I'm ready to show up

I'm not ready to teach people about whiteness or racism or privilege, but I want to be able to do that some day. I feel called to do it. It's heavy. It weighs on my heart daily. There's a little fire burning there.

The spark appeared several months ago when I went to see a museum installation about Nelson Mandela (which I will probably share more about in the future). What I can say about that right now is that the main question I left there with was: Where were the white people, the allies, the helpers -- whatever we want to call them? Anti-black racism was the major theme of the day, and I was fascinated to learn more about Mandela's work, but I am white and I found that what I was curious about was what the white people were doing, because I was unable to walk away from that experience without assuming that there were white people in the mix who were opposed to the oppression. And there were. I'm reading about them right now in Mandela's autobiography -- Long Walk to Freedom.

I know it's not about the white people, but if I'm ever going to be able to sit with other people as they grapple with their whiteness I need to find the white allies and study their actions, their ideas, their every move. They are my mentors, and so far I'm struggling to find very many of them (more on this later too).

Then I read From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle, and I was moved even more deeply. (Please read this book.) I started to feel like it was my mission to dig into systemic racism and learn about what white people are doing to fix it. I was reminded that I had recently heard indigenous journalist Jesse Wente say that it's not indigenous people who need to get over the history of Canada -- it's the rest of Canada. The ones who created the oppression need to get their act together. Once again I had some trouble finding the white allies when I went looking. I have some ideas, but I need to dig more.

So here I sit, swirling in my own whiteness. Sitting with it. Feeling the discomfort. Especially since the fascinating social uprising that resulted from the killing of George Floyd back in May. I have been listening to podcasts and reading and watching the news and pondering and wondering and finding little bits of understanding. It's like taking little sips of wine and experiencing the complexity of what it feels like to swirl that learning around in my mouth. Just like tasting wine, there's a beginning, middle, and end to each of the new learning experiences. Right now it look like this: I get hit with something new, it brings something up for me to contemplate, and then I find myself asking more questions. My problem is that I haven't been able to process much of it because it has been coming at me so fast. There's so much to learn. There's so much to reconcile within myself and so many feelings to feel. There are so many questions to ask and I don't even know what they all are yet.

So I'm here. I'm showing up despite not being ready. What I am ready for is learning. I'm ready to ask questions. I'm ready to bask in the newness of the discoveries I'm about to make. I'm ready to dig in and seek insights. I'm ready to revel in whatever comes of this journey. I'm ready to pay attention. I'm ready to approach this with curiosity about what I might find.

And I'm a writer and I'm here to share.