I’m ashamed that I haven’t been pro-active in being anti-racist. It’s not enough to be a “nice person,” I need to be an activist. This performance really hit home & made me realize this. It made me feel guilty of my inaction. So thank you for waking me up from my comfortable life.
-Dilanthi Ranaweera
p.s. could you pls give this back to me so I can paste it somewhere where I will see it everyday to remind me that I can no longer wait or put social justice on hold.
[on campus address: Admissions Office]
I feel the same way. But I’m also not sure what exactly I need to do to be actively anti-racist. Actually–never mind. A good example just came to mind. I’ll share it:
The other day at breakfast, one of the people at my table was jokngly talking about stories of regretted sex. He joked that a friend of his had had a negative experience, but he couldn’t believe it was negative, because the friend “woke up between a black girl and an asian girl”. There was a pause. Someone else at the table said, “why does it matter what race they were?” It wasn’t a sarcastic or threatening comment, but it was enough to just make everyone stop for a second and pay attention. I had been thinking the same thing, but I would have just let it slide and pretended I hadn’t heard anything had my friend not spoken up.
So that seemed to me like an example of commonplace anti-racism. Are little, everyday things like that enough?