Racism is INSTRUCTIONAL.
Learning to fight against our embedded Racism as white people, must also be instructional.
LOVE does contain those words in MY definition. My point is that others don’t interpret it that way. I get what you are trying to do, I just know it doesn’t work. Love is an internal feeling for some people, that’s why it doesn’t work.
No one says it better than the activist I respect more than anyone else on the topic, Jane Elliott.
Jane has this to say about love:
“We’ve had love a long time. Love is not the answer. Love is not enough. What we need is fairness. What we need is equality. What we need is justice. Because if you love me, but don’t treat me fairly, I’m NOT going to end up loving you.”
Racism is LEARNED. Racism is instructional. The only way to unlearn it is to teach ourselves and others to do something different.
Love doesn’t help people know what to do differently.
So many people think they already do that so they don’t need to change anything. But you and I both know that they do indeed need to change.
People don’t change without instructions for how. You can say “love” but please provide instructions for how to do love in a way that helps us defeat racism.
You can have it both ways, Todd Hannula 🤓. I promise. It will just take some expansion. You have to stop assuming that people who read you are just like you — wonderful, respectful, kind — defining words the way that you would…
Because I promise you they do not. And our black brothers and sisters have a right to expect our help. Our family needs us to be ABSOLUTELY CLEAR. And we need to be because we also hate racism and we don’t stand for what is happening to our loved ones.
Gitty up, brother. Gitty up.
-Cyborg
