Black Lives Matter

I should have written this post weeks ago, but with lots of work and school deadlines and freezing my eggs and all the appointments associated with that, I didn’t have time to come up for air. And I know that is also a privilege.

I don’t write here very much any more, but I also can’t ignore what’s going on in the world—systemic racism and police brutality against Black people finally getting the attention they should have gotten a long time ago. Black lives matter.

Two good points I’ve seen online:

• You’re not an influencer if you’re just posting about products to buy—you’re a salesperson. (I don’t consider myself an influencer, but I do have a small audience.)
• I don’t know how to tell you you should care about other people.

In grad school, I’ve taken a few classes already focusing on cultural differences, for us to educate ourselves on the experience of someone from a different group. I listened to an episode recently on a podcast for therapists about cultural sensitivity and micro-aggressions, and the guest, a Black therapist named Narissa Harris talked about how cultural competency may not be attainable—but cultural humility and recognizing where we’re wrong is more realistic.

This graphic has been floating around social media, and I’ve found it really helpful. I know I’ve fucked up a lot here, in ways that I now recognize and probably in ways I don’t even know about yet. (But am learning.) I think I’ve been called out from time to time here on my privilege and didn’t recognize it. I’ve always realized I’ve been privileged socioeconomically, but never quite realized the extent of that, plus all the other ways I’m privileged, or even the extent of white privilege. (Here’s an interesting article I read for school that enumerates many of the ways white privilege shows up.)

It’s not enough to be silently “not racist”—I’m learning how to be anti-racist, and one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from what I’ve watched is that impact matters far more intent. Just because you didn’t mean for something to be racist, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t.

Cool, Theodora. Lots of words. What are you going to do?

I don’t post regularly enough to make some kind of statement about my content here that I can live up to. What I can do on this site is diversify the kind of resources I share, whether I’m talking about mental health/fitness/spirituality/books/products. (You can find some in this post.)

IRL, I’m working my way through these books, continuing to learn how I can be a culturally humble therapist—and human, donating to Black causes (Loveland Therapy Fund and the Black Journalists Therapy Relief Fund are two near and dear to my heart), and spending my money supporting Black-owned small businesses.

For some reason, particularly Black-owned jewelry businesses are coming onto my radar! (As an FYI, these are *not* affiliate links.)

I AM OBSESSED with Aur Jewelry, which makes jewelry that changes color throughout the day. (The modern mood ring?) I got these studs.

BR Design Co makes really cute and affordable earrings.

This is out of my price range and probably yours too, but one of my friends told me about Mateo New York, and I am drooling.

I know I’ll fuck up, and I know that’s part of this too.