Ways to Make Black Lives Matter More: Reflections to Prompt Action
To my Black kin, family, and friends first: This continues to be fucked up. To have to deal once again with public sharing of death and the devaluing of life, against the backdrop of a pandemic that allows you/us not to be together to hug one another, get affirmation of your humanity, is just the fucking worst. There are no two ways around it.
To everyone else: Saying there is “work to do” is an understatement. Really, there is both work to do and much work to undo. There are moments when despair creeps in, freeze me in place, and ways I believe I am powerless to address the systematic realities of living in a world that continues to not value Black lives.
And yet, I have a great deal of power that must be used. Many of us do. There are numerous guides, lists, curricula, and offers of white folks talking to white folks, non-Black People of Color, and Black folks during this time to make sense of racism and white supremacy. While continuing to uplift those, I offer below are those questions I reflect on daily, considerations that push me to make Black lives value more interpersonally and culturally. Questions that I ask whether or not someone currently “trends” as a hashtag.
What’s my investment in thinking racism is just an issue of education?
Many of us believe Black lives will matter more as people learn more about interpersonal and systemic racism. Someone just needs the right article, the apt story to change their ways. As someone who believes in the power of education, nothing has challenged this more than the idea of others’ devaluing human life.
I am old enough to see article after article, list after list, painful video after painful video that still has not convinced a majority of people that Black lives matter. I have repeatedly seen kin and friends share their pain, publicly, time after time, to only be ignored. It seems like education just is not enough.
If I/we are committed to making Black lives matter, we must work to combat those forces that make Black lives matter less than others’ lives on internal, interpersonal, and organizational levels. Let’s absolutely engage one another in learning more about the structure and contours of racism and white supremacy. But let us also not fool ourselves into thinking that addressing this at just one level does it.
Where do I prioritize my comfort and peace over Black lives and livelihoods? What am I willing to lose and give up?
This is a big one.
I wonder the ways I engage via social media to not otherwise disrupt my life. While I am working on relationships with some people in my life who I ardently disagree, I know I weigh bringing these issues up because of fear of discomfort in that relationship. And yes, there may be complications involved. But ultimately, I am prioritizing my comfort and peace over addressing the issue. Maybe I am thinking of being delicate, because “I’d rather keep the conversation going than angering this person.” If that’s the case, who can I find to have this conversation? Who has more at stake in this relationship than me? Anti-racist work must be ego-less. It’s not about me doing the work; it’s about the work getting done.
How much am I trying to enter into relationships with people who disagree (at best) with me? How much is my saying I don’t want to build a relationship with someone about my comfort and peace rather than actually improving Black lives? Yes, there are a host of reasons why we may not choose to enter relationships we believe to be combative or hostile. And, I continually ask myself which reasons I choose not to answer these relationships.
What ends does my social media engagement serve? To what extent is my social media engagement performative?
I never post a video or an image. People can find that shit on their own.
I often ask myself when it’s “time” to post. I take notice of my internal feelings when (and for whom) I feel compelled to post. Do I post only when the violence is explicit? What about the implicit times? Is it primarily centered around Black men? Is what compels me to talk about Black men the same for Black women and Black trans folks?
How am I being the proactive one with friends and family, bringing this up both in times of names as hashtags and times when there is a media lull? Engaging people over social media is not the answer. Many studies point this out and show that even at its most humane, social media algorithms thrive on social division.
How am I investing energy in making Black lives matter beyond conversations and education?
How often does my work for Black lives stay in the realm of social media and interpersonal conversations? What does my support for Black lives and livelihoods look like beyond this? How is my support for Black lives always at a distance (e.g., Ferguson, Baltimore, Minneapolis)? How do I make my support for Black lives both local and national simultaneously?
Where is my time spent? Where am I physically putting my body on the line? Where am I present, even in times of COVID-19? Where am I putting my livelihood at stake?
What emotional labor am I taking on for Black friends, kin, and family? Who am I checking in with? Who am I not? What drives those decisions?
Where have my physical and monetary donations gone in the past six months? How am I aligning my giving, no matter the amount, to my values? What organizations do I give to locally, nationally, and internationally? How do I vary this in meaningful ways? What policies at the local, state, and federal level do I need to keep an eye on that may endanger Black lives?
To be clear, Black Lives do matter to many of us. And we have a far way to go before that statement is no longer required. We can do more to make Black lives matter to everyone. These questions, and the actions they require, are just examples of the ways I/we can commit to this work.
