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White friends. We can't be sure what's going to happen in the US election, but it's a good bet that even more harm is about to come than before, & harm never falls evenly.The best time to start acting w/ empathy for your Black friends is always. The second best time is now. https://twitter.com/KimCrayton1/status/1309980746195623936
This is going to sound preachy, so just know that this thread is preaching to myself as much as to anyone else.
If you don't feel like you have Black friends, expand the meaning to include anyone who has done anything that's meaningful to you throughout history and your life.
If you don't feel like you have Black friends, expand the meaning to include anyone who has done anything that's meaningful to you throughout history and your life.
Who has contributed to what's important to you, be it your community, or art, inventions, & aspects of society that you appreciate?
What about your bookshelf, movie queue, favorite comedy, or social media feed?
Disproportionate harm comes to them, too. Empathize with them.
What about your bookshelf, movie queue, favorite comedy, or social media feed?
Disproportionate harm comes to them, too. Empathize with them.
There are Black people on Twitter who work in your field, or who take the same classes, like the same movies & books you like, & who are like you in ways you might not realize.
They're not hard to find. Search for your interests and find their voices.
Empathize with them.
They're not hard to find. Search for your interests and find their voices.
Empathize with them.
Empathize with Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, others we lost, & their families. They must have been scared to a degree that the world never forces me to be scared.
I don't have to have met them to take that fact personally.
I don't have to have met them to take that fact personally.
Empathize with MLK Jr.'s family and every person who came after. We all lost something by losing him and so many others.
None of us will ever know exactly what promise & future we were denied by losing him.
That fact pisses me off to no end. I take it personally.
None of us will ever know exactly what promise & future we were denied by losing him.
That fact pisses me off to no end. I take it personally.
Practice this now so that when more harm comes & continues to fall upon all these people and others you haven't come to know yet, you're ready to act in ways that protect them, even from things that do not threaten you directly.
Choose to take the harm that comes personally.
Choose to take the harm that comes personally.
I focused on Black people here, but expand it to every marginalized group. All of them need our empathy, action, & protection.
Don't go into this thinking what's in it for you.
Even when it doesn't feel like it, powerful people already disproportionately consider our needs.
Don't go into this thinking what's in it for you.
Even when it doesn't feel like it, powerful people already disproportionately consider our needs.
I could go on about this forever, & I'd love to hear how you foster empathy toward marginalized people in your actions and thoughts that become your actions.
Kim asks in the video above - what are you prepared to do? I'd humbly add - what are you doing, right now, to prepare?
Kim asks in the video above - what are you prepared to do? I'd humbly add - what are you doing, right now, to prepare?
