Resolutions 2016: Refusing white supremacy

Some of us may be wizened old queers with crusted-over hearts, but even we can find promise in the New Year. 2015 has been a tough year for hope. But -- mercifully -- white privilege has been made so stark that it has completely undone the idea of bystanders. We're all in the soup, and it's how we swim around in it that makes the difference.

Here are some ideas for pledges to white people to avoid supporting white supremacy, where we have the power to do it. Also some links that are related, but that definitely don't contain all the answers. It's just a starting point for thinking about how 2016 can be different because we make it so.

I WILL NOT...

• patronize restaurants or other venues where the front staff are all white, and the kitchen/rear staff are all people of color.
  Ethical eating app (ROC NYC)

• call or involve police as a substitute for attempting to resolve problems with strangers or take care of another person.
  ChiCopWatch

• send my kids to a segregated school or a school where tracking (like Gifted & Talented programs) effectively separates kids by income or race.
  Gentrification doesn't fix schools (Nikole Hanna-Jones/Grist)

• rent an apartment from which another person has been evicted -- and I will ask why an apartment is vacant before renting it.
  Rent Responsibly App

• move into a neighborhood or space where people of color are being displaced.
  Before It's Gone//Take It Back

• profit from black (or indigenous, or other subjugated people's) culture, whether financially or socially.
  Black Art Is Not A Free-For-All (Nadijah Robinson/Black Girl Dangerous)

I WILL...

• choose local/small vendors over chains, particularly small businesses owned by people of color -- even if it means buying something different (a drip coffee instead of a latte?) from what I might have planned.
  A Year of Shopping Only At Black Businesses (Mother Jones) 
  5 Way To Support Black-Owned Businesses (Mashable)

• seek out local and non-mainstream cultural performance by people of color and indigenous people.
  We Want the Airwaves 
  Nuyorican Poets Cafe

• make a practice of greeting the people I see regularly on the street in my neighborhood, as a way of refusing the separation that supports racism, fear, and predatory policing (and also other violence.)
  Safe Outside the System (SOS) 
  To Reduce Gun Violence, Know Thy Neighbor (Andrew Giambrone/The Atlantic)

• cop-watch as a matter of habit: I will openly observe police on the street when they are questioning or arresting someone, and ask the person under police control if they are okay or need help.
  Color Of Change on CopwatchNYC

• participate in at least two public protests or actions each year that have been organized by people of color contesting white supremacy -- in person, not online.
  NYC Shut It Down

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