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On August 9th, 2014 two things happened, I turned 41 and Michael Brown was murdered and laid dead in the streets of Ferguson MO for 4 hours while the world watched. I watched much of the news coverage on my phone, with my son on my lap. My white son who would turn 1 on August 10th. I instantly thought of another black boy, Trayvon Martin, murdered by George Zimmerman in Florida in 2012.
In 2012 I was working as an in home therapist in the Boston area. Shortly after Trayvon's murder a mother I had been working with asked me and my co-therapist for a "family meeting". At the outset of the meeting she brought her 12 yr old son in and said, "I want you to teach him how to not get shot." I was shocked, taken aback, aghast at the grisly topic for a family meeting. My co-therapist sighed, and began to talk in a no nonsense, unwavering, almost bored voice, about the list of things this boy could do, or should not do, to, "not get shot". The mother and her family were black; my co-therapist was black, I'm a white girl from Nebraska, the closest thing to a "Don't get shot" conversation I had ever heard was after the time that Uncle Tim almost shot Uncle Kent - or maybe it was the other way around - while hunting, somebody hadn't been obeying protocol and the other was pissed. After the family meeting (where I mostly sat in stunned silence) I asked my co-therapist, " how did you know what to say?", he said, "Black people know that conversation, black moms and black boys especially, we've all had it." It was that moment that I realized that we do not all live in the same world.
After that I started reading things about "white privilege", and "anti-racism" work, slowly realizing just how small and sheltered my world had been. Then on August 9th, 2014 when they killed Michael Brown, I looked at my son and thought, "I will NEVER have to have that talk - that's the simplest explanation of white privilege I can find - and educating myself.... it's not enough." And thus began a journey, harrowing, hard, and filled with humility, of continuing to educate myself and to begin to challenge other white people I knew to re-examine their privilege and their place in the knowing and unknowing perpetuation of white supremacy. Some have jumped on board, some have eyed me curiously from the dock, and many have shoved their beach umbrellas in the sand, opened their coolers and flipped me the finger from the beach. No matter... I am Undismayed.
I want to acknowledge and profusely THANK all the amazing women (and a couple men too!), especially women of color, who have helped educate me over the years. They put in an amazing amount of emotional and intellectual labor for the benefit of white people. They should NOT have to do this - which is part of why I'm here - yet I would not be here without them:
Anette Hooper
Angelique Zorbitz
Melissa Shungu
Angela Cooke-Jackson
DiDi Delgado
Leslie Mac
Luvvie Ajayi
Shay Stewart-Bouley
Elizabeth Buckley
Angel Horton-Frank
Rev. DaVita Day McCallister
Gianna Marzilli-Ericson
Cathy Campagine
Carrie Johnson
Becky Sue
Chelsea Clark
Megan Lim
And also, the guys:
Pete Shungu
Darrell Davis
Nathaniel May
Ronald Cross
In 2012 I was working as an in home therapist in the Boston area. Shortly after Trayvon's murder a mother I had been working with asked me and my co-therapist for a "family meeting". At the outset of the meeting she brought her 12 yr old son in and said, "I want you to teach him how to not get shot." I was shocked, taken aback, aghast at the grisly topic for a family meeting. My co-therapist sighed, and began to talk in a no nonsense, unwavering, almost bored voice, about the list of things this boy could do, or should not do, to, "not get shot". The mother and her family were black; my co-therapist was black, I'm a white girl from Nebraska, the closest thing to a "Don't get shot" conversation I had ever heard was after the time that Uncle Tim almost shot Uncle Kent - or maybe it was the other way around - while hunting, somebody hadn't been obeying protocol and the other was pissed. After the family meeting (where I mostly sat in stunned silence) I asked my co-therapist, " how did you know what to say?", he said, "Black people know that conversation, black moms and black boys especially, we've all had it." It was that moment that I realized that we do not all live in the same world.
After that I started reading things about "white privilege", and "anti-racism" work, slowly realizing just how small and sheltered my world had been. Then on August 9th, 2014 when they killed Michael Brown, I looked at my son and thought, "I will NEVER have to have that talk - that's the simplest explanation of white privilege I can find - and educating myself.... it's not enough." And thus began a journey, harrowing, hard, and filled with humility, of continuing to educate myself and to begin to challenge other white people I knew to re-examine their privilege and their place in the knowing and unknowing perpetuation of white supremacy. Some have jumped on board, some have eyed me curiously from the dock, and many have shoved their beach umbrellas in the sand, opened their coolers and flipped me the finger from the beach. No matter... I am Undismayed.
I want to acknowledge and profusely THANK all the amazing women (and a couple men too!), especially women of color, who have helped educate me over the years. They put in an amazing amount of emotional and intellectual labor for the benefit of white people. They should NOT have to do this - which is part of why I'm here - yet I would not be here without them:
Anette Hooper
Angelique Zorbitz
Melissa Shungu
Angela Cooke-Jackson
DiDi Delgado
Leslie Mac
Luvvie Ajayi
Shay Stewart-Bouley
Elizabeth Buckley
Angel Horton-Frank
Rev. DaVita Day McCallister
Gianna Marzilli-Ericson
Cathy Campagine
Carrie Johnson
Becky Sue
Chelsea Clark
Megan Lim
And also, the guys:
Pete Shungu
Darrell Davis
Nathaniel May
Ronald Cross
