Antiracist Accountability Post: Accountability

Hey everyone,

I didn't write an Antiracist Accountability post last month.  

I'm not happy about that.  

In reflecting on why I didn't follow through with my goal to write at least one such post a month, I'm torn: 

On the one hand, as I shared in my Thanksgiving post last month, I've been dealing with some major revelations and doing some deep emotional work in the last few months.  It has been painful and draining, and it's depleted my ability to look outside myself as much as I would normally want to or be able to.  In the little tracts of free time when I haven't been working or with my Child, I've leaned hard on people who are close to me, I've reduced my consumption of the news to almost nothing, and I've relied heavily on comforting reruns and light, easy reality TV because I'm sad and exhausted.  I have to acknowledge that I have simply not had the emotional strength to engage in work beyond the limited scope of my self, while also acknowledging that I'm frustrated with and somewhat unforgiving toward my current limitations.

On the other hand, this turtling is self-protective in the hopes of ultimately being restorative.  If I'm not being overly self-excusing and if I'm in fact being accurately optimistic, I'm hoping that the work I'm doing will actually empower me to be a better antiracist ally in the long-term.  In other areas of my life, like my clinical work and my teaching, there have already been ways in which I've been more available to people and responsibilities because of the emotional work I've been doing and the healthier boundaries I've set.

And honestly, there have been many moments in my antiracist process when I've seen striking parallels between the psychological and interpersonal dynamics that perpetuate and perpetrate racism and the interpersonal patterns I'm working to extricate myself from.  The healthier I become and the more skilled I get at addressing these patterns in my life, the more effective I hope to become as a sustainable advocate and ally.

Still, I struggle with the way my white privilege manifests in this phase of my life: that I have the choice to check out of focused, concerted antiracism and to take my eye off the ways racism is still at work today.  While racism harms every corner of society and every person, no matter their race, it is easier for a white person to disengage from that truth and therefore be less responsive to the urgent need for persistent, active antiracist work.

Ultimately, each of these analyses of my current state can all be true at the same time.  I'm exhausted.  I'm healing.  I am not operating at my full strength, and my wounds must be attended to, even if they are inconvenient.  That will mean that I cannot give myself as fully to other things that matter to me.  That will mean I ask those things for grace, patience, and forgiveness, even as I struggle to offer that to myself and even as I know the larger struggle continues.  That will mean that even my attempts to heal transact with my privilege in ways that are uncomfortable and problematic.  Which means I must do my best to continue to hold myself accountable through it all, as best I can.

Here's hoping for more strength, clarity, and change in the new year for all of us.

{Heart}