Lynn Keane,
Canada
I live at the intersection of race + gender inequality.
When I was a little girl, my mother’s coworker saw us shopping on a Saturday. My mother lost her job on Monday.
When I was a little older, someone wrote “n****r” on our apartment door. I remember being scared and hurt.
My dad regularly had ‘The Talk’ with my brother. Instructing him to be respectful of police when he was pulled over. The assumption was not if but when he’d get stopped.
When I was with my small children in an elevator, a woman asked” if I liked being their nanny”? She wrongly assumed that because my skin colour was different than my children, they weren’t mine.
Being racialized makes you a target for other’s ignorance and hate. Treated as other or devalued because of your skin colour.
As mixed, black and brown people we absorb other’s assumptions every day. This is our truth. We must seize this moment to end systemic racism and institutionalized aggression towards people of colour in our communities.
This revolution requires that everyone take action. It’s long-past time.
Black Lives Matter
