Educate & Mobilize Your Own People

Last month month's action was Direct Solidarity, one of two ways longtime author and activist Paul Kivel recommends for people who identify as white to take action against oppression. The other is educating and mobilizing your own people.

This requires sensitivity: to your own capacity to be in challenging conversations, and to your audience's openness to the topic. Know that some conversations will be fruitful and some definitely will not. Don't let fear stop you.

Your action: 

• Determine who 'your own people' are. This can start very small and close-in, and can expand over time.

• Assess the risk to your positionality, sense of self, and existing relationships as you determine what educating or mobilizing can look like in any given situation.

• Gain consent so educating does not become evangelizing. Acknowledge that you cannot control the reactions of others, no matter how you construct the interaction.

• Share your position or perspective within established relationships and follow up with additional information or resources if it feels appropriate.

• Create an opportunity for mobilizing: invite others to join you at protest, or to contribute to an organization you've vetted, or watch a documentary together before chatting about it.

January 2024 Back to Blog Home

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