03: Show Your Work
showing your work, the one-year anniversary of George Floyd's death, and five more things.
Happy Sunday, y’all. 🍋
Nothing is cuter or funnier to me than animals riding on top of other animals, so you can imagine my excitement when Rex showed me this video of a bird riding another bird. Similar vibes to this dog secretly riding a pony that I’m pretty sure went viral on Facebook many moons ago.
Before we dive in, a reminder that paying subscribers only will receive the first advice column edition of work in progress — featuring questions from subscribers and Instagram followers I’ve received about real-life dilemmas and scenarios related to antiracism and allyship — next Sunday, May 23rd. You can also submit a question here.
This is gonna be more than just an advice column — but we’ll get to that next week 😉
And with that, let’s get to work.
The first days of June 2020 were filled with a lot of this:
Among the slew of black squares, I came across one square with a particularly heartfelt caption written by a white woman I went to highschool with. “This is your wakeup call,” she wrote. “Black lives matter. We all have to fight racism together. Unfollow me if you disagree.”
Truly heartwarming, except that this was the same person who, within five minutes of meeting in our sophomore year of high school, asked “which half” of me preferred Kool-Aid and fried chicken. Later, she’d go on to tell me I looked like I spray tanned too much, said it was a good thing that one of my parents is white so I “didn’t turn out looking too Black,” and, during our senior year, started a rumor that I only got into Northwestern because of affirmative action. All relatively inane, and from someone I’d considered a friend back then (I know, I know) — though these comments have stuck with me, they weren’t particularly harmful or aggressive encounters. Back then, this type of low-grade racism was typical to expect from my white peers, as was the case, I imagine, for most people of color who went to majority-white high schools in the early 2010’s.
Still, no matter how relatively small those racist encounters were, her comments back then were a far cry from her present-day Instagram caption — she was now a self-proclaimed ally with the infamous blacklivesmatters.carrd.co link in her bio to boot!
It wasn’t just her, though. I noticed dozens of other white people across social media who I had once known to be far less committed to allyship and antiracism than they now appeared to be. For many, this change was alarmingly recent: college classmates from just a year or two ago that would drop the N-word whenever they were drunk were now rabidly sharing Instagram infographics calling to defund the police; a woman from my sorority who’d frequently confuse me for one of the only other Black women in the sorority was posting pictures of herself at a new prison abolition protest every day.
I didn’t hold a grudge against the girl I knew in high school, or against my college peers. Their past actions were intolerable and inexcusable, but everyone has room to grow, and past shortcomings don’t dictate future potential as an ally. As Maya Angelou once said, “"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."
I wasn’t upset that they were doing better. I was upset that they were so effortlessly glossing over the “knowing better” part — their “wakeup moments,” the messy learning where allyship usually starts. I knew them before they knew better. And in that time before they knew better, they had hurt me — and probably many other people of color. White people were selectively omitting any acknowledgement or discussion of their long, messy, harmful roads to allyship; now, they all appeared to be resident antiracist experts, lifelong allies, people who knew all there was to know with mysteriously little acknowledgement of where or when or from whom they’d learned it all.
I came across this infographic last year from a person named @_nanders on Instagram:
The whole post is worth clicking through. In particular, @_nanders writes:
Learning something for the first time and then immediately pretending like you already knew it/judging other people for learning it a day/week/year later than you isn’t a cute look 👀.
What happened between “saying the N-word at a frat party” and “attending a protest for prison abolition?” Who taught them to do better? What people of color did they harm through their ignorance along the way?
As I’ve created lessons and resources for aspiring white allies over the past year, I’ve found myself returning to this quote from Pocahontas Gertler:
It is said that for every “Aha moment” that a white person experiences in regard to racism, a person of color has paid a tremendous emotional price. Yes, the lessons that we teach come at an extraordinarily high cost to us.
We must acknowledge that most white people’s wakeup moments happen far too late, after far too much harm has been inflicted on the BIPOC folks they’ve come into contact with in the past. People of color are collateral damage in white people’s paths to allyship and antiracism; glossing over this fact in the pursuit of appearing as an infallible ally is dishonest and disrespectful to the people of color that white allies hurt “before they knew better.”
So what needs to happen?
White allies need to show their work. @_nanders writes: “If you have taken middle school algebra you know — it doesn’t count if you got the right answer if you can’t show your work.”
How did you get from Point A (actively racist, in some cases, or at best a poor ally) to Point B (the effective ally you are today)?
Most white allies don’t share their work — that messy path from A to B — with each other. If the sheer volume of DMs I receive on this topic is any indicator, white allies feel a lot of shame around this in-between time from A to B. Most white people are ashamed, to some degree, of the things they used to say, do, or NOT do “before they knew better.” Most white people are embarrassed that it took them so long to care. Most white people feel like they can be doing more.
