Black Lives Matter

My best friend texted me Friday, May 30th and asked if I had seen what was happening in Atlanta (my home town). I had woken up in Denver to the news of the protest about George Floyd and had really only just started to follow what was going on. Truth be told, around mid-March, I completely disconnected myself from the news – #covidanxiety – so I was a little out of the loop on any news. From then until now, I have been essentially glued to my phone on Instagram and Tik Tok watching and learning.

Waking up to my white privilege and wrestling with the thoughts and feelings that brings, realizing so strongly that silence is violence and I needed to be more than non-racist but anti-racist. Hard, uncomfortable, draining – sure it’s been all those things but how about life-changing, wonderfully powerful, and uplifting.

I have always had a thirst for knowledge and these past few weeks have presented me with so many learnings about myself, my friends, family, community, and country. I posted on #blackouttuesday that this was just the start of a long conversation with ourselves and our community. I have really enjoyed the conversations I have had with y’all so far, and I hope to continue them.

In school, we learned about the end of slavery and civil rights movements – in my mind, they were both tilted in a way that made me believe racism was dead. Yes, there were still a few backward folks out there, but overall “racism” not a problem anymore. Even when something would come up in the news, it was – oh, that’s just a bad apple!

Being in the South, although racism is EVERYWHERE, I 100% heard racist comments mostly said as off-color jokes and those that seemed to mean it, I distanced myself from. Only later in my adult life did I began to understand the true systemic racism that exists in our country.

But as I am sure you are realizing this week (and probably over the last three years) that racism is alive and well in this country – and around the world. It is no longer enough to say “Well, I’m a nice person, I am not racist” it’s time to DO something about it. Stand up for the injustices in our society and use our voice to shape the future.

What Has Impacted Me

A month ago I did not understand what it meant to be anti-racist. I did not understand the true meaning of #blacklivesmatter and I certainly didn’t understand the sentiment to defund the police. I have a completely different perspective and understanding now and I wanted to share the things I have seen and read that have impacted me the most

I saw this MLK quote on an IG story that someone else shared and I took a screenshot, so I do not have the original source, but hearing “Silence is Violence” really rang true to me. And this quote really sent it home.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAxysezgUDi/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9DfahhBChU/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBGacTaDB_H/
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CA3uMUrAY_3/?igshid=y2pd6mg3tibi
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAprUUvDWQh/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CA3R6zoHbiq/?igshid=g38snz7o5j22
https://www.instagram.com/p/CA7qEy1HS6R/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBBar83Jfhk/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CA-3sjXH_ex/

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CAwUrNQJ_aO/?igshid=mfysvb3dqvul

Defund the Police

A week ago this made NO sense to me and now I fully support it. Here are a few posts and a great twitter thread on why this should happen.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBLkVXVhkrB/?igshid=1dgg9e6m7o1po

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBROa2fHdQ5/

This is how I, a 45-year-old white woman and mother of 6, currently at her peak Karen power, went from assuming police work was a necessary part of functional communities, to becoming a passionate advocate for #abolishthepolice #defundthepolice, over the course of one week.

1/x

— Gabrielle Blair (@designmom) June 8, 2020

What To Focus On Now?

Besides continuing education and discussions, I am looking for how to create real change. I’d like to find a few areas to really focus my money and my efforts, but the more I learn, the more areas I see need improvement. I am passionate about early childhood education, mental health, and wellness to #defundthepolice to housing inequality. Each can have an impact on Black communities and I hope over the next month or so to really choose a few organizations I can engage with wholeheartedly. I will, of course, share those here too!

VOTE! VOTE VOTE!

While I am undecided about where to put my focus, I do know of one way to affect change that I have always believed in – the power of your vote.

In the 6th grade, we learned about your rights as a citizen, including your right to vote, as laid out by the Bill Of Rights. But there was something deeper than my textbook/teacher discussed and I am struggling to word it correctly. Essentially I walked away with a very deeply held belief that it was my duty as a citizen to not only vote but to keep myself informed.

I was excited to vote at 18! I was taken aback in college when I learned that others didn’t feel this way. It’s still shocking and upsetting that the US only gets around 50% voter turn out!! VOTE PEOPLE! But it’s not about just voting in the presidential election ever four years. It’s voting locally every time you can. To learn more about voting & register, go here.

Big Thoughts?

There is a small part of me that has always thought about running for local office, and maybe this is my time to start really thinking about that. This week has also stirred some ideas about getting my master’s in counseling & mental health. Ha, we will see!

For now, I want to use this platform to continue to grow my community. It’s my 2020 word of the year and while COVID has made that hard, it’s not going to me!

Thoughts? Questions? Slide into my DM’s and lets talk!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBOE4qDnnur/

P.S. BMB Book Club

The BMB Book Club met in the middle of all this to discuss our last book, Woman in Cabin 10 – a thriller. We unanimously decided that we’d like to read a book on racism next, so we chose Anti-Fragility. We will be meeting in a few weeks to discuss on a zoom call and you are more than welcome to join – sign up here.