Fighting social injustice from within and without

This time last year, I was devouring every article I could on misogyny and sexism. My passion for gender equality grew with each passing day. I became a madwoman, obsessed with calling out the overt and covert anti-woman messages in our society. I decided to do something about it, and organized an event on campus, started a hashtag to document the low representation of women in leadership/STEM/politics/business/everything, and took every conversation as a teachable moment to educate my poor friends about the horrendous injustices against women that occur in the world around us on a daily basis. As a woman, a member of the oppressed group, I was in a unique position to speak my truth and express the societal plague from my personal point of view. At some level, I was protected because I brought my own experiences to the table.

Now, I am applying that same fury and passion to a different issue: racism. I am trying to educate myself with articles and books (thanks to my mother for sending "All Eyes are Upon Us: Race and Politics from Boston to Brooklyn"), participate in demonstrations (http://www.localsyr.com/story/d/story/upstate-medical-students-demonstrate-against-polic/16388/Ix10odt1EEWjQ7UZjBIs-w), and speak out whenever possible to draw attention to the pervasiveness of this issue.

While I am applying all that I learned during my self-proclaimed Feminist Awakening, in terms of learning the language of the movement, reading the essentials, and most of all, bravery in the face of those who do not see what I see, there is something different this time. I am on the outside looking in. As a white ally, my focus is now on acknowledging my own privileges, listening to the experiences of others, and encouraging other white would-be/could-be-allies to do the same.

Essentially, the most difficult and most important part of my activism now is shutting up.

Of course, this is not my natural state. I am more of a fist in the air, lead the charge sort of gal. But the more I read and hear about racism, the more I realize the experiences of people of color are totally incomprehensible to me, specifically because racism is so deep and so pervasive that I cannot even imagine the constancy of oppression. Each person's story confirms to me that I will never be able to relate to the pain and fear that comes with being part of a racial minority.

My hope is that as more white people shut up and listen, more people of color will be able to share their experiences. An example of this is the #alivewhileblack hashtag on twitter, which is really worth a read (https://twitter.com/hashtag/alivewhileblack). I don't know what it is going to take to make people believe that racism is alive and well in our country, but before we can come to that conclusion as a group, I do not think there is much hope of combatting it.