The Article below was published in Vol. 136, Issue 5 of the Lake Forest College Stentor on February 19, 2021.
By Hayley Headley ’24
Staff Writer
While the campus community is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to remember that Black History Month is still happening. Last year saw millions of people piling into the streets both here in the United States and abroad. It was a time of awakening to the many centuries of suffering black people continue to endure, but coming into 2021 many of us are asking our non-black counterparts to go the extra mile.
It is clear to everyone who is watching that white lives always matter—there is value and respect given to white people that is not dependent on some other action. Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) people do not have access to that same value. The value and worth of our lives are contingent on some external factor—how hard we work, how well we evade our stereotypes, how white adjacent we act. These are not things I value in myself and they are not things I value in others.
The policing of black bodies has gone on for too long in the public sphere. When I say policing I mean more than just the overbearing and hypervigilant state-sponsored violent actors, it is also the little judgements that stick out in our minds. The small ways we make way for violent action by subconsciously justifying those acts are vital to racism. Feeding into a narrative of lazy, aggressive, and unvirtuous black people demands that black people first work to overcome that stereotype to earn their humanity.
Black excellence should be celebrated, black suffering needs to be addressed, but understanding, recognizing, and appreciating these things isn’t the same as seeing us as people. All too often we only begin to see the black people in our lives as three-dimensional characters when they achieve something or reveal some deep trauma they have overcome. The problem is, when black lives matter their value is intrinsic. It has to be. We cannot half-value humanity.
These are the finer points of antiracist work. While it is less glamorous than taking photos at a protest, it is infinitely more valuable. At least to me.
Going the extra mile is not an easy task because the concept of “otherness” has been associated with the black race since long before any of us were born. Regardless, complicity is no excuse and we must all bear the burden of working to see everyone around us as fully realized people.
This Black History Month (and every month after that) make a conscious effort to view black people as more than just representations of trauma or extraordinary successes. Step outside of your conventional thought patterns and unlearn them. Challenge yourself to do the meaningful unseen work that goes into uprooting racism.
