Five Steps White People (Myself Included) Can Take in Response to Systemic Racism

Here are some things that I am trying to do:  Understand that Black Lives Matter. Some people are inclined to say that “all lives matter,” and of course all lives do matter. But as John and Ocean Robbins shared in a recent post (and I paraphrase): If a house is burning down, you don’t call the fire department and say “all houses matter”; instead you focus on and send help to the specific house that is burning. Black people have endured unspeakable individual and collective traumas of a nature that I/we (the privileged white) can never truly understand. This trauma has occurred in their past, AND it is a part of every day of their lives, in the injustices, disadvantages, discrimination and microaggressions they experience. When we say black lives matter we are acknowledging these facts and our need to take action. Sit with discomfort. The recent events that have occurred are not just about police brutality against people in the black community. If so, it might be easy to distance oneself and think that the problem lies with a small number of very bad cops “out there”, and justice simply needs to be served. Instead these recent events are only a very small part of a very ugly reality. While, sadly, it has taken the recent and brutal deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others to begin to mobilize white people to action, people who are black have suffered systemic racism for centuries, and in many ways I/we — people of white pri...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Self-Help Violence and Aggression Black Lives Matter George Floyd microaggression Police brutality Prejudice Racism Source Type: blogs