We Need To Do Better
We Need To Do Better
I don't want to make this blog that long, (although it probably is going to be long cause I just have so much to say), but there's so much I have to get off of my chest right now. In the past couple of weeks we, as a country, have experienced so much racial turmoil that at this point it's just so exhausting. It's exhausting for me as an empath, but I know what I am feeling is 100x worse for my fellow African Americans who go through this every day. I personally cannot tell you what it feels like to get pulled over by a cop and pray for my life. I do not have that experience and I am not going to pretend that I have those experiences. However, I do know what it's like to get followed in a store and to have an entire event blamed on your race.
"You're really pretty for an Indian girl."
"OMG, I didn't realize you had an American accent."
"You smell nice for an Indian."
These are some of the nicer things that have been told to me growing up. I was very lucky as a kid. I had a mother and a father that explained what racism was to me growing up. They waited until I was around 10-12., and I wished they started when I was younger, but they were trying to prepare me for the world. My dad told me the world is not built to benefit us, and I would need to work twice as hard to get half of what any white person would get. It's a hard lesson to learn as a brown girl, but it was very true. I know a lot of my black friends are having these conversations with their children, but I also feel like a lot of white families need to have these conversations as well.
The failure of these conversations white people have with their children combined with systemic racism is the reason why we are still having this conversation 200+ years later. Our current president is not really doing a whole lot to stop this, in fact, he's trying to divide us even more. This country was built on white supremacy. Columbus came in looted, raped, and murdered Native Americans on their own land. This sense of entitlement went all the way to the founding fathers, land of the free, yet black people weren't allowed to own property, or really be equal in any sort of sense. Segregation still exists in a lot of states, and it's because county lines of who can own property are made in such a way where it only benefits the rich and the white.
The laws we see today are made to benefit police and other people in authority. Some of these laws are really just Jim Crow with a new name. Yes, we did have the civil rights movement, and they DID teach us that in school, but what they DIDN'T teach you is the fact that Martin Luther King's family believed that the government MURDERED him. I don't want to get into the whole conspiracy theory area, but there's a long history of the government silencing black and brown people in order to maintain division in the United States. I think it's their way of controlling the population, remember divided we fall.
Why did I write this post?
It's because I am so exhausted, and I am so tired of having the same conversation and nothing being done about it. We need to do better as a society. What can we do to become better allies for black people and people of color? The protesting helps, and donations help, but what can we do as a collective to make sure that police brutality, especially police brutality against black people in the United States? This is a big question that we don't know the answer to yet, but we have to try to get an answer soon, so this doesn't keep happening.
What can we do?
My birthday is on June 11th and on Facebook I am asking for donations to the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, this was about two weeks before the killings and protests. In addition, I am now donating to George Floyd's Memorial fund. I had a fabulous 30th birthday last year, and this year I really don't want much. I just want people to donate to the people who are going to not be able to celebrate their birthdays with their friends and family this year.
You can donate to the following:
Bail funds for protestors across the country
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
The LGBTQIAP Fund (June is also Pride Month, and police brutality against black gay lesbian and queer individuals is much higher)
Communities United Against Police Brutality
Resource list for those who are protesting
If you can't donate:
Text "FLOYD" to 55156 to sign the petition.
Contact Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to demand justice. You can also call his office at 612-673-2100
Demand County Attorney Mike Freeman charge the officers with murder by calling him at 612-348-5550.
Sign the petition for George here and here
You can also VOTE out these people who are keeping police unions in place and keeping this system of "let's protect one other" in place.
After you do all of this, I highly suggest you sage yourself and send energy to the families of all these victims, which is what I am doing. This is tiring stuff, and I am exhausted from doing this all the time, it seems, but you want to send positive energy out there. We are moving into a different era, a different vibration.
Those who are unfamiliar with Tarot, the right signifies the Tower card, which typically means "danger, crisis, destruction, and liberation. It is associated with sudden unforeseen change." The right is lighting hitting the Washington Monument a few days ago. We are going through a vibrational change, and we will come out of this strong.
I will be holding a Facebook and Instagram Live to talk about these events and what can we do better.
Date and Time TBA.