Homework: Day 1
Lets get your antiracism journey started
If you follow me on facebook or instagram, you’ve already seen that Im giving my community some homework. I know some of you aren’t on social media or don’t check it regularly, but I didn’t want you to be left out. With a few edits, this comes from those posts:
Here are your first three homework assignments, if you are new to antiracism and need to catch up. Im absolutely throwing you in the deep end, but Im also doing you a solid by providing you a roadmap. So roll up those sleeves!
First up is my own writing “Trouble the Narrative” because thats what we do all the time here. We arent after easy sound bites, clean answers. We wrestle with hard stuff and you have to resist the urge for clean edges.
Second is Coates’s essay The Case for Reparations. I share this one because you must begin to put “looting” in its historic context. I chose this essay because MANY white people still living participated in this looting and many white people reading this right now still benefit from that looting. We like history around here, even when it hurts.
The third is called “On Being White and Other Lies”. This will give some explanation for why I’m always talking about “undermining whiteness”. There are many resources for understanding whiteness as a concept, but its hard to beat James Baldwin. So start here and then continue to find resources on understanding whiteness; its imperative to understand why antiracists must be committed to undermining whiteness.
I have promised five days of homework, so stay tuned!
Holy forking Shirtballs. I posted a photo of my family’s Black Lives Matter signs before we attended the peaceful protest last night in Davenport, Iowa. An elderly woman I sing with in our church and serve next to at our food pantry then commented, “All Lives Matter!” I learned the expression “disrupting the narrative” from you and so I did in a civil, though matter of fact way. It was the most amazing thread to read because she finally commented, “Now I understand what Black Lives Matter is about and why it isn’t right to say All Lives Matter.” Her mind was changed because of your writing. Thank you for teaching us!
Thank you! I read The Case for Reparations last night. It absolutely puts looting in a whole other context