In the online communities I run on Facebook and here on my blog, I am committed to doing better to make sure all Black, Brown, Indigenous and ALL People of Color feel seen, heard and safe. I have been doing my own personal anti-racism work and am applying a lens of equity, diversity, and inclusion. To the People of Color reading these words, if there is anything I can do to make this space feel more welcoming and safe for you, I am committed to hearing you and doing everything I can to making that happen.
If you’re white and wanting to begin your own anti-racism work but feel overwhelmed with where to start, I can suggest some resources that I’ve turned to. Feel free to email me at Sarah@SarahTalksFood.com or post a comment below. Remember, unless we are paying them, it’s not the responsibility of Black people to educate us. It’s up to white people to do our own work.
NOW is the TIME.
I have a mountain to climb and I am lacing up my boots. I have a long road ahead, but I refuse to be discouraged. Black people have been trying to climb for over 400 years.
I’ve spent the past week reading and watching and grieving.
And listening.
In her 2017 commencement speech at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Oprah Winfrey delivered advice to the graduating class that has stayed with me ever since. The advice was given to her by her mentor-sister-mother-friend, the late Dr. Maya Angelou, and I wanted to share those words with you, today.
She said, “You have no idea what your legacy will be. Your legacy is what you do every day. Your legacy is every life you’ve touched, every person whose life was either moved or not. It’s every person you’ve harmed or helped. That is your legacy.”
Those words have come to me every single day, when I weep for George Floyd, his children and family, his friends… his LIFE. During this deeply uncomfortable time, the only sense I can make out of his brutal murder, the only sliver of peace I can find inside this tragic loss, is that George Floyd’s legacy is the size of this world, for I don’t believe there is a person alive today who hasn’t felt something shift inside themselves when they hear his name.
George Floyd will not die in vain.
He will NOT be just another Black man in too long a list of Black people brutalized by the very institution that’s supposed to serve and protect them.
For 8 minutes and 46 seconds, a Black man pleaded for his life while a white man held the power. And then chose to let him die.
I will never forget George Floyd’s last words. And I will never go back to sleep. For I have been awakened to the truth that Black lives have NOT mattered and I am no longer going to be complicit in keeping Black people down.
I see my privilege.
I see my racism.
I see now.
And I promise, George Floyd, I will never, ever go back to sleep. Your legacy knows no bounds.
First the pain; then the rising.
And now is the time to truly, deeply, feel the pain so we can harness its power and transmute it into the change we so desperately need to see in this world.
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