Black Lives Matter!

I've made it quite clear where I stand on my social media accounts but I also wanted to do the same here even though I haven't been as active recently due to 2020 as a whole. I'm going to keep it short because I'm a white woman in America and I need to be doing a lot more listening, learning, and supporting rather than running my own mouth.

I, much like a lot of white Americans, have a long way to go but I promise I am giving it my all from here on out.

• I spoke up against my racist relatives comments and I am a good 5 relatives lighter for it. I have no regrets for the words or the losses but I have many regrets for all the times I wanted to and should have spoken up in the past. And there have been so many. SILENCE IS VIOLENCE.
• I have ordered the book White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin Diangelo from Eye See Me which is a black owned book store (instead of buying via Kindle). I need to learn and I need to support. A full list of black owned bookstores. I also JUST realized as I was typing this that there is a black owned bookstore right here in town that I plan to also support. 
• I have watched 13th on Netflix and highly recommend you do the same. I learned so much. They don't teach you this shit in school so now it's on all of us to educate ourselves. I also plan to watch Selma, Just Mercy, LA92, etc. 
• I have mailed postcards and made calls in support of justice for Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. 
• I have sent in a volunteer application to help my county in the upcoming election.
• Dustin and I have donated to Florida Bail Fund and Color for Change. Here's a full list of organizations who need donations. 
• I, however, have not protested. A friend of mine and I were discussing going last Saturday but when I brought it up to Dustin he wasn't in support of it solely due to Covid which is valid. I still wanted to go. I still would have gone but I respected his position on it and ultimately decided not to. I still don't feel right about not going. I have been to marches for women and science so it feels pretty fucking shitty not to join in protests for black lives. I understand the pandemic makes things trickier but even still I support every goddamn person out there who is walking in the streets for justice. 

I only mention this list because I hope it inspires you to also do any or all of these things too. I'm not trying to show off and I'm not trying to shame but just show you there are all kinds of ways to make a difference and we all could be doing so much more. If you know of any other ways I can be helping this movement please let me know. 

But more than anything listen to black voices. Like really fucking listen. 

And finally a bunch of information I've been collecting the last couple weeks that I thought would be helpful to share. 

How to Refocus the Conversation on What's Important

How To Ally

How To Talk To Your Family About Racism

Non-Racist vs. Racial Progressive vs. Anti-Racist

What Has The Uprising Accomplished?

Defund the Police.
This was confusing to me at first but now I totally get it and support it.

 

People are asking how I could be so pro-quarantine and now pro-protest. I’ll put it like this:

If the bus driver tells you to put on your seatbelt, you absolutely should. If the bus driver starts shooting passengers, it‘s probably worth unbuckling

— Jeff Kasanoff (@JeffKasanoff) June 2, 2020

Remembering Dee

It's been a week since we lost Dustin's grandma and I've thought of her often. I didn't see an obituary online so I made my own in typical me fashion, as a video, as a blog post. She was like a 4th grandmother to me (I know, how lucky am I to have had 4 when most people get 2, if that?!).  She was so accepting of me into the family long before we ever even met and continued to treat me that way until the end. She cared for Dustin something fierce. You can see it in the photos below but I know it to be true from the memories and stories he shares with me. I saw it first hand for the past 15 years. 

I will remember that she and I shared the love of the color purple and taking photos. I loved flipping through all of her big old school photo albums smiling and laughing at the same ones like it was the first time I had seen them. She loved movies and always had a stack of newly released DVDs next to her chair in the living room ready to watch. I'm talking Tom Cruise or Fast and the Furious kind of action. I'll miss sitting at the table in the middle of the kitchen listening to her and Dustin talk about the past. She was feisty and didn't take shit from anyone. She was hilarious a lot of times without even meaning to be. She was so incredibly talented with ceramics. She had a whole shop in her basement and would be delighted every time I asked to go down and paint something (which was literally every time we visited). My favorite ceramic is a skull that sits on my desk as I type this. I was just going to paint it one color but she taught me a technique to make it look dimensional and aged. She always wanted to take us all out for family dinners whether she was down in Florida or we were up there. She was easy going and let us come and go as we pleased during our visits. She always wanted to know how Cheeto and Olive were doing. She once thought email was delivered at the same time each day much like regular snail mail and I'll never stop thinking how hilarious and cute that is. She was so extremely giving. Dustin and I both share the fact that our childhoods would've been so much different had we not had our grandparents. I  know he is forever grateful for all that they gave to him from the stuff to the experiences to a home base amidst all the moves.

Thank you for the memories.
Thank you for the laughs.
Thank you for always treating me like one of your own.