Q: Tell me the first time you challenged, or thought about challenging, racism.
For the past fifteen, almost sixteen, years of my life I have been surrounded by many racist ideologies, as many have. I had the privilege to choose not to get involved with civil rights and antiracist movements in the past because I thought that it was “wrong” or did not “concern me”. I feel part of the reason that I did not get involved was truly that I did not want to self reflect or take the time to educate myself because it would make me uncomfortable. As we all know police brutality towards people of color has been an ongoing thing for years but has definitely been amplified on social media in the past few months. I am a huge fan of educating myself through social media and literature and it, unfortunately, took seeing it on social media for me to realize how wrong this was and how I absolutely needed to learn how I can help. Since then, I have been doing as much as I possibly can to work towards the goal of being an actively anti-racist ally to all people of color. Throughout this ongoing experience, I learned more about everything involving racism, social justice, and white privilege than I have in my 10+ years of being in school. It has not been an easy journey so far by any means, but I am growing from the process and appreciating the opportunities that it has provided me along the way like having meaningful conversations with loved ones or even with teachers that may be difficult to have, but worth it in the long run. - Carly, RSU 10 Student
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