Snapshots and Consciousness

via @jamiethevwm

What can be said after a week like this. A week when racism shouts out loud. Before I share some favorite photos this week, I would also like to share some personal thoughts (however imperfect they may be). 

As a white, middle-class female I have grown up with a fairly easy life experience. I remember sitting in high school dumbfounded that anyone would feel like college wasn't an option, it was just something one does....

College made me conscious to my own privilege. It helped me to see that I could not be color blind. I could not separate the color of skin from the person before me and claim, "we are all the same." While we are all the same on the inside, the color of our skin provides much different life experiences. As I listened to classmates experiences with the color of their skin, my mind was opened up to the reality of racism. The daily and underlying ways in which it touches so many peoples lives. 

As a white, middle-class female it was my life experience that made me blind to it. I wanted to learn more. As I read and listened and studied, my mind unfolded and I saw this world as a world where there was a lot of hurt and a lot of frustration and so much fear. 

I struggled to know what to do with this new perspective. How do I show alliance and support? What do I do with this information? 

A professor would tell us over and over again because this information was bound to drown us all into nothingness that the first step always is consciousness. When you don't know what to do, be conscious. See the privilege, the persecution, the racism. Acknowledge that it exists. Do not use your privileged experience to write a different narration of someone else's story. Listen, observe, and be conscious. 

That is the starting point. 

My heart goes out to those who have been affected by the events in Charleston and elsewhere, that their pain may not be added upon by our refusal to see.

Things that have brightened my week:

Curiosity

Feeding baby goats.