On This #GivingTuesday, How White America Can Choose Actionable Outrage Over Passing The Bread
"Those poor, poor people. Can you pass the bread?"
A few years ago, my wife Dawn went to dinner with a couple of girlfriends. As they were catching up over martinis, Dawn began talking about her volunteerism at Rhode Islanders Sponsoring Education (RISE). She, no doubt, spoke passionately about the mission of the organization -- providing educational opportunities and mentoring to children of the incarcerated, in an effort to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty, under education, joblessness and other social ills these kids potentially faced without any outside support.
I should know; Dawn hooked me into becoming a mentor. Her enthusiasm, especially for her mentee, who she has remained connected with for the past fourteen years, was both inspiring and contagious. Unfortunately, that girlfriend dinner didn't become a mentor recruiting event. In fact, the response to Dawn's story was marked by such uncomfortableness and extreme disinterest, the response echoes years later as an inside joke between my wife and I to connotate a complete lack of empathy: '"Those poor, poor people. Can you pass the bread?"
Over the years, the bread bit was added for dramatic effect, but that night, those words were silently spoken. The disinvestment and dismissiveness were swift and clear. Why? In large part because white women truly don't have to act on reforming social or racial injustice. 'Those poor poor people' are not my problem. 'Those poor poor people' have no connection to me. 'Those poor poor people' are not worthy of my time to work towards creating a global solution. White privilege allows for the construction of a life where 'those poor poor people' don't even exist, even when someone brings them into dinner conversation.
Fast forward to this unforgettable year of 2020, filled with even more of those 'poor poor people' with the incredible misfortune of being brutally killed. Only this time, it wasn't as easy for the white collective to look away because the tragedies of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were broadcast to the world. In fact, the horror and trauma projected was so strong that white America seemed to want to join in to help at unprecedented levels.
As an African American, I found the mobilization of people from all backgrounds during the Black Lives Matter protests inspiring. It was this channeling of collective energy of a diverse group of people that inspired me to develop Racial Just Us, and its first offering, Coaching for Community. "White people want to help, but they don't know what to do," -- again, my wife Dawn, although even she wonders if her initial observation was true.
Coaching for Community, a five-week hybrid coaching/training movement was developed out of that very need, to not only answer the question 'What next?', but to inspire actionable steps to fight racism. Yet, even with these newly developed tools in place, I am still fearful that 'those poor poor people' will continue to be left behind, a fear even more intensified after the Presidential Election of 2020, which exposed the truly disturbing racial state of our country.
Earlier this summer, not long after George Floyd's brutal murder, I had a conversation with a white colleague who was incredibly fired up and passionate about becoming involved in work to eliminate racism. Yet, within a few weeks, she became increasingly disinvested from her own self-proclaimed mission. Well-meaning words cannot be substituted for the hard work of change. Pity for those poor poor people is not and cannot be a substitute for an action plan to create a better world. And nearly six months after the death of George Floyd, I fear, once again, that an apathy is beginning to spread across white America, until the next 'high profile' hashtag case resonates with their sense of morality, for the length of a news cycle.
Unfortunately, blatant dangerous injustices happen to members of Black America every single day that are never 'televised'. There were no witnesses when I was handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser, as a college student. My transport to the station came as a result of the constant working poor roulette of inspection sticker fines that gradually accumulated into a suspended license. That was my responsibility. But the accompanying Freddie Gray style ride to the station, because there was a fugitive from Chicago with the same name, was solid racism. If another officer, a childhood classmate, hadn't vouched for my identity at the station, I'm not sure where that incident may have gone.
There were no witnesses when the police responded to a domestic violence call at the house behind me, then demanded access to search my apartment on the third floor, because 'someone said they saw the accused enter' into my three family building. There were no witnesses when I was pulled over, while walking with a paper bag, at twenty years old, that contained a plastic drinking bottle for the guinea pig I just rescued. There were no witnesses when I was pulled over in a predominately white community, because I had my high beams on.
At what point do my stories, and the millions of other experiences accumulated by Black America, take us beyond the narrative of 'those poor poor people' to immediate action? What will it take for the majority of white America to stop sitting comfortably in their protective bubble of white privilege? What will it take for us to stand together as a collective global community, to dismantle and rebuild these toxic systems for a better world for ALL?
Writer James Baldwin spoke of this very challenge in his work, "A Fire For Next Time" -- "If we -- and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must like lovers, insist on, or create the consciousness of the others--do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world."
His words that seem so timely? Written in 1962.
Don't you think it is time for change?