Going Forward

As of writing this, we’re about a week into some pretty incredible movements within Black Lives Matter - social media is showing unity, protests are literally happening across the world and charities geared towards minorities are having a huge influx of donations. All of these things are wonderful but were prompted on by some very horrible events.

I don’t know if I’ve ever shared my perspective really, but I’m a white, middle class, millennial female. Despite not being in the higher end of the income pool growing up, I was raised with a great deal of privilege. And I’m extremely lucky for it. While I did grow up in a pretty diverse town, I have a lot of work to do on myself when it comes to education. There is no doubt about that. And I desperately want that to be evident in my posts here.

I’ll admit, the education aspect - learning history and becoming more culturally aware is very overwhelming. We have so much to learn about communities of color to make sure that the change we’re all talking about now on social media actually continues when it’s no longer trending. But I want to incorporate it more effortlessly into my life too. I want it to be reflected in the media I take in.

Every month, going forward, I’m going to try to highlight some aspect of media that I am starting to learn from. Whether it’s just seeking out romantic comedies with minority leads, watching some of the extremely hard hitting documentaries (especially on Netflix) that tell the difficult stories of Black culture especially in relation to law enforcement and the prison system or checking out the catalogue of an actor of color, I’m going to try to document it to help others do the same.

None of this is a ‘yay look at me doing this!’ kind of thing. It’s all going to be done in the hopes of being a resource. I’m currently working on a Google Sheet of various aspects of media available - I want to be more diverse in my choices in everything from movies to books to podcasts. It won’t be comprehensive, unfortunately, because I am only one person but I want to have options for people with every taste.

What’s truly amazing is that despite the fact that Black communities owe us nothing when it comes to educating us, they’re still doing it. Sharing movies, lists, authors, books, everything on social media. Movies like Just Mercy and Selma are being put up for free to rent. It’s truly incredible. We’re being handed an opportunity to better ourselves, and it would be silly not to take it.

So, I’m just putting this piece up as a bit of a promise to say that I’m going to be doing more going forward. What exactly that will look like on this blog is still a bit up in the air, and am open to suggestions, but it feels like something, no matter how small it may be, I can incorporate a lot more in my world.

If you’ve stuck through this whole letter, thank you. Minority voices matter and I fully intend to listen.