Month: August 2017

This is How You Ally

By Kerra Bolton,

Art of white feather in front of bird drawing

After the events of Charlottesville were broadcast and shared, I received the most beautiful email from a friend.

She reminded me of the beauty of the world and how my very existence was part of that beauty. She ended her note with a clip of Bill Withers singing "Ain't No Sunshine".

My friend is a blind woman from Canada whom I met ONCE at a writing workshop in January.

This is how you ally.

In your outrage and disgust at what is happening, don't forget to show up for people of color. That, too, is your work.

Here is a post from the always excellent Ericka Hines with more tips of how you can help.

 

Why Are We Having This Conversation Again?

By Kerra Bolton,

conversation graphic

Every day is Groundhog’s Day when it comes to conversations about race.

This is to be expected. People come to me looking for answers. I co-founded a project to promote healthy and productive conversations about race in the United States. I frequently write about race and culture. I have many white friends who are confused about the volatile, conflicting, and contentious conversations about race.

However, I am having the same three to five conversations with white people for whom this is all new. My patience is razor-thin and I’m on the verge of cutting people. To save us all time and assault charges, here are some basic questions and answers.

Q: Why can’t we have Confederate monuments? We need to preserve our history. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean we need to remove it.

A: There have been Fifty-Eleventy “think pieces” written about this in the past two weeks. Go read them. My quick take: African American children should not have to play in parks or attend schools named after people who enslaved and sold their ancestors. You want history? Read a book. I heard those things last for-ever.

Q: How can this happen in 2017? Or “This is terrible, but now white supremacists are exposed and we can fight them.”

A: As Terri Coleman, also known as Sophistaratchet Blackademic, said in the video series, “What’s Underneath,” “We have known this deeply. It’s been proven to us again and again and again. We have tried to shout it, but you have chosen not to hear.”

Q: Not necessarily a question. But in response to any response that includes “finding the beauty in all people” or “love and light.”

A: Racism isn’t a “trick of the mind.” It is an ingrained, learned, willful response. “Light-washing” is a slick, defense used by some white women in which they deflect all personal responsibility for examining racism within themselves, their families, and their communities by kicking it over to the spiritual plane. The universe deals with it, so they won’t have to.

While we’re on this earthly plane, I need people of color to be able to move freely and safely in public spaces; a learning environment that works for all children, especially black and brown ones since they are the most likely to be shortchanged by public education; for white people to acknowledge the historic and current wrongs; and then for us all to work together to ensure America lives up to its promise.”

Q: Why can’t I be proud to be white? Black people can be proud to be black. Gay people have a pride parade. What’s wrong with being proud of my heritage?

A: ::Long exasperated sigh followed by an intense desire to stab the questioner:: My “black is beautiful” does not require creating an ethno-state. My pride in my family, history, and heritage does not come with implicit or explicit violence to others. I am proud, but I don’t expect entire government, social, and financial institutions to uphold my ego by oppressing others. Be proud as you want. Just leave me and mine alone.

******************************************************************

I am not angry at white people for asking questions. However, some of the endless questioning is a stall tactic. The more we talk, the less we have to make tough decisions and act.

One of the problems about current conversations about race in the United States is that the “solution” involves hoping white people will voluntarily give up privileges and entitlements they and their families have had knowingly or not for generations. However, as Frederick Douglass said, “Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will.”

I am not interested in having binary conversations with white people about race based on position statements. I am, however, intensely interested in having creative conversations based on possibility statements.

Here’s where the “love and light” business can actually shed some light. The universe is abundant. There are infinite possibilities. We can use our creative imaginations, employ practical strategies, and work hard toward a vision of shared economic and social progress. We can create a world in which we are stronger together because the sum of our diversity is greater than the division of our hatred. That’s a conversation worth having.

The article was originally posted on Medium.

Why “Fighting Hate” is Not the Answer

By Kerra Bolton,

cartoon of captain america punching a nazi

A simple declaration of solidarity unraveled everything.

“To my friends of color, I know I cannot fully understand your experience of the world, but I stand with you against bigotry and hatred,” a white, male friend posted on Facebook.

Within minutes, his “friends” rushed to add to his statement as if he hadn’t chosen the right words. One of his followers wanted to include “women, Jews, Muslims, and anyone else who has ever been discriminated against because they are different.”

Another person added “fat people” to my friend’s post and a third wanted to include “Jews…because my mom and aunt are Jewish.”

