For the last week, Dan, Ashley and I were silent as we committed ourselves to learning, listening and beginning to educate ourselves on the systemic racism that has dominated our country for over four hundred years.
I worry that this post will come across performative. I worry that if I tell you what I’m doing, that it will seem like I’m just telling you, and not actually doing the work, and it’ll look like I’m wanting a gold star and pat on the back. I know that other people are quietly doing the work, without telling us about it. But silently doing the work while also running a small business doesn’t feel right for me in my heart. I know that as a consumer, I want to know what the businesses I support are doing, so I can choose whether or not to support them. As a blog reader myself, I know that white and white passing people are still looking for resources, and I have a few to share. So these are the two reasons why I am sharing this post.
The other reason I am second guessing this post is because it might look like I am centralizing myself in this conversation of unlearning and learning. But I want to share it because a part of me feels like in order to best understand my role in unknowingly upholding white supremacy, I have to self-reflect. Maybe sharing this self-reflection is not the way. Or maybe it will help someone similar to me to better understand why they, too, didn’t notice what I now see as blindingly obvious - deep rooted racism in this country. I know I am not the only white passing person who struggles with depression and anxiety who also wants to be a better ally. My experience last week led to some clarity, for me, in the sustainability of fighting social injustice, so I’m hopeful it might be helpful to anyone else out there struggling with the same.
If you’ve followed me for a while, you know that I have been open about my struggle with depression and anxiety. You also know that I tend to jump into things and go into overdrive (and often, subsequently, burnout). Being a person fighting depression, anxiety and a tendency to take on more than she can handle, it can sometimes make things feel insurmountable and impossible, rendering one paralyzed because the brain can’t figure out what the next step is. By Wednesday of last week, that’s where I was.
I had, I’m embarrassed to admit, just started my own education on systemic oppression in this country. I was watching documentaries, listening to podcasts, following anti-racists and consuming their content on Instagram and TikTok, reading and making To-Read lists of every book and article I could get my hands on about oppression and racism, and having uncomfortable conversations with my family and friends. I began to feel the familiar forceful pull of depression and anxiety, and ultimately, a paralysis of what to do next because while I was listening and doing the work of just beginning to realize my own part in this, I also wanted to make. change. right. now. I felt a delusional sense of urgency to get to work and make huge things happen right. now.
But obviously it doesn’t work that way. I just didn’t know that yet.
In order to best understand my role in systemic oppression, I needed to really identify who I was. And it opened my eyes to the fact that I have issues surrounding my own racial identity, and the idea of belonging. (Internal Dialogue: Fuck, is this me centralizing myself in the conversation again? Or is this part of my educational journey as to the role I played in perpetuating racism and oppression?) For some quick background context, I am Lebanese and Hispanic. I remember being made fun of for bringing yebret (Lebanese stuffed grape leaves) to middle school for lunch. I remember the shame of not knowing my biological father, who was actually cheating on his family when he got my mom pregnant. (She had no idea he was married with a family, she just bought what he’d told her, that he worked three jobs and had limited time to be with her). He’d lied about his name and origin, and said he was from Puerto Rico, but at the end of their relationship, my mom found his Green Card and he was actually from Ecuador. She cut off all ties to him once she found out he was married. When I made contact with him in college to see if he wanted to get to know me, he said, “Let the past be in the past,” hung up, and changed his number.
My mom married a guy after, when I was a toddler, and all that she’s ever really said about him besides the fact that he could get violent when he drank, was that he called me a “Spic baby.” She divorced him soon after.
A few years later, she went on to marry my step dad, who has been my dad since I was four, and who I call dad, because he is. He is a good, hardworking, kind man.
I constantly felt like I had to prove my intellect. I had a teacher tell me to drop out of my Honors classes, one woman telling me, “You’re not Honors material.” I’d been told I should consider vocational school instead of college because, “I don’t think college is for you.." I beamed when my teacher said, “You know, you’re not as dumb as you look.”
