I understand that I do not understand.
I know how it feels to feel worthless, my skirt lifted without consent.
I have had a gun pointed in my face by police officers thanks to a driver’s DUI.
I have felt afraid walking alone in the dark whilst the drunks have circled.
I have been humiliated, bullied and ignored.
These are but a few splintered moments in my life where I have felt compromised or violated.
But to feel this way every day? I cannot begin to imagine that.
I talk to my children about how much it matters.
We look at books, discuss the heros, recite all the quotes.
I post on social about how much I care. I post in solidarity. How much it hurts me.
But every which way I sound like an asshole.
How can I possibly preach equality or even pass comment from my family of white people, in a town full of white people, educated by and with predominantly white people, and working with mostly all white people? I have a network of mainly white friends and white followers? White I am to the fullest.
And I sign the petitions and I donate the money and I try and share my thoughts, and I write and I write and I think. But always it is for my own peace. And only ever when I think it safe to do so… And it is always to a small circle of people just. like. me..
And I know it is NOT ENOUGH.
How can I do more? Please somebody tell me.
Because the fact that the injustices of my European colonialist forefathers are still being felt in people who live in a “free” society today horrifies me… I teach my kids that every human on the planet is made the same. Whatever colour, whatever sexuality or religion. We are all homo sapiens. We are full of the same red goo. It turns viscous and drains from our dead eyes in the exactly same way. But there are the good people and the bad people. That is our separation. Our kindness. But some folks don’t see it that way. And I do not understand them. And I do not know how to stop them.
I do not feel anti-racist. I feel helpless. Powerless. Frustrated about my inability to shout on a rooftop to enough people and even be heard. I am so, so embarrassed that people in our world think that it is okay to make other people of our world feel less than human.
What the fuck is that?
And what can I do? What can we do? And how, how, how do we do it?
I understand that I do not understand.
But mostly I just do not understand.
And I am so sorry.
40 for 40 