Wednesday, June 24, 2015

If You Can Only Read One Post About the South Carolina Shooting, Don’t Read This

If you are a person of color, you probably don't need to read this. You probably don't need to hear one more white girl talking about how upset she is by the South Carolina massacre when she is much closer to its cause than to its effects. And, quite honestly, if you're a white person, there are posts you need to read more than this one. Posts like the ones I've listed below by people of color responding and reporting with all their rage and grief and exhaustion. Their words strike closer to the heart of this terrible event than mine ever could. I have written what I have because I had to—for myself, and to tell anyone who wants to know where I stand, and where white people like me need to go.

So, if you haven't read any of these articles, read them, and then if you want to, come back and read my words. Here they are:













I thought the first post on this blog would be about fantasy writing, social justice in general, and me, as a writer and a person. And then a white man walked into a historic black church and killed nine black people. And I realized that if my blog was going to launch anytime in the next month, the first post had to be about this.

I have wept a great many tears over this, partly from grief, partly from shame, and partly from the knowledge that my tears are far, far from being enough. This massacre is one more symptom of the racism and violence endemic in our culture, and I am acutely aware that I have not done enough to combat it. And by my inaction, I have contributed to this culture, the inevitable consequence of which is violence and death. I, and every white person in this country, bear a collective responsibility for what happened in South Carolina, and in Ferguson, and in New York, and in Baltimore, and what happens every day to people of color all across our country for no reason other than the fact that this country as a whole values white lives over black and brown lives.

This is nothing more or less than true, and I need to do something about it.

I write this, knowing that it will seem weak and trite. I have no action plan, not even many concrete next steps. And I know that at this time, this is not and cannot be the soul preoccupation of my life. But I also know that everyone could be doing something, or doing something better, and it is that which I promise in this post: I will do better. I will call out racism when I see it. I will look for racism when I cannot see it clearly. I will own up to my privilege and will identify and inhabit spaces that reject that privilege. I will donate my money and, I hope, my time to organizations that promote justice for people of color. And of course, I will write, but I will privilege the writings of people of color above my own.

I will also make mistakes. I will speak when I should have been silent, and I will be silent and inactive when I should have spoken and done. I will fail and be reproached for it. And then I will take that criticism to heart and try again.

This is my promise, and I want everyone, people of color and white people alike, to hold me to that promise. I want white people to join me in this promise. So many of us have been failing the black and brown people who live among and beside us, again and again, upholding a culture that murders them. No more.


If you are reading this, and have a suggestion for something that I, as a legally blind student with limited time, can do, please let me know. I want to keep my promise and have it mean something.