I pursued college for a degree in Spanish and a Master’s in Education, thinking that maybe if I spoke Spanish fluently, my biological father would want something to do with me (spoiler: he didn’t). In college, I’d take Spanish class with students who grew up speaking Spanish and while I could understand, thanks to a 6 month stint with the American Field Service, I was always a few steps behind while listening to the conversations in class. I didn’t feel like I belonged. Not with the Hispanic group, and not with the typical white kids.
So why did I go down this rabbit hole with all these thoughts last week when I started learning about racial oppression? Because I was trying to figure out where I went wrong. How did I not see what was so clearly right in front of me?
I think it’s because all my life, I’ve felt like I was working against some sort of struggle to prove my worth, and I always focused on my own issues so much so that I didn’t even realize my own white privilege. I didn’t take a moment to consider how much harder it would’ve been were I a Black woman or woman with darker skin color. And I didn’t take a moment to question why that might be and what, in our American system, might be so flawed that Black and Brown people would experience so much more struggle than white and white passing people. My own ignorance is disgusting to me. But I have to own it. Now that I recognize it, is it an excuse for not doing anything? Absolutely not. But it helps me to better understand now that I have a different lens to look through (and that ability to look through different lenses rather than experiencing a life within that lens, I now recognize, is white privilege.)
And now what? How do I move forward? How do I do better? I thought I was an ally, but I wasn’t. Not realizing my privilege was the privilege. I felt I was a self-aware person, but wow. Thirty six years on this earth, and it wasn’t as crystal clear how wildly unaware I’d been (and still am).
The town I grew up in had so few Black and Brown students. Maybe eight Black students in a school of 450 or so kids. Maybe fifteen Brown kids, mostly from Colombia. I never stopped to ask myself why, or look to see how they were treated. I was too busy trying to prove I belonged in the Honors classes, and too busy being in a toxic relationship. Again, these are not excuses. I should have done better.
As many of you know, I started my adult life as a school teacher. I taught, in total, for only a few years, spending one year at each school. One year, I was a middle school Spanish teacher in Hartford, Connecticut at a charter school. I was a seventh grade Spanish teacher. They bussed in white kids from the suburbs for diversity. I remember one Black boy in particular who would sit outside the school doors before the janitors got there. And he was the last kid to leave, long after the final bell had rung. He was always hungry. He was a sweet kid, but he was already in the school to prison pipeline, a term I just (embarrassingly) learned last week. He was written off as a child with learning disabilities, and “anger issues" and I don’t remember any of us stopping to question any of it. I have a Master’s Degree in secondary education and do not remember having one class on race, diversity or teaching in inner city environments. Why wasn’t I taught about the school to prison pipeline? Why weren’t all of us teachers?
I could feel a difference between the white kids and the Black kids, but one instance really gave a visual example of how things were different. I remember once we had a drive by shooting. My kids were taking a test, so it was silent in the room. I remember the pop pop pop as bullets flew, miraculously ricocheting off the metal frame of my classroom windows, and me and the white kids stood up and looked around, and all of the Black and Brown kids instinctively slid down under their desks. That was the first time I realized there was something going on. They knew what to do because those sounds were not new to them. Instead of asking myself what the root cause was (systemic oppression and racism) that nearly all the kids who slid under their desks were living in what we are told to be notoriously dangerous areas of Hartford where these sounds are not surprising, I felt a sadness for them. And that, too, is white privilege. And ignorant. And unhelpful.
After that, I started seeing things through a different lens, but still, admittedly, I didn’t do anything to help. I knew things were different between the white kids and Black and Brown kids, but I didn’t know what to do. I remember having a chair hurled at me. Once, a kid put his hands on me. I didn’t want to report anything because I felt the punishments were too severe. I remember thinking that there had to be something deeper. A kid doesn’t just throw his chair at you or grip your arms with rage for no reason. What was home life like? This was one of the kids who was always hungry. And even though they received free and reduced breakfasts and lunches, the quality of that food was garbage. How could a kid be expected to function in school when their nutrition was crap?!
