As uproar fades, don’t let your anti-racist passion die
Since the death of George Floyd in my home state, my life has been upended. In the beginning, my phone was buzzing off the hook. My friends, my family, colleagues, acquaintances – even the lunch lady and teachers at my kids’ school – were all checking in. What’s more, they were all asking for advice: What can they do to help? How do they talk to their kids about racism? What action can they take today?
The questions lasted for about two weeks – then it went radio silent. People stopped reaching out and they seemed to just move on with their lives.
I haven’t moved on. I have been asking myself: How can I keep my family safe; how did I get nominated for the task of giving advice to everyone; why have they now seemed to stop caring?
I grew up in Minnesota, outside of its big cities, in a town called St. Cloud about 1.5 hours from Minneapolis. I am biracial and adopted, raised by white parents who are best described as ’60sera hippies, in an all-white town.
The few years I attended a predominantly Black high school, I felt like an outsider. This feeling of not knowing where I fit has been present my entire life.
In my professional life, my race always feels like an exercise in others’ conveniences. I am white enough that people are comfortable with me, as long as I don’t call too much attention to my obvious blackness. I am seen as Black when they need me to speak to the “Black experience” – as if I could possibly explain all thoughts and opinions of an entire race of individuals. I am still the same outsider that I’ve been my whole life.
I am not an expert on racial justice, or a policymaker or even a community organizer. I do not have any special training or qualifications other than the skin I was born in, but after George Floyd’s death I became the sudden, primary source for answers to urgent adviceseeking questions on race relations because, it turns out, I may the one Black friend to countless white people in my life.
The
people
turning
to me
to
help them navigate this countrywide awakening were transferring their good intentions, lack of understanding or maybe their guilt, onto me. But then it stopped. They stopped asking, they stopped posting, and I have to ask myself whether they stopped caring.
At first, when I couldn’t keep up with the messages, I started sending a canned response which included suggesting a few organizations where people could donate supplies to businesses and people impacted by generations of racism and inequalities ignited by yet another unjust killing of a Black man.
Now, after the original uproar, I am asking myself, where did everyone go? Do they still care? Is it now my responsibility to restart the conversations? To keep the conversation going? To try to fix this?
I’ve had a little time to process the sadness of it all, the increased worry I feel about raising my children and the anxiety I feel when my adult Black son and my Black husband leave our home.
I don’t know how to keep the momentum going. But there is a lot of work to be done, and what I can offer, as perhaps your one Black friend, is how to help in this moment:
Change begins within yourself, and it takes work. I appreciate that people would seek my advice on what to do and how to educate their children, but there is no “easy” or succinct answer I can send via a phone call or text message.
You have to do your own work. Expecting something to be handed to you is exercising privilege. Make the effort.
Finally, that friendship you have with that one Black friend? Make sure it is real and you are an equal contributor – checking in with no agenda, celebrating wins, supporting losses, and showing up not out of obligation, guilt or pandering but out of love.
Real friends put in the work instead of springing out of the woodwork when tragedy happens. Real friends share burdens and try to lighten the load – not add to it. Real friends know having one Black friend is not enough.