Who is responsible for answering the question, “What can I do?” In this post, I share my thoughts about what I can do to support racial reconciliation, where we can start, and a few of the resources that have been recommended to me.
Transcript:
I’ve been thinking a lot during the past month about George Floyd murder and so many other murders and tragic events–and a history of over 400 years of events that have led to this moment in time. This is not a new problem; this is not a new issue.
While I’ve been thinking about this, I thought of an analogy.
If you know your friend is in the hospital, in crisis, extremely ill, do you contact your friend directly by text or phone to ask, “What do you need me to do?”
If yes, then in a way, you are placing the responsibility on your friend—who is in the hospital—to solve your problem. If you know the person well enough, perhaps you already know what their family likes to eat, and you can make food to drop off at their house, or you pick up their kids at the right time, etc. Or, I might contact the family or circle of friends of the person in the hospital and ask, “What does our loved one need right now? How can I help?”
Returning to the analogy…
Many people are experiencing deep hurt, crises, and exhaustion right now. There’s nothing wrong with the question “What can I do?” In fact, it’s a really good question. But who has the responsibility to answer that question? If I ask the people who right now are in crisis, “What can I do? How can I help?” in a way, I’m placing the responsibility on the people who are already exhausted to help solve my problem.
From everything I’ve been reading, watching, and taking in, there is one thing that I can do that seems pretty clear. That’s self-education.
I can make sure that I know the history, the background of the many, many things that have happened for all this time, that have built to where we are now. That’s one thing I can do. From people I respect, I have noticed four titles that continue to be shared again and again and have been recommended—particularly for white people who want to do something and are not sure where to start.
Here are the four. The first one is a book called White Fragility. The second one is a movie called 13th. The title is 1-3-t-h. Really, it’s a documentary with lots of history, specific details, and information and, honestly, there was so much information included that I knew nothing about before watching the film. The third resource is a book called How to be an antiracist. The fourth is a movie based on a true story. The movie is called Just Mercy. It’s available for free through many providers right now. These four resources are just a few of the many, many resources that are easy for us to access, that are free and available for us to self-educate. Is reading books and watching movies enough? No. Not even close to enough, no.
Black Lives Matter.
But if we don’t do anything because we think it is not enough, or if we sit and wonder, “What can I do? What can I do?” and we don’t start acting, we waste time that we cannot afford to waste. I’m taking on part of moving forward with action with self-education. I’m starting with these four resources that I shared with you and hope sharing these is helpful.
This is an ongoing conversation, an ongoing discussion, and an ongoing question of “What can I do?” It doesn’t stop.
Know that I continue to think about you. I wish you continued health and continued safety…and continued strength to sit with the question, “What can I do?”