Grappling with our complicity

To truly end race-based discrimination, we have to be able to grapple with our own complicity.

As a white person, I’ve been trying to do the work of educating myself on lived experiences that lie outside my own, by doing research, surrounding myself by voices who speak to these experiences from their own lives and listening.

I consider this step one on the journey of being an engaged ally.

I acknowledge that I have been afforded countless opportunities and resources simply because the system of oppression that is white supremacy has made it possible.

I acknowledge the need to continue to do this work and that this will probably be a life long journey.

And I deeply feel that, unless we find ways to skilfully deal with the uncomfortable feelings that come up along the way, we cannot succeed.

I have needed (and continue to need) to sit with feelings of guilt. Of shame. Of grief. Of helplessness and overwhelm. Those are my feelings to be with and process.

But one of the (myriad) pitfalls of white supremacy is an obsession with the individual and the ignorance of the power inherent in communal care (see also: Beyond Self-Care Bubble Baths: A Vision for Community Care).

The narrative of individual responsibility and change protects stasis, whether it’s adapting to inequality or poverty or pollution. — Rebecca Solnit, “When the hero is the problem”

I am not the only white person encountering these feelings. We all face them on the journey of building awareness and taking conscious action toward lasting and sustainable change. This is what, ultimately, lies beneath the call for the “elimination of racial discrimination”.

We can — and I believe we have to — find ways of being with these challenging emotions. By ourselves and with each other. As people benefitting from white privilege and the inequitable distribution of power and resources that continue to benefit us.

What we cannot do, is place that burden of our discomfort and grief, our guilt and shame, on our Black, Indigeneous and People of Color friends and community members.

Of course we can learn from and with each other. We have countless things to share with one another.

But the emotional burden of our collective grief is not one of these things.

Instead, we can learn to show up as allies and accomplices in this fight to end racial discrimination. It does take all of us.

And it starts by examining ourselves and learning to hold the discomfort of the insights we gain as we are becoming more aware. Using that discomfort as a wise teacher. In order to not repeat the violent mistakes of our past and build a brighter tomorrow.

As James Baldwin said “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”