Day 1: Plant something that grows

I did plant something at home, a 4 leaf clover pot I’ve had for years, but this is not the kind of planting or growing I want to focus on today. Today I want to plant a seed here, on my social media pages for everyone to hopefully grow with me. I want to plant the concept of Allyship.

Some quick thoughts about what an ally is: a person that's on your side, that has aligned interests with you and that will help you achieve those. Most of the time we think about this in war and strategy in general. I then found this: To be an ally is to "Take on the struggle as your own. Stand up, even when you feel scared. Transfer the benefits of your privilege to those who lack it. Acknowledge that while you, too, feel pain, the conversation is not about you."

An overwhelming majority of my followers are white and I think that everyone needs to understand that your skin colour puts you in a position of privilege. I'm not saying white people don't have struggles, all I'm saying is that the colour of your skin isn't one of them. I mean, how horrendous is that someone is judged, persecuted, harassed and killed just because of the colour of their skin? All of us who walk happily around need to understand that we must do more than posting something here (but by all means please still do). We all need to use that privilege to call out what's wrong and actively try to stop it. We need to sit down and research what people of colour go through every day of their lives and truly understand it. Don't ask them to explain it to you, it's unfair to put that burden on them. All of us need to read and then understand (feel free to write them down) how we can take action on a day to day basis in order to truly stand together in the fight for racism. Understand that this isn't about you at all, you need to be a selfless ally and that doesn't mean putting yourself in harms way for others but recognise that some people are in harms way by just walking down the street. We need to be aware of our surroundings and truly take action. If you see something going on, stand with that person and try to stop it. Yes, confrontation isn't always easy or comfortable but when someone's life is at risk, standing and screaming with them is the least we can do. 

Don't ask people: how can I help? Research and take action! If you can, donate money to the many people and organisations that can help. Discover your unconscious biases (we all have them) and actively fight against them. Get informed, read any of the many books published on racism and/or go online and read trustworthy sources. Say something risking saying the wrong thing rather than staying silent and hurting the people you know and in a way being an accomplice to all this hatred. I feel we don't understand that by letting jokes go by when watching tv or letting insensitive comments slip whilst watching the protests going on at the moment IS very much making us collaborators of racism. We need to understand that talking to the people around us in those situations is the first action we desperately need to take. Maybe nobody has shed light on them and maybe they don't even believe that people are literally being killed just by being. 

We need to change this and we need to change this NOW. Start by celebrating how different we all are, start by talking to your children about this. Yes, children do see colour and any physical aspects a person has just like the rest of us, and that's exactly how it should be. I wouldn't want to be put in a "we are all the same" category, I want to be celebrated for all the awesome things I have that make me different. Nobody should be denied that basic privilege. I want to plant a seed where everyone helps every single non white person feel safe walking down the street in broad daylight so we can all grow together.

I posted 10 images on my Instagram and tagged the accounts where these came from. I hope you will see them as tools to become a better ally.