“Overcoming Obstacles to Create Community” is an initiative of the Women’s Voices’ Racial Justice Committee. Each month, we’ll provide timely, concrete ideas and suggestions you can include in your daily lives.
May – Speak Up!
Members of Women’s Voices have both an opportunity and an obligation to speak up to counteract racism, hate, fear and intolerance. Here are a few ways to consider to get your “vocal” muscles strengthened and strengthen your community.
- Write letters to the editor and commentary for local media. The St. Louis Post Dispatch, the St. Louis American, or the Webster-Kirkwood Times. Visit womensvoicedsraised.org and search for Guidelines for Writing Letters to the Editor. Need more help? Email us at advocacy@womensvoicesraised.org.
- Fight intolerance, but spread tolerance through your social media, especially Facebook and Twitter.
- Speak with your feet. Join a rally or a protest. March.
- Do not attend or speak at a hate rally. (such as those sponsored by the Westboro Baptist Church, whose members travel the country to speak out against LGBT individuals). When possible, get a group together and hold an opposing “unity rally” at the same time as the hate rally.
- Talk to people…friends, neighbors, co-workers, and especially your children. Let them know that hate is not acceptable. Call out incidents of racism, white supremacy, and intolerance.Put a Black Lives Matter sign in your yard. You can purchase one at Left Bank Books or Afro World.
- Practice being confrontational in a non-confrontational way. What will you say to a co-worker who makes a joke about a gay couple? How can you respond to a dinner companion who makes a racial slur? Are you comfortable responding? If so, what will you say and how will you say it? Practice!