The Skin I’m In

I was going to share about a fun tool I have been using to engage my students for this week’s blog, but it just doesn’t feel right. Everywhere on the news, on my social media feed, and at my dinner table, the topic of conversation has been around George Floyd, his murder, and the subsequent response.

My response is very different today, than it would have been months ago and I attribute this to compassionate listening, seeking to understand, and interrupting my own assumptions. I am also trying to learn from the perspective of others.

Firstly, this powerful panel discussion about using Social Media for Allyship which took place at the @DigCitTO virtual summit. I co-organized in April. Jen Agpar brought my attention to a post by Kayla Reed about what it means to be an ally:

A- always center the impacted
L- listen & learn from those who live in the oppression
L- leverage your privilege
Y-yield the floor
— Kayla Reed (@iKaylaReed) June 13, 2016

I have also been reading The Skin We’re In by Canadian activist and freelance journalist, Desmond Cole which has definitely made me uncomfortable. He systematically goes through the year 2017 and shares instances of anti-black racism from each month in that year and makes connections to the plight of Indigenous and LGBQT people in Canada. I recognize that I would stop myself and say, that can’t be…or surely there is another explanation. But the reality is, that for me, the recent events now feel not like isolated incidents but a pattern of bias, prejudiced, and hate that I know I never fully recognized or understood before. Listen to the VoicEd radio series on The Skin We’re In here.

Although I regularly interrupt my own narrative to learn from the perspective of others, I know that it’s easy for me to forget because I am not faced with the realities of racism on a daily basis. I remember being shocked a few years ago, when the conversation in my Edumatch voxer group revealed to me that black families talk at the dinner table about how to respond to a policeman pulling them over; I have never had to have such a conversation with my kids. I need to remind myself that I shouldn’t just check in on my friends when racism becomes headline news, but recognize that ever day there is an instance of oppression that I just don’t see because of my white privilege.

And so I write this post not to bring in my opinions but to yield the floor to the opinions of the impacted so we might listen and learn together and support our brothers and sisters who fight this fight daily for no other reason than the colour of their skin.