Thank you to everyone that read my last couple of posts. Some hard but productive discussions have arisen from them and I hope that everyone continues the important work of anti-racism education and action. Black Lives Matter. Period. I am committing each week to sharing something I've read from my personal anti-racism work. I hope this keeps me accountable to set aside time for my own education and I hope it encourages others to do the same. Let's make this a habit. I also plan to continue my random thoughts because I hope they may provide a mental break. Sanity must be found in order to continue the fight!
Anti-racism
As a former attorney and mother, I was greatly struck by Boston University School of Law's Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig open letter to her students. I urge you to read it and this short interview with her. Even a Black woman in a position of power felt uncomfortable openly discussing her feelings on the murder of George Floyd. This week I've reflected on times where I shut people down or failed to give them the benefit of the doubt because they did not follow the "appropriate" code of conduct. Even our societal norms are based on white male supremacy. Emotions are not tolerated and deviations from acceptable topics of conversation are not tolerated. Why are these the rules? Who benefits from these rules? You don't even have to be a person of color to feel silenced by these rules. Dean Onwuachi-Willig's statement that she was worried about the alumni made me think about how much deference we give to people with money. I work in fundraising, so that is my job, but I've started thinking about the actual time we spend listening to the recipients of our mission versus catering to the benefactors. To whom am I giving my time and energy? This is a big question in my personal life as well. Lots of work ahead!
Random Thoughts
1. The logical conclusion of wearing a mask in the sun would be that your eyes and forehead get tan while everything under the mask would not. Somehow, my face is defying logic. My cheeks are tanning and my eyes and forehead remain pale. Is this a sign of COVID? Does this mean I'm a mutant? Someone please explain this to me because I am at an absolute loss.
2. I am grateful for Amex points during our first month of tightening the budget. I used to think they were only for travel, etc., but it appears you can use them for much more. Since it doesn't look like we will be traveling anytime soon, might as well use them for necessities!
3. Trying to come up with a short vacation getaway that is within 2 hours of NYC, barely costs money, is easy to get our nanny back and forth and would give us all some breathing space is both entertaining (yay research!) and also incredibly depressing (because it is futile). For some reason, I am unable to give it up. The search for the Holy Grail continues...
4. Ryan and I have started having Mario Kart battles every night. We started it as a self-care thing. At first, I thought it would a fun and relaxing self-care thing, but now I'm starting to think it is more of an aggression release self-care thing. It also quashed a dream of mine that we would play as a family when the kids are a bit older because neither of us are able to refrain from severely profane outbursts. I guess we will have to wait until they can watch rated R movies.
5. In case anyone was curious, I checked in on the whole Murder Hornet thing and apparently it hasn't been as big of a deal as they first thought. However, it appears that bumble bees are being killed at alarming rates because people think they are murder hornets. Why does this not surprise me?
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