I am in my 40s and I have never had to wrestle with what white supremacy has meant for me and the advantages it has provided for me. Surfacing it and digging into it is difficult and elicits shame and defensiveness. I am so struck by how entrenched white supremacy is in all that we do – and the ways that we do it, and many of us have never had to think about it or navigate it because it benefits us, it feeds our privilege. This is where I am so grateful to our team and the experience they bring to this work – as we surface these topics, we navigate them internally – how are we talking about it? What do we mean by what we are saying? How are we having this conversation with each other? How do support our clients to have the conversation? We are starting to take clients deeper into their journeys of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and in doing so, we are bringing forward some uncomfortable topics. I benefit from white supremacy every day as a white, cis-gendered, non-disabled settler, and I benefit in ways that I understand and in ways that I am still learning about. I have been working through all of these responses. It evokes fear, anxiety, shame, and discomfort. White supremacy evokes a strong response. I think that we need to say it and we need to learn about it. Getting Uncomfortable about White Supremacy
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