Racism is alive and fighting!
Dear colleagues,
I have heard some of us make statements along the lines of racism being different, easier, or that we are beyond racism. Often we do not have recent and tangible ways of showing just how real racism is. Let me share with you a piece of my reality.
Saturday my neighborhood became a place for Nazi demonstrators to forward their cause. Yesterday morning, people -our fellow humans- took to the streets of my neighborhood to protest an anti-white supremacy and white privilege workshop being held at the local YWCA.
The calls to action on their websites identified that they felt that the leaders of the workshop and participants were race traitors. I am not going to share with you all of the racist rhetoric of the group but I encourage you to think about what this really means for the US and
for us. People generally thought the folks of the neo-nazi National Socialist Movement would fail to show but they were wrong. The group actually showed up way before the workshop and was under heavy police watch. The YWCA is a lovely facility my cousins and I grew up in as traveling summer campers and is located a block from my home, in the center of a robust neighborhood full of schools, homes, shops, and working class folks. Many neighbors and allies refused to let that sort of hatred go unchallenged and planned a massive counter protest that was able to drown out the Nazi group and push them off of our streets. This is a tangible way to think of racism and anti-racism.
Meanwhile, some folks think they have the luxury to discuss how racism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism exist in theoretical ways. How is this so when other people are literally fighting to survive? Last night I met with a friend who was in the workshop and shared that we need a multifaceted strategy. A plan of action that focuses on the radical change that is needed in a concrete way as well as tools to help people survive and thrive within our current systems while creating change. We agreed that all to often folks who are burned out, unwilling to change and who have not done the work internally pose a particular challenge that often goes unsaid. Family: As stewards, this truly is an important part of the work we represent and either engage or put aside. We make the choices and are not exempt from their consequences -positive or negative. Yesterday I wondered where all the folks I see on the peace bridges and in vigils were. How had they missed the memo or chosen not to participate in this stand for Peace?
As the corporations continue to control the government it is up to those in the peace movement to ally with communities to build a sustainable future. It is our responsibility to be active in our pursuit to end violence, war, racism and economic injustice. There are so many ways in which this could happen and we have to decide what our roles are as individuals and as neighbors. It is life or death for us all.
For Peace & For Justice,
Shauen Pearce
"Our day is our life and our life is our path."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“For true reconciliation is a deeply personal matter. It can happen only between persons who assert their own personhood and who acknowledge and respect that of others.”
-Archbishop Desmond Tutu
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in." -James Baldwin
I have heard some of us make statements along the lines of racism being different, easier, or that we are beyond racism. Often we do not have recent and tangible ways of showing just how real racism is. Let me share with you a piece of my reality.
Saturday my neighborhood became a place for Nazi demonstrators to forward their cause. Yesterday morning, people -our fellow humans- took to the streets of my neighborhood to protest an anti-white supremacy and white privilege workshop being held at the local YWCA.
The calls to action on their websites identified that they felt that the leaders of the workshop and participants were race traitors. I am not going to share with you all of the racist rhetoric of the group but I encourage you to think about what this really means for the US and
for us. People generally thought the folks of the neo-nazi National Socialist Movement would fail to show but they were wrong. The group actually showed up way before the workshop and was under heavy police watch. The YWCA is a lovely facility my cousins and I grew up in as traveling summer campers and is located a block from my home, in the center of a robust neighborhood full of schools, homes, shops, and working class folks. Many neighbors and allies refused to let that sort of hatred go unchallenged and planned a massive counter protest that was able to drown out the Nazi group and push them off of our streets. This is a tangible way to think of racism and anti-racism.
Meanwhile, some folks think they have the luxury to discuss how racism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism exist in theoretical ways. How is this so when other people are literally fighting to survive? Last night I met with a friend who was in the workshop and shared that we need a multifaceted strategy. A plan of action that focuses on the radical change that is needed in a concrete way as well as tools to help people survive and thrive within our current systems while creating change. We agreed that all to often folks who are burned out, unwilling to change and who have not done the work internally pose a particular challenge that often goes unsaid. Family: As stewards, this truly is an important part of the work we represent and either engage or put aside. We make the choices and are not exempt from their consequences -positive or negative. Yesterday I wondered where all the folks I see on the peace bridges and in vigils were. How had they missed the memo or chosen not to participate in this stand for Peace?
As the corporations continue to control the government it is up to those in the peace movement to ally with communities to build a sustainable future. It is our responsibility to be active in our pursuit to end violence, war, racism and economic injustice. There are so many ways in which this could happen and we have to decide what our roles are as individuals and as neighbors. It is life or death for us all.
For Peace & For Justice,
Shauen Pearce
"Our day is our life and our life is our path."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“For true reconciliation is a deeply personal matter. It can happen only between persons who assert their own personhood and who acknowledge and respect that of others.”
-Archbishop Desmond Tutu
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in." -James Baldwin
