Hello hello,
Happy Fall! Well – I guess it’s essentially winter at this point. I’ve been so absent here, but it’s not for a lack of continuing to read and listen and consume all the content I can. I’ve been really reflecting on what’s next – with my own journey, with work, heck – with just getting through each week at home! Which reminds me, I almost bought a sweatshirt at Target that said “Always Exhausted!” But I paused because I don’t want to perpetuate exhaustion as a status symbol. I love a good joke about how exhausted I am, but I don’t want to place value or status on who can be the most exhausted (newsflash, there’s no winners in that race!). Hmm.. maybe joking about it is still a mechanism to ascribe it status anyway (learning real time here people…) I’ll have to think about that.
I had a new experience recently – My whole family was at Costco (duh – I could forward my mail to Costco and not miss a beat), and I had the two little boys in the cart while Chris and my oldest son were off somewhere else. We made our way down an aisle and stumbled upon a sample. The kids were a little deflated to see that the sample was salad, LOL but they took it nonetheless. The guy handing out the samples looked at me and said “oh, are those kids adopted?” I paused in total confusion and said “what?” The guy clarified by pointing at my kids in the cart and repeated, “your kids, are they adopted?” And I said, “ohhhhh, no, nope they’re mine” He just replied ‘huh’. I’m guessing either he was adopted or has adopted kids and was just looking to make a connection. It was a completely neutral exchange, and now I’m a little surprised I don’t received more questions like that when out and about in the world.
Anyway, I recently participated in a book club at work, and the book was So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. The author’s mom is white and her dad is black. Ijeoma clearly articulates topics such as making mistakes when talking about race, the importance of checking our privilege, cultural appropriation, the model minority myth, and what actions to take beyond all the talk. She talks about discussing race with her mom, and this really resonated with me:
“The initial discussion led to a very long talk about race and identity and the difference between being a white mother who has loved and lived with black people, and being an actual black person who experiences the full force of a white supremacist society firsthand.”
We should all strive to mimic Ijeoma’s bravery and honesty in her conversations about race.
#blacklivesmatter #courageousconversations #powertoprivilege
Be well,
Jessica