Shared to Social Media June 6, 2020
Today, my daughter asked me some really smart questions about the protests going on, and I did my best to answer them. The most poignant question was, “Why are so many people protesting NOW, though- if this has been going on for so long?”
And there’s a lot to unpack there. More people are out of work. More people were already losing faith in the government. More people were radicalized by the 2016 election, by Bernie and AOC, by previous protests. Social media has made it easier to share information and harder to deny what’s happening. This murder was particularly devastating, undeniable, and vicious- and came on the heels of two other particularly devastating, undeniable, and vicious murders. Filming the police has become the norm, making the truth of things undeniable and apparent and obvious–
But these things have been undeniable and apparent and obvious for years- why now?
I sat with my daughter’s question all day. I thought about the people who taught me, both patiently and impatiently- the arguments I had that slowly grew my mind, changed my paradigm, and brought me into the truth which now seems so obvious. I thought about how every day I read something that opens my mind a little more. How I am still unlearning. How I will never be done unlearning.
These things take time. And time has been doing its job.
In my experience, it takes about 3-5 years to grow someone from a well-meaning-but-still-racist ally to an educated and anti-racist accomplice. And that’s best case scenario. That’s if they have a true desire to change, learn, and grow. That’s if they’re starting from a place of ignorance and not a place of hate. That’s if they’re surrounding themselves with the right influences and open to receive that influence. That’s if they actually practice empathy and reflection and do the hard work. For many people, it will take even longer.
You have to first become open to the truth, then you have to have access to the truth, and finally you have to become a vessel for the truth.
The process of becoming anti-racist is a lot like getting sober. It works if you work it. And you will relapse. And you will never not be an addict, but through work and community and personal growth you can, every day, one day at a time, choose to be a better person.
It takes so long because you have to unlearn decades of programming, implicit bias, ingrained micro-aggression. You have to make a hundred thousand decisions about who to trust, who to question, who to follow. You have to first become open to the truth, then you have to have access to the truth, and finally you have to become a vessel for the truth. It requires radical honesty and deep empathy and robust humility.
There was no one person who made an argument that made me question my father’s politics, change the way I saw the world, and begin advocating for groups I was not a part of. It was hundreds of arguments, over the course of 8+ years. It was friends and classmates and professors and strangers on Facebook and poems at the poetry slam and videos online and memes and NPR interviews, and… and… and…
And I am still a work in progress.
Still learning and undoing problematic impulses. Still trying to be a better person. Still blushing with shame and getting defensive when I’m called out, only realizing weeks later that I really was the asshole, and I need to do some research and get better for next time. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was having conversations about racism when I was a student at St. Edwards in 2009-2012 in which I was the “well-meaning” white girl who can’t handle being called out for saying ignorant things I had never questioned in my life before. I know from personal experience that it takes a long time to steel yourself through the guilt and shame that you encounter during unlearning, and I also know that it is worth it and important to endure that and so I continue to do it now because I continue to fuck up now because there is no end to this learning process.
I don’t say this as a deterrent to growth. Yes, 3-5 years is a long time. But look at how much 3-5 years of national messaging and protests and campaigns and arguments in the kitchen with your family has done. Look at how many people are showing up to protests today. How many of them would have said, 5 years ago, that it was just one bad apple cop?
If you are a white person who considers yourself anti-racist, I want you to look at the well-meaning white friends saying ignorant shit on your timelines, and really, vulnerably ask yourself- when was the last time you said that exact ignorant shit. And I want you to sit with that. And then I want you to respond, because that person’s growth is part of your responsibility.
When you know better, you do better.
By 2014, I had learned enough to think I’d learned a lot (I hadn’t) but began to be the one in arguments pulling friends and family to the side I’m on now. It felt futile and stupid and like I was never going to change anybody’s mind. And now, 6 years later, I’m seeing Facebook posts from people who once screamed in my face that All Lives Matter… and they are decrying police violence. And they are arguing with THEIR networks. And they are sharing Black Lives Matter memes, and they are marching in protests. And it is small, it is so small, it is nothing to share a post on Facebook, but it is evidence of change and it gives me hope.
That argument I had with them did NOT change their mind. Six years of arguments with a thousand different people changed their minds. But if 500 of us had backed down from those arguments because “It accomplishes nothing” then nothing would have been accomplished. This work is slow and hard and frustrating. But it works. You learn. You change. You grow together. There is no final assignment to de-programming your internal racism. You read the book and then you pass it to the next person and you read another book.
So what do I want you to do with this?
I want you to argue with your family. I want you to call out your coworkers. I want you to screenshot racists and contact their jobs. I want you to read every article that you see on your timeline about Police Brutality, valuing Black lives and communities, and de-colonizing your education. I want you to watch slam poems by black poets talking about their experience with racism (check out Write About Now for videos, they have some really good shit). I want you to buy that book that’s on that book list you re-tweeted. I want you to google questions you have about racism. I want you to have uncomfortable conversations.
It is your job to radicalize yourself, and to radicalize your family. Your coworkers. Your classmates. Your friends. And yourself again.
It will take three to five years to change someone’s mind.
So you better start now.
Gloria Adams 