I remember a student in our grade lost her brother. The details surrounding his death were confusing. There were rumors. I was taught, in my graduate classes, never to hug the children. Don’t be in a room alone with a child. Be careful about what you wear. Always have a second adult nearby, if you can. Protect yourself in case they accuse you of something inappropriate. That was ingrained in me. I remember very distinctly kids being visibly shaken learning that they’d lost a community member, a student’s brother. On that day, a bright, sweet Black boy, his lower lip trembling and eyes filled with tears said to me, “Miss, can I just have a hug?” And I gave him a hug and remember feeling so resentful that my graduate program did not prepare me for this, and worse - taught me to lead with a “protect yourself” mentality rather than with a heart. I had full class on how to dress properly but no preparation as to what youths in the inner city are dealing with. And when it started to become more clear to me, I was unprepared, young, white and therefore ignorant due to my white privilege, and stressed out because I could see there were deeper issues, systemic issues, but had administration breathing down my neck to get standardized testing grades up. Imagine! How can a kid give a shit about a test when they had real world problems to deal with?!
I remember the event we had before the school year started. It was between 3-5pm or so and it was a chance for parents to come in and meet their children’s teachers. I only had a handful come, most of them white. I never stopped to think about why. That maybe most of the Brown and Black children had parents who worked hourly jobs that required them to be at work. And when parent teacher conferences came around, the same thing happened. It was so obvious looking back, but I didn’t stop to think about it. My white privilege blinded me from seeing what was so clearly right in front of me.
Eventually, I left teaching. I abandoned those kids and that system. The ability to walk away and strike out on my own as a blogger is white privilege. Ignoring the problem and not helping is white privilege. I have been thinking about it all this past week for the first time.
And that’s not the only instance of white privilege I’ve noticed recently. It’s something I have every day, and just hadn’t realized it.
As you can see, there’s been a lot on my mind. I started thinking about my business.
My studio is in a predominantly white area. The students I have at workshops, retreats and teacher trainings are mostly white, although thankfully not all white. I don’t know if that means the handful of Black and Brown people took a chance on me, or if I truly did anything to make them feel welcome. I know I have to do better. I must.
In thinking about the Mantra Box®, a quarterly discovery box I started years ago to support small business, I realized my white privilege had prevented me from even considering the races of the business owners. I’m only now just beginning to understand how difficult it is for Black-owned businesses to thrive. On the blog, we even put up photos of the business owners we supported each quarter in the box because we wanted to show that when you support small business, you have a direct impact on those families. Our white privilege blinded us from recognizing the lack of representation. That is one area of business where we can make an immediate change. But it’s not enough. I have to do better.
So, as you can see, I found myself thinking a lot, and as I’d opened up on IG about earlier this month, I’ve been reacquainted with my longtime counterpart of depression and anxiety. I’ve felt overwhelmed. To admit my overwhelm embarrasses me because being overwhelmed by it after the fact, rather than living the overwhelm every day of my life like a Black or Brown person might feel due to constant micro-aggressions, and blatant or subliminal racism is also white privilege. I’m being honest with my feelings but also knowing my feelings don’t matter in this moment.
When I am experiencing depression, there are layers. One layer feels like I’m in a cave. A dark, hollow space where thoughts swirl around, spinning like a tornado, the deafening noise of them echoing so much you squeeze your eyes shut and crinkle your face to try to collect yourself, but you can’t. You can’t seem to put your hand up to catch one of those thoughts and make sense of it because it’s moving too fast, it’s too loud, your heart is racing, you can’t find your footing. So these thoughts and rhetorical questions and memories of instances where racial inequality was so obvious swirl until I feel helpless, despite logically knowing that I’m not, and I can’t see the next step, despite knowing that there is one. And worse, I know there is a much more destructive storm happening, still happening, right now, in the real world, every fucking day, to the Black community, a storm that I have had a hand in perpetuating without realizing it, and I know that the sooner I can claw my way out of this storm, the sooner I will be able to get to the real work that needs to be done - the work of education, self-reflection, and actionable movement forward. Or maybe this storm is the self-reflection. I don’t know. I don’t feel like I know anything right now.
So I was deep in that storm on Wednesday and Thursday last week. Two people in my circle recognized this - my boyfriend, and a white passing friend who had similar experiences to me growing up. We had long, uncomfortable talks. They encouraged me to slow down, reminding me that hundreds of years of systemic racism cannot be repaired in one week. That if I was truly going to do my part, I had to make sure to take care of myself in conjunction with that.
