When It Becomes REAL – Thoughts on Racism and Sexism
The thing about racism and sexism is that until we discuss it in a real way, from multiple angles, from every perspective, within the most diverse and least diverse areas of our circles, in safe spaces where everyone can be heard, with other people who care about us as individuals, with people of different backgrounds who WE care about as individuals, …. it’s all theoretical. Our stories might as well be on a reality TV show or the nightly news, until we start talking about our experiences in an ever-expanding community of people of different backgrounds, that we care about. Social media is part of what can take this conversation global. I remember when we were supposed to be having a national conversation on race in the Clinton era. But somewhere it was forgotten that a conversation is when two or more people can sit down and have a two-way dialogue or even debate on an issue where every viewpoint is heard. We can even disagree if we can make a pact to agree NOT to be disagreeable. Instead, with Barack Obama’s election, we paid for our leap forward with a leap backwards. And the conversation about race became a series of one-way soliloquies. Why? I don’t have all the answers. I just observe, think and share my view. And my first view was that as each soliloquy threw me into shock, I could not respond to the notions being thrown about, they were so incredulous. The first: “Now