Dive Deeper: Listening To Lived Experiences

Yesterday a friend shared outrage over a post that had been shared on one community page. The post was crude and inappropriate. My friend who is a POC stated their outrage and then called in white allies to not stay silent and to add our voices in expressing our outrage over the post.

I responded on the community page with a "This post is inappropriate and as white people, we all need to take the time to examine our own privilege and our own racism" type of message.

At this point, I have to call myself out and admit I felt good since I was called in as a white ally and I responded in the manner suggested and thought I was done.

And then a troll appeared in the comments.

Someone who thought they better understood the experience of the blacks in this particular community than the blacks themselves. This individual (who was not black) posted responses to every comment critical of the post saying "You don't get the "joke", the post is appropriate and the true experience of blacks in this community."

These post were particularly awkward when posted on the comments of black individuals in the community. When I pointed out that if blacks did not think the post was appropriate we as non-blacks should follow their lead. That how the blacks in the community were being impacted by the original post was more important than any original intent of the post. In response, the individual responded with an "I know better than you do, (or blacks in this community do), about the appropriateness of the post" type comment.

By morning the original post on the page was removed.

For me, this whole situation:

• Highlighted the need to listen to black voices around black issues

• Highlighted that many people think they know the lived experience of others better than those individuals who are living that lived experience. (And yes this sentence sound clunky but any time someone implies someone does not know their own personal experience it is clunky too)

• Highlighted the need to answer the call when POC tell you how you can be useful/helpful to their justice work.

• Highlighted how acts of justice are never one and done actions and that the work will always go on and how easy it is to pat ourselves on our backs before we are anywhere near done with a task

• Highlighted how much work we all have to do within our own communities to unroot systematic racism in our thoughts and actions starting with examining whose stories do we listen to and validate