Black Lives Matter. Black Stories Matter.
Today, no other post will do. It has been a heavy week in the black community. It’s been a heavy month. A heavy year…heavy for centuries.
Oppression & suppression against the black community has been going on for hundreds of years. It did not end when slavery was abolished. It just took on different forms.
And today, I stand here saddened. Saddened by the lack of empathy & lack of action we are taking as a whole, as a collective, because their story does not match ours.
You know how many times I’ve heard “Racism doesn’t exist anymore,” or “The media is blowing it all out of proportion & hyping up the situation. It’s not really that bad,” or “Blacks are more racist against whites than whites are against them”? Too many times. You know who said these things? White people. You know why they said it? Because their lives, their stories, do not have the personal experience of racism being in their own face.
They are living their life with white privilege & can’t see that others have a different experience than their own.
Why do we think it’s ok to only listen to people whose stories match our own & use it to justify how someone else’s story is invalid just because it doesn’t match our own story? We have seen it happen in the black lives matter movement, the me too movement, & on, & on. We are only listening to ourselves & people who look like us. We must stop doing this! All stories matter. We cannot only listen to ourselves. We cannot continue only seeing the world through our experience. We must listen. We must see.
Black lives matter. Black stories matter.
In Circle, we sit in a circle to remind ourselves that we are all equal, that all stories matter. We speak our truth & we hold space for one another’s stories even when the person next to us is experiencing a completely different truth than us. In Circle, we are reminded by the shape of the circle of the cyclical phases of nature & the cyclical phases of the moon. There is constantly change & we are all on a different time line. Some are experiencing a springtime of life with happiness, newness, & joy while another is experiencing a hard winter of life with pain, loss, & hard work. And that is ok. We are meant to experience life differently. It creates a beautiful tapestry by all the different & unique stories that the collective holds. But, what we are not meant to do is to think that someone’s winter is invalid because we ourselves are in spring, so they should be too.
This principle from Circle is one that should overflow into our daily lives. Just as we hold space for one another in Circle, so too, should we be holding space for one another in life.
Just as we listen without judgement, advice, or opinions, so too, should we be listening to our black sisters & the black community as a whole right now.
It does not matter if you personally have not experienced racism. That’s your story. But there are others who clearly have experienced it. Racism is clearly here. Racism is clearly a problem. Racism is clearly something we must deal with NOW.
And the racist you might have to deal with right now might not look like a racist at all. They might look like a nice person.
A person can look like a “good person” & still perpetuate racism to continue.
Because they are unaware. They are not taking note of their words & actions & they are not listening to other people’s stories. They can only see their own. They are blinded by their own story. Their ears are stopped up from their own story.
So, what about ourselves? Are we listening? Are we striving to see the world from other’s perspectives? Are we holding space for people that do not look like us?
If you are white, please don’t just read my words. Read the words of black folx, listen to their stories, believe their truths, mourn with them, & take action. I am not qualified to give you the full story…I am experiencing life with white privilege. So, please, allow me to only point you to dig deeper.
If you are black or a person of color, I am so sorry for your pain. I hold space for you today in my heart.
