Allyship is a Verb

If you follow me on Instagram, you may notice that my platform has become more explicitly anti-racist recently. I’ve been hesitant to speak about it on my blog for fear that I don’t yet have adequate language, but there’s been far too much silence around this subject so I’ve decided to blunder forward, doing the best I can for now. Please call me out for any missteps that I make.

This July, I joined Layla Saad’s “Me and White Supremacy” challenge a few days in, having caught wind of it from a few people I followed, seeing the profound effect it was having having on those who are doing it, and hearing Layla’s calls to action for white peoples to assume the necessary work of dismantling white supremacy.

I am ashamed that come up until this point, my activism has been very passive. I was absorbed in anti-racist education as an undergrad, but I guess life happened. I got swept up in change, moves, relationships, music and really failed to take the work to its next logical step. I’m ashamed that I never really sought that next step, even in the wake of the Trump election. I was mollified by the movement community’s aphorisms about universality, about intention, but have come to see how very tone deaf we are, how ineffectual, how focusing and insisting on love and light mutes so many voices.

But this is a very exciting time. So many brilliant educators are accessible, visible, and encouraging white people to assume our responsibility in dismantling white supremacy. Racism will take genations to undo. It’s not enough not to be racist - white people ARE racist as a result of being raised in, living in a racist world. But we must DAILY participate in antitacist activities. There are so many places to find these activities and I will summarize serval of my favorites here.

1. Read “I need to talk to spiritual white women about white supremacy”: http://laylafsaad.com/poetry-prose/white-women-white-supremacy-1
2. Order Layla’s soon-to-be published book here: http://laylafsaad.com/meandwhitesupremacy-workbook/
3. Consider this reading list for children: https://www.readbrightly.com/how-to-talk-to-kids-about-race-books-and-resources-that-can-help/
4. If you’re a teacher, take a little look at Tiffany Jewel’s anti-racist curriculum for teachers: https://anti-biasmontessori.com/
5. Follow anti-racism educators on Patreon. There are so many, and everyone will have the ones that resonate most with their individual styles. Amongst others, I recommend Leesa Renee Hall, Layla Saad, and Rachel