Now, as always, it is critical that White people with platforms use them to amplify Black voices. My voice is not the voice that needs to be heard right now.

So for this week’s blog post, I ask my White readers to listen to Tamika Mallory (video below).

I ask you to listen to her as you would a cherished loved one. Think of someone you love, someone specific. Imagine they are coming to you in pain, anguish, outrage, desperation, needing to be heard. How would you listen to them?

That is how I ask you to listen to Tamika. Listen to the human experience she is describing in her speech at the Minneapolis protest against police brutality.

As you listen, notice any parts of you that get in the way of hearing her. Any parts of you that try to not feel the experience she is describing. Any parts of you that try to discredit what she is expressing or how she is expressing it. Any parts of you that feel implicated and rush to defend. Any parts of you that argue with facts or language or semantics or circumstances instead of connecting as you would to that cherished loved one in pain.

And when you feel that interference, that defensiveness, that argument, when you notice yourself delegitimize or distance or deflect, when you diminish or flatten her any amount in your heart, I ask you to notice. Notice what those parts of you have done to this cherished loved one in pain. Notice the lengths they will go to not feel. And gently, but with conviction, I ask you to bring yourself back to empathy.

Our Black siblings are crying out for basic humanity in a system that dehumanizes them every day. A system we uphold and participate in.

Let’s hear them. Let’s do what it takes to feel the full extent of what they’re saying, even and most especially when we are implicated. And then, and actually before then, as soon as we possibly can, let’s do something.