AntiRacism Needs You to Give Up

[Music]

have you ever dated someone who’s like

i’m just not ready to give up the things

i need to give up in order to be in a

relationship with you and fall in love

in the past i’ve dated at least several

versions of that person

and i’d always disagreed with the idea

that love requires you to give

up so much when asked what the opposite

of love is

most people say hate but i believe the

opposite of love

is oppression and in order to end

various forms of oppression

all kinds of people with all kinds of

privilege

need to be willing to give up all kinds

of things

giving up stuff is hard personally

attempts to give up netflix drinking

coca-cola

dating the wrong guy have only ever

temporarily been successful for me

but one of the first things i was

successful at giving up

was trying to fit in probably because

i never could on a pristine piece of

coastline

in a country known for its kangaroos

vegemite and unfortunately racism

i made my way out of my mother’s womb

brown

and seven pounds the white australia

policy dismantled just prior to my

arrival on stolen land

had long upheld the ideal of a

completely white nation

the after effects of which still

remained the half of me that was not of

australian heritage

was the half of me that people saw

judged questioned

and that half of me made all of me feel

like the only home i had

was not a place that felt like home

at around eight years old i started i

finished for the first time

a novel cover to cover charlie in the

chocolate factory

i wasn’t aware at the time that there

was anything wrong with the short brown

skinned slaves called umpa loompas

nor did i know that charlie like me had

experienced racism

you see author roald dahl had first

written charlie as a black boy

but his agent said a black charlie

bucket wouldn’t appeal to readers

i was a brown girl in grade three at a

place called white’s

hill state school my most notable memory

from whites hill

was at recess when one of my classmates

told me i was the color

of poo sometimes

our pain informs our purpose and so in

2015 i co-founded an organization

humaneology whose mission is spread

empathy

increase inclusion reduce discrimination

humanology focuses on sharing human

stories and empathy

as ways to bridge the gaps that divide

us

i had a dream professionally i was

fueled by this dream of an inclusive

world free from racism and other forms

of oppression

personally i was struggling with a

different dream

the dream i had of finding love

and becoming a mother i was single

almost 40 and some dreams well

some dreams have a time limit if you

want to find love get hitch get laid and

have a baby step one

is to give up the belief that can’t

happen and to show up on a first date

and so i did if you want to end

a system of oppression like white

supremacy

step one is to give up the belief that

you haven’t perpetuated injustice

and to show up ready to act one of the

ways we perpetuate injustice is by

unknowingly or silently enjoying

privileges that marginalize

others some 20 years ago already in

search of love

i can remember heading out with my

friends on a saturday night

getting dressed up and walking up to the

front of the line at

the bar where as a group of women

dressed to impress the bouncer would

step to the side

and let us in ahead of everyone else

waiting in line

did i feel bad when those doors swung

open

wide taking us from the arctic

temperatures of the canadian outdoors

into the warmth of the bar uh no it was

a feeling of validation

a feeling of endorsement not one of

guilt

what i’m suggesting is that it’s a

typical human response to enjoy the

privileges we’re afforded

without particular recognition as to how

they impact the other folks

stuck outside in the cold still waiting

in line

and just as the privilege my girlfriends

and i enjoyed can be connected back to a

system of oppression that commodifies

female sexuality

so too white privilege is connected to a

system of oppression

called white supremacy which simply put

is a system designed to prioritize and

benefit people who are white

it’s about as easy to spot your own

privilege as it is to spot your soulmate

in a bar

and just like the fish that doesn’t know

what water is

we can be oblivious to the only system

we’ve ever lived within

such as the system of white supremacy

growing up i can’t remember how many

times i heard the words curry in a hurry

followed by laughter i had several

friends whose parents really didn’t seem

to like me because i was different

and in 18 years of education through to

the completion of my law degree in

canada

i had only three educators who weren’t

white and none

were women and yet i’m aware that my

story of growing up with racism

is an incredibly fortunate one

hearing the stories of people who don’t

share our same privileges

is powerful listening to those stories

without

questioning their validity can help

erode

systems of oppression recently

i shared with a friend how disentitled

i’d felt growing up in a country where

i’d been born

continuously being asked where are you

really from

that question implies you don’t look

like us

you’re different you don’t belong here

so did they ask that question in an

aggressive way

my friend probed unknowingly questioning

the validity of my experience

because of their particular white

privilege it was difficult for them to

understand

how this question on its own could

impact a child or really

anyone even if asked over and over

so about a month after that first date

where

i showed up he moved in then he moved

out then we broke up then we got back

together then we broke up again and then

the very next day i found out i was

pregnant i was pregnant i was single

and pregnant this was not what i had

signed up for

i knew i was gonna have to give up the

glossy story i’d written for my life

and was tightly holding onto

step two to end a system of oppression

we have to give up

things we might not want to give up

recently humanology began collaborating

with a clothing retailer to produce

and sell a t-shirt featuring the work of

a racialized artist

and with proceeds going to anti-racism

efforts

we put out a call for artists who

identified as bipac

black indigenous or people of color and

then someone applied

who was white you won’t work with me

because i don’t have pigmented skin

this is disgusting you’re literally

discriminating against white people so

thanks for that i hope you’re proud of

yourself

everyone matters everyone

matters discrimination to end

discrimination

is different from discrimination in the

first instance because the intent is for

it to restore

rather than erode justice and equality

the reality is as we push marginalized

people further forward

someone has to be willing to step back

i replied the disgruntled artist

explaining that our endeavor

was about sharing the voices and art of

people who’d been marginalized because

of their race

