/8/2016

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I just finished reading Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race and at the end of each chapter the author asks questions to help you learn about your own understanding and experiences of race. One of the first questions caused me to reflect on my own relationship with people of color in my life and I uncovered a really unsettling trend. My main experiences with groups of people of color all seemed to come in the form of 'at-risk', 'underserved', 'low-income', etc communities:

My high school was a magnet school that brought resources from richer areas to poorer areas
I spent a summer as a camp counselor at a camp that serves youth living near or below the poverty line
I just finished volunteering with a program that teaches cooking skills to kids from underserved communities

I've never before thought about why these were my primary interactions with people of color and how might I be complicit in the systems that have created the inequality. Looking at it now it makes me think of an article I saw on the White Savior Industrial Complex and the quote ‘The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.’

The author of the book talks about her own experience with a lifetime of trying to “help” inner city kids:

An element of class you'll notice in my story is the persistent sense of needing to "help" and "fix". These characteristics are considered by many to be trademarks of the dominant class [...] The last thing I felt I was doing was imposing my culture on students. I thought I was being helpful. this is one of the many horrors of whiteness - the ease with which good intentions can instead perpetuate one's attachment to racial roles [...] I now understand that what I was doing is called "dysfunctional rescuing" helping people in ways that actually disempower them

She also explained how she felt looking back on the experiences:

As I reexamined my life from an awakening perspective, the whole Robin Hood role felt particularly humiliating. The idea that my career in the arts had revolved around trying to help those I'd been taught to see as less fortunate felt twisted. Understanding their misfortune as directly related to my good fortune made me feel as if I'd offered a hand to a drowning person, who was drowning because moments earlier I'd burned their ship out from under them. And worst of all, I had been giving myself a pat on the back for offering them a hand.

I'm still trying to understand how I feel about doing things like volunteering with the cooking skills classes. Personally, I think my new perspective gives me a lot of motivation to prioritize understanding and working on the systems of racism over "helping" actions for the moment.

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Education is Action

7/25/2016

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My understanding is that one of the very first mistakes White people can make when they first decide they want to do something is to ask other people (especially people of color) what they can do to get involved. One of the first ways to take action is to learn from the many many many resources on what it means to be an effective ally (or 'co-conspirator for justice' as I heard at a recent event).

So, in no particular order, here a variety of resources I've seen lately. If you have others, please share!

Guidelines for Being Strong White Allies "Assume racism is everywhere, every day. Notice how racism is denied, minimized, and justified. Understand and learn from the history of whiteness and racism. Learn something about the history of white people who have worked for racial justice."
A Guide for White Allies Confronting Racial Injustice "I think that enabling dialogue is most important step, because if we’re being honest, there are really only two things that you can do: listen, and speak to other white people."
White Privilege and Male Privilege This includes a powerful list of 46 things that "As far as I can see, my Afro-American co-workers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place, and line of work cannot count on most of these conditions."
Rules for Allies by Cynthia Lin "Be genuine in seeking to learn from the experiences of other people, as they understand them. REALLY listening can be difficult, because often it seems like or it MAY BE that you and your community are being called out as responsible for oppression. Often, natural reactions are guilt, shame, fear, and defensiveness"
Things for White People to do to Fight Racism in the US [a non-comprehensive list] Educate Yourself, Work to Understand Your Own Implicit Bias, Educate Other White People, Make yourself uncomfortable and face your fears, Resist the Temptation to Embrace Your Privilege
How to be a White Ally "The onus of the white ally is to dismantle the system of whiteness from within. With this, it is not enough to march with Black and Brown bodies with the expectation of likes and retweets. White allies, when armed with political education and pro-Black credo, work best in those enigmatic closed door meetings that have been historically denied to people of color."
The 5 Methods of Divestment & Weaponization of White Power & Privilege "In this historical moment, there are many white people who say they want to participate in the struggle for Black liberation. Due to the persistent nature of white domination, even in explicitly anti-racist political spaces, (we call this phenomenon the persistent reestablishment of white supremacy), it is our belief that in order for white activists to become real assets to Black liberation movements who are struggling for self determination, they must practice the Divestment & Weaponization of White Power."

