by PJ Damico
To all my white friends who are sad, and don’t know what to do. After you march, sign petitions, plant yard signs and share your anger — Here are 11 tangible things you can do to disrupt the savage structural racism in our country (from easiest to most difficult).
11. Send this to another white person who needs to hear it. AND be ready to deal with the consequences. You might upset your friends as you inform them. It may be hard and you may lose that friend. But if they do not want to face their racism, are they really a friend you want to have.
10. Do not ask another person of color what you can do to help. People of color are so exhausted in carrying the burden of racism especially when their children are being decimated. Wrong time and our shame is not their problem. They have far more important things to tend to.
9. Study about the history and current phenomena of racism (prisons, police brutality, sex trafficking, etc.). Don’t react to the vicious symptom. Instead, learn about root causes and your complicity in them. For example, did you know that your 401 k is likely investing in prisons?
8. Focus on your own community. Black people don’t need our help. Black people (and all nonwhite people ) need us to stop being racist. We are the problem. Don’t be an ally — be an abolitionist. Get in the way of racism in your own community.
7. With your vote, up and down-ballot calls for the citizen oversight of our police apparatus everywhere. White supremacy is at the heart of policing, again be angry with the causes — not the symptoms (looters, protestors, etc.)
6. Confront benign white supremacy. Why is it that only black folks are upset with white supremacy. Not just extremist white supremacy but liberal white supremacy. Our own invisible white supremacy. If the idea of this makes you mad. If the shoe fits…try it on… and then figure out how to buy some new shoes. White liberals are far more dangerous than white extremists because our ambivalence represents the majority of us. White women and men by a wide margin voted for this monster. And we’re still having dinner parties as if that is ok.
5. Stop with the “I’m just too busy excuse”. While your saving up for your children’s private school and working hard to save for retirement, people are dying all around you. At least consider sending your child to school with “Johnny”.
4. Consider that your passive nonviolent disengaged Christian “faith” is itself a form of moral ambivalence. If you subscribe to nonviolence (and you should). Do what Jesus did. Get in the way.
3. Gather people to address oppression and get ready to be uncomfortable. Our comfort is why racism remains intact.
2. Make justice NOT success or happiness your life work. Once you do, you will know the difference. And strangely enough, you might find true happiness.
1. Before you can be a part of the solution, inventory how much you are already part of the problem. The truth will set you free, but it tends to make you miserable first.
In struggle and solidarity.
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