Show Up. Imperfectly.

When I went to my first Winnipeg Jets game a few years ago, I found myself daydreaming. Observing 16,000 fans cheering and chanting and cursing in unison, I wondered wistfully to myself, “Wouldn’t it be incredible if we could get 16,000 people in Winnipeg to show up for social justice?”

Immediately, I felt a twinge of embarrassment that my hopeless idealism couldn’t leave me alone even at a hockey game. “Get a grip, Katie,” I told myself, “Never will 16,000 Winnipeggers come together to decry homelessness or human trafficking or racism. Just be normal and start yelling at the refs.”

But the universe surprised me. 

On a warm Friday evening in early June, at least 16,000 Winnipeggers gathered at the Manitoba Legislature to rally for justice for black lives in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.
At least 16,000 people showed up for social justice.
In the middle of a pandemic. 

And it was even more powerful than I’d imagined at my first Jets game. I was blown away by the beautiful diversity of the crowd. Black and white and brown bodies from all ages, genders, and cultures, united for the purpose of wanting a better world for people of colour. The energy was tangible. My dream had come true. 

Local New Democrat Party leader Uzoma Asagwara, the first black and queer person ever elected to the Manitoba Legislature, urged the crowd to bring the energy of that rally into our daily lives. To always burn for justice like this. To show up in solidarity and humility with your full self to be a long-term, steadfast ally. 

The question that remained for me—a white, middle class, heterosexual, cisgender woman—was: how?

Leaning into humility

I’m not the first white person during the summer of 2020 to wonder how I should show up for the racial justice movement. The discussion and debate on the topic has been ubiquitous, and often conflicting.

Sometimes, the message for white people is prescriptive and rule-based, with clear should’s and should not’s. 
Sometimes, it’s highly individualized, where white people are urged to look inward to excavate their own biases before taking action.
Sometimes, it’s to speak up, take a stand, just do something. 
Sometimes, it’s to be quiet and stay on the sidelines to listen to and amplify the voices of people of colour. 

This myriad of messages can be confusing for privileged white people. As bestselling writer, producer, and speaker Austin Channing Brown explains in this podcast, “white people really like rules when it comes to racial justice so they can do it the ‘correct’ way.” 

Austin’s conclusion is certainly consistent with many conversations I’ve been having with well-intending white people in my circle who value the idea of allyship, but fear the path it requires. Myself, my white colleagues and white friends—we were all born into the insidious yet pervasive white supremacy culture, which prides itself on being “right” (as defined by white people) as both a tool of power and a mechanism for its own self-protection. 

Without a clear, ten-step antiracism rulebook, white people like me fearfully ask questions like:
What if I say the wrong thing?
What if I insult somebody?
What if I cause more harm than good?
What if I don’t use the right terms?
What if I embarrass myself?
What if I take up space that isn’t mine?
What if … what if … what if …

We’re so caught up in our heads.
We occupy ourselves by asking every “what if” we can think of, gradually letting our minds talk us out of showing up. 
We tell ourselves we will actively participate later—once we’ve figured out and conquered this whole allyship thing, once we feel like we’re “enough”.
We trap ourselves with paralysis by analysis. 

Asking hard questions is good. 
Desiring to be conscientious, respectful, and sensitive is good. 
Awareness of our privilege is good. 
But we can’t let it end there.

By not choosing, we are choosing. 
By allowing ourselves to be consumed and immobilized by the fear of responding to injustice, we are complicit in that injustice. 

Many of us choose the safer, more comfortable, more familiar option of waiting silently in the wings. We are watching the game high up in the nosebleeds section—but we are so far away from the ice and the action that we’re barely part of the game. 

And I get it. I struggle to navigate my place in the racial justice movement as a white person. I know that same fear. 

For me, that fear is rooted in perfectionism. I don’t want to make mistakes or fail or upset anybody. I want to be an effective, flawless ally on the first try. But that’s just my ego getting in the way. Beneath my fear is perfectionism, and beneath the perfectionism is my ego. And ego has no place here.

The bridge from helplessness to allyship isn’t perfection.
It’s humility. 

