Why keep up the fight for Racial Equity day after day? This white dude’s WHY…

Recently, one of my best friends — whom I also consider to be my mentor within the vital human Work of Equity & Antiracism — asked me to record a vlog episode with him wherein we’d dialogue on the aforementioned subject of “WHY?”, as it pertains to our ongoing journey within our respective (and sometimes collaborative) efforts to continually battle for racial and cultural equity, both near and far. What follows are just some of the thoughts and feelings I put to “paper” in preparation for our discussion. I sincerely hope that You, my fellow Advocates and Co-Conspirators from all walks of life, can benefit from this in some form or fashion as you/ we continue to march proactively FORWARD toward a brighter future for our people. Thank you for reading. I hope to see you in the Work…

“WHY? Why choose to stay in the work? Why does each new insight or learning gained never seem to be enough? Why do we keep going? WHAT?… What ACTIONable steps have we taken & still wanna pursue?

Because “nice” isn’t enough and hasn’t been for a very long time.

Because we who would self-identify as “allies and/or advocates” have been, for decades and generations, indoctrinated by the second paragraph of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, stating that: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” So we have inherited the belief that this country has a long-standing system in place which aims to provide these inalienable rights to BIPOC citizens as well. Ummm… that’s a hard ‘No’, come to find out. Quite the opposite, in fact. Yet another thing that we US citizens must UN-learn. And we have a lot of catching up to play.

A more scholarly perspective for you, my readers* <-- (click link to read) ...

The above link leads to a 2020 publication by Stanford, wherein the author (Melissa De Witte) informs us that, “When the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, it was a call for the right to statehood rather than individual liberties, as said by Stanford historian Jack Rakove. Only after the American Revolution did people interpret it as a promise for individual equality.”

What a frickin’ privilege, huh? But for whom?…

Now, the above ever quote-worthy "created equal" phrase, which lives on the tip of the tongue — and runs through the very bloodstream of almost every US Citizen (and citizen-hopeful individual) — has enlisted us into a “School of Equality” of sorts. The school whose pedagogy preaches that if we just treat everyone “nice”, even at the risk of actively avoiding each person’s race, ethnicity, culture, heritage, etc… then each and every human being residing in our “great” nation has a fair shake at all the opportunities and cool shit that this country has to offer. A great number of folx — especially we who are members of the dominant culture of 'Whiteness' — are waking up to the fact that this is one of the greatest, most successful LIES in our country’s rich history of white supremacy and the oppression (even genocide) of non-white-bodied peoples.

“Religious freedom” → whose religion? Certainly not the religions of the original First Nation stewards of this US American land — whom we annihilated and forced into Christian boarding schools. Nor the religions of those Black and Brown-bodied individuals whom we stole from their own native lands and forced into several generations of heinous enslavement and human butchery — all so that Capitalism could be a thing.

“States’ Rights” → yes. The right(s) to own black- & brown-bodied slaves (see above).

“Treat everyone as you’d like to be treated.” → yes, and… because that is School of Equality thinking (again, see above), as opposed to School of Equity thinking. Which is really the way forward from here on out. Because, you see, if I treat an individual from any traditionally minoritized population with the same “niceness” as I might treat a straight cisgender able-bodied White male (such as myself) — then I am not acknowledging (or holding space for) the resources, means, rights, or civil liberties that have been consistently denied to various minoritized persons. Sure, I might be playing nice… but I’m not playing fair; I’m not addressing need. And that behavior, come to find out, is a kind of willful ignorance — and it upholds our deeply inequitable and unfair status quo — the one which continues to feed White Supremacy, Racism, Capitalism, Ableism, and the selfish Hierarchies of the Patriarchy.

And these systems are very clever, and have been chugging along with great success for centuries (see “Manifest Destiny”). Hopefully we are aware of this fact by now. And these systems would have us believe that this “School of Nice”, this “School of Equality, where all men are created equal” is where the fight for Advocacy and Equity ends — as in, “well you’re nice to everybody kinda sorta, and now, racism and all other forms of oppression and bigotry are fixed; we fixed ‘em! Now please go about your day, as if nothing was ever wrong in the first place.”

I mean, does this philosophy of thought sound familiar to folx out there? It certainly does for me, from my personally lived experience.

This leads me to the topic of Self-Reflection (cue the above Unsplash image search), as one of our most vital primary tools for pursuing Equity in this country. Because where we are now, even though it ain’t 1850, we are still an entire SAGA away from achieving “Equality” for everyone.

… Because for over half of my life (if not more) I’ve been spiritually empowered and built up by music, films and other media that aim to take the subjects of deep racial, sociocultural and socioeconomic inequities in our nation, and put those stories right out there for the World to learn from. And, because I come from a place of privilege, and I just like the way these songs sound — or I think this particular movie is B.A. — I can simply enjoy myself; I can spiritually and energetically benefit from this media… while also not engaging in any sort of empathetic practice, or cultural learning, or actionable follow-thru.

