Am I a Racist?

Yesterday was #blackouttuesday.

And for me it was a hard day. I could barely concentrate, I was angry and hurt. I was relieved that I could cancel all my meetings and focus on educating myself on what is going on.

To be honest, until now, the topic never occured to me as something I can get actively involved with. I know it is there and I certainly consider myself as non-racist.

But am I really?

I spent most of yesterday reading, watching, learning and listening.

And I realized that also I am guilty of racist actions, all the time. Unconsciously.

A selection of examples from my day to day, some more serious than others, but all HIGHLY IDIOTIC:

• A few years ago, I was in the last round of a contest. 3 women were chosen for the finals. I was NOT one of them. Together with the other "blond girls" we were excusing our own "loss" by saying things like: "you know, they had to chose an ethnically diverse group..." or "obviously they could not have 3 blond girls win this thing".
• This one must be familiar one, and I certainly guilty off: when you see someone who is obviously not white drive in an expensive car you tell yourself, or whoever you are with at that moment: "he must be in some shady business to afford that car, haha". I would never assume this about a white middle aged men, stepping out of the same car.
• I feel that I am being polite or interested when I asked someone: "Where are you from" and they say "Amsterdam and you?" and I respond: "No, I mean, where are originally from".

SHAME ON ME. SHAME ON ME. SHAME ON ME.

I am angry at myself, I am ashamed and I feel naive. I never have the intention to hurt anyone but by focussing my actions on "my intentions" instead of the potential hurt feelings I am an idiot. And certainly I did not grasp the severeness of my doing until now.

I understand now what it means to have "privilege" and I understand now what it means that it is not enough to not be racist but that you need to be anti-racist. I also understand now why "All Lives Matter" is not the right response to "Black Lives Matter".

"Privilege is not about what you′ve gone through, but what you havent′t had to go through." - Janaya Future Khan

I am lucky that I do not have to live with fear every day and I will use that to contribute to this highly needed change actively. Again, I was blind that I did not see this before.

Yesterday was #blackouttuesday and I did all the obvious mistakes, of course. Because that′s what I do.

• I posted a black square with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter.
• A bit later I realized it was the wrong hashtag and counter productive.
• Then, I reposted a fake post by @theshowmustbepausedd (with two d′s at the end) but only realized later that day that it was a fake account.
• First I thought you had to "mute" every kind of post/story before I found out what the real intention was.
• I wanted to keep up and show that I am supportive and by doing so I learned a lot. About myself but more so about the world, we are living in.

And now?

I always thought you need to pick one battle and pour all your energy in it. My battle is contributing to a sustainable future with a focus on climate change. Now I understand that fighting racism instead of contributing to it is an important factor in achieving that goal. People living in fear, being treated unjust and unfair will never be able to put efforts into sustainability. And we need everyone in order to achieve that goal.

#peopleplanetprofit and exactly in that order.

I am committed to doing more, learning more, listening more and change my own "innocent" behaviour drastically. I do not know how exactly, yet but going forward I will invest a substantial amount of time into this topic and stop closing my eyes. I promise that my investment in this is more than a black square on Instagram.

From now on I am ANTI-RACISM and I will fight for it!

Hit me up if you want to discuss this topic. I think we all should. We are already very late to the show.

Thanks for listening!