Centering Black voices for racial justice #BlackLivesMatter

Last updated on: December 19, 2014 at 11:50 am by Sarah Whedon

Centering Black voices for racial justice #BlackLivesMatter 2014-12-19T11:50:25-05:00 Sarah Whedon

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Pagan Families has been too slow to write about the current movement for racial justice and to affirm that #BlackLivesMatter. In “A Commitment to Realignment and Resignation” Crystal Blanton explains why Pagan organizations must be clear in their opposition to racial injustice.

So I wrote something frankly pretty indulgent about my personal grappling with white privilege as a parent. It was useful to me to write it, but I’ve decided not to publish it. I realized that what I’m hearing over and over again from Black people is that they really want white people to stop making the current movement for racial justice into another opportunity to talk about white people.

So instead, I want to use this platform in service of trying to center and amplify the voices of Black people and other people of color. Here are some essays by writers of color making the connections between parenting, racial justice, and police violence:

“How To Parent On a Night Like This” by Carvell Wallace is a heartbreaking essay about the clash of the ordinary and the impossible in parenting around the decision to not indict Darren Wilson.
“Telling My Son About Ferguson” by Michelle Alexander is a painful portrait of her decision to end her son’s innocence around the racism of the criminal justice system.
In “Police Violence Is a Systemic Problem That Requires Systemic Solutions” Jessica González-Rojas explains that the pain of mothers’ whose babies are killed by police violence, makes this a reproductive justice problem.

I invite you to use the comments here to link to other places where people of color are speaking out for racial justice. I would also like to invite Pagan writers of color who lack a place to publish their words, to reach out to me at [email protected] about publishing your essay here at Pagan Families.

Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas

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