パイパー・カーダのインスタグラム(pippiphooray1) - 6月19日 04時13分

for most of my life I have operated on the notion that if you are not educated on a subject, you should not speak authoritatively about it. this has been a hard habit to break while navigating the (beautiful, powerful, long-overdue) shift in social media, especially juxtaposed with my “””platform””” and the added pressure of feeling like I HAVE to say something even when I know that I am not as educated as I could be (along with being acutely aware of the fact that my voice is not the one that needs to be heard). that being said, I will try not to be too self-indulgent in this next bit.

as a POC woman and someone who cares deeply about the rights of other marginalized groups, I thought I was out here fighting the good fight. but the environment we’ve been steeped in for the last week or two has made it painfully clear that I was giving myself way too much credit. I have repeatedly found myself, both online and in person, in uncomfortable conversations and situations pertaining to race and the police and politics. but the most unsettling part about it all was not the white supremacists in my DMs or having to explain the problematic nature of ‘all lives matter’ to a family member, it was the realization that this uncomfortability was a direct result of having the privilege of not being engaged in hard conversations prior to this movement. my uncomfortability was no ones fault but mine. would I have said Black lives matter 7 years ago? absolutely. was I having these conversations and doing the work required of allyship 7 years ago? absolutely not. while I cannot take back a lifetime of inaction, I will continue to do what I can to not just hope for a solution, but to be a part of it. and I encourage others to reflect on how they can/cannot or have/haven’t done the same.

here are a mere FRACTION of the faces, of the lives that have been unjustly taken in acts of brutality and racism. we are (or should be) still upset, still posting, still protesting (if you can), still doing the work and still leaning into the uncomfortable because these lives are still gone. the link in my bio is consistently being updated with resources and ways to help, please do what you can.

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• austinchanning