It’s not enough to offer our hurting Muslim brothers and sisters in New Zealand and across the world our thoughts and prayers today. If we are not actively working to deconstruct White Supremacy wherever we find it, we are part of a system that allows it to thrive in our world—we are complicit.
Get comfortable with being uncomfortable, and challenge that *harmless* racist joke or xenophobic stereotype. It’s not enough to be a *nice* person instead of a bully and keep quiet while someone else spews hate. It’s also not enough to keep quiet at less obvious but still deeply damaging ignorant assumptions. Most of us have done at least that. I’ve done at least that. But that shit is not harmless—it provides fertile soil for all the other shit.
Your friend’s minority joke? Your pastor’s Adam and Steve reference that gets a cheap laugh from the congregation? At the end of those roads is a place where people still get lynched for the *crime* of existing. You think one doesn’t make space for the other to thrive? It does. So speak the hell up and get over whether people won’t like you for it.
We need to educate ourselves on how to be the opposite of silent because silence is indifference, whatever we may tell ourselves about how we feel or care. We need to make it our business to learn how to be an ally to every group that experiences hate—because there are far, far too many in our world.
I’m preaching to myself first. But I’m also preaching to you.
AS-SALAMU ALAYKUM: Peace be upon you. Peace be upon us all. But it takes work.
