HOW TO DO BETTER

There are many points at which you can begin.

Google, in fact, will confirm this. See, there, you just entered “how to be antiracist” and there’s a book written for just such a question. But wherever you begin, it’s not here, on this screen, with a heartfelt post (not this one), or the heartbreaking quote in your Instagram stories.

It begins when, for the last time, you reach for just one more reason Why You Can’t. Why you can’t show up for Black lives, why you “just aren’t a political person”, why you still think it’s about All Lives Matter, why you insist White Privilege doesn’t exist. And you find your grasp comes up empty.

You wonder “Where have I been laying my hands?” - those extremities that serve as a reminder of your membership in the human family, and the possibilities of all that they can hold and do (causing harm being only one of so many).

Next you realize you don’t know where you’ve been Place-ing your feet - that one part of you meant to be in contact with the earth at nearly (and dearly) all times, yet with surprise you find that the memory they hold is of your shoes, of concrete, the poisoned path of asphalt. Laying your hands on your heart and feeling the pulse in your feet be met by the slow thundering shudder of the earth you feel a deep longing that pushes past every reason why.

No longer afraid you allow your heart to break, and realize that Here is the wellspring.

It is your Love that will see you through the dismantling of your own blindspots, of internalized white supremacy, the painful vulnerability of getting it wrong over and over so you can get it right.

It is Love that will keep you afloat in the waves of the unrewarding conversations, the social and familial rejection, the long ass slog of pushing the boulder of change uphill.

This love makes the difficulty petty in comparison, the recovery of your true humanity giving you the sense of belonging that silence and complacency never could. Here is the simple, sweet inspiratus that crosses the threshold of separation between self and other, and intermingles with all those who believe.

In the right.

To breathe.

In dedication to the work of Anti-Racism, George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) and all Black, Indigenous and People of Color killed by police brutality.

Anti-Racism resources for self-study

Me and White Supremacy - Layla F. Saad

White Fragility - Robin DiAngelo

So You Want To Talk About Race - Ijeoma Oluo

My Grandmother’s Hands - Resmaa Menakem