Here are a few more links to huge collections of resources

White Allies Teaching about Racial Violence and White Supremacy
70 Race Resources for White People - Podcasts, books, articles, blogs to follow etc.
Curriculum for White Americans to Educate Themselves on Race and Racism–from Ferguson to Charleston

And a few thought provoking articles on the topic:

How to Tell the Difference Between Real Solidarity and ‘Ally Theater’ "Real solidarity doesn’t require an audience to witness what a good “ally” you are [...] What we DO in solidarity is all that counts. How people with privilege listen to what marginalized groups ask of them and do that is all that counts."
Transforming White Fragility Into Courageous Imperfection "If it feels difficult, and it does to me, you’re probably on the right track."
What does it mean to be a white ally? "The idea of brave space is we want to be in a place that we challenge ourselves," Heidi continued. "In order for me to learn, I need to take risks—I need to be involved in difficult conversations and I need to sometimes say controversial things. We have to embrace the idea that this is challenging and difficult. Being uncomfortable is not the same thing as being unsafe."
Why I am Skeptical of White Liberals in the Black Lives Matter Movement "Should white people be involved with Black Lives Matter? Absolutely. But we should do it with full awareness of the pain whiteness has caused us. Otherwise, we will subconsciously perpetuate the structures of oppression even as we are trying to fix them. As long as we think we are “being good people” whose primary goal in racial movements is to “help others”, we are buying into the mistaken belief that how we live life is better than how other people live life."

I'm still working my way through these extensive resources and just a few parts I'm currently struggling with are:

Examining my own motivations each time I act - seeing when an action is motivated by guilt or ego or anything that feels like "helping"
Figuring out when to listen and when to speak, I think this will be a constant struggle
Resisting doing the easy actions... there are some actions that feel well within my comfort zone so I want to keep turning up the courage to do the more and more uncomfortable actions

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31 years of quiet

7/16/2016

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I can almost guarantee that I've never had a political conversation with any of you. I vote in presidential elections... and that's about it. I try to pay attention to local ballot propositions but I get discouraged by their complexity and end up Googling what other people think. I never talk about politics because I'm afraid I won't be able to argue my position (my debate career started and ended in 7th grade) and a lot of times I don't know how I feel about an issue and don't feel comfortable taking a stand. So I've stayed quiet.

Something has changed over the past 8 months and it was a gradual process until something snapped a few weeks ago. One of my husband's favorite catchphrases is 'Silence is Compliance' from high school debate (so much so that a friend made him a t-shirt with the phrase) and somehow it has taken me until now to see that with regards to racial injustice, silence really is compliance.

Based on the response to my Facebook post (asking to hear from other White people who also wanted to figure out how to speak up), I realized it makes sense to have a place to share educational resources and ways to take action more widely than individual conversations.

Here's what I will aim to provide:

Average writing at best
A haphazard website I made a while ago with a basic Weebly template
A variety of educational resources and ways to take action
An honest account of what I've been experiencing as I attempt to become a "co-conspirator for justice" (and when I inevitably make mistakes as a White person trying to join the fight for racial justice)

I'm trying to educate myself and I'd like to do it alongside as many other people as possible (especially other White people). It'll require being uncomfortable and taking action anyway, day after day. If you find the information useful, please share with other people (again, especially other White people) and comment with your own resources, thoughts and experiences. I want to learn from you as well.

I've never spoken up before and I'm going to make plenty of mistakes, but taking a quote from the SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice, a group dedicated to organizing White people for racial justice) list of values, let's keep each other accountable to

'Take risks, make mistakes, learn and keep going.'

We know that we will have to take risks. Everyday, People of Color take risks in living their lives with full dignity and right now we are in a moment where young Black people are taking risks everyday. We challenge ourselves and other White people to take risks as well, to stand up against a racist system, actions and structures everyday. We know that in that process, we will make mistakes. Our goal is to learn from those mistakes and keep showing up again and again for what is right and for racial justice.

- one of the SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) values

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I've never spoken up before.​It's time to try.

I've never spoken up before.

It's time to try.