BLM: 4 Steps to Better Understanding

Becoming a healthy thriving human requires us to stay culturally conscious.

Now is the time for us to assess our feelings around the reform efforts of the current civil rights movement.

I challenge you to educate yourselves with these 4 steps:

1. Police reform.

What if crazy folks and criminals rule the land and no one can come help me if I get robbed?  Well, it’s not like that.

Defund the police movement is well-explained in this video.

2. Jail and Prison reform.

Prison is our modern day form of slavery. The documentary 13th has been promoted by civil rights activists to help us analyze criminalization of African Americans. Please check it out here. Even the first few minutes are an amazing educational opportunity.

3. Assess judgements and racial bias.

Black Lives Matter: Explore how racial bias on a personal level creates society-wide problems.

This is a cultural movement that began 5+ years ago after an innocent 17-year-old boy was killed because he was in the wrong neighborhood. His death was not brought to justice because our culture is greatly biased to fear black people. This movement was started to bring to life the stories of innocent lives lost to killers who are not held accountable.

The movement now calls for us all to dig in deeper to understand how bias and prejudice impacts our every day lives and eventually is built into societal structures that favor white people.

For me, this manifests as stranger danger.  I am striving to understand how I can become more conscious about the judgement I make toward people who are different from me.  How do I heal my brain from a lifetime of separateness and judgement of people of color? If a stranger comes to my door, I am going to be more trusting and presume I have more in common with him if he looks like me or one of my 25 male cousins, 4 brothers, or the majority of other men I've been exposed to in my mostly white communities.

Perhaps if we all were more aware of our own bias the world will be a better place.

Resources (click on description to go to link):

I enjoyed the book Blink on assessing judgement. (link is to black own small business. Support small businesses instead of amazon- this makes a difference!). 

Understanding bias from an academic mind.

Quizzes to help uncover your own bias (skin tone is one quiz you’ll find here)

4. TALK about it.

If people say they are colorblind, talk about it. If you feel like you are not racist so this whole thing may not apply to you, talk about it.  If you find any of these movements threatening or uncomfortable or unimportant, talk about it.

BONUS!

**The local Bellingham Alternative Library  provides resources for the movement.