Yesterday I did not write or post a blog post because I wanted to participate in Blackout Tuesday, in which I dedicated all my social media entirely to signalboosting Black voices and activists and taking a step back from participating in the conversation on racism in the country. I did a lot of reblogging and retweeting! It was actually a good reminder of what white people's role in this is, and I will try to be more mindful of finding Black voices to share if they have said what I wanted to contribute. I'll continue to tweet, blog, speak up/out, of course, but just trying to find a better balance. A lot of my time yesterday was spent reading, watching, and listening to stuff that is easily available to everybody to educate themselves on antiracism work. I started reading Me and White Supremacy, by Layla Saad, I listened to a great blog post that I shared the link to on FB yesterday, and I watched 13th, the Ava Duvernay documentary on Netflix. If you've not seen it, watch it, it's an absolute must. I also made a donation to an organization I thought is important in all of this. It was a good day, but it wasn't a "well, that's done" moment. It was a start.
Today was pretty much more of the same. I spent the morning working on a blog post of resources for cops who are contemplating leaving the force after all of this, but may not know how to go about doing it. I have to hold out hope that there are at least a few of them out there that realize what they're doing right now and how wrong it is.
I also spent some time working on making a doctor's appointment. I actually had to call on the phone to set it up! But I'll be going in in-person rather than a video meeting. I'm down to a now 9 day supply of my Omeprazole and since the appointment isn't for a month, the doctor will get me a small refill before I can go in and get my annual refills.
No movie today, but I watched a couple more episodes of Dear White People, the Netflix show based on the movie. It's really good, I highly recommend it.
I went on a walk yesterday and today but yesterday's walk ended up in a trip to Bartell's for a few things and I didn't up taking a picture, and today I forgot my camera! But I would have taken a picture so I'll describe to you what I saw instead. On my way back to my apartment, a small group of young kids, elementary school age, and their parents were setting up a small protest on the sidewalk to show all the people walking and running by. They had Black Lives Matter posters and it seemed like it was a homeschooling lesson in civics and participating in protesting and it was beautiful!
One of the things I've been trying to do in my Arthur novel, is find more ways to include people of color. I did some research and it turns out that racism, as we know it, did not really exist in the Roman Empire, and because of the size of it, there was a lot more interaction with people from other parts of the world, and was way less white than we've been taught to think. And because my story is pseudo-history, I can also basically do what I want. So, I'm going to start working more to do this.
I want to work on finishing my chapter, hopefully I can do this tomorrow. Work on Friday, unless plans change.
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