GUILFORD — It's primarily up to people of privilege, especially us white folks, to change what has been going on in our country since its founding over 300 years ago, when the United States was built on the brutal annihilation of the Native American population, followed by the enslavement of people from Africa.
We must change the historical injustices that are still very much a part of all our systems today, including: judicial, policing, educational, financial, housing, election, and employment.
We are all complicit in keeping these systems going and therefore we also have the power to change them.
We fall short when we point fingers at the cops unless we are personally willing to help bring about justice, which means “walking the talk.”
“Walking” includes:
• openly calling out racism when we see it, even with friends and family,
• initiating changes in the groups, organizations, and workplaces in which we participate.
• participating in educational study groups aimed at understanding white supremacy.
• becoming actively involved in activist groups like Lost River Racial Justice and The Root Social Justice Center.
• most of all, making the effort to look in the mirror to recognize our own biases and then making a commitment to address them.
The racist systems are not some abstraction over there; we are those systems.