Are your intentions good?
Charles Lartey (he/him) // Contributor
I am a youth worker on the North Shore and I also created my own non profit called HopeU. This organization is here to teach the next generation how to decolonize our hearts and minds. The world that we exist in is a world that unfortunately has some deep-rooted hatred towards people of colour. Now, many people think and say that racism isn’t a huge problem anymore, but as we saw in 2020 when things came to light from the George Floyd riots, that it’s still such a debated topic in our lifetime.
As a black man I grew up yearly, monthly and weekly seeing racism unfold. I saw it unfold in the media but I also saw it unfold in my own life. The question to talk about today is, “is intention enough?” Black History Month is coming up and, for me currently, February is a busy month – but growing up I used to despise this month. Black History Month, to me, was another way of people pretending that they cared. It was another thing that people could post on social media and show that they cared.
However, I always saw a trend that as soon as March 1st hit, it demonstrated that their good and kind words or sharing quotes from Martin Luther King didn’t really mean anything in the day-to-day. This topic comes up frequently with the youth I work with. When it comes to anti-racism and the anti-racism fight, it’s going to take a lot more than a black square on instagram. What it takes is the three L’s: listen, learn, and love.
Now, this means that when it comes to those that are truly trying to fight racism, they need to listen to the experiences of those in their community – those people of colour. They need to learn outside of themselves, they need to learn about cultures that are different from theirs, why do people do the things that they do and they need to love. You need to go out of your way to care for those that are different from you. The funny thing about this – is that it’s not easy.
One of my biggest gripes with the anti-racism movement in 2020 was the black squares, because it allowed people to perform. They allowed people to be performative in their actions. You need to build a capacity to be able to dismantle racism. Instagram squares and quotes being shared is not enough. It will never be enough. However, I want to put this out there: intention is good. Your intent is good, but if that’s where it stops, it creates more damage than good.
I had a teacher in high school (this was years ago) talk to me about how they wanted to work at talking about anti-racism plights, not the word they used at the time, but something similar. I followed up a couple times, but this never took place – nothing of the sort took place. All that this showed me was that I wasn’t truly not cared about, I wasn’t in the forefront of their minds. Now that teacher might have had amazing intentions. However, the lack of action screwed with me at the time. It made me think that I was less than, made me think that in the eyes of certain people, the struggles that I went through didn’t matter.
So, as this February approaches, as this Black History Month comes, I encourage all of you to keep those L’s in your head. Keep listening to the experiences of those around you, learn about cultures and environments that are different from yours, and love – go out of your way to love. This anti-racism, this celebration of culture is great, but it’s going to take hard work. Another thing that I tell the youth I work with is that it’s going to take heart work. I hope you feel encouraged by this message and I hope you build a capacity to do more than your intention.