I come from a very rural, very white community in Southern Indiana. I LITERALLY went to Kindergarten in a barn, and my town still has a standing "hanging tree". At 44 years old, I vaguely remember a black family moving into my town and having their house burned down. The father and daughter were both killed, and the mother and son escaped. No one talks about it. The man who runs the only store in my town was very excited that Donald Trump was going to take care of the "coon problem" in the White House when he was elected. He actually said those words to me. He also just ran for a political office and nearly won. The county I live in was the epicenter for one of the biggest HIV outbreaks in our nation's history. We made national news. We had 215 cases of HIV in a county of less than 24,000 in just a few months in 2015-2016. It was strange to see BBC reporters in our little po-dunk county.
I can remember my aunt spanking me for playing with a little black boy at a military base in North Carolina when I was about 6. I never understood what I did wrong. When my dad asked why my aunt had spanked me, she told him it was because I had taken the boy's Hot Wheels. That was just not true. He and I were playing with the cars together, but she was disgusted that I would play with him and even used that dreaded "N word". I did not even meet another black person until I was 17 years old. I had run away from home and ended up in a suburb of Atlanta. What a culture shock that turned out to be. I was determined that just because I was FROM Scott County Indiana that didn't mean I needed to be OF Scott County, Indiana. I made a lot of friends, both white and non-white, while I was there for a few short months, and felt like I had come away from that experience a much more enlightened person.
Scott County Indiana is a largely Appalachian community, even though we are not in the Appalachians. Most of the people who live here have direct ancestors from the coal mines of South East Kentucky. There are two classes of people here, the "well-to-do" and the rest of us who don't matter. We do not have a black community, as only .2% of the population is black (up VERY much from when I was young). However, we DO have systematic poverty. While 4.7% of the US population under 65 draws a disability check, 13.6% of the population under 65 of this county is disabled. Many of these folks are part of generations of people who draw what is referred to here as a "crazy check". They draw disability due to a lack of education and various mental and physical health disorders. I myself was on disability for 11 years due to degenerative disk disease. I used that time to get an education so that I could teach my children to make a living rather than live in poverty. I now work for a community mental health organization, mostly with those in extreme poverty.
I will not pretend that the plight of these folks can even begin to compare to the systematic racism in this country. I have been finding that opening the eyes of those in this area to the systematic poverty of this area has been helping to show some folks how privilege works. Many of those in this area are more of the "All lives matter" movement than the "Black Lives Matter". I have had countless debates on social media about privilege. I am finding the majority have the privilege of not knowing that they are privileged. I am also finding that providing research, personal experiences, and intelligent conversations has been helpful in helping promote growth. This is true not just for those who I am debating with, but also largely for those who are listening. I guess my question is what is working for others to open people's eyes to their own privilege, and is there a better way to convince people with inherent racism that Black Lives Matter?
It's so hard to know what is actually effective. The only impact I feel sure I can have is with myself, which is why I'm here. Aside from this course, I took the simple and easy advice of a black Facebooker to immediately follow 10 black people and just listen to them.
I recommend the powerful and generous black voices of Ally Henny and Brig Feltus. I'm sure there's endless more, but just follow those two for now everyone and see how you get on :)
I pay attention to marginalised communities of all kinds (disabled, trans, POC) as there's so much relevant crossover in their concerns and requests, awareness of inter-sectional discrimination (for example, if you're black and disabled and a woman, the complexity of discrimination you experience and its impact on your life is greater than the sum of its parts) and I challenge myself to STFU and listen when a member of a marginalised community is speaking, upvoting their comments or liking and sharing their content, making sure not to weigh on them with my questions or emotions - as a disabled LGBT+ woman I'm aware it's aaaalll about the cost of emotional labour.
I'm in a really well-held trans education Facebook group that has strict rules on most of their posts such as 'trans first, listen first' where cisgender people cannot comment for the first 6 hours, which works wonders to teach us to sit back and listen and learn before speaking - and I've seen the same rule be applied at poetry slams in the US re race and gender, with the understanding that white men have plenty of opportunity to speak and be heard in this world and we have to make a special effort to give POC the floor. I personally would love to see more well-held spaces for education on race, and more spaces where it's 'black first, listen first' and 'POC first, listen first' so we can get used to listening and giving space to the experts on their own experience.
I do what I can to educate my nieces and nephews about different ways of thinking and that it's okay to be different. I'm pressed for money, but I have made a few small contributions to bail funds and other anti-racist funds at this time. Most recently the trans education group I'm in made it a prerequisite on a post about George Floyd that any white folks wanting to comment there must first make a minimum contribution and post their receipt. A wonderful example of another marginalised community using their space and their power to throw the floor open to black voices and to insist that white people sit back and/or contribute to the fight first.
The last thing I do is call out racism when I see it. My aim is not to change the person's mind, but to do my best to tell them what I see and why it's wrong/problematic/unhelpful. We don't have the power to change everyone's mind in a moment, but there's a couple of things I've noticed:
People are often initially extremely defensive before going away, learning more, digesting their experience and growing somewhere further down the line.
When I call someone out online, even if their response is to ridicule and insult me, I'm doing that emotional labour for the other readers and I know there are people who appreciate that someone said something, and others who might notice something was off-key because I said it and might be more open to growth than the OP.
I LOVE the Black first, listen first idea!!