White people & non-Black PoC, are you irritated by this?
Have you stalled because of this dichotomy? Can you act on the tension these diametrically opposed ideas create?
Hot take: Act, screw up, learn&do better when you act again.
If you are worried about screwing up, remember: we have already screwed up far worse by doing nothing.
The time for tender feelings&communal stroking is over: Try new things & fail forward. We are playing a long-game that requires course-corrections; doing nothing facilitates discrimination by presenting no resistance to anti-Black racism & offers no support to victims. Doing nothing allows injustice to endure & fosters complicity.
If all this seems exhausting, consider:
“Black people have been […] exhausted making the case for jobs, freedom, happiness, justice, equality […]. It’s made us dizzy, but we’ve managed […]to walk straight.”
Commit to an action against Anti-Black racism&once you've executed on it, ask yourself two questions: "What did this accomplish?"& "What do I do with what I've learned?" With your new knowledge, what is the follow-up action. It might be to refine, reconsider or replace the first action. It might be to maintain the momentum created. Be aware of assumptions/gaps in knowledge.
