Hey there!
If you are reading this, that means you are taking the first step in helping educate yourself and members of the South Asian/Asian/Arab/Middle Eastern/Ally community to be better allies and advocates!
This resource pack is for South Asian and any and all ally families, neighborhoods, and communities to start intergenerational conversations and host meetings to discuss Black Lives Matter and our roles as advocates in this effort. To truly stand in solidarity with the Black community, we need to support them as they continue to create space for themselves. Of course, it is important that we keep in mind that we are NOT speaking for the black community or taking away from the work of black activists. Rather, in this effort, we are striving to amplify black voices and also increase efforts from the South Asian community to be better allies. We have included, for our topic discussions and responses, sources from Black authors to try to avoid speaking from an uninformed or misguided perspective. Rather than make this about the racism the South Asian community has faced and making our narrative central to this issue, we need to focus on educating ourselves about the institutional racism and systemic exploitation that Black Americans have faced, as that form and magnitude of racism is fundamentally different. It is important we recognize that we are privileged just to be having conversations about this around the dinner table. And we need to talk about the systems that have upheld white privilege for so long, and how we have contributed to those systems both actively and passively. Many of us who have grown up being educated by the American education system have learnt, to some extent, about the racism and exploitation faced by the black community. When initiating conversation with your communities, please keep this in mind. Many South Asian people may not have learnt about many of these issues through school or anywhere else, so make sure to speak from a place of compassion not condescension! This resource pack is based on reflections on meetings with our neighborhood and other groups and the many wonderful resources we used to educate ourselves and our friends. |
I want to talk to my
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I am a parent and
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We chose to initiate a Zoom meeting with our neighborhood group and our families, but you can pull from these resources to arrange what works best for your group. We have also included super helpful guides created for this purpose by members of the South Asian community.
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Talking to kids about race can be very difficult. Many people feel that their kids are too young to talk about race. But when schools are failing us, we must have these conversations at home. We hope these resources help you educate the next generation and discuss racial differences in a positive way.
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