Black History Month: 5 Ways Non-Black People of Color Can Disrupt Anti-Blackness
If you are active or work in a predominantly white organization or institution, Black History Month is most likely a month when the token black person in your professional setting is asked to perform and contribute a lot to enrich or educate the community. The best case scenario would be to have a diverse community in order to prevent this dumping of responsibility on just one person. Unfortunately, at least in my context at a school of Theology in Denver, CO, the percentage of black students is unacceptably low. Therefore, the responsibility of representing an entire population falls on a handful of students. I had asked a friend to contribute to Platform’s Blog series this month, suggesting that maybe she could write on Black History Month. Her eyelids fluttered multiple times as she went on to explain that she was already involved in several other campus projects for Black History Month and did not have time to add another thing to her list of contributions. After this interaction, I realized how I had incited the kind of tokenism I’ve explained thus far. By asking her to speak on Black History Month as a Black woman in a predominantly white institution, I was continuing the tendency of placing the responsibility of education on her shoulders. Moving forward from this, I realized I could write a piece on Black History Month from the perspective of a non-black POC. For me, this month is about addressing and disrupting the anti-blackness in my own community. Here are five ways other non-black people of color can do the same!
Opt Out of the Oppression Olympics!
Building bridges and distributing equity is complicated by all of our individual contexts, intersecting identities, and personal experiences. When talking about systemic oppression and racism towards the Black community, I opt out of the oppression olympics by not trauma-bonding or comparing experiences under white supremacy in a way that elevates or glorifies my suffering. Ultimately, no person of color’s individual experience in a white supremacist world is going to be the same so let’s just hear each other out, pass the mic, and balance taking up space with providing space.
Google it!
This one is pretty simple and is inspired by a class I took last week. Non-black POC and white people have a tendency to direct all of their questions about the Black community to the only black person in the room (which is the case in predominantly white settings, not ALL settings). The intention may not be bad and if we have questions, we should definitely ask them! But! Let’s pause for a second and think about the impact a question might have or what it could possibly trigger. By googling it, we’re addressing intent versus impact. In other words, an innocent intention behind our curiosity does not inherently soften our impact. To avoid harmful impact, Let’s grab our smartphones, laptops, tablets, or hop over to a library and google it!
Validate, affirm, and uplift!
On the other hand, when a Black person is willing to speak up about their experiences or share a piece of themselves or their personal or broad culture, affirmation and validation of their experiences can go a long way. Ultimately, sometimes the best thing is to say, “I hear you, I see you, and I stand with you.”
Don’t pull a Gina Rodriguez…
If this reference is unfamiliar, just google Gina Rodriguez and you’ll find that she has received a lot of criticism for being anti-Black. Not only has she invalidated the importance of Black affinity spaces and role models, but she recently said the N word on her Instagram story. Dear Latinx siblings: please, please, please let’s remove this word from our vocabulary. We cannot claim ownership over this word because our community does not have a history of trauma associated with it. When we hear a Black sibling use this word, it is not an invitation for us to use it, write it, or sing along to it. The word takes on a new meaning when a non-Black person uses it and we need to be conscious of this.
Venmo!
Now, if we feel like we’re actively addressing anti-Blackness in our communities, but want to continue our support then let’s put our money where our mouth is! We should find a Black-led organization that’s already doing community building, anti-racist work and support them with our $$$$. An organization I’ve been following since my move to Denver is Soul2Soul Sisters. Not only is this a great affinity space, but they also do anti-racist workshops for non-Black folx!
Check them out: https://soul2soulsisters.org/