It’s the Martin Luther King Jr. birthday holiday today. In the past, I’d be out in the streets, joining a march to commemorate and keep his memory alive. This year, I decided to take some time to reflect. Anyone who knows me knows that my struggles with diversity and race are real. As a woman of color in technology, it’s been a hard road to stay in the sector. I want to make an impact, and I want to show the generations that come after me that it is possible to have a long-running career in technology. But, the powers that be don’t make it easy for me.
In my lifetime, I have seen some fantastic strides towards a nation that is race-agnostic. I’ve seen black women enter politics and be productive. I’ve seen a black man elected as president. I’ve seen beautiful black women finally get the crowns in beauty pageants.
No good deeds go unpunished. I've seen the continuation of the prison industrial complex and its detrimental effect on black men and families. I've seen the gentrification of once-thriving black communities. And, finally, I have seen the destruction of migrant families at the border.
There is one step forward for hope and two steps backward for hate. However, I know we will get there.
How will we get there? I genuinely believe that it will be a combination of actions:
We need to have a serious discussion around reparations for all the people of color that have been affected by white supremacy. It’s not going to be easy, but this nation only seems to pay attention when money is involved.
We need to include the curriculum in our schools about our real history. Too often, the civil war is portrayed confusingly regarding the origins of the war. Non-white narratives are not represented correctly out of history books.
We need to make mandatory field trips to places of learning. A great place to visit is The National Memorial for Peace and Justice and The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. There are many other places and museums all over the United States that kids and adults can visit.
We should also start documenting more places of historical interest. Placards on the streets, institutions, houses, schools, or monuments with historical information should be displayed prominently. The history of non-white people is also essential and should be learned by all.
We should recognize that this will take time and that we need to start sooner as opposed to later. The longer we wait, the more likely that people of color will not have the patience, the time, or the energy to keep up the status quo.
While there is reverence for this holiday which was fought for and won over the objections of senators and politicians, there are still some workplaces that don’t seem to recognize it, or it is parlayed it into a floating holiday. Worse, it is starting to turn into a shopping holiday. And what shopping event would that be? It’s a White Sale. As if we need more bedding and linens, people! Once again, whiteness prevails.
How would white people react to a real White Sale? That’s an alternate universe.
White Sale, anyone?