Every Black History Month, I like to take the time to pause and reflect on the gratitude I carry in my heart for my ancestors and elders who made my existence possible.
I am the great-grandson of a slave; the grandson of a sharecropper; and the son of a tractor builder who graduated from a segregated high school. It is remarkable that, within just four generations, my family has gone from slavery to elected office.
So much history has passed during that time. So many battles fought and sacrifices have been made to make that progress. Intergenerational poverty was broken on both sides of my family because my father was able to join a workers union. While there has been significant progress in my family’s lineage, we cannot mistake this progress as evidence that racial injustice has been resolved. My story is a tree, but the oppression of Black Americans is the forest. There is still much work to be done to achieve Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of freedom and brotherhood.
In 2020, following the death of George Floyd, we saw a massive social awakening - a modern Civil Rights Movement. While it was police violence that sparked the awakening, discussions about systemic oppression overall entered the mainstream for the first time in generations. For years, I have done extensive readings and studies of Dr. King, Jr.’s writings and speeches because he is someone I have always aspired to be like. His words in 1967 still ring eerily true in 2021. In his final manuscript, Where Do We Go from Here, Dr. King wrote:
One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of the status quo… who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant, and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this worldwide neighborhood into a worldwide brotherhood. Together we must learn to live as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools.
So this Black History Month, take some time to reflect on whether you are awake, adjusting to new ideas, and facing the challenge of change or a “protector of the status quo.” Below are some resources for you to explore to help develop your awareness and skills to rise to the challenge Dr. King has set for us all.
Learn what white supremacy culture looks like: https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/white-supremacy-culture-characteristics.html
Learn about “white fragility” and how it protects the status quo: https://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/viewFile/249/116
Take an implicit bias test to your baseline: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html