I refuse to be *that* white woman

In my last blog post, I wasn't able to separate my thoughts from the wildfires tearing through the west coast, especially when we weren't able to open our windows or walk outside without clutching our chests.

Soooo it didn't really feel good to talk about my then-upcoming trip to California, starting in the Bay Area and ending in Lake Tahoe to celebrate my 33rd birthday. 

We made the journey down I-5, traveling through the most eerie clouds of smoke, barely able to see highway signs and the cars in front of us. We were continually driving away from the fires, but seeing parts of I-5 that were burned all the way up to each side of the highway was completely devastating. Whole houses, cars, trailers, crumbled and about to blow away in the wind.

With these fires, plus the fight for racial equality, plus the disaster that was the first "presidential debate" last night... it is hard to focus.

Yesterday I started work with a social media coach and I voiced to her what I have been gnawing on for months now --- it feels f*cking gross to just act like business as usual.

I remember at the very beginning of quarantine there was this badass coach that I had followed on instagram FOREVER, and she was offering a free weekend long seminar. We went over a lot of personal development and business development strategies sprinkled in with some amazing speakers that I truly admire.

So many of the attendees kept voicing this idea that it feels wrong, inauthentic, and let's just say it, really privileged to power through and to "capitalize" on all this time to work on our businesses and just push, push, push.

There is nothing to me that feels more disgusting than continually seeing brown and black people murdered and the next moment talking about my favorite lash serum.

There is nothing to me that feels more inauthentic than to post some bomb ass nano brows and then at the bottom just throw in that Breonna Taylor's murderers are still walking free, just to use her a *touch* more than she already has been for my performative allyship. 

I was venting to my coach and I finally said "I don't want to be that white woman who throws up a black square to show that I 'care' just to never talk about what's really going on in our world until the next tragedy strikes." That to me is privilege wrapped up in a faux-ally strategy ---- a jumblef*ck that I don't want any part in.

For me, it's this balance of talking about what *really* matters, whilst running a business + making money, while amplifying black and brown voices, while challenging myself and other white women, while not taking up space in areas that I will not and should not ever have the rights to.

It is this balance that I am trying to navigate daily.

A lot of this is a stream of consciousness, and I feel that the foundation of so much of this blabber is to show you a little glimpse into my somersaulting brain. 

I am no longer afraid to speak up and use my voice. Am I afraid of offending white women like myself? Definitely not.

Am I afraid of hurting folx of colors by sharing something inaccurate and most likely steeped in an area of ignorance that I haven't worked through? Absolutely.

It makes me think of something I heard Glennon Doyle recently say. It was something along the lines of "when I hear I have offended someone, I don't really mind. But when I hear I have hurt someone, that is completely different. I listen." 

Sooo. This is my brain, currently. As I said, I'm using my voice a lot, and behind the scenes continually educating myself through difficult conversations, books, podcasts.... that whole thing.

But, if there are tangible things that you're doing that help the cause for equality, I'd love to hear what those things are.

I'm just a white woman over here trying to continually improve to hopefully make some type of impact.

That is all for now. Thank you sticking around for this read and witnessing my somersaults.

xo,

Emily 

photo by Irina Negrean Portraits