My friend Leroy Barber wrote something this week that I hope you’ll read.
Here’s the short version of how it came about. After Leroy’s Voices School advertised its fall and spring classes, someone sent him a batch of racist images. Ugly, old, dehumanizing stuff. Leroy shared them with a few of us, a group of white guys he’s been in relationship with for more than five years. We got angry, and we made a short video saying so. It’s at the top of his post.
Leroy’s essay is about that video, and he’s more generous to it than I would have been. He’s also honest about everything it isn’t. It isn’t heroic. It doesn’t fix anything. Nobody hands out medals to white men for saying racism is wrong. He’s right on every count. He’d rather have imperfect solidarity than perfect silence, and I’m grateful he sees it that way. But the emphasis belongs on imperfect. A video is a start. That’s all it is.
If I’d add one thing, it’s for my fellow white guys, in the South or anywhere else.
The most important thing most of us can do isn’t to make a video. It’s to listen.
There’s something in a lot of us, call it part of our DNA, that keeps telling us we have the best solution for everybody’s problem, whether or not we’ve ever personally lived it. We fix. We explain. We show up with a plan.
I know that voice well. It’s mine. I’ve done that.
Letting go of it is the work. Sitting with friends like Leroy and letting them tell us what they’ve seen and lived, without rushing to tell them what it means or how to solve it or what to do with all their feelings. Staying in the conversation when it gets uncomfortable. (Leroy makes sure it does. He doesn’t pull punches with white dudes, and we’re better for it.)
The video was a start. Listening is how it keeps going.
Go read Leroy’s piece. And if you don’t already follow his work with The Voices Project, start there.