This is where I struggle. Have I internalized what I've learned? How would I know? I still don't have POC as friends. So maybe all of my efforts are worthless. Is this performative ally-ship?
I do not think it is performative allyship when you are trying to understand your white privilege and how that has affected your life. Just because you do not often encounter people of color daily does not mean you have not seen, heard, read about, and experienced racism and white supremacist ideas in your community, school, etc. Your efforts (and I am hoping mine, in turn) are not worthless because in educating oneself, in becoming more aware of the systemic issues, we can be advocates for change. It may be in small ways, cooking and baking dishes from different parts of the world and learning the history behind some of those dishes, asking for more diverse books and experiences in our local schools, , voting for people that are aligned with our new ways of thinking instead of people that do not see racism as a problem. Theses are just a handful of the ways I think we can do things that are small and big to address our privilege and use our shame toward positive action.
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I do not think it is performative allyship when you are trying to understand your white privilege and how that has affected your life. Just because you do not often encounter people of color daily does not mean you have not seen, heard, read about, and experienced racism and white supremacist ideas in your community, school, etc. Your efforts (and I am hoping mine, in turn) are not worthless because in educating oneself, in becoming more aware of the systemic issues, we can be advocates for change. It may be in small ways, cooking and baking dishes from different parts of the world and learning the history behind some of those dishes, asking for more diverse books and experiences in our local schools, , voting for people that are aligned with our new ways of thinking instead of people that do not see racism as a problem. Theses are just a handful of the ways I think we can do things that are small and big to address our privilege and use our shame toward positive action.