Speaking up

I don’t usually post about politics, especially American politics because I am not American, but right now I feel I have to say something about what is happening in the United States. As a Canadian, I am so worried, sad, and scared for you all. I am heartbroken for the families and friends of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery—and those are just recent tragedies. I am sickened by the behaviour of Amy Cooper.

White privilege is being able to think of ourselves as an individual and not representative of the entire race. Another privilege is not feeling responsible for the behaviour of other white people—like Amy Cooper. This makes it easy to stay silent – it’s not my fault! I didn’t do those things! But not speaking up against violence against people of colour is also part of my white privilege and staying silent is not being an ally. So I have to say something. Nothing will change while we stay silent.

It starts with listening and learning. It starts with learning what the issues are -- how can we deconstruct systemic racism if we don’t know what the issues are? It also starts with promoting equality and racial justice in own own community. We need to speak up and call out racism and microagressions when we see them, instead of staying silent. These small things are just the beginning, but they are things we can all do.

We need to change ourselves if we’re going to change the system and if speaking out like this makes my fellow white people uncomfortable, please sit and think seriously about why that is.