she wrote back sharing several extremely

tragic experiences where she’d been

marginalized

none of which were connected to racism

giving up a victim identity isn’t

easy this entrenched identity tells us

i can’t possibly be privileged in any

way because of all the hardship

i’ve endured but our privileges aren’t

erased by our challenges

while facing my pregnancy alone my

socioeconomic privilege

wasn’t erased by the challenge i faced

of being pregnant and single or any

other challenge i had

like any privilege it made my experience

less challenging not easy but less

challenging because of it

there are some situations where no

matter what hardships we’ve faced

we can’t be victims and as a white

person

when it comes to racism specifically

because racism

is a product of the system of white

supremacy

you can’t be a victim

have you ever shared something

challenging you’re going through with a

friend or a loved one

and they started telling you about an

experience they had that was similar but

was also kind of different

and in the process they failed to

validate the very vulnerable thing you

shared

and made the conversation about them

rather than you

well when we’re talking about racism and

the conversation is redirected

away from racism by what about ism

it is a way of powerfully disrupting not

just the conversation

but also the possibility of equality

for people who aren’t white and today on

earth

that’s equality for about 88.5 percent

of the world’s entire

population as the size of my belly

increased

so did the frequency of assumptions

about my theoretical husband

oh your husband must be so excited get

your husband to rub your feet for you

so does your husband want a boy or a

girl

step three to end a system of oppression

we have to give

up assumptions and generalizations

so a few days passed and then a whole

flurry of public posts came in from the

disgruntled artist

alleging discrimination and sharing that

her friends who were people of color

were outraged by our call for bipark

artists

not all people who’ve experienced racism

are going to agree

on how to end it even the terms people

of color bipark racialized non-white

visible

visible minority are all highly

contentious

amongst the people they refer to how

could there not be

incredible diversity when 6.9 billion

people in the world

aren’t white avoiding assumptions and

generalizations about this peop

these people is needed in order to stop

marginalizing them

just because a south asian friend told

you i’ve never experienced racism

doesn’t mean south asians don’t

experience racism and similarly

assumptions and generalizations we make

about people who are white

can also derail anti-racism efforts

just because a white person has a black

friend or a brown spouse or a

multi-racial child

doesn’t mean that they aren’t impacted

by white supremacy

white supremacy in reality can be

compared to a pandemic

of sorts with a contagious

and fatal narrative that even infects

the very people it marginalizes

when we make assumptions or use the

wrong words most of the time it happens

unintentionally but lack of intention

doesn’t reduce

damage this one time i was at yoga

and i unintentionally put my bag down on

top of a tea light

and i still set the place on fire not

in a good way

step four to end a system of oppression

we have to give up comfort and

perfection

as we begin to speak up call out

and act in support it is going to feel

uncomfortable at times

especially when we encounter people who

disrupt our efforts

or when attempts at dialogue and

understanding fail

as they did with a disgruntled artist

inevitably at some point we’re going to

mess up

and that’s perfectly okay if we’re open

to feedback can apologize

and learn from what happened there’s so

much less

than we think wrong with not being

right it’s really not that hard to say

i was wrong and now i see things

differently or i hadn’t thought of it

that way

but now i have a different understanding

because of the diversity of

perspectives experiences and identities

within

a marginalized group of people there

really isn’t

the option of showing up perfectly for

everyone

the only option we have is showing

up imperfectly

so on new year’s eve 2017

i found love and became a mother

when my daughter was born after

temporarily getting back together

my daughter’s dad and i permanently

separated before she was about six

months old

and i had thought at the time that i

might be inclined to try to

kind of continuously revisit the

relationship in order to restore this

ideal i had of what a perfect family

should look like

but surprisingly this never happened and

instead

i began unlearning an old construct one

that no longer served me

and discovering a new framework for the

way

a family could exist and succeed and so

far

every day our little family is

succeeding within this new framework

we’ve created for ourselves

step five to end a system of oppression

we have to give

up old constructs like white supremacy

that don’t serve humanity

and find and learn new frameworks for

the way the world can exist

and succeed having a child

introduced me to a kind of love that was

so immense and so beautiful

and had made me give up

so much perhaps love did require us

to give up things to sacrifice maybe

this

is in fact the cornerstone of what love

is

the willingness to give up something for

someone else

looking at it that way when we give up

things to end

white supremacy and racism these aren’t

just

acts of justice they are also acts of

love

and there is a lot for a few people to

give up

and so much for many to gain

as we begin to act like a parent whose

kid never sleeps

fatigue and burnout are real and can

move us off course

there are five words of empathy that we

can draw upon at any time

to re-orient us back on the path toward

justice

and ultimately love what would it be

like

now anyone can ask this question you

know i don’t hold white privilege

but i do hold cisgender heterosexual

able-bodied

uh and citizenship privilege among

others and i can ask myself the question

what would it be like if my family and

community didn’t accept me

because of my sexual preference what

would it be like

to risk my life fleeing a war-torn

country

what would it be like

now i have a toddler i really don’t get

out very much you definitely won’t find

me pushing to the front of the line at a

bar

but you probably will find me pushing a

swing at the playground

standing there taking a moment to think

about my daughter’s future

400 years 400 years

of white supremacy 400 years

of oppression suffering genocide

this is too long my daughter is a

combination of black brown white and

even a little bit of japanese

and my wish is that her racial identity

doesn’t determine who she is or isn’t

able to become

in this world i have a dream

it is not a lofty dream it is a

pragmatic dream

about a world without racism and some

dreams

well some dreams have a time limit

thank you