Speak Up.

For decades, white women have stood by watching the mistreatment of Black people happen right in front of their faces. Rather than saying something, these women have managed to move throughout each year quietly allowing Black people in their communities to be bullied, treated with violence, sidelined, and belittled in so many ways. While it seems like that should be something that only happened in the past, racial injustice is something that has become far too easy to allow in our present thanks to the boundaries we have set up around housing, schools, and interpersonal relationships. We (white women) have been able to congregate in our own bubbles without much disturbance or attention paid to the pain and suffering of our sisters and brothers with darker skin. 

I’ll fully admit that when I first was told that Minnesota was at the bottom of the list nationally for educating kids of color, I was shocked. I got defensive and argued and said that it couldn’t be true because in Minnesota, people are good & kind and life is quiet & happy. In my ignorance, I couldn’t see that it only looked that way for white Minnesotans. I had no reason to think anything was wrong because for me, very little was wrong. I was happy and secure in my childhood and had no reason to believe anyone felt differently, no matter their skin color. In fact, I don’t think my parents or grandparents had much of a reason to think otherwise either. 

Why is that?

My school didn’t cover Juneteenth. I didn’t know about the hangings that happened in Duluth, MN. I didn’t know about the way the Twin Cities were structured to create segregation, which led to so many housing/schooling inequities. I only knew my own comfort; my own privilege and the Minnesota Good Life

I’m learning about all of this now and, I’m going to be honest, I’ve had a physical pain in my chest for days. It is heavy and confusing and it sometimes feels like there is nothing that we can do to repair all the damage. It’s so much easier to turn the other way and let someone else care about these issues, to seek my own peace. I can’t though, because as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “peace is not merely the absence of this tension, but the presence of justice.”

This morning, I was listening to a podcast by Emily P. Freeman, a white woman who is using her platform to share her journey to being actively anti-racist, and I realized something. She is no longer being silent. This is not a “normal” issue she would address on her podcast (for as long as I’ve listened to it), but now she is using her voice to speak out with love and strength. 

White women, we need to speak up. We need to have uncomfortable conversations and call out racism when we see it. Our silence HAS HURT PEOPLE and it will continue to hurt them. I don’t like getting into social media scuffles anymore than you do, but I also know that there is a thoughtful and compassionate way to go about it that makes a difference. We can listen and hear the other side while responding with knowledge and care to encourage small steps in the right direction. 

White women, WE CAN DO HARD THINGS. We MUST do hard things. Some of us are mothers and when George Floyd called out for his mother as the air was being blocked from his lungs, he called out to every fiber of my being that wants to protect my children. We are sisters- and when Breonna Taylor was shot while sleeping in her own bed, dreaming of all she could accomplish in the coming year, I felt pain I would experience if I lost my own sister who takes up so much space in my heart. When the rights of Black neighbors are put into question, I feel every bit of fight that women have had to (and still have to) put into being allowed the right to vote or work or manage our own bodies. 

Our silence has never helped. Our voices can do more than we know. Start somewhere. Start where you are. Just start.