Ally Action Project Week 1: A Week and Some Change
I began this project to solve my own challenge of educating myself about my own white privilege, and ultimately learning how to create action for change. I know other people want to see change as well, and they may also become passive like me when solutions are not easy to understand. I decided that I would take the result of my own eduction and share it to anyone who was interested. I brought in my oldest sons to learn with me, and to help curate an experience that they would also value. We created the following tenets for the project to guide our sharing:
We decided to start the site on June 19th, Juneteenth, to mark the occasion and support the black community. We discussed what it means to be an anti-racist. Being passive is no longer enough, so we have chosen to be active to fight racism and help achieve real equality for everyone. We spent time reading and reflecting on the information at The National Museum of African American History & Culture website. Learning about institutional and structured racism was uncomfortable since my privilege has allowed me to be blind to those systems until now.
https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/being-antiracist
We were then resolute in declaring Black Lives Matter, while educating ourselves on the movement and their goals. We signed the petitions and prepared for the conversations about how all lives do matter, but black lives need disproportionately more help right now since unarmed black people are killed by police 2x more often than whites.
https://blacklivesmatter.com
https://jech.bmj.com/content/72/8/715
One of the most profound moments of my journey was learning about Jane Elliot and her blue eyed/brown eyed experiment. Mrs. Elliot’s experiments helped me understand how other people feel, and we watched hours of her experiments with children in A Class Divided, with college students, and adults on the Oprah show. Her commitment is remarkable and she opened our eyes to how ridiculous it is to base any bias from color or features we have no ability to change. Mrs. Elliot showed how professing to be “colorblind” was hurtful due to stripping part of that other person’s identity. A person of any color or gender does not want to be seen as a colorless blob, they simply want to be treated equal while celebrating their differences. Our call to action was to simply treat others the way our privilege allowed us to be treated.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/class-divided
We touched on the disparities in the experiences that we have had with my two older sons due to race, so we shared that the ‘talk’ that we had with one boy was about protected sex and not catching diseases. The discussion with our other son was not to wear his hoodie over his head and how not to become a target. Clint Smith says it best how minority parents are forced to strip away parts of their kid’s childhood just to make sure they make it home at night.
https://www.ted.com/talks/clint_smith_how_to_raise_a_black_son_in_america
One of the ways that we decided we should explore was to fight the system of structured racism was though making sure that we elect representatives that truly represent us, both in values and diversity. It seemed quite out os sync that 91% of the Senate and 72% of the House is white, compared to 61% of the country. To better understand the people running, we looked for tools to make an impact and we found two that were helpful. VoteSmart helped us to understand the primary challengers and where they fit on the issues that we felt needed discussions about racism, like healthcare and immigration. We also found 5 Calls, which allows us to take action now to call our current representatives to discuss issues like making Juneteenth a federal holiday, demanding reform on police use of force, and protecting Dreamers with the Dream and Promise Acts.
https://voteeasy.votesmart.org
https://5calls.org
The biggest impacts for voting will be in November 2020 when we vote in the presidential election. We wanted to make sure that despite voter suppression, we understand our rights and how to vote where we are. This upcoming election will be the first for many young adults who are now graduating during years of police brutality, income equality, and now global pandemic. This year will likely challenge the voting process due to the limited voting locations and increase in mail-in voting. We provided links to share what we learned about when is the registration deadline across the states, as well as how to get started.
https://www.usa.gov/who-can-vote
https://www.vote.org/voter-registration-deadlines
Finally, we ended the week with a series of educational posts about what the confederacy really stood for. With the statues coming down all across America, many people are at opposite ends of an extreme spectrum at the moment. There are people who celebrate these statues and confederate imagery and think that they are embracing a heritage that was based on state’s rights and standing up for your values. We dove deeper into educating ourselves and found that nearly every principle that the confederacy stood for was rooted in a racist belief. The Vice President of the confederacy, Alexander H. Stephens, insisted that slavey was the cornerstone of the reasoning to secede. He said, “its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man” and “With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place.” He went on to use the Biblical imagery of the cornerstone being cast away, but it is now the most important part of the structure. These racist beliefs did not stop there, as the confederate constitution was written to highlight and protect slavery. It states, "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed" and, "the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected." The confederate constitution outlined a manifest destiny of slavery into any new states that joined and the western territories that were not yet states. People are either ignorant to these truths or are openly perpetuating the racism of the confederacy by protecting monuments and rebel flags. Both Robert E. Lee and his descendants asked to not build these monuments and to not continue the legacy of the confederacy. Lee said this repeatedly during his life, “I think it well, moreover, not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered." His descendants have asked for these statues to be taken down and acknowledged, “The Civil War was fought for states’ rights to enslave African people in the United States of America." There are ways to celebrate the southern heritage without hate, such as the inventions of modern mechanized agriculture, powered flight from the Wright brothers, submarines, the typewriter, wireless communication, and helicopters. You can fly the American flag, your state flag, or the "Come and Take It" flag from the Texas revolution. You can celebrate the American heroes from the south like Martin Luther King, Jr., Michael Jordan, and George Washington Carver. There are many aspects of the south to be proud of like the distinct food, architecture, and culture that are not centered on racism.
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/cornerstone-speech
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/robert-e-lee-opposed-confederate-monuments
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/07/robert-e-lee-is-my-ancestor-take-down-his-statue-let-his-cause-be-lost
https://www.change.org/p/everyone-ban-the-confederate-flag
We are proud of the work that we have done to educate ourselves and hope that you participate with us to inspire action that accelerates bringing equality to our society.