Incorporating Racial Justice Into Your Everyday Life

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change we seek.”

— Barack Obama

Hi Friends!
Welcome to Issue 26 of this newsletter! Today’s topic is Incorporating Racial Justice Into Your Everyday Life. Last week I sent out a survey and this was by far the most requested topic, with 79.5% of folks wanting to learn more about it. When I first wrote my newsletter on Allyship ten months ago (wow time flies!), I had a good idea of what I wanted to see my friends, coworkers and community doing to step up and fight for equality. Now, after almost a year of weekly newsletters, a growing community and the creation of ACTIV-ISM (alongside my friend Kira West)—I have a greater understanding of what it really takes to do something with real world impact every single day. Let’s get into it!

Key Terms

Allyship: an active, consistent, and arduous practice of unlearning and re-evaluating, in which a person in a position of privilege and power seeks to operate in solidarity with a marginalized group. Read my blog post on allyship here.

Toxic Positivity: Positivity becomes toxic when it is implied that we should always look on the bright side at all times and not allow ourselves to feel difficult emotions. The downside of positivity culture is that it can vilify the normal range of human emotional experience. Toxic positivity undermines the pain of others. Example: We are all one human race, I don’t see color. Let’s focus on the positives instead of always talking about oppression.

Tone Policing: Tone policing is a diversionary tactic used when a person purposely turns away from the message behind another’s argument in order to focus solely on the delivery of it.

Emotional Labor: When a person must constantly manage their emotions—either by suppressing them, showing them, or redefining them— in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others.

Intersectionality: Intersectionality is a framework for conceptualizing a person, group of people, or social problem as affected by a number of discriminations and disadvantages. It takes into account people’s overlapping identities and experiences in order to understand the complexity of prejudices they face.

Tokenism: The practice of doing something (such as hiring a person who belongs to a marginalized group) only to prevent criticism and give the appearance that people are being treated fairly.

Let’s Get Into It

Some folks wonder what constitutes doing “enough.” They become so consumed with a desire to do more and the overwhelming feeling that they cannot measure up. Eventually, they just stop trying all together because it seems like too much. The term “allyship fatigue” describes this feeling when it comes to racial justice. And while I cannot decide to be tired of racism and just stop caring, white folks can.

How do we combat this? Well, we have to see racial justice work not like a new hobby that you can forget about, like knitting or painting—but like a lifelong practice, like your health. We try new supplements, new workouts, better activewear, new sneakers, physical therapy, foam rolling, mindfulness and meditation practices, mental health services, and so much more to better our health throughout our lives. It’s not something we forget about because every single day we eat, sleep, move and live, which effects our bodies.

So, how do we make racial justice as ingrained in our lives as our daily probiotics or green juice?

Make a Plan

• Actually read this newsletter every week! I love that you’ve signed up and I know you’re reading it right now, but it takes commitment and accountability.

• Sign up for EJI”s A History of Racial Injustice daily or monthly email. I read these every single day. They are impactful and important.

• Join a group like ACTIV-ISM where you have community to hold you accountable and guidance through a set curriculum.

• Get a guided journal like this one that accompanies the book Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad. Make a schedule of when you’re going to sit down and engage with the book and journal. Make it realistic. This might be one page every morning with your coffee. Something doable and actionable.

• Set up instagram notifications for Anti-Racism Daily on Instagram and easily learn one thing every morning.

• Listen to a podcast like For Your DisComfort, hosted by my friend Bryce Michael Wood. Spend 10 minutes a day listening to this on your headphones while you make your bed. Play it in the car. Actually go take those daily walks you keep talking about and bring these conversations with you.

You find time every single day to check your email or scroll on Instagram or film a TikTok, so let’s be really real for a minute, you have ten minutes to learn that on this day, April 2, in 1933 a Black man was lynched in Mississippi and not a single person out of a 17 person mob was convicted. You have time to sit with that and think: just 88 years ago, this happened. You have time.

Find a Support System

• Does your partner care about racial justice? What about your kids? Your parents? First off — if they don’t you need to step up and start talking about it. Instead of arguing with strangers on Facebook and cursing strangers on the news, look across your dinner table and actually talk to the people you live with.

• When you find a few folks (or even just one) that have the same goals as you — to learn more about racism, unlearn the delusion of white supremacy and create actionable change — choose any of the above plans and hold each other accountable.

• Use this opportunity to let down your walls, and admit it when you shrug off your plan and decided to watch Netflix instead. Be honest with your circle. Practice letting go of defensiveness. Reflect, and move on. No need to fester in guilt or shame because it serves no one. Just face it, get back to a plan, and get to work.

Ask Yourself the Tough Questions

• Why are you passionate about creating an equal world for all folks, regardless of race, gender identity, sexual preference, socioeconomic status, disability, weight, age, education or criminal record?

• What stereotypes and implicit biases do you have? What are the dark things in the corners of your mind and your heart and how can you bring them out into the light? If you finished this sentence, what might it reveal: I accept _____ people, but I would never want my child/partner/friend to be ______.

• What is your WHY? What is the reason that you’ve started on this journey and the reason that will keep you going?

I started this newsletter because I needed more information, more statistics, more language, more resources to effectively express and understand my rage, trauma and anguish. Whatever your reason for being here, either as an ally or a marginalized person, an activist or an advocate, someone just starting to unpack their priviledge or someone who has been doing the work for years — there is always something more to be done. If not you, who will do it? If not now, when will you start? We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change we seek.

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for, we are the change we seek” — With love and light, Taylor Rae