Pandemic postcard #13: Anti-racism as a practice

There is no anti-racist certification class. It's a set of socioeconomic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it.  -- Scott Woods

It's been another monumental week in America as we wrestle with our trio of pandemics: COVID-19, the recession, and our collective awakening over racism. So many of us now feel the urgency of taking a hard look at the complacency and privilege we have enjoyed for so long. Until two weeks ago, I sometimes thought my anti-racist studies were done, that I had graduated and gotten that certification of allyship. Now, I finally understand that anti-racism is a lifelong practice I must undertake together with every other white person.

We will now--hopefully--be giving this issue its due for some time to come. So just as we can't revert to lax hygiene routines, we must now figure out how to make anti-racism a daily practice. I want to define and pursue that practice for myself. You should, too. No one else can do it for you.

For some people, anti-racism will mean being a physical presence in the streets, calling the structures of power and abuse to account. For others, there will be a more inward journey of reading, writing, reflection, and learning. For many of us, it will mean increasing our support of black-owned businesses and black artists. Perhaps the key thing I've learned this past week is that addressing white supremacy must be an embodied journey--one we inhabit not only in our heads, but in our hearts and in our souls, for privilege and racial harm are deeply lodged in our DNA. (Thanks to the conversation between Resmaa Menakem and Krista Tippett from last week's "On Being" for this knowledge.)

Last Friday night, there was a Black Lives Matter protest at a large park near me in Seattle. I didn't attend, but I wound up there on my early morning walk the next day, as I do on many days. The names of people of color who'd been killed by police were chalked every few feet around the half-mile path around the park. I said their names aloud as I circled the loop in a kind of walking meditation. It felt like a start in what I need to do. Writing this post is another step.

Although I've been reading rafts of essays about racism and privilege and white supremacy over the past fortnight, few statements boil the issue down as well as the passage from Scott Woods that I quote at the top of this post. (You can read the whole 2014 essay it comes from here.) If you're viewing this blog on a desktop, you can scroll down to see a 3-D collage I made in 2016 at the end of a year in Wellspring, a program of deep spiritual reflection I've done twice through my church. It's centered on "a palette of practice" that features the tools and values I try to use regularly in my life. The collage hangs on the wall over my desk, so I see it every day. I took my Sharpie this week and added the words "Bail out your boat."

God of our Being, Spirit of Light and Life, help me see and address my privilege every day. Help all my white brothers and sisters begin to reckon with this reality, one step at a time. After 400 years, we may finally be getting a chance to set things right. Let's not turn away now.