Eyes White Shut: Now Are You Ready to Work?

8 min readJun 9, 2020

***Someone Please Call 911, 2014, acrylic collage by*** ***Charles Philippe Jean Pierre***

In 1989, I sat on my stoop with friends on a summer day. Because I’m from Brooklyn. And that’s what you do. Telling jokes, telling stories. Just having a great time. Joyful one minute, but devastated the next, as our friend lay bleeding from multiple knife wounds. In a matter of seconds, he had been stabbed by another young man from the neighborhood. My cousin ran up three flights of stairs with his 8-year-old legs to call the police while I held on tightly to our friend’s abdomen. Blood streaming down my arm as I watched him go in and out of consciousness.

My cousin called 9–1–1. They — never — came.

26 years to the day of our friend’s near-fatal stabbing, I learned of the death of Sandra Bland. I recalled seeing her picture and watching her talk on Facebook about racism, police violence, and equity.

That could have been me. I am Sandra Bland.

All these years later, young Black people are still the targets of hate, violence, and abandonment.

I wrote this piece years ago. But I could have written it today. Yesterday. Or a week ago. The kinds of inhumane, brutal state-sanctioned police killings that have transpired over the last few weeks are not new. The relationship between the Black community and police was designed to institutionalize systemic racism. Breonna Taylor and George Floyd join countless of their brothers and sisters in the ranks of those slain out of an irrational fear of Black bodies that have been systematically and strategically cultivated over generations of this country’s history to maintain white power, control, and supremacy over all aspects of our society.

The way Amy Cooper weaponized her white tears against Christian Cooper in Central Park was not new. Central Park itself actually holds a lot of trauma for Black people, notably in the case of the Exonerated Five. Lynchings like that of Ahmaud Arbery aren’t new. Police have assaulted Black bodies and communities with vehicles, water hoses, dogs, and their own bodies for centuries with impunity, and worse, the silent consent of the majority. Even people’s responses are not new, though they may feel different somehow, whether amplified by the echo chamber of social media, the hyper-attention levels brought on by our new quarantine lifestyle, or the heightened risks we assume putting our bodies on the line while protesting for the right to be treated like human beings during a global public health pandemic.

But here’s what IS new. Us. We are. We are HERE. We CAN change things. And we MUST.

While the world seems strange and unfamiliar in too many ways — it’s also deeply familiar in others. In the last few days, I have often felt almost paralyzed. I keep finding myself going from one extreme emotion to another, often at what seem like polar opposites of the spectrum. And this can happen in the span of a few minutes, as I navigate mundane tasks like going through my email or brushing my teeth. I’m generally feeling anxious and weary all at once.

Yet, in spite of our individual anguish and frustration, Onward, the organization I founded a few years ago, is also doubling down on its important work to dismantle structural racism by finding new ways to face current challenges head-on and maximizing the opportunities they present. At this moment in time, it is important that we each connect others’ humanity with our own experience of struggle. Racial justice is the key to our collective liberation.

AN INVITATION: HOW TO BEGIN TO END RACISM

I invite you to hold up our people and our communities and to work toward real change.

Here are foundational steps non-Black people can take to do their part to dismantle structural racism.

Support text on a pink background with a photo of a brick wall with a heart painted on it

1. Support Black People and Yourself

If nothing else, read this summary list.

Do one new, significant thing to dismantle structural racism. Share it with us. If you need to, do some research and find meaningful actions you can take.
Talk to people in your circles about race, inequity, what you’re learning, and what you’re doing to actively dismantle systemic racism. Talk to as many people as possible, as often as possible.
Invite people in your circles to do two things differently, from small personal things to big, daunting things. People are often eager to make changes, and just don’t know how or where to begin. Anywhere is a good place. Starting is a good thing.
Donate money and volunteer your time at this ripe moment in history to support Black-led organizing to dismantle racial injustice. Set up recurring monthly gifts and keep this going beyond the immediate crisis.
Normalize difference. Expose yourself to Black thought leaders, writers, artists, experts, doctors, dentists, etc., to create empathy and understanding across lines of difference.
Be brave. Do not allow fear to paralyze you. Say the thing you’re inspired to say. Do the things you feel moved to do. As a Black person, I have to be brave every single day — every time I step out of my door.
Keep showing up — it makes all the difference. This is everyone’s problem. This is your fight, too.

