The burden of preparing to be treated as a threat because of how you look is draining not only because it’s reality, but because it’s reality only some of the time. Children of color are often taught to prepare for prejudice in most situations, but the truth is only a few guests are showing up at the event. But when they come, they party hard and leave havoc to clean afterward. The others who were invited and live in the neighborhood aren’t off the hook because they didn’t show up or didn’t know about the event. Their responsibility is to help shut it down. The same responsibility The Prepared have for contributing to the cleanup and not the havoc. Because if we want our neighborhood to feel safe for everyone, we all must work to ease the burden.
The Burden Of Being Prepared: Understanding the Inner Workings of Prejudice was originally published on blackdoctor.org
