One night my husband and I sat up and talked about a recent shooting in Minnesota at great length. He, too, was clueless about how deep into our culture and history systemic racism has gone. Until he saw a video of a white cop shooting a black man in front of his fiance and his child for no other reason than having a gun in his possession legally. We have been aware of previous shootings like this, but we had our blinders on. You know, those rose-colored glasses that come with white privilege? We were outraged! I told him that we could no longer just sit quietly by and see it or hear it and ignore it. He agreed wholeheartedly. How could we claim to love Christ, follow his teachings about love, and keep on being quiet? No more. No More! NO MORE!!
We knew that we were going to piss off plenty of our white friends and family. We thought we were prepared. Boy were we wrong! We don't get out much because my husband has a chronic illness and I'm just flat out anti-social most of the time. So Facebook was where our journey has begun. The world has provided so much opportunity for us to make our stand, unfortunately. We started out sharing articles and images that were meant to bring light to this issue, but we were pretty much ignored. Yeah, sure, we got some "likes" and all, but from folks we already knew who agreed with us. Those that needed to hear it just kept on scrolling.
In the back of my mind, I thought to myself, "Honey, you're gonna have to get a whole lot louder to get this point across and get them talking." Since then, I have been a lot louder and the backlash has become pretty intense! So much so that I decided it was time to start writing all these instances down. I have had many people just quietly delete themselves. Others have been much more passive in just changing their settings to where they don't see my posts anymore. Yeah, I see you. I ain't stupid. You liked my jokes plenty well last week and now I don't see you at all. Others have chosen to be pretty awful. I have been told "just get over it," "pick your battles," "racism is everywhere," and "you can't fix it so..." It has even come to the point where my job is getting to be on the line. Yup. Several ladies from my church have been plotting against me.
So, these articles are going to document what happens when a white woman decides to no longer keep quiet about the racism she sees. Whether it's blatant, latent, or systemic, I'll let you know what comes from it. Sadly, I have quite the collection of instances already. So, as I tell you about my awakening, I will give you some insight into my past that has helped me come to where I am now.