Knowledge text on a blue background with a person standing on a stack of books

2. Educate Yourself

Thank you for reaching out and for thinking of us. But please, understand three things and take action accordingly:

Your sympathy alone hurts more than it helps — you actually have to do the work of leading change in your circles, however small they may be.
Asking us to help you understand the reality that your legacy and history have led to today by doing the work for you is an undue burden — you have to do the research, learn our history, including pre-slavery, and build your knowledge of what the implications are today. It is a privilege to learn about racism instead of experiencing it your whole life.
Helping assuage your guilt and excuse you from doing the hard work by providing you validation for the idea that checking on us is doing your part actually helps no one — you don’t have to feel guilty, but you are accountable for what you do with your inheritance of white privilege and responsible for your own ignorance, actions and inaction if you opt-out of doing the work.

So rather than ask us what you can do — which adds to our plates and cognitive loads — do the work of figuring it out for yourself and your people, and even share it with us so that we can lean on you, instead. Consider the following resources:

Peruse this article titled 75 Things White People Can Do For Racial Justice and take inventory of what you could do starting today — and get started;
Compile or find an anti-racist reading list — read the books and share the list widely.

3. Educate Your People and Your Kids

Racism is a white people problem. Black people can fight for change and talk until they’re blue in the face, but things will only truly change when as a country, we contend with the reality of our history and make amends (think Truth and Reconciliation, beginning with the national government taking full responsibility for harm done to date in explicit terms). To begin this process, the general consciousness among white Americans must change, and that change will take place one person at a time. This is where you come in. If you are truly an ally, then we must be able to lean on you to talk to your people and educate them about whiteness, white privilege, systemic racism, and what must change in order for the systems to change. Because until white people in this country truly understand, and call for large-scale system-level change across issues, what has happened over the last few weeks and over the course of generations will continue to happen. Start small, talk to your like-minded friends or family to give each other courage or even make a plan to back each other up, and start talking to people who might not understand or agree. And keep having these courageous conversations because it takes time to change hearts and minds. The most important thing you can do in the long term is to normalize the conversations themselves and to talk about race in a productive way and in as many interactions as you can. And when you feel the courage slipping away, remember those of us for whom thinking and talking about race is an inescapable daily necessity because of the legacy of race in this country.

Many of you have asked us about how you can ensure you don’t raise the next Amy Cooper or Travis McMichael. Well, chances are, you’ve already raised better humans, so you can breathe a sigh of relief. But more importantly, we all want to ensure we raise individuals that are better than us! We want our children not to have to unlearn fear, hate, and complicity or complacency with systems of oppression. Liberate your kids by talking to them a lot about race and racism (interpersonal and systemic). To normalize difference, diversify the content they consume (toys, dolls, books, activities) and the people they perceive as authorities and experts (writers, artists, doctors, dentists, etc). Ensure they are learning about injustice, activism, and are practicing taking age-appropriate but meaningful action to internalize their own agency and power to create change and to understand that dismantling white supremacy and systemic racism is everyone’s responsibility.

Take Action text on yellow background with a green and yellow street arrow

4. Take Action — Put Your Money AND Time Where Your Mouth Is

The following organizations are Black-led and have strategic plans to create system-level change to dismantle racial injustice. Donate or volunteer with them.

Know Your Rights Camp
Grassroots Law Project
Until Freedom
Nation Swell
Camelback Ventures
Flikshop
The Movement for Black Lives
Color of Change

Support Small Black Businesses & People
Black Illustrations
Charles Jean-Pierre
Kirth Bobb Photography
Lavender Blues
ServedFresh
Theaster Gates
Village Leadership Academy