And with all of that shame and embarrassment and guilt floating around, white people seek out easy solutions to quell their discomfort. They either A) scapegoat another white person who is earlier on in his path to allyship while ignoring the fact that they too were once in the exact position, or B) find their way to my (and other Black peoples’) inbox to try to be absolved of their guilt. Let me be clear: don’t make your past messiness BIPOC folks’ issue. Frankly, I don’t care to know that you used to say the N-word or hear about the racist things your grandparents said before you had the courage to stand up to them. I am not a priest, this is not a confessional, and I’m not going to absolve you of your past sins (racist fuckups).
Neither scapegoating nor seeking absolution will resolve the shame and guilt that comes with owning your allyship journey. Your path from Point A to Point B is a hard story to tell; it’s difficult to own up to past failings, and it’s more difficult still to acknowledge the people you harmed along the way. But it’s impossible — and dishonest — to distance yourself from the reality of your journey. And while you can’t change your past wrongdoings, you can help others earlier on their journey — instead of looking down on them — avoid the same pitfalls that you encountered. That is the value of showing your work.
I’ll wrap up with a particularly powerful quote from @_nanders, and my wish for all white allies moving forward:
“As we continue to learn and radicalize may we ALL be a little bit more self reflective and transparent about what we know, who taught us, when we learned it, what our limitations are, and how we communicate all of this on social media.”
If I’ve known you long enough, I have tried, at some point, to convince you to start using YNAB (short for You Need a Budget). Without exaggeration, this app has completely changed the way I think about money and was also a major factor in helping me pay off $20,000 of student loans ahead of schedule. I’m passionate about personal financial literacy and see it as a revolutionary skill for women, BIPOC, and/or people from low-income backgrounds — all people who have been historically and institutionally blocked from building personal and generational wealth. More on this soon! (PS: I will literally give you a free, 1:1, customized YNAB walkthrough if you’re interested in getting started).
I was recently reminded of one of my Favorite Things I’ve Found on the Internet: this blog post on the Fermi Paradox that asks “there should be 100,000 intelligent alien civilizations in our galaxy — so why haven't we found any of them?” It’s one of those pieces that you just can’t ever forget after having read it (proof: this guy I dated in college texts me once every few years to ask “What was that really cool article on space you showed me?? Hope you’re doing well 😊”).
I learned about a food forest for the first time this week and now want to plant one...
... and on a similar note, Rex’s mom, Ruth, has been capturing the most incredible, hi-def footage of bugs f*cking in her amazing home garden. Highly recommend following (we gotta get her to go viral on TikTok).
And, finally, frog buttcheeks:
May 25th, 2021 marks one year since George Floyd was killed by Derek Chauvin, an event that drew our collective focus to the police brutality, racism, and white supremacy that runs rampant in the US (and across the globe). For many white people (and for some non-Black POC) this time last year was their “wakeup” moment — the one that, for the first time, opened their eyes to their responsibility as an ally, antiracist, and accomplice. In fact, George Floyd’s family is calling for May 25th to be remembered as a Day of Enlightenment: “the day the world came together for a common purpose and opened the world's eyes to the plight of Black Americans.” (via ABC11)
For white folks and non-Black POC:
This week, spend time reflecting — in conversation with a fellow ally, at your next White Fragility book club (you’re still meeting, right? 😉), or while journaling — on your work as an ally and antiracist since the start of the George Floyd protests this time last year. Consider especially the consistency of your effort and the range of your focus; the most effective allies and antiracists are those that work to address racism and white supremacy at each level it appears: individually (e.g. examining and eliminating your implicit biases), interpersonally (e.g. breaking white solidarity whenever you witness it), structurally (e.g. addressing racism at your school or workplace), and institutionally (e.g. voting, protesting, and organizing to affect policy and to hold elected officials accountable). Use these past posts and stories as resources in your reflection:
This post on sustaining allyship and action (shared in last month’s newsletter)
This story on the four levels of racism (and how to enact change at each level)
This story on white solidarity — what it is and how to disrupt it
Remember: there’s value in sharing your story with other white and NBPOC allies who are trying to do better. How did you get from Point A to Point B? Who did you learn from? What mistakes did you make along the way? Who taught you to do better?
For everyone:
Consider donating to this GoFundMe to support the peace and healing of Darnella Frazier, the 17-year old girl who filmed the infamous video of Derek Chauvin killing George Floyd. While the video has been praised for playing a major role in Chauvin’s guilty verdict, organizers remind us of the ongoing trauma that Darnella and other onlookers will endure after witnessing George Floyd’s death.
In an update on Tuesday, organizer Mica Cole Kamenski said that while the fundraiser had originally been established to support Frazier's immediate healing and well-being, contributors wanted to provide the financial resources to ensure her long-term safety and that proceeds from the fundraiser will be transferred to a trust in Frazier's name. (via NPR)
That’s all for this week, my friend. Thanks for spending your Sunday morning with me. As always, you can leave feedback here, and feel free to share work in progress with a friend you think would like it.
And remember: don’t forget to show your work.
xo,
Nora
Super late to the party on this post BUT it’s my favorite one so far! I feel like I’ve heard your story about those college friends so many times but from other people...white people need to do so much better. Thanks for posting!!