My reaction was swift and fierce: “Can people of color have a damn minute in the national conversation without someone rushing in to perform the well-meaning white person’s version of ‘all lives matter?’”

Apparently, the answer is no.

Judging by the reactions to my friend’s post and the current, national conversation about race, we can’t have a damn minute. We cannot have a Facebook post. We cannot breathe.

Once the first, male, white face framed in a collared shirt illuminated against the firelight of a tiki torch in the warm, southern night, the national conversation turned exactly where he wanted it to — on white people.

Anemic outrage congealed with disgust and chest-thumping promises to “fight and beat the Nazis and white supremacy.” White people are yelling at other white people on social media about how white they are.

The national conversation ducked toward President Donald Trump’s support of white supremacists as “very fine people,” and whether we should allow Confederate statutes to remain. Now it’s about the symbolism of Tina Fey and sheet-cake. It is all so very white.

Where are the narratives about black excellence? Where are the posts supporting African American businesses? Where are the pledges from white parents to make the schools and playgrounds safe for black children? Without prompting or fear of “not being welcomed,” how many white people reached out to their black friends and colleagues and said, “ I am here in whatever way you need me”?

(Yes, yes, #notallwhite people. I get it. Your whiteness is special.)

White supremacy forbids empathy.

To acknowledge the historic, continued, and irreparable damage to generations of African Americans dating back at least 400 years and continuing at this very moment would mean that white people are not at the center of the story.

White supremacy demands white people, white experiences, white guilt, white privilege, and white rage remain the highest priority at every facet of societal institutions and interactions.

Equality begins to look like oppression when you’ve been told your experiences and beliefs are and should remain at the center of everything. This statement is true even for the well-meaning white people who “cannot imagine what it’s like to be a black person.”

But that’s what it will take to resolve (maybe not end) the racial morass in the United States.

When black people said, “it’s up to white people to ‘fix’ racism in the United States”, we didn’t mean make it about you. We meant do the work.

White people who are serious about social justice must be willing to step outside their own experiences, beliefs, and views not to “imagine what it’s like,” but to look at the world as it is, not as they wish it to be, and make it a daily practice much like yoga, prayer, meditation to remedy it.

Racism isn’t hiding behind a corner, waiting to jump out and scream “peek-a-boo.” It’s in the air. It’s in your family. It’s in your church. It’s at your child’s playground. It’s in the television you consume. It’s in the mirror. It’s in the blood in your veins. It’s there and it’s waiting for you to discover and deal with it.

It isn’t hate that needs to be fought; it’s you.

I’m not asking white people to do anything I haven’t done. White supremacy is psychological torture. Fighting it is an inside and outside job. It is exhausting and draining. Hate sometimes threatens to consume me. Grace compels me to pause and remember the white people who consistently show up for me, no matter how much I claw and scratch at them.

That’s why I appreciate my friend’s simple statement of solidarity more than he’ll ever know. To some, it may read as milquetoast. But I know what it took him to get there — a painful and honest conversation with me, soul searching, and a willingness to be vulnerable to me and others. He’s willing to sacrifice himself as the center of the story, acknowledge and heal, and stand in ready service to others. And that is a very good start.

The article was originally posted on Medium.

CHARLOTTESVILLE

By Kerra Bolton,

"Who needs yet another old white guy’s point of view?"

Peter Levenda is a Sekret Machines colleague of A.J. Hartley, and a passionate advocate of the "In Good Faith" race conversations project. Peter writes about Nazis and occultist subjects. As such, he was detained by Nazis in South America in 1979 and held at gunpoint by a Klansman in Pennsylvania shortly after.

In this blog post, Peter, a self-described "old white man" connects the dots and makes it plain for the many people who "still can't believe this is happening in 2017." For example, he writes:

"Although Jefferson had slaves, he had – consciously or not – penned the sentiment that would be used to free them almost a hundred years later. Does this excuse him from owning slaves? Of course not. That’s not the point. It doesn’t redeem him, but fighting to ensure those unalienable rights for others redeems us."

Read the post in its entirety.

 

 

Activism is a Practice – Radical Self Care for Activists

By Kerra Bolton,

Self care for activists graphic

It’s time for real talk about self-care.

Self-care has devolved from the radical notion that women can and should be their own source of happiness, fulfillment, and purpose to treating oneself to a pedicure and a massage. Self-care is not splurging $400 on a pair of shoes you’ve been eyeing. Self-care is not the same as self-indulgence.

Read my thoughts about self-care over on Sweatpants & Coffee.