What Did You Learn? And What Are You Going to do About it?

I know we're alllll ready to say goodbye to 2020 and the dumpster fire that it brought. But before we do, let's pause and reflect on all that 2020 has taught us, whether it was welcomed or not!

In 2020 we learned to navigate profound uncertainty. We were forced to face how little we actually have control -- and this is particularly important because white supremacy will have us white folks thinking we can control the narrative and that we're always powerful and dominant. But that's a lie -- it's a giant house of cards that we desperately try to hold together because we're terrified of the unknown -- of what it would be like if the house actually fell down.

Well 2020 was like one big house falling and it sucked so badly, but here we are. The World didn't actually end because we missed graduations and birthday parties and holiday celebrations. It didn't end because folks took to the streets (again! #BLM) and demanded accountability and racial justice.

In 2020 we learned to grieve. We had to grieve so much, both the people we lost this year and the tremendous changes we had to make. And on top of that we had to do our grieving virtually or in isolation -- we had to sit with ourselves when we so often desperately try to avoid that.

Many of us made commitments this summer to racial justice -- to listening and learning. I'm talking to you, Black IG boxes!

Well. What did you learn?

Did you learn that the police (AKA our tax dollars -- yours and mine!) are killing and terrorizing Black people? That Black kids can't be in NYC hotels without being accused of stealing iPhones, or watching birds without being threatened in the Park, or sleeping in their beds without being murdered by police who lied to get a warrant? Did you learn that COVID is disproportionately killing Black and Brown people because of our racist healthcare system, and because of racism period?

If you didn't learn about the everyday onslaught of racial microaggressions, the horrendously violent history of racism in our country, and the very active role that every white person plays in maintaining this racism hierarchy, then I ask you -- what did you learn? And to whom did you listen?

You said you'd commit to learning. So again I ask you -- what did you learn?

And what will you do now that you've learned it?

The ultimate racial privilege is being able to learn and listen and think about racism -- to talk about it, while not having to feel it. To think about it without having to live it. To know about it without doing a damn thing about it.

Don't let that kind of flex of privilege be your legacy. Let 2020 inform how you move forward.

I urge you to take some time to reflect on all the things you had to figure out this year, all the ways that you got creative and found new ways to do things because COVID disrupted the old ways. And now you can leverage that skill! We now know how to be nimble and resourceful when it serves our desires. One look at the "outdoor dining" in NYC while simultaneously over 50,000 people are without a home in the same city makes that point clearly.

When the problems are ours, or they impact us -- and I'm talking about white people! -- we know how to find solutions. So if we've been listening and learning to understand the impacts of racism and other forms of identity-based violence and injustice, now it's time to combine the two. It's time to take action against the systems of violence as if they were our problems, because they are our problems.

What skills that you learned this year are you going to apply to your antiracist practice?

Are you finally ready to commit to being actively antiracist, or do you prefer the comfort of knowing that you're an active participant in a system of race-based violence? And let's be clear -- despite what we've been told by our "good" white parents about being kind and nice to BIPOC, that doesn't make us antiracist. Niceness is not allyship.

There is no neutrality in this system. You are either actively working against the system in antiracist ways, or you are actively participating.

So again, I ask you: how will you leverage all that 2020 has forced you to learn and use it to recommit to your antiracist actions?

And if you're reading this, unsure of how to connect what you've heard and learned this year into action, join me on January 12, 2021 at 11:00am EST for a workshop outlining my DISRUPT Model for effective allyship and accompliceship. It's a pay-what-you-can workshop that will include 90-minutes of content and an additional 30-minutes for Q&A. You can follow the link in my bio to register. I hope to see you there!