The New Intimacy by Allan Hirsh

Unfortunately, I often hear people defending their biases, especially these days. Claiming you're not racist because you have racially mixed friends or work with people of colour is like saying you're a feminist because you have daughters. It's tempting to want to clear ourselves of what's deemed unacceptable, but it's not always helpful in creating change. If we put our defensive responses down, we can approach racism with healing curiosity.

One that allows each of us to nurture awareness and investigate our racially charged biases. We can begin asking questions like, "I wonder what built-in biases might be present in me? Is anything getting in the way of real understanding?" Weeding out our biases is ongoing work. We are never safe from slipping into unconscious beliefs because denial is a big part of our pathology. While it's important not to judge ourselves for what we inherited, it's equally important to not perpetuate it.

As horrific as recent events have been, they're getting our attention and resonating with concerns that have been ignored for far too long. I'm confident that our collective racial lens is being challenged and exposed in a very necessary, timely way. We need to let the pain of this tragedy move through us. We need to let our hearts break open and be freed of blinders, so we can do better. It's ok to weep or rant or reflect. It's ok to feel overwhelmed or deeply moved by the rioting scenes. Processing all of our feelings is important because if we continue to dismiss or minimize suffering, we risk disconnecting from our own humanity and the vulnerability that's necessary to detect the next right step.

Just as illness serves to show us where we need to heal, grief and outrage reveal where rights need to be restored. We must put down our denial and welcome the difficult conversations. We need leadership that unites us through listening and understanding, rather than dividing us through defensiveness. We need to respond to the current events with long-term plans. Our schools need to do more than hold an assembly or assign a paper during Black History Month as though it's a part of our past. As Jane Elliott says, “People who are racist aren’t stupid, they’re ignorant. And the answer to ignorance is education.”

Generational wounds linger deeply in invisible places, and the very first step in healing any trauma is to acknowledge it. We need to remember that words are powerful, they can uplift or tear down. When Thomas Jefferson referred to slavery as "a necessary evil” his words condoned unspeakable suffering.

Minimizing the impact of systemic racism because of our existing legislation is akin to saying women stopped suffering domestic abuse because we no longer have ads from the 1950's that advise husbands to beat their wives to train them into obedience. The suffering of oppressed populations is real and ongoing.

It's time to stop abandoning each other and show courage, literally, because the word courage derives from French, coeur, which means heart. This is a time to lead with heart, be brave and use our voices, our platforms, and our resources to attend to the suffering that our privilege for too long has blinded us to.