Kanye, Kamla Auntie & Nury Martinez
If your head is spinning from everything that's happened this past week, you're not alone. And if it's not, well...carry on and have a great day ahead. ????
What we've seen play out this past week - whether it's Kanye and Candace Owen's "White Lives Matter" t-shirt, Councilwoman Nury Martinez's abhorrent and explicit racist comments, or the South Asian community claiming VP Kamala Harris as "auntie" - these are all facets of anti-Blackness.
Anti-Blackness is something that [almost] no one wants to talk about.
And look, it's not just White identifying folks that lean into anti-Black racism. South Asians do too. After all, VP Hariss is 50% Black.
Every non-Black person of color, even immigrants, quickly learns the racial hierarchy of the United States (and White-dominant, high-income countries - yes, even Canada and New Zealand).
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No one explicitly tells us that Black is at the bottom of the racial hierarchy. We pick that up through words, behaviors, actions, and media - quietly, implicitly, and subtly.
As someone who works on making workplaces more equitable, here's what I've done over the years to address my own anti-Blackness.
1. Unlearn, Learn, Unlearn.?I explicitly look to Black voices - Frederick Joseph, Olivia Butler (for the sci-fi fans), and Resmaa Menakem. And at times, and with consent, I reach out to Black friends and colleagues for context or deeper understanding (but that's never the starting point).
2. Speak up, often.?The holiday season is upon us, and there's never a better time to practice speaking up. Speak up when it happens at home, instead of talking about it with your BIPOC friends and colleagues. That goes for people of color too, we often hear some of the most xenophobic things at home.
3. Shift behaviors & actions.?It's not enough to say "Black Lives Matter" or have ninja DE&I language skills. Are you showing up differently? Is your stance clear, in your everyday actions and choices?
Anti-Blackness is so deeply ingrained, that it'll take more than a few unconscious bias trainings to start shifting awareness and actions.
Keep working on it.