The Privilege Of The White Writer
The Case For Showing Up
I’ve been bumping into people all week. Not literally, but emotionally, culturally, socially. I’ve been stumbling over old biases and beliefs I didn’t want to admit I had. I’ve been running into judgments I wish I didn’t inherit. I’ve been bashing into a new reality: That if we show up, authentically as we can, with our own experience, we will fall.
I feel stupid even writing this because I’ve been reading it from social activists like Brené Brown, friends and mentors like Shauna Ahern, and practicing it in group therapy for over six years now. But therein lies the problem. I’ve merely been an onlooker — in controlled, safe, female, whitewashed environments. I haven’t been participating in that theoretical “arena.”
I say that I hate protests, and I justify that aversion with my own introversion and bouts of ill health. Yes, I donate to organizations like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, but automatically recycle mailers from the Southern Poverty Law Center. I’ll read inclusive fantasy, but shy away from true stories and representations like Between The World And Me. I listen to Lemonade, I watch documentaries, I match with non-white dudes on Tinder…I must be woke, right?
Maybe, to a certain extent…but I never show up in these communities. I don’t go to their churches or…