I mean (true story), my favorite hip-hop artists are Tupac and Kendrick Lamar, and they’re serving us real-life stories like, ‘Changes’, or ‘Brenda’s Got a Baby’ — or ‘Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst’, or ‘Institutionalized’, respectively — and they’re preaching about how our white supremacy-based governmental system doesn’t give them any real means of upward mobility, or resources, or safety, etc… and I’m just sitting around, loving this hardcore shit, eating it up… I might even catch myself co-opting their stories as my own, right?

Because I’ve certainly said to myself “Aw man, I love these guys; they’re so raw, so unapologetically truthful! And I can relate, b/c I’m a man and I get so fuckin’ angry sometimes too, and my life is hard sometimes too, and I don’t trust the government all that much either, etc etc…” — but up until very recently, in the grand scheme of things, I have put no real intention toward debunking and deconstructing this all-powerful, deeply inequitable systema that we are ALL a product of — via epigenetics, inherited traumas, and social learning. I have not, for the most part, pursued a life of making things better for these men, their families, their children, other BIPOC and members of other traditionally oppressed or minoritized populations. Because as a kid growing up in the liberal Theatre town of Ashland, OR — I never needed to.

I still don’t, really. #privilege

But, for the past few years in particular, this Work has stayed in the foreground of my life and awareness because by now I have a sizable group of friends, loved ones and extended family who are BIPOC and/ or LGBTQIA2+, and the thought of losing a single one of them to a crime fueled by bigotry and hatred makes me want to crawl out of my skin with hypothetical rage and sorrow. It drives me crazy sometimes to think that there are people out there who would take one of my beloved’s lives, simply based on skin color, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, or gender identification…

At this point, if I could ENSURE safety and prosperity for all of these individuals whom I respect, love, treasure — by taking a bullet right in the heart, then I’d be like, “Sign me up!” But that is not the way our Human system works. So what else am I willing to do, in order to keep fighting for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness for (all) my People?

Living Colour is one of my all-time favorite Rock n’ Roll groups — they have their mainstream hit ‘Cult of Personality’ which most folx my age know — but they’ve also got these extremely timely, fire songs like ‘Which Way to America’, ‘Open Letter to a Landlord’ and ‘Someone Like You’; the latter I actually only discovered this year, because the Living Colour Pandora station just recently added it to their song catalog, I think — and yo, I’ve been listening to this station ever since Pandora was a thing.

I wanna share the lyrics from the second verse of ‘Someone Like You’, if I may:

“Police

They chased my brother

Policeman licensed to kill

Oh how I miss my brother

Good shoes are so hard to fill

Policeman are you happy?

You snuffed a medical student out

Maybe he could have changed the world

I guess we’ll never find out”

(Links to more media & other invaluable resources links, can be found below in the ‘A Playlist of Further Resources’ section!)

Sounds all too familiar, right? Ok, so this is a song by an all-Black rock group who hails from NYC, and this song is part of their 1990 album, Time’s Up. These guys were telling these stories before each Black victim claimed by racist police violence was a hashtag — during a time of “US American prosperity” — but best I can tell, the citizens who needed to hear these lyrics the most did not. Or, at best, they didn’t take them all that seriously. But then again, we didn’t have body-cams or social media at that time, did we?

So then there’s me and my own patterns; the “I statement” in the point I’m trying to make here… I greatly appreciate and benefit from the Art of BIPOC storytellers; I recommend the Art to my friends and colleagues (which I’ve done countless times — I just recommended my all-time favorite documentary, RIZE*, to a colleague the other day, in fact); I sing along to the stuff, or I dance to it — while cooking in the kitchen, or driving to work, or lifting at the gym — But is that it?? Is that all I’m willing to do to honor these artists’ stories and lived experiences?? Well then, shame on me. F*ck that. What ELSE am I willing to do? How can I call myself into account and be more intentionally ACTIONABLE within my community, near and far? So that the world inherited by our children is better than the world right now, and so on and so on… I really do think that going back to Grad School in 2018–19 to get my Masters in Teaching degree really blew open my awareness of what we owe our People, specifically, our Youth — the next generation in line. The thought that we adult types are not serving our children as best we can, and teaching them biases and character judgements just as much as anything else… it infuriates me. They deserve infinitely more. And I implicate myself in this cycle as well. So, what next? I tackle this question every day. For starters: I aim to be more aware, available, and of service than ever before. FORWARD*. See you there…

*Essential Question: What are the VERBS I utilize in my day-to-day, in order to navigate this journey, fail gracefully, & stay moving forward/ stay ever learning?…

*This ongoing list is a living, breathing, transforming document:

-Self-care (which is a very sexy thing… but always with the goal of stepping back in — rested, nested, resilient, stronger, and more driven than before)

-Implicate [myself too] — Invite — Confront — Call In/ Out — Listen first/ deeply

-Lean In [to the Discomfort] — Self-educate — Self-reflect

-Develop an Equity Lens & work constantly to hone it — Assess need

-Be of service

what else/ what more?…

***

A Playlist of Further Resources >>>

ENGAGE & ACTIVATE:

READ & RESPOND:

Thank you for your time & advocacy!

~OB.