Part 2 of my commitment to do the work

Last week was #blackouttuesday. I posted part 1 of my plan on how I can do better – or more aptly, get started. I promised a follow up post to outline what I am doing in my family and in my business to be anti-racist. While the ideas for this post have been swirling in my head, I was overly ambitious and naive to think that I could have three neat and tidy little blog posts to outline my “plan,” which I now see to be so much bigger and so much deeper. It is a feeling that must be internalized.

Every day I learn just how much more I have to learn. I am in the early stages of my journey to own my whiteness. It took me a long time to open my eyes to the impact and injustices of systemic racism in America, and I recognize that I can’t unpack a lifetime of my privilege in a week. Yet once I started to see my privilege and the devastating impact of it's contribution to racism, particularly anti-blackness, I see it everywhere. My privilege protected me from it for too long, and still does. The fact that I am learning about racism through books, podcasts, documentaries, and social media accounts rather than experiencing it firsthand says much about my privilege and the system built to keep the privileged privileged.

The topic of what we are doing in our family is more challenging to put into words that what I am doing as an individual or what I am doing as a small business owner. So to keep it simple, we are starting with acknowledging and embracing differences (of all types) more. And the more I do my work to be anti-racist as an individual, the more it will reflect in parenting.

This image from illustrator Danielle Cook (@ohhappydani) [sincere apologies for the omitted credit to the artist and shout out to Traci for helping me give proper credit!] is one of my favorites from recent weeks and captures what I am trying to say here.