I've found that as I shed my race blinders, I am now able to "see" racism all over the place that was previously invisible to me. I've recently been meditating on the notion that my anti-racism needs to be above all oriented in practice. Theory is deeply important in that it teaches me to "see" the reality of racism and gives me useful tools for how to live well as a white woman. But theory is no good to anyone if it results only in me "thinking" about racism (which I tend to do a lot), rather than responding to racism in my community. In short, I'd like to catalog the daily actions I take to interrupt racism in my own life (the "everyday antiracism" moniker is blatantly stolen from the title of an instructive book I read in grad school.) This will fulfill a few purposes: 1. I can hold myself accountable to responding to the racism in my life. By opening the window and airing the funk of the racism in my life and the way I respond to it, I can get feedback on how and when I can better respond. 2. It can help white people who are just beginning to learn about racism and to un-ignorant themselves to "see" racism in their own lives and give them some ideas about how to respond.
[to be continued]
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