Friday Feels: Do the Work, Clean the Air

This week started with me doing my best to traverse California and get to Yosemite. (Spoiler alert: don’t do it!)

My friend had invited me along to hike the famous park and I have never been. So, wildfires and smoke be damned.

We woke up on Sunday morning and headed out. All was okay at first, but the further we traveled west the thicker the air got. We plowed onward, excusing the thick air around us as just something to get through.

And it got thicker. And thicker.

Mother nature was trying to give us a sign but we didn’t want to see it. The fire truck parked perpendicular closing down highway 120 gave us the literal sign we needed.

After several hours in the car we admitted defeat and returned to SF, cursing the smoke.

And this whole week I’ve been thinking a lot about smoke.

Our bodies have a strong reaction to smoke because our lungs cannot process the air. The particulates jam up the tiny blood vessels in our lungs and say no bueno to that air. So the oxygen we can process to sustain us lessens with each inhale.

It’s scary when you go to take a big breath and are met with smoke in your lungs…a feeling that you cannot breathe and the very air around you meant to sustain you is now a participant in your active demise.

And then I heard about Kenosha.

And I felt smoke in my lungs.

I was raised and taught as a kid to respect police officers and told that they were good. They were there to protect me from “bad people.” Now, more aware of my white privilege filter, I hear those words charged with coded racial undertones since the “bad people” usually referenced were from the poorer, darker parts of Dallas.

I have to admit that when I first heard the calls to “Defund the Police” I had an instinctive reaction against that call. I had always understood that police meant safety and that safety was good. I never questioned who’s safety. And at what price?

The very air I thought was good for me has infiltrated my lungs with smoke.

And I’ll go farther…(since I may already be raising some eyebrows)…white people have been taught to use the police as their own personal militia against those “bad people” who dare to challenge them. It’s about protecting that precious, fragile privilege we have, so when someone “looks suspicious” you’re taught to call the cops.

This cycle is maddening and I realize for too long I’ve been a part of it.

We need fresh, clean air so we can breathe.

But for that to happen we cannot keep driving into the smoke, we have to actively turn around and go the other way.

We have to do the work.

Back in June I remember hearing the call to be “anti-racist” and it felt strange to me. I never thought of myself as racist. But I hadn’t thought of myself as “anti-racist” either.

We have to do the work.

There’s so much talk at Facebook about diversity and inclusion these days. And let me be even more honest — I see a lot of the burden to make us more diverse and inclusive falling on my black and brown friends and colleagues.

I am inspired by their leadership. But I am ready to get to work myself. And I’m ready for everyone to join me in doing the work.

I was taught that “many hands make light work.” And since this work is hard, I’m going to challenge us to do the work together.

Here’s how that looks…

• If you haven’t devoted a team meeting at work to how we can do this work within your team then make it happen by the end of September.
• If you haven’t developed a strategy for how you can be a better ally to colleagues around you (and yes, that means you using your voice to help them) then do it — today.
• If you haven’t registered to vote and you’re a US citizen, then register to vote today — block an hour on your calendar or postpone any meeting to do so and don’t be shy about it to help encourage others.
• If you haven’t watched “13” on Netflix do it this weekend. Or find a similar show that lifts up black voices and black experiences and educate yourself so you can do the work.
• If you don’t feel comfortable even talking about this because you don’t know what to say, find a friendly ear that you know will not judge you and admit to them this is hard and ask them to help you find the words so you can use your voice.

And with each and every action you take, with every bit of work we do — the air gets a little cleaner.

When we finally got back to the city on Sunday after our long journey in the smoke I simply filled my lungs with clean(er) air in a deep, expansive inhale.

And I felt the beauty when that oxygen hit my soul.

Take care of each other, mi gente.

JM

#fridayfeels