How I’m Helping Black Lives Matter

Being an ally in the fight

If you’ve been following my Twitter account for any length of time, you’ll know that I post often about topics relating to equality and Black Lives Matter. But I hadn’t typed a full story about it yet.

My brain has been a little scrambled from a family member getting sick, and for awhile, typing a 600-word article was the last thing on my mind. And at first, I thought, “Well, whatever I have to say, other people can say it better.”

But I quickly realized these issues are important for everyone to talk about, and we shouldn’t stop talking about them until the issues at hand — systemic racism, police brutality — are eliminated. There’s even a new Medium publication, Momentum, about fighting anti-Black racism.

I am very political, and for a long time I championed environmental and scientific causes, but now I see I need to also be a much stronger voice for diversity and equal rights. I plan to vote and campaign for candidates who support overhauls to our current system of policing.

I know that changing people’s minds isn’t easy. I’ve been to many cultural competence workshops where a Karen-type stands up and says, “I’m diverse — I’m Irish and Polish, and I don’t get discriminated against. So I don’t see why racism is a big deal.” No matter…