Let’s Get Anti-Racist — Thoughts and resources on Black Lives Matter

Hey friends — hope you’re doing well!

Today I’m going to share with you some of my thoughts on the Black Lives Matter movement. As well as how I’m going to continue working hard on becoming an ally. And lastly share with you posts and resources to educate and understand the movement.

So I’ve very lightly touched on what’s been happening in the world since the murder of George Floyd. On here I haven’t been as vocal as I’ve been in real life, or even as much as I have been on Twitter or Instagram Stories. That’s not because I’m not angry, I just want to be able to use my blog to offer up something useful. So instead of just ranting my feelings, I wanted to make a list of things to keep me accountable in my privilege and my internalised racism.

The revolution has been a long time coming, and far too late. So it’s time for us to step up and do everything we can.

So what am I going to do? 

• Asses my white privilege and work on ways to make that work for the greater good instead of just myself and my fellow white people
• Do my own homework on historical and present day racism 
• Diversify my social feed. They’re a little too white at the moment, but only follow people I genuinely want to, not to tokenise
• Keep the flow of BLM information whilst the trend dies down
• Work on my own internalised racism
• Constantly be open to criticism and understand I will get things wrong — we are all constantly learning 
• Asses my spending habits and give money to POC-owned businesses instead of huge corporations
• Use my platform to elevate POC businesses in my field and further on 
• Share my platform to elevate black voices and stories as much as I am able to
• Use my work status to further diversify my work team, and include diverse people within our marketing
• Asses my feelings on white feminism and work harder to include POC and black trans* people in my activism
• Stand up and be accountable. 

This list will change as time goes on and more that I learn. Some things on it may even be called out. And for the love of god please do call me out if you feel I’ve gotten my priorities wrong or you feel I could do more.

I exist in an echo-chamber of bleeding heart lefties and I live in a particularly un-racist part of London. It’s hard to work out exactly what to do to help the Black Lives Matter cause, really. So what do we do? We educate ourselves, really listen to black stories and pay them. Pay them for their emotional labour, their physical labour, and pay them to create things so they can flourish as we have for years.

Black Lives Matter Resources

There is now a plethora of information out there. There’s google docs aplenty, people on Instagram educating — and even streaming services bringing down paywalls to show black films. The work has been done, we just need to read the articles, the books and watch the media we’re now being given for free.

• Anti-Racist Allyship Starter Pack
• National Resources List
• Antiracism Resources
• Antiracism Resources for White People
• Black History Month Library
• #BlackLivesMatter
• Practical Ways to Support Black Lives Matter

I will also be posting resources, posts and news on my personal Instagram stories. You’ll see past posts in this Story highlight regardless of when you read this. A few of my favourite posts are below, click through to read the full post;

What are your plans for diversifying and supporting Black Lives Matter?

Remember to follow me on Instagram and Facebook for daily outfits in my stories, on Pinterest for my inspirations and on Twitter to read my thoughts on a semi-regular basis!