Quarantine Diary, Entry #8

Well, the whole world blew up.  I didn't think this spring could get any crazier.  How naive I was.  The truth is that the world NEEDED to blow up.  But I was still taken by surprise.  I realize that I have a lot of learning to do.  A lot.  I don't want to be a person who just reposts some memes and leaves it at that.  I want to take an active part in becoming an anti-racist.  Saying I'm not a racist is not enough.  I talk to my kids about being students vs. being scholars.  Students just sit in their desks and let the days wash over them.  They're there because they have to be.  Scholars take an active part in their education.  I'm not going to let this wash over me.  To hold myself accountable, I am going to post here what I'm DOING about it.  I'm not going to put this on Instagram or Facebook.  I have a lot of people that are connected to me there who would see this as bragging, and that's not why I'm doing it.  My posting this here is to hold myself accountable for being more than just words.  For the 3 people on earth who read this blog, you can tag along for the ride.  😉

Money
$50 to Minnesota Freedom Fund (I did this earlier... they've been kind to ask to spread the love, so my next donation will be to another organization).
$150 to a Minneapolis food/diaper/supply drive to feed families cut off from stores during riots
$10 to Arrowhead Tattoo for a Black Lives Matter raffle

Protests
Andrew and I attended the Black Lives Matter march in Fairfield.  Even our little town of 10,000 in rural Iowa, we had 350+ people show up and many more honking and shouting support as they drove by.

 

Reading

I finished Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine, Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up By Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney, and The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson.  I am in the middle of reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  I bought all of these books... the picture books in hard copy (though they haven't arrived yet) and the other two in Kindle format.

Purchases

For my granddaughter's 3rd birthday, I have bought an American Girl Bitty Baby #1 with brown skin and textured black hair.  I have also bought the books How Do You Dance? by Thyra Heder and Most People by Michael Leannah to send her.  These were both recommended as picture books prominently featuring characters of color.

For my own reading and for my classroom, I bought Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor (I can't believe I've never read it.  Shame on me.) and Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Damian Duffy and John Jennings of Octavia E. Butler's book of the same name.  Both of these are hard copies.  I know that the first book is appropriate for my classroom library.  I'll judge the second after I read it. 

I hope we all can hold ourselves accountable for our actions.  I hope we're all more than just words.  We can do better.