Simple as that may sound, humility is hard and uncomfortable. Personally, I don’t like admitting that I’m a full-grown adult with a university degree in Human Justice and yet I somehow haven’t figured out how to fully show up as a good ally in the antiracism movement. That feels frustrating and shameful.

It’s uncomfortable looking inside myself and finding white privilege and racism. It’s humbling to unlearn racist ways of thinking and to spend time learning how I can be a better person. But while people of colour are suffering and dying because of structural racism, the least I can do is lean into humility, get a little uncomfortable, and be willing to show up—even if it can’t be perfectly. I have been born into a life of privilege, so I must do my part to dismantle the oppression that was constructed to propel people like me ahead of others.

These days, I’m wondering if the only thing worse than showing up imperfectly as a white person to this movement is not showing up at all. I may—no, I will say the wrong thing and make mistakes and be corrected, but surely that’s better than saying nothing because I’d prefer to be comfortable, thanks. If I am willing to show up from a place of grace, self-compassion, and humility, then I can accept being corrected as an invitation to be a stronger ally than before. 

And that’s where change starts to happen.

Looking inward

What if our impulse to stay safely on the sidelines of the antiracism movement is really a summons for stillness, not silence?

What if our visceral reactions to making a stand aren’t about shutting down, but are actually an invitation to look deeper inside ourselves? 

When we feel fear rising up in our chest and getting caught in our throat, perhaps that’s our body’s way of saying, “I am giving you a signal. Look deeper. Explore what’s behind this fear so that you are no longer silenced by it. I am not trying to stifle you, I’m trying to free you.”

When we stay silent permanently, we give our power away. But when we get still enough to look within ourselves to confront and dismantle our internal barriers, we regain our power. 

Within ourselves are specific answers for our specific being, our specific journey. 
That’s where we confront the deepest, darkest parts of ourselves—our shadows.
That’s where we discover our fears and biases, hurts and traumas.

When we’re willing to sit with our shadows, we start to accept ourselves as we are, flaws and all.
When we identify our insecurities, we can begin to let them go so that we can bring our full, truest, most powerful selves to the movement. 
When we are willing to be vulnerable and lean into the humility of letting go of striving for perfection, then we no longer have to derive our value from whether or not we always get it right.
When we are prepared to make mistakes and constantly learn, then we are free.

And when we have the courage to examine ourselves and hold space for whatever we might find, we are already starting to do the work of dismantling oppression and injustice. Our inner reconciliation gives us the space and energy to participate in reconciliation “out there” in the world. 

The work of doing requires us to spend time being.
And being is what prepares and energizes us for the doing. 

We cannot separate the two. 
We cannot have one without the other.
They are not linear—we are constantly evolving to show up more effectively and sustainably. 
They are simultaneous and inextricably connected.

Our inner work is part of justice. 

Moving forward

At the rally at the Manitoba Legislative Building, at least 16,000 imperfect people showed up.
Some were activist veterans. 
Some had never been to a rally before in their lifetime. 
Some were seasoned political leaders or had been fighting to dismantle racism their whole lives.
Some had never considered voting for racial justice. 
Some were actively participating in racist systems without even knowing it. 

But there were no screening stations set up at the edge of the grounds in order to allow only the wokest of woke activists inside.
You didn’t need to show proof of progressivism to enter.
You didn’t require a university or graduate degree, or any training at all for that matter.
You didn’t need to know all of the right terms or understand what defunding the police meant. 

All were welcome.
All you needed was to show up, be willing to search yourself, and walk away wanting to be better.

The barrier for entry into the antiracism movement isn’t as high as white people like me believe—which means we're out of excuses. We can no longer claim we don’t know what to do when there are so many resources for us to explore. We can no longer pretend to be part of the game from the safety of the cheap seats. We can no longer hide behind our fear and ego and perfectionism.

We just need to do the courageous thing of examining ourselves and mustering the humility of knowing that we will mess up, and that's okay—that's all part of learning to be better. We already have within us what we need to get started. We are already enough now and we will become even more later as we learn and develop and find direction along the way.

Just show up.
Just try.
Just be.