Black Lives Matter

I haven’t been as vocal and anti racist as the topic deserves from me, so I’m taking steps to change that.

If I can donate money month to support organizations that have impacted my life positively (Music For All & Sunny Saints), then I can donate money to support organizations that support black communities. So I did, I donated to NAACP Foundation, Dream Corps, Black Lives Matter, American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU Foundation of Southern California, Policing Equality, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc. I started a crowdfunder page for Black Lives Matter at my work.

If I can spend an hour a day listening to Crime Junkies podcast, I can listen to podcasts dedicated to discussing racism and injustice. Here are the ones I’m working my way through: 1619, About Race, Pod For The Cause, and Seeing White.

I can continue to education myself by reading (White Fragility) and watching (13th, Patriot Act– We Cannot stay silent about George Floyd, Dear White people) things that I wasn’t taught or wasn’t informed of. I will continue to be apart of conversations both at work and with my family/friends about injustice.

I can seek out events and programming that will continue to educate me. This month I’m attending virtually Ibram X. Kendi on “How to Be an Antiracist” (July 20th) & The Elephant We Don’t See: A Diversity Dialogue (a series June 30th, July 28th and August 25th). I’ve purchased (coming tomorrow) How to be an Antiracist and hope to join or start a conversation that follows the discussion topics presented in the link above.

“The opposite of racist isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is ‘anti-racist.’ What’s the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an anti-racist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an anti-racist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an anti-racist. There is no in-between safe space of ‘not racist.”

― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

And I will be an informed voter at local elections happening in my community, not just the presidential election.

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