We close out our Lenten Reflections on racism and white supremacy with these from MIR PLEMMONS (who responded to ALL the questions.) Thank you to all who were willing to share your thoughts and be a little vulnerable with us. We continue in the work…
May you experience a blessed and profound Holy Week.
• How does it make you feel when a person of color calls something you did or said racist? First I practice the pause. I check what I think/remember I just said and did. I may also check if that individual tends to use that as a weapon, it’s a thing with a couple students at my school, so I have to find out from someone else if I need to change something or if that was not what it seemed.
Regardless, I sometimes check in with others who were there, if I have dissonance, but frankly there’s a wound in the community/group when that’s been raised, so my response is geared to healing that community present in that situation. I measure impact, not intent – for all of us – and then afterwards I figure out if I need to change something within me.
• What’s something you have done to make things right after you learned that your actions had racist outcomes? Apologize. Acknowledge that impact and intent are different and impact harms a sibling of God.
• What’s one embarrassing mistake you hope never to make with a person of another race? Assumptions.
• What is one way you think you could connect with white people who have differing views about race? Try to find some humanity, the fear that often drives the bias is what I can often work with…
• Is there anything, no matter how small, that you are willing to commit to doing to end racism that you are not already doing? What I committed to was working more to be willing to use my intersectionality to teach white people more. That’s why I agreed to write – and persevered in sending – that Thanksgiving Reflection.
This set of reflections was better than the one in the current/old postulant chapters but… keep working.
In love, but short of spoons so I hope I wasn’t too blunt…
Mir