STOP asking this question!
Are you ok?
Here’s the answer you’re often supposed to give:
“I am ok.” Followed by a hesitant smile. You knooooow this one.
In reality, the answer is: I am NOT ok.
It’s important to acknowledge all the ways it is not ok.
I don’t know about you, but I know I am not ok.
Let’s STOP asking this question.
Let’s instead ask: How are you not ok?
I’M NOT OK with black lives constantly being murdered. Now it's Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, before it was Sandra Bland, Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
I’M NOT OK with the current charges of Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao which are not holding them fully accountable.
I’M NOT OK with this anti-black system that criminalizes black folks.
I’M NOT OK with black US Americans dying of COVID at three times the rate of white people, leaving even more black lives ending.
I’M NOT OK with white people saying, “I can’t believe this.”
I’m just not ok.
We’re not ok.
Here is our opportunity to rise up. To let this be a time of brutal learning.
Watch the following video. We need change
It took 8 minutes and 46 seconds to take George Floyd’s life.
Imagine ALL you can do in 8 minutes and 46 seconds
Take the following 3 action steps NOW.
[For White and skin-privileged POC folks]
Buy one or ALL of these books now *
How To Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram Kheldi
So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
*A lot of these books are temporarily sold out, so check out the audio version.
Support these organizations:
Join the movement on the ground and virtually:
Join #BlackoutDay2020
Follow Black Leaders, Black Women.
Join the #AmplifyMelanatedVoices movement
This has been happening for too long.
I will end with author Ijeoma Oluo’s words:
“Now is the time to be in the service of Black Liberation. Limit your response to what is of real, tangible help to us. Give money, call your reps, protect Black people at protests, elevate our work and voices.”
Let it be not ok. Honor the pain. But don’t stop here. Rise up.
Nora