This past Sunday I got together with three other residents in my town to discuss issues of bias in our schools and community. The specifics aren’t important except to say that we have the same issues endemic in our society in all locations and our current organizations/groups focused on similar issues for one reason or another aren’t doing the job. We decided a first step would be to host a meeting to hear directly from those affected about inclusion, generally POC and other folks underrepresented in our overwhelmingly white, religiously/culturally Christian town.
One member of our foursome (our only member born outside the country and whose kids have been bullied in part because of their Muslim faith) sent out a message to ~100 residents, letting them know of our proposed meeting date and theme. It was a mix of members of affected communities as well as, for lack of a better phrase, typical white activists in suburban towns.
Grab a beverage and join me below the fold to hear how that group message went, after taking a peek at how YOU can help our Top Comments community!
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Let me group responses into several categories, then share my thoughts as I read them:
1. Great! It’s on my calendar!
2. I can’t come to the meeting. [often followed by ‘but keep me posted’]
3. Let me know what I can do!
4. Hey, that time doesn’t work for me because I have a Thing, can you move it please?
5. This format isn’t convenient, here’s my email and please keep me up to date. [poster then leaves group message]
1. This is lovely! You did exactly what we needed! You didn’t take up unnecessary space!
2. OK, so there’s 100+ people on here but it’s really important we know YOU can’t make it. Every single person in this group so far is white.
3. Umm. We literally said what you can do... come to this meeting to listen to and learn from those dealing with discrimination, bullying and lack of inclusion in our town. This reminds me of people who want to ‘resist’ but can’t because, “well, Susie has gymnastics on Saturdays so I can’t march, and 5pm protests at the State House are not possible because dinner, and so on and so on but I am DEFINITELY DOWN FOR being a resistor!”
4. I had to walk away from my computer when I read this one and yes, whypipo posted this. The absolute audacity of suggesting that a meeting date chosen because the black and brown voices we want to center are available should be changed because of mememe and mymymy plans. I wondered if this is what my black, brown, trans, queer, muslim, jewish, undocumented folks have to deal with.
5. I admit, my response to this was to explain how to mute notifications to individual messages, and that once we met we likely would come up with other ways to communicate. Ironically, if you leave the group it makes it hard to let you know about future shifts in communication. And expecting a person whose family is directly affected by this issue to harvest your email address and create a separate list because you are inconvenienced by this method makes me ragey.
I have been thinking a lot over the past two days about the responses to this message as well as my emotions surrounding those responses. It’s been clear to me that we all of us have work to do unpacking. And let me say this:
I apologize to black and brown activists, LGBTQ+ activists, non-native born activists, and anyone else who’s ever had to try to do the work in a room full of allegedly woke white folks.
I’m sorry for all the times I took up way more space in a room than I needed to.
I’m sorry for times when I thought my ally voice was supposed to be centered rather than the primary voices.
I’m sorry for the times when I made it harder to lift up needed voices.
I promise to keep trying to do better.
Time now to peruse the trio of Top Comments, Mojo and Pictures, brought to you by my friend and excellent person, BeninSC.
Top Comments
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Highlighted by Joker2101:
Is this comment by WYgalinCali, posting the new Biden ad that leverages Joni Ernst’s great political fears. Nice to see her face consequence for her poor choices.
Highlighted by becherer amy:
Comes this difficult to unsee visual comment by Anne Elk.
Highlighted by Democrat in the South:
Comes this funny comment by ZedMont skewering IMPotus and his brand of stupidity.
TOP MOJO
Top Mojo for yesterday, January 27th, 2019, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary on FAQing Top Mojo.
Top Pictures
January 28th 2019. Click any picture to be taken to the full comment or picture. Thank you jotter!