Day 17 Embody

Dear White Friends and Fam! 

As we embark on our 17th day of this intensive Anti-Racism practice we are reminded of a few things.  We are all at different points on this journey, some of us are just starting out, some have been engaged in this work for most of our lives, and many of us fall in between.  


One thing we know about white privilege is that we have the privilege of forgetting, of failing to remember, daily, the systemic racism that surrounds us, engulfs us.  We have engaged in this 30 day journey in order to form the habit of anti-racism as a daily part of our lives.  They say it takes 21 days to form a habit, we’re doing 30 to make sure it sticks.   We recognize that our black and brown sisters and brothers do not have the luxury of forgetting.  


We have also been reminded to be thankful for our breath.  As a dancer I (Camerin) feel a particularly special relationship with my breath, as it is often the impetus of movement.  “I can’t breath” has become a rallying cry for this moment and this movement for equality.  We are reminded that our breath is precious and cannot be taken or granted.  And we must ask ourselves: what will we do with this precious breath?  How will we make our breath count? 


So today we offer an embodied meditation or prayer of sorts.  What if we began each day intentionally reminding ourselves that Black Lives Matter and that we have precious breath to be thankful for?  How could such a simple reminder change the way we approach the people and systems in our lives?  


How to participate: 

  • Watch:  How do you sign “black lives matter” in ASL?  For black deaf angelenos, it’s complicated.  Pay specific attention as Rorri Burton, ASL Translator, shares the sign for Black. Lives. Cherish.  (right at 1 min. 30 seconds)

  • We’re taking a moment today, and perhaps everyday.  To breathe 4 deep breaths- finding thanks in each one, repeat the sign (make sure to use the sign for black in the appropriate way for white people) for Black. Lives. Cherish.  And in so doing recommit ourselves everyday to this anti-racist work.  


Thanks for joining us on this journey.  We can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to.  If you’re looking for something more to do today.  Please check the resources below.  One of you dropped a bunch of ideas there.  Please share some of your great resources and experiences.   Many folks haven’t had a chance to share.  We love hearing from you and your experiences are encouraging to others.  

Peace,
Camerin and Beth


P.S.   We tried to create a blog this week to make accessing everything easy and in one place.  But there were problems with the idea.   There’s a limit to the number of people that you can invite and we have more then 100 folks on the Ripples Anti - Racism 30 day challenge.  In order to continue to offer it to our challengers we had to make the blog open / public which was not our desire, and there is really no way to “search teh blog” for anything specific.   BUT you can go back to each day and read any of the resources that folks provided.   Here is the link to the blog invitation, just accept and you’ll be allowed in.  https://day1ripples.blogspot.com/


For those of you who are new to this challenge, this is a great way to catch up with where we’ve been and where we’re going.  


Word of the Day: White Privilege

  1. Refers to the unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements, benefits and choices bestowed on people solely because they are white. Generally white people who experience such privilege do so without being conscious of it.

  2. Structural White Privilege: A system of white domination that creates and maintains belief systems that make current racial advantages and disadvantages seem normal. The system includes powerful incentives for maintaining white privilege and its consequences, and powerful negative consequences for trying to interrupt white privilege or reduce its consequences in meaningful ways. The system includes internal and external manifestations at the individual, interpersonal, cultural and institutional levels. 

  • The accumulated and interrelated advantages and disadvantages of white privilege that are reflected in racial/ethnic inequities in life-expectancy and other health outcomes, income and wealth and other outcomes, in part through different access to opportunities and resources. These differences are maintained in part by denying that these advantages and disadvantages exist at the structural, institutional, cultural, interpersonal and individual levels and by refusing to redress them or eliminate the systems, policies, practices, cultural norms and other behaviors and assumptions that maintain them.

  • Interpersonal White Privilege: Behavior between people that consciously or unconsciously reflects white superiority or entitlement. 

  • Cultural White Privilege: A set of dominant cultural assumptions about what is good, normal or appropriate that reflects Western European white world views and dismisses or demonizes other world views. 

  • Institutional White Privilege: Policies, practices and behaviors of institutions -- such as schools, banks, non-profits or the Supreme Court -- that have the effect of maintaining or increasing accumulated advantages for those groups currently defined as white, and maintaining or increasing disadvantages for those racial or ethnic groups not defined as white. The ability of institutions to survive and thrive even when their policies, practices and behaviors maintain, expand or fail to redress accumulated disadvantages and/or inequitable outcomes for people of color.

SOURCE:

  1. White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women Studies. Peggy McIntosh. 1988.

  2. Transforming White Privilege: A 21st Century Leadership Capacity, CAPD, MP Associates, World Trust Educational Services, 2012.


Upcoming Virtual Events: 



Upcoming Junteenth Events: 

Juneteenth Events



Reading/ Watch/Listen List: 

Resources: 

 What else can you do today?

  • Call your reps. If you don't know where to begin, the app 5Calls literally does everything for you. It helps you find your representatives and gives a script to start with that you can read to your rep's answering machine.

  • Petitions. A million of these are circulating the internet demanding justice for Black people killed at the hands of police officers. Also check out these petitions on the Black Lives Matter site demanding racial data and government action in response to COVID-19 (https://blacklivesmatter.com/petitions/). Before the protests started several weeks ago, Black people were still losing their lives at higher rates due to systemic inequality in the healthcare and economic systems.

  • Send letters. There are one million things you can send letters about--this is systemic. It's easy to Google letters to your reps and fill in the blanks, but if that's not an option try Resistbot to send letters in literally a matter of minutes. Dove has a letter here for the CROWN Act (https://www.dove.com/…/stories/campaigns/the-crown-act.html…). There are 43/50 states that have not yet made it illegal to discriminate against natural hair in the workforce or in schools. If your state is one of those, push for the bill to be presented. This needs to change.

  • Talk to your employer. If they released a statement about Black Lives Matter, make sure that they're also being held accountable to changing their behavior. Words are not enough. Ask for (ongoing!) donations or a matching program, company training on a consistent basis, equity to be not only tied to one of your company goals but to BE a goal that's used in all decision-making processes, intentional sourcing to diversify your candidate pool, stop patronising companies that have shown discriminatory practices, etc.

  • Volunteer with, support, or attend a Legal Observer training with the chapter of the National Lawyer's Guild nearest you. For those in CO, here is a link to the chapter website--trainings are currently offered virtually https://www.nlgcolorado.org.

 

Actions and Reflections from the group: 

  • I just registered for “What Lies Between Us” a 5 week course on anti-racism https://join.brownicity.com/collections

  • I watched a webinar, “From Rodney King to George Floyd:  Davidson, Riots, Race and Trump” that featured 8 Davidson alumni (6 black and 2 white) plus a black alum who teaches at the college.  There was a healthy exchange of experiences from student days and outlining of challenges that the college faces, and it was important that all the voices were heard.  Not surprisingly, Davidson (despite it being the bubble that it is) is a microcosm of the world...and the panelists challenged the college to create action steps as it moves towards creating an anti-racist environment.

  • I donated and shared the petition to make Juneteenth a national holiday

  • I read the letter: Dear White American Theater, signed the petition and made a donation.


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