Let’s play a game
We are done waiting for things to change. We know how things were constructed and we are demanding our fellow humans join us in changing the current culture that threatens the health and wellbeing of Black folks.
As individuals we each have to:
confront the stories we’ve been told and accepted
confront our biases towards the “other”
call out leaning into or proximity to Whiteness
As a collective we must also:
acknowledge US history
own our roles in a racist system, internalized superiority or internalized oppression
heal the divisiveness within communities of color
identify and deconstruct the structures, policies and practices that reinforce White Supremacy
“There is a structure to all systemic abuses of power. Structure is what makes them (the issues) systemic.” affirmed Baratunde Thurston in his Ted Talk “How to deconstruct racism, one headline at a time”. Thurston invites us the “play a game” to breakdown, line-by-line, the patterns we see (insert daily activity) while Black and the racist reactions from fellow citizens.
Thurston frames these daily accounts of living while Black in four parts: subject, action, target, and behavior and urges us to:
Reverse the roles.
Increase the believability of the reversal.
Change the action.