So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

I am not perfect. Not even close. I make mistakes. I don't always know when I have made mistakes. Specific to my biases, most I'm not even aware I have (implicit) and am acting on....when I have them pointed out to me, I am at a point in my life that I see it is a gift someone is giving me when they take the time to tell me something I have said or done has caused harm, was racist, hurt them. They have given me the gift of not walking away even though they are hurt, or allowing me to grow and learn and then take that lesson to so better and be better. It is a gift.  I learned there is no shame in owning a mistake, making amends, and then learn and never make the same mistake again. The shame is in not growing, in not changing, in denying or playing the victim, in so many things, but not in saying your sorry and doing your best to do better going forward. 

But talking about race is hard. It is easy to make mistakes, it is easy to say the wrong thing and the fear of those makes it hard to talk about. If you are not knew to this, learning to walk the walk AND talk the talk on the path to being Antiracist (one that by the way never ends and is a commitment needing renewing every day) then you have probably learned the lesson about not asking BIPOC to be your own personal Google...And that is so important. It is exhausting surviving in the white supremacist world forced upon them, they don't need to so the work for us, the work of learning the real history of the oppression and subjugation and abuse this country was built upon and the harm still being done 400+ years later. But when someone takes the time to offer to talk to you, to answer your questions, to hold a talk, to write an article or a book, take the opportunity and listen, attend, be present, read. 

And then if you are white you must share. Share what you learn with others. Do the work instead of asking BIPOC to do it. Be willing to acknowledge your unearned privilege and then be willing to use it to protect BIPOC, bear witness, be willing to part with the privilege by giving it away in defense of those who shouldn't need but do need it. 

This is one of those books you must read. While trying to figure out what to share with you I realized, much like while reading, I wanted to share it all. So instead I will tell you that Ijeoma writes in a way that will make you drop your guard and take in what she is giving to her readers. It isn't always comfortable, hell is if more often than not quite uncomfortable to look inside oneself and see the ugly parts we try to pretend don't exist. But imagine discomfort of living in a world where you are told and shown and told and shown for centuries that your bones aren't worth the skin they are housed in, that your mind is somehow less, how you are less, less than someone because they have white or light skin, less than someone so not worthy...so swallow your pride, sit with the uncomfortable feelings, ask yourself why your are unsettled by the thought that you are responsible for stepping up and speaking out...

Please read this book. 

(Finished August 5, 2020)

***implicit bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.

explicit bias refers to the attitudes and beliefs we have about a person or group on a conscious level.***