This week, I’m asking my White readers to listen to author Kimberly Jones.
Once again, I ask you to listen like you’re listening to someone very dear to you. Someone you care about, who is imploring you to understand what her life is like.
She does a lot of work in this video, work she shouldn’t have to do, to get us White people to see how her world is constructed. To see how broken the social contract* is for Black people in this country.
When she asks you to “imagine…,” I ask you to put yourself there. Meet her work with your own internal work. As you listen, really imagine how you’d feel if you were experiencing what she describes.
Notice, too, the difference between her America and yours. In the vast monopoly game she speaks to, where are you located in relation to where she’s located? How does your Whiteness help you fair better, obscure the true nature of the game, and blind you to how the game is rigged against Black people?
*The candid reflection on the social contract from Trevor Noah of the Daily Show that Kimberly references is here.