The Audacious Act of Taking up Space

Get in the habit of taking space — unapologetically speaking, writing, creating, and sharing — with clarity and conviction — for no other purpose than claiming the space allotted to you at birth.

We live in a society that gives more space to some than to others. This is called privilege. Although privilege feels automatic, built into the structure of reality, it’s not. Privilege is constructed, and it can be deconstructed.

If those with privilege — white, male, wealthy, for example — won’t use their space to deconstruct an unjust system, those to whom space is denied will eventually deconstruct that system from the outside by any means necessary.

Each and every child of the universe has the right to their allotted space. No more. And certainly no less.

Novel coming later today. I’ll post a link in tomorrow’s post, where I’ll continue audaciously taking up space.

“Racist Anti-racism”

I want to begin by saying that I have such a long way to go here.

I grew up White in a small Arizona town. I didn’t begin to comprehend Whiteness and white privilege until five years ago. I’m 62 years old. I feel deeply uncomfortable investigating my racism and talking about racism. I’m not good at it. Oh well.

If you, like me, want to educate yourself, I found this post helpful. In her post, Katie Anthony, a White woman, explains why good White women’s common responses on social media to incidents such as the one in Central Park on May 25th are actually racist anti-racism. Then Katie tells us what to say instead: “I’m sorry.” “I see you.” “That’s awful.”

The book she recommends, So You Want to Talk about Race, is available here.

I’m sorry. I see you. That’s awful.

Healing is often uncomfortable. So be it.

~Barb