White America: Shut Up and Listen
I grew up in Minnesota. My family is there. Even though I haven’t lived there for twenty years, I often call it home. I bought my first house not far from where George Floyd was murdered. The businesses being destroyed are places I shopped. The neighborhood was mine.
I think of my son. Fourteen years old. White. He talks to me about our racist laws and policies; about how if you’re black you could get shot or arrested for no reason. But, I will never have to fear that this will happen to him when he bikes home at midnight or is hanging out with his friends. I will never have to see that fear.
People are angry. And they have the right to be angry.
And, people have the right to protest. Sometimes peaceful protest works. Sometimes it does not. And, sometimes you need to speak louder because the world won’t listen.
You don’t get to pick and choose what protesting you agree with. You don’t get to decide that a country born on violence to indigenous people and people of color should now condemn the violence of those it has so long silenced.
Stop saying we can all get along. Stop saying that this violence isn’t working. Just stop. White America has been violent to black bodies since our founding. We have used violence to silence black and brown bodies. We have used police, laws, and policies to continue to perpetuate racist agendas and we have ALL benefited from them. All. Of. Us.
Now it is time to listen.
I keep reading social media posts about what you can do to check your racism. How white folks can support people of color during this time. I see posts about people listening or using their privilege to make change, but when racism is systematic and institutionalized you need to do more than just be an ally. We all need to make systematic changes.
I am a teacher. I believe in education. And, as teachers and parents and community members we can demand change in our schools and our communities.
So just STOP.
Stop teaching white authors. Teachers, take a year. One year to start and teacher only authors of color. No White folks. This includes To Kill a Mockingbird because you think the language is beautiful and where white folks are the saviors or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because it’s okay to read the n-word over 300 times in a novel if it’s part of the historical context. It is NOT okay. Not okay. All the most taught books in the high school classroom are by white authors. Let’s stop teaching them. Enough people have read them. Students deserve new voices. They deserve it.
One year. One year. Do not read white history for one year.
Spend the ENTIRE year in social studies teaching the history of people of color in the United States and not from the perspective of white America. Look at your history textbooks. Who wrote them? What are the stories? What stories are we choosing not to tell? For generations? Demand that those are not the narratives that are taught.
Start to teach about scientists and inventors and engineers and physicists who are not white. All the time.
Encourage second language learning at a young age. Push your school district to offer courses for elementary school students to learn about languages and cultures other than English.
Teach artists of color.
Play music by composers of color.
Put on school plays and musicals by playwrights of color.
Teach historical achievements by African American and indigenous athletes.
Stop teaching a whitewashed, misogynistic history.
Demand that starting in preschool and throughout school, we change our reading of history.
Take the time to learn about the history of the United States and the people who have been excluded from that history.
Stop suspending and expelling students of color at disproportional rates to their white classmates. THAT IS RACISM. Institutional racism.
Just stop. Demand better. Demand change.
I don’t live in Minneapolis anymore. And I want George Floyd to be remembered. I want his murder to be the center of the discussion. I want White Americans to admit that we have created and perpetuated a legal and criminal justice system that gives us privileges every day. But, this cannot be done if we don’t make systematic changes to our schools and communities.
If your first reaction to reading this is to tell me why it won’t work, why we need to teach white writers and artists and musicians and playwrights I will not listen to you.
If your first reaction is to be mad because you believe all lives matter. I will not listen to you.
If your first reaction is to tell me that there are just “some bad apples.” I will not listen to you.
Why?
Because you are actually choosing not to listen to people of color.
You are choosing to continue to have your voice heard. You are choosing to fight racism when it is convenient for you — when it works in your agenda. Your agenda is over. It needs to change.
Shut up and listen.
And STOP.
