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Fellow White People: 5 Recommendations for Racial Education
After the horrendous killing of George Floyd in my own community in Minneapolis, the anger, anguish, frustration, and desire for change to the unequal racial justice system is palpable.
Among the reactions, never before in my personal and professional circles have I seen so many white people ask the question, “What can I do to help?”
For those of us in Minnesota, there are resources for how to immediately help posted from Star Tribune, MPR News, and the local Black Lives Matter George Floyd page, among others.
On the Black Lives Matter page, the second section is for “what you as a non-black person can do to support.” The number one item listed is: Educate Yourself.
In my years of doing diversity, equity, and inclusion work, I have seen the vital importance for us white people to educate ourselves in this country’s history of institutional racism and suppression of people of color if we want to truly make a difference. In response to the question, “What can I do to help?”, educating yourself is one of the many things that you can begin right away. My intent here is to share a few resources that I have found helpful in my own personal racial education process.
It is through this process that, as counseling psychologist Janel Helms framed, one…
