Black Lives Matter. For an activist, can anything else?
Last month, Black Lives Matter Boston held an event called “In Their Own Words” at a huge Unitarian church in the center of Boston. The event was promoted on Facebook, and thousands of people said they would attend — many of them white people newly galvanized by the Women’s Marches around the country, which were largely white affairs and shone a bright light on the many injustices people of color endure when they attempt to peacefully protest. In the end, the event had to be ticketed (though still free) to allow for the space limitations of the church; in spite of a major snowstorm on the day of the event, the church was still packed to the brim.
I tuned in to the livestream on YouTube from the slippery mess of my driveway, where, with my phone in my pocket and headphones in, I listened as I pushed heavy, wet snow to the borders of my car-navigable property, set well back from the street in highly white Medford, MA. I listened, and was chastened. I listened, and was changed. Or rather: I was galvanized. In the voices of Martin Henson and Karlene Griffiths Sekou, I heard the words I always knew were the inescapable truth but was too uncomfortable to utter or contemplate from my position of massive white privilege: the fact that this country was founded on, and subsists and persists upon, white supremacy.
Part of what white privilege means, of course, is that I get to hide from that fact on a daily basis, while benefiting from it. This is 101 stuff, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need some solid reminders; all white people do. For most of us, the lessons are very, very easy to forget, which is not all that surprising: the culture is specifically set up that way. In a great piece on trigger warnings I read elsewhere on Medium, this reality was brought home to me (again, again, again): “The truth of the matter is that privileged people have all of society as a safe space; our culture and even our laws are formed around their comfort,” writes Na’amen Gobert Tilahun. People who spend all their time calling others “snowflakes” (while somehow always being remarkably thin-skinned themselves) are already living in a safe space, every single day. People who aren’t that kind of asshole, me for instance, still are soaking in the safety our society provides for white, able-bodied, cisgender people. It’s a struggle to step continually outside of that bubble and face what the rest of folks have to deal with, or rather, it’s much, much easier not to. It is deeply worthwhile to have the constant reminder (I’m considering post-it notes all over my house or something) that people who suffer under white supremacy don’t get to not think about it. There’s no safe space for them to return to.
That being said, I’ve had trouble with the idea of showing up for the movement. I have felt like there was nothing I could do that wouldn’t harm more than it helped, felt I wouldn’t be welcomed. But hearing BLM Boston speak about intersectionality, about looking at the interlocking oppressions of queer people, of trans people, of women, of Native and Latinx and disabled people — made me feel spoken to, and made me feel that this movement, at least the Boston iteration, has a place for me in it. Hearing them talk about the systems that keep these oppressions in place, about the false “solutions” that have masked the problem in recent years, making many whites believe we are living in a “post-racial” society, made me hopeful for a movement that goes far beyond reforming the relationship between police and black youth: this movement seeks to transform the way black lives are seen and treated, systematically, by a country founded on white supremacy, which hurts all of us. By the end of the talk, and hearing the questions they took, I had the sense, in fact, that this is the most important, most inclusive, most critical movement to be a part of right now.
At the same time, I am very aware that as a white person who hasn’t been directly involved in black community for a long time, my job in this movement, at least for a while, is to show up and shut up. I’m on SURJ Boston’s mailing list, and keep trying to find time and ways to get involved there, especially since I found that they are explicitly linked to, and endorsed by, Black Lives Matter as a largely white organization doing to work to support BLM from the outside. I want to do things for this movement; I believe in it, and its message, as a holistic approach to social change.
Yet I also recognize that the skills and abilities I could bring to bear there are not necessarily the most needed things at the moment, and thinking and talking about this with my (also white) partner got us into an interesting debate on activism. The question was: Is it more important to put all of your available activist resources behind the biggest, most critical cause, even if doing that work is not what you’re best at and doesn’t necessarily bring you joy? Or is it better to put all your power behind the cause that matters to you most, that uses your particular skills and talents, and that brings you enough joy to feed back into your health and ability to fuel further efforts?
Even having been so inspired by the BLM talk as to think it is the most important thing to be involved with right now, I freely admitted that I wasn’t sure how well my abilities would match what was needed there, or whether I would feel inept if I tried to help, or whether I would find it demoralizing enough that I wouldn’t be able to continue helping productively. And so when my partner said he knew he would keep doing his activism in his own way, in his field of expertise, to the best of his ability, I thought that was a fine choice and a reasonable use of his strengths and social capital. He, though, felt that his choice was less noble.
What is better: using the specific talents, passions, and resources you have to apply the most leverage where it will do the most good / move the needle the farthest? Or using your considerable privilege to put all the pressure you are able onto the single movement working on the biggest problem? I don’t have answers to this, yet. But I’m interested in what you think.
