It is a time to listen, and it is not a time to shut up.
It is always a time to listen. It’s never a time to shut up.
Ok, sometimes it’s a good idea to just stop talking, but let’s meet here as writers, storytellers, and people who wish to heal with their words. Let’s meet as writers who are trying to write about race.
Specifically, at this moment, I am a white writer and storyteller speaking to other white writers who want to use their words to heal the wounds, both ancient and brand new, caused by institutionalized racism and this white supremacist culture.
As a writer, it’s never the right time to mute yourself
You write to know what you think. You write to discover the deeper feelings that lie beneath your immediate reactions. You write to decode those feelings so you can dissolve emotionality and get to a truth that exists before and after your conditioning, your worry, your fear of what others think.
Damn. We need that more than ever right now.
Now is the time to keep writing, to keep delving, to keep looking for the story that informs the story you tell yourself about “the way things are.”
That opens us to the next question… is this a time to share your words with the world?
That’s an entirely different question.
Or is it?
Right now, our country (and the world) mourns the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many Black lives, and takes to the streets to protest police violence. It is time of deep listening, deep introspection, and direct action.
You may well need to pull back, to make more room for quiet contemplation, for long reading sessions, and even longer journaling sessions.
Do those things privately, and allow this inner work to influence your public discourse.
It is not the time to fall silent, change the subject, or to utterly disappear - especially if you are someone who has an online presence and a community that is accustomed to looking to you for insight, inspiration, and information.
(And if you’re thinking that you don’t want to mix “politics” with your professional work, I invite you to think even longer and harder about how the privilege of white identity gives you that option.)
But… I thought I was just supposed to listen?
When I talk about this urge to fall silent, change the subject, or disappear into the audience, I speak of it as a white woman who knows all too well that sense of, “I know I am going to say the wrong thing, so I am just going to shut up.”
Though I have spent the last few years reading and listening to Black writers and trying to do the work of understanding my own whiteness and interrogating the racism that was baked into me in our white supremacist culture, I have generally stayed quiet about it.
Yes, I was afraid of doing it wrong and showing my ignorance. I admit I have been repelled by “hey, white people!” posts by white colleagues and acquaintances, and swore I wouldn’t be so awkward and sanctimonious.
(The jury is still out on that one, of course. Some of those posts might have actually been performative and legitimately obnoxious. Some surely just cut too close to the bone and caused me to put up my defenses and strike out with judgement. Silent judgement.)
Instead, I decided I would (quietly) be the change and model anti-racist thought rather than lecture and shame people into looking at themselves.
(The jury is still out on whether I have done a good job of addressing my privilege in my writing, or whether I have been avoiding tough conversations and burying the conversation about race and the need for racial equity beneath other ideas I feel more comfortable writing and talking about.)
All of this is to say, I know what it is to awaken, to be outraged, to be uncomfortable, to start thinking deeply, and then to look up and realize I have so much to say but so much trepidation about whether it’s mine to say.
But what if the only way through is through conversation?
As Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility says in an article titled “Nothing to Add: A Challenge to White Silence in Racial Discussions”:
…in practice, my silence colludes with racism and ultimately benefits me by protecting my white privilege and maintaining racial solidarity with other white people.
I understand the urge to watch and listen and tell yourself you still have too much to learn. The only way to evolve in terms of your understanding of white supremacy is to look deep within, after all. But remember… You’re not doing all that observing and learning to become some enlightened being bound by an oath of peaceful silence.
You do the work of awakening and inner (r)evolution so that you can make meaningful changes and be part of the bigger conversation.
It’s Always Both/And
Wednesday, in a town hall conversation offered by the My Brother’s Keeper organization, President Obama said:
I've been hearing a little bit of chatter on the Internet about voting versus protest, politics and participation versus civil disobedience and direct action. This is not an 'either or' — this is a 'both and' — to bring about real change we both have to highlight a problem and make people in power uncomfortable.
Now is the time to listen. And, it is the time to speak. Even when it makes you uncomfortable. Especially because it makes those are comfortable with the white supremacist status quo uncomfortable.
To begin, speak to the pages of your own journal. Then, speak to friends who are trying to do this inner work and to change the way they move through the world.
Throughout… listen. Follow Black journalists and support Black activists, authors, and artists. (Here’s a strong collection of resources.)
Next, use your online spaces to share and amplify Black voices. (And I dare you: can you go deeper than quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Maya Angelou? Those are powerful and important, of course, but can you go on a quest to find new, lesser known lines and learn from their context?)
And, as your reading progresses and you start to turn listening into understanding, frame Black creators’ art, thoughts, and resources with a statement about why this matters and what you hope to achieve by sharing.
Throughout… listen. Understand that you may not be praised for doing this work. You may not get likes or shares. You might get pushback and attract the trolls (both the unknown monsters and those people from high school).
Listen to your own breathing and to your own strong inner voice that knows you’re not doing this for accolades or attention. You are not doing this to build your brand, to score points in some “good white people” contest (there’s not such thing), or because you’ll say something new.
You are listening and learning and writing and putting your words out there because you must be part of the rising anti-racist tide.
Silence is complicity. Your voice has a place in this moment.
When you build the courage and the muscle to not only click share but also to speak about why this matters, why you know Black Lives Matter, you’re helping to shift the narrative. White supremacy needs to be dismantled, brick by brick, word by word, by white people who perpetuate it and benefit from it.
Listen well and remember that hundreds of years of white silence got us here.
Dare to be part of the BLM conversation and keep getting braver about addressing systemic inequity and oppression. Not because it’s all about you and not because it’s trending, but because your voice matters and you must take the risk and be part of the mix if you’re going to part of the healing and renewal this society needs so desperately right now.
