Racism 101: Are you a Racist?

I am a big believer in the idea of holding someone’s hand when you are going through some sort of change in your life. Though the change I am talking about here is one that I am choosing for myself, I believe that I am going to need help in seeing it through. I am lucky enough to have people in my life that are further along in areas that I would like to change within myself. After conversing with one such person, I have made myself a list of things that I need to change from within. These are things that are deeply ingrained in my psyche so change isn’t going to come easily. I am posting this list publicly so that those of you who may be in the same place that I am in, may be here for community and to help one another stay on this path.

1-Change my Frame. I must change my frame of mind and my focal point. I have to change by rhetoric in order to better myself, my community and ultimately the world. I have to force myself to stop saying things like “Black people aren’t seen as human beings” because that is the view point of supremacy. My view is not their view. I have to stop competing with this thinking. I must stop comparing the standards of supremacy to my own standards. I am not them. They are not me. The ultimate goal is to lift up, not necessarily to change the mind of supremacy.

2-Disable Repeat. I continue to repeat myself in both posting here and in my every day life. The information is available and if I’ve written about it, or said it before, there is no need to repeat myself. Either you choose to see/hear it or you don’t. I can not control supremacy. Nor is this my goal. I have spent the entirety of my life explaining and reexplaining the same information. There will always be someone else with the exact same question, the exact same justification and the exact same mind set the I just disproved only moments before.  

3-Welcome Rage. I believe that a revolution built on hate will ultimately fail. Rage however, is extremely useful in moving forward. My goal is to focus my rage on the change in myself and my community. No rage should be given to changing the mind of supremacy. Time spent on changing the mind of supremacy is ultimately time stolen from the betterment of a people. Supremacy’s job is to remain the same and uphold the status quo. My fight is not with supremacy. My fight is not with changing the supremacist. My fight is not “With” supremacy but “For” the betterment of society. Supremacy can not and will not understand this fight. Nor is my interest any longer in explaining it.

As you can see, this is an extremely short list. None the less, these three goals might be the most difficult for me to reach. For those who are where I am, let’s build a community. For those that are not, please know, no matter where you stand, I am not against you. I am for me.