What's Next? 26

It is no surprise that everyone is talking about systemic racism and black lives matter right now (hmmm...when I was editing this post, at first it read as "black lives normal"...a Freudian slip, perhaps?) right now.  We are living in a pandemic and the climate of fear and anxiety is such that people have to find some way to channel their emotions.  This isn't to underestimate the huge injustices that people of colour have to endure.  But it is my understanding that when we are already being influenced by fear and heightened emotions that this is also going to spill into other areas.  It's inevitable.

It is difficult to maintain any objectivity that isn't somehow going to seem artificial, like striking a pose.  Better, I think, to just keep my head down and work at the things that matter to me most.  I prefer to relate to people underneath their skin, which is exactly how I want to be approached.  For me this is easy.  I have been nurtured on anti racism since I made a decisive break from my horrible bigoted family when I was fourteen, and in many ways, as I have often found about other matters, I am going to find myself well ahead of the vast majority that only now is beginning to wake up to the ugly reality of systemic racism and social injustice. 

It isn't that I don't need to educate myself.  I always try to keep my ear close to the ground.  I am also in neither a position of privilege or influence.  Even though I am white, I am also poor and living in social housing.  No one is going to take seriously anything that I might happen to say or write.  For me, it is all in my attitudes, my words, my behaviour, and how I treat and interact with others.  That is all I can do, and if that is not good enough for some people, then they are just going to have to get over it.  A lot of us are already doing the best that we can and that has to be accepted and respected if we are to move forward in this. 

Patience and kindness and respect from all sides is more important now than ever before.  I think, especially, we need to remember that we do not really know one another, not even those who are closest to us, and certainly not even ourselves.  We always have to be prepared for surprise, sometimes for disappointment, but to try to treat every interaction as an opportunity to learn. 

We especially have to be prepared to be faced by our own hypocrisy, especially when we are bound to take strong, emotional, and impassioned positions.  Seeing ourselves as hypocrites can make for a most embarrassing and formidable experience of being publicly naked.  Sometimes, in order to truly grow, that is going to be inevitable.  Bring your own figleaf, Gentle Reader...