As the weekend comes to close, I find myself reflecting on the last nearly week of refraining from posting any of my personal content on Instagram, the platform that i am most active on, and instead sharing the voices of people of color, and most specifically Black people, as the US and the global community more broadly have been experiencing the largest civil rights movement in world history.
This time of muting myself and listening to, learning from, and amplifying melanated voices has brought me into intimate awareness of the places where I could and needed to be doing more to support equality and social justice in my communities and around the world. It has illuminated the blocks I have had around stepping more fully into this work (namely perfectionism/a fear of making mistakes and being held accountable and overwhelm/the sense that I will never be able to do enough) and also led me to the understanding that I don’t need to/can’t do it all, but that I absolutely need to do something, or rather many somethings, consistently.
I am especially grateful for the powerful lessons that I received from Myisha T. Hill of Check Your Privilege around the importance of creating a sustainable approach to doing the work in order to avoid burnout and about “niching down” my work and finding the intersections of my gifts, my passions, and the many spokes on the wheel that is systemic racism and oppression. I am still honing in on the areas where I want to focus my external work (I’ll be sharing more about this soon), but I know it will involve wellness service access and outcomes in Black communities. I have purchased Myisha’s book “Check Your Privilege: Live Into the Work” along with a community membership to Rachel Cargle’s “The Great Unlearn” platform to continue my personal education and inner anti-racism work, and have committed to a monthly gathering led by a dear friend of mine for accountability and continued exploration within my own community.
While the week commitment to #AmplifyMelanatedVoices is winding down, I absolutely intend to continue sharing the voices of Black and POC leaders, artists, healers, and activists. I am committed to continuing to raise awareness in my communities, both online and in person, about both the challenges facing Black communities (and marginalized communities, in general) and about ways to engage in social justice work. Because, if I’ve learned anything over the past week, it’s that we really do need all hands on deck.