Can you repeat the question one more time?
Uhm...
I think...
I don't know... Gosh! Sorry.
I remember...
Ooo, I feel bad calling my family out!
We were at the DMV once and my mom...
made a comment about...
“Well, you’re in America, you should speak English!” because someone was...
speaking to their family member... in...
I think a Middle Eastern language, and I corrected her.
I was like, “America doesn’t have a national language, we’re a nation of immigrants.”
Within, like, the Hispanic community a common comment that’s brought up is that they don’t want their...
daughters and sons to marry or date
Black people. A lot of the times there’s a sense of humor behind that; that it’s just a joke, or,
it’s harmless and it’s not serious. But to me, even if it is a joke, it’s not a joke that’s funny.
Out of my entire family, I’m actually the only one who is in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and...
It is very difficult to talk to my family.
One thing that I want to do is to get together and perhaps have like a movie night and
suggest for example, [the movie] 13th, that does explore the concept of systemic racism.
Let the people know around you
the...
current effects of, like,
colonization, and the attitude that we’ve all gotten, kind of, from being taught through an entire lens of white supremacy.
Everybody thinks of it as kind of a past thing.
I remember the first...
slur when I was like 4 or 5.
These guys were like, “Your skin looks like poop, you know, you smell like shit. We don’t wanna play with you.
You’re the color of shit.” So it was kind of like, okay, I knew from very young that I was gonna encounter,
you know, these attitudes.
I think there is internalized racism because racism is systematic. We get indoctrinated with it.
So... I see a lot of colorism. Lighter, brighter, better.
So the closer you are to whiteness whether it’s hair, whether it’s...
the way you speak, or... you know, I see—I see some of that.
Black people who are around people that...
seek to practice anti-blackness,
be you, unapologetically.
The more you practice that, the more you—the more you... put yourself out there without any qualms or asking questions,
the more it forces those people to see you and to see themselves as a result.
In Hispanic culture, we refer to some African Americans as “negritos” and that's a very... derogatory...
just... verbage that is common where we’re from, in our village where I came from and immigrated from. Being in this country as an immigrant,
and now luckily being able to be a DACA recipient and a Dreamer, the conversation I talked to my parents about is, you know, I...
“You have to have a conversation with me about police, because what that means for me, being deported possibly, one day,
but African American kids have to have this conversation about their skin color, which they had no decision of.”
Listen to Black people when we talk about anything that makes us uncomfortable. If someone in your inner circle is
saying the n-word and not—
thinking you’re overreacting, or thinking we’re overreacting for being offended by it,
don’t let it slide just because that person is your friend.
My high school was predominantly white people, and white people saying the n-word was very common, and
no teacher or adult really questioned it.
When addressing someone who is race—racist is to address them...
as hard as it is, with a little bit more compassion and kindness.
I think when you...
address someone...
boldly, and attack them, then they’re just on defense mode and not willing to listen. Kind of approaching it on
more of a level of love helps people to be a little bit more open-minded.
That’s hard too.
Man!
If you have to explain that what you’re saying isn’t a race joke, maybe you shouldn't be saying it.
Yeah, so actually...
It was toward someone, a person of color, and they mentioned that they had to be in the back of the...
restaurant because of their color. And I did mention it to a manager,
actually, about how I did feel uncomfortable about certain things being said, and...
It actually... kind of felt like it was being brushed off, and actually led me to leave the company.
Being paid less than their white counterparts,
I know it’s very...
The rule that they tell you in the workplace is not to discuss
wages. I think... if
people can push for more transparent
conversations to have in the workplace,
that’s a good way to be an ally and make sure everyone is being treated and compensated fairly.
So I think there’s a lot of training as far as sexual harassment goes and [dis]orderly misconduct within the workforce,
but I don't think there’s a lot of training, videos, that touch base on...
just... on racism.
So, they had a full day worth of training, and in this training... someone opened up in that conversation. And she was saying how
she’s a white woman who has a son who’s a white male, a teenager, and
she has recently been so fearful of how he’s interpreting everything, and the way that he might be...
exposed to a group of people who have a mindset that, you know,
Black lives don’t matter. It got her so emotional that she was in tears, because she was asking for help. “How do I
educate my son to make sure he understands this?” and...
just by having that conversation, you know, it opened up a lot of doors.
I am in the holistic field, so I teach yoga, meditation, breathwork; and...
in this field you see a lot of
advertisements. You see a lot of the teachers who are prominent with large followings. They’re—they’re white.
I feel that if we’re going to share culture, that there should be an amplification of Black voices just because they’ve been
actively suppressed.
It’s seen as
unprofessional to have braids or to have twists and those are protective styles of Black women and men.
Black women are three to four times more likely than white women to die in childbirth,
and that’s because there’s these stereotypes that Black women are strong and aggressive, compared to white women being fragile and feminine.
And so it really has an impact on how Black people express their pains and how it’s received by health care professionals.
It is important to listen, and you want to listen with the intent to understand. A lot of times people listen with the intent to
reply to everything, and we just want to be understood.
We have to put defenses down and stop assuming that racism is a problem for other people, but you yourself can never be racist.
I think that’s the most harmful idea to have.
An easy thing that every individual can do is to vote,
you know, on your local level, your local government, for the presidential election.
I seek to make people that feel
anti-Blackness, that are—that are struck by the sight of it, or the existence of it,
I seek to make those people uncomfortable, because that uncomfortability
ultimately leads to them asking the important questions.
There was a certain point that I... just do not... I was not attra—was not sexually attracted to, like, Black folks, like, Black men,
and I think it’s because of the implicit bias that I had growing up.
I try to recognize, within myself, in certain situations, and I try to fight against it.
If you want to see, "Is police brutality a problem?" You can just look it up. It’s right there.
America... oftentimes the real color that they see is green,
and if we can research where we put our money and see what they’re doing with it:
Who are they donating it to, are they using your money to oppress Black people?
Then you need to take your dollars and put it into companies that are more progressive.
I’m sorry. I thought I had so many good things to say.
Use...
whatever privilege you can to amplify Black voices.
They say I ‘talk white’, like, oh, “You’re the whitest Black girl I’ve ever met.”
And I hate it. I’ve always hated it,
but in the moment, I’m like, hahaha, but it’s not okay.
Being brave. That sounds... probably silly, but I think it can be really, really hard to have
conversations like this and just taking the first step of, like, opening it up even when it’s really uncomfortable.
Anti-racism is...
not a one day thing. It is...
something that will take... the rest of our lives.
Even after all of the media has gone down, even after all of the protesters have gone away,
even when there’s no one no longer saying it we still have to live it. We have to live it every day.
Don’t just say Black Lives Matter.
Live Black Lives Matter.