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I’ve been struggling in my own mind over the past few days thinking about when and how I wanted to address the issues around racism that have been so prevalent. I have to admit I’m apprehensive about posting this because I don’t want to offend anyone or say the wrong thing. But I cannot sit here and say nothing at all.

My heart breaks to see what is happening in our country right now. Sitting on my bed last night I had a conversation with my 14 year old son about how to make the world a better place. He says we just need to be nice to each other. “Mom, I think everyone is doing their best. We should be nicer to people when they make mistakes.” I loved his thoughts and I found myself wishing it could be that simple.

Yesterday I watched a great episode of the show Queer Eye: More Than a Makeover (on Netflix) last night. In this episode, “Dega Don’t” the Fab 5 are called out to make-over a police officer named Corey. The show starts out with the guys driving and discussing their plans…and they end up being pulled over. Karamo (a black man) is driving and it’s immediately apparent that his anxiety is off the charts. It turns out that the officer who pulled them over was playing a joke on them since he was the person who nominated Corey. Later in the episode Corey and Karamo have a heart to heart about that experience and share their thoughts and experiences with racial profiling and police brutality. It was moving and important and I thought how timely that I would be watching that at the same time that I’m struggling with current events.

Earlier today I re-watched a fantastic Ted Talk by Euna Lee called “What I learned as a prisoner in North Korea.” She shares experiences from her 140 days as a prisoner. She says tensions were high and it was scary when she was being interrogated about politics. She then adds that even with her interrogators she was able to see them as human beings if they discussed things like family, day to day life and the importance of the future of our children. Lee talks about how two of the female guards came to her with questions about what it was like in America. She says: 

“If these girls grew up learning that we were enemies it would be just natural for them to hate us just as I feared them. But at that moment we were all just all girls who shared the same interests beyond our ideologies that separated us.”

Euna Lee

I remember the first time someone thought I was racist. I was talking with a friend about who was cute and who wasn’t. She was checking someone out and I agreed he was seriously hot. She looked surprised and said,

“You think he’s cute?”

I responded, “Totally. Don’t you?”

She said, “Wow, I’m just surprised since he’s black. I didn’t think that you liked black guys.”

I remember being in total shock. What had I done to give her that impression? I remembered my sister’s friend that I had a crush on in high school who was an awesome dancer and a nice guy who also happened to be black. I remembered my neighbors who I loved to visit when I was little and how they would talk to me and give me cookies, and they were black. Why would she assume that I wouldn’t be attracted to someone just because of the color of their skin? I realize now that said much more about her than it did about me.

I do not consider myself racist, but I’m not sure if I can call myself anti-racist either. I believe that I’ve had hard conversations with friends, family and my kids. I speak to injustice when I see it happen. But I know I can and must do so much more. Oppression is real and happens all of the time. I must educate myself so that I can use my privilege to raise a voice for those who don’t have it. I need to speak up because black lives…

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