Amplifying Other Voices

 

There are, clearly, more pressing issues in the world right now than my usual topics of baking, parenting, and grammar. Trying to write about summer camp or cupcakes or semicolons seems embarrassingly trivial in the face of what’s happening around our city, our nation, and our world.

Were I not the sole caretaker of my 82-year-old father, I’d be out protesting right now, despite my normal aversion to crowds and conflict. But I’m not even going to the grocery store these days, so a protest is not in the cards for me.

But my opinion is clear and simple: Black lives matter. The fact that that’s even controversial boggles my mind.

In talking to my father last week, a man who’s been alive since the 1930s and remembers participating in protests from the 1960s, it became clear that not enough has changed in his lifetime.

“There’s always going to be some white person in the crowd who wants to be seen and heard and so he – it’s usually a he – talks over black voices,” he told me this weekend. “There is always going to be some white person who wants to light something on fire and get on TV. Don’t be that kind of white person.”

I don’t want to be that kind of person at all, ever. So if you’d like to do some reading on anti-racism and how to be an activist and/or an ally, I’ll direct you to this list of resources compiled by the Black Culture Club and the Student Council at Franklin.

Their voices are more important than mine on this topic. I would rather amplify their thoughts and recommendations than add my thoughts to the mix. I’ll be back next week with my take on how to navigate a summer in quarantine or my recipe for kickass peanut butter frosting or my mnemonic for remembering the difference between “lie” and “lay.”

Until then, friends, be safe. Be kind. Be good humans.

 

 

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