How Can I Help; what I’ve done so far
We’re in a crazy time already. But this week, the murder of George Floyd really put things over the edge; for America and also for me. I love life and this country but am deeply disturbed by the inequalities that have been brought more and more to light thanks to social media.
This week made me think ‘how can I help?’ But it was thanks to a colleague, Amira, who wonderfully shared her thoughts and personal experience, that affected me and pushed me from thinking to doing.
So here’s what I’ve done (so far):
I attended the rally walking through NYC today.
This is a great list that another colleague, Alisa, shared that helped get the ball rolling for me to do something: https://medium.com/equality-includes-you/what-white-people-can-do-for-racial-justice-f2d18b0e0234
- I listened to the Revisionist’s History podcast (it was great and really interesting)
- I bought children’s books with black people as the protagonists and sent them to a friend who is an educator, for her classroom. Thanks Shayna!
- I’ve gotten the public library app (NYC, Baltimore) and added ebooks and audio books from the reading suggestions list of the article (also excited to use this free(!) service that my mom(!) taught me about for from our local libraries)
- And, I’ve donated. Inspired by Alexa Kaminsky, I have ‘redistributed’ my stimulus payment that i received last month to these organizations:
- Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — suggestion from the article
- Dream Defenders — suggestion from the article
- United Negro College Fund — scholarships for black students — suggestion from the article
- Black Girls Code — helping girls of color get into my favorite profession; coding!
- Biden’s Campaign — the current president’s response to this week’s events were appalling
- NYC City Harvest — we still have a humanitarian crisis going on with the pandemic; City Harvest helps feed New Yorkers that are hungry!
- American Civil Liberties Union
- Equal Justice Initiative — (the wonderful movie Just Mercy is about this org!)
- And Chesapeake Habitat for Humanity — the Baltimore chapter of Habitat for Humanity, an organization that I have cared about and been involved with since middle school
What can you do? I’m definitely not expecting to follow my steps exactly, but hopefully I’ve helped point you in a good direction, as others have done for me.
Also, take care of yourself first of all; we’re experiencing an intense-enough situation already with a global pandemic.
Try to be empathetic, and connect with others. Empathy is one of the most important things in the world. Something like racial injustice is hard / impossible to understand as a white person, but you can still try. This is a great explanation of empathy, originally shared to me by Kate Okrasinski
And to conclude, here’s an awesome new song from Thomas Rhett and other country artists, telling us ‘in a world full of hate, be a light’
Thank you to everyone who has helped inspire this for me today.
I love you, Mom and Dad!