Also last week, I discovered Lattice Hudson, a Black woman and business coach, who shared 5 Big Asks in an IGTV, and that was the real catalyst for me to begin to see some clarity and how to make this work sustainable. She says not to rush the process, that overly quick action will end up in burnout and defeat. She is also holding an Affirmative Action Workshop for white and non-Black business coaches and business owners (today at 4pm EST) that I’ll be taking to begin to understand some actionable next steps I can take as a business owner as I continue to reflect on the ways in which my doing business has contributed to the problem.
It was her point that “overly quick action will end up in burnout and defeat” that spoke to me. I have to continue to learn about racism and anti-racism, and reflect, but do it slowly and mindfully, so that I don’t wind up burned out and defeated, which would render me useless in this movement.
If I want to be a better ally, I have a responsibility to continue my personal journey, as I examine my own bias, education (and lack of education), and my own role in perpetuating racism. I have to understand that this will be an ongoing, daily practice. If I want to be a better ally in terms of business, I know that moving forward, I need to take small, actionable steps to use my privilege to lift Black people and people of color up. I understand that I will make mistakes, but I am committed to being open, listening, learning, doing the work, and ultimately, doing better.
For myself, this looks like:
Education first and foremost, following by self-reflection and having uncomfortable conversations.
Reading: I have a whole list of books I plan to read, but I’ll just share this month’s. I am reading (So You Want to Talk About Race, Eviction and the book club I belong to is reading The Vanishing Half). I also recommend subscribing to the Anti-Racism Newsletter founded by Nicole Cardoza - lots of information to continue your education as well as little steps you can do daily to be an anti-racist (and you can contribute to her work right within the newsletter)
Social: I am following a number of people doing incredible work on Instagram, including - but definitely not limited to - Light Watkins, blogger and very cool human Sajda, blogger sharing relatable advice Ayana, amazing fitness coach/branding expert Dynasti, and teacher Rachel Cargle.
Watching and Listening: Again, just sharing what I plan to watch and listen to this month.
13th, a documentary about US prisons and the criminalization of Black people in the US.
1916, a podcast series about slavery in the US.
American Police, this is a bonus episode about the history of policing in the US and its role in systemic oppression.
Code Switch, a podcast series with race as the central discussion
Donations: COVID has really had a major impact in my finances, but I had made donations this month to the Minnesota Bail Fund, the Anti-Racism Newsletter, Black Lives Matter, and George Flyod’s Memorial Fund. I plan to make monthly donations to different organizations and efforts of this movement because I understand they need cash flow to continue, but I understand that we can’t just throw money at a charity and move on. We have to do the actual work of learning (and unlearning).
For my business, this looks like education first, self-reflection in terms of business and more intentional steps forward in the business world. I have a lot of ideas for the future, but the immediate ones we’ll focus on this month are:
Online learning: Again, just sharing what I’m doing this month.
Affirmative Action Workshop for white and non-black people, happening today at 7pm EST. I’m hopeful that this workshop will help educate me on how to bring more diversity to my small business.
Constant Content Webinar brought to you by The Boss Up Agency (founded by Britney Nicole) - this is for businesses trying to navigate content in this time. Happening this Wednesday. I’m hopeful that this will help us to be more intentional with the content that we create across our social platforms.
Anti Racism for Wellness Professionals - brought to you by Chrissy King. This is a workshop for wellness professionals on how to show up better and anti-racism practices. She has a number of days she’s offering this course in June, so if you’re a wellness professional, get on it!
Better representation in Mantra Box®
Mantra Box® started as a way to support and uplift small business owners. I recognize that our white privilege prevented us from looking critically to see if we were also uplifting Black-owned businesses, as well as businesses owned by people of color. While there is no excuse for that, we have steps in place to do better as we continue to learn.
Is this enough? No. Absolutely not. It’s the starting point of my journey and it will continue. If you’d like, I can continue to share monthly what I’m planning to read/listen/follow. Again, I understand that this might come off a self-congratulatory, but I also understand that being silent does more harm than good. I know I will get it wrong sometimes, and I am open to learning and doing better.