Leverage Your Platform For Good
Over the past six weeks, Dressember has focused on unpacking white privilege, dismantling the biases we carry, and taking steps toward the ongoing discipline of allyship and anti-racism.
You may be wondering why an anti-trafficking organization would devote so much time to this conversation (even in the midst of a national focus on racial justice in light of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others). Aside from the disproportionate impact of trafficking on people of color, we believe that it’s our role and responsibility at Dressember Foundation to educate and equip our community on how to advocate for the dignity of the oppressed. Dressember has always been a movement centered on advocacy for the good of all people-- by using what you have, right where you are. In the case of racial inequity in America, many of us have a lot of learning and internal work to do, as well as careful confronting of those in our social and familial circles. Now more than ever, you can lead the change you wish to see in the world.
To be brutally honest, this has been an eye-opening few weeks for me. Before reading Tori’s post on Types of Biases, I would have told you that I don’t have any biases for or against white people or black people, respectively. This post is for others in our community who might have biases, I thought. With this mindset, I took the Harvard Implicit Race Bias test (linked in Tori’s post) thinking I’d confirm my lack of bias (despite the fact that the test says in it’s very description that “most Americans have an automatic preference for white over black”). The result? I found that I have a “moderate automatic preference for European persons over African American persons.” I wish you could have seen my jaw hit the floor. I have a ways to go, friends.
Sharing this with you is uncomfortable, but so is the work of anti-racism within ourselves, our communities, and the systems that govern our daily lives. As with all kinds of advocacy, we must decide that the dignity of others matters more than our own comfort, our own ego, and even our own agenda.
“As with all kinds of advocacy, we must decide that the dignity of others matters more than our own comfort, our own ego, and even our own agenda. ”
While much of this conversation has been on social media-- not only due to social distancing but, I suspect, because people tend to find less discomfort in posting about anti-racism than having a 1:1 conversation-- real change happens offline, in the context of relationships. Rarely will a stranger on the internet convince you to change your opinion, but in the context of a relationship (the ones you have cultivated over years with friends, siblings, cousins, coworkers where you have shared experiences and a mutual understanding that assumes the best of each other), gentle confrontation on issues of racial disparity and unconscious biases can lead to change. For example, in a recent conversation I had with a family member, this person made the statement that she doesn’t see color, and raised her children to be colorblind. Because we have a history of love and trust between us, I was able to say, “Actually, it’s important to see race. Not to treat anyone differently, but to acknowledge and honor the fact that our experiences are different depending on our race.” Because of our relationship, she was able to receive this feedback and reflect on it in a way she (most likely) wouldn’t have been able to had it been a stranger (or even an acquaintance) on Facebook.
These days, when we talk about a person’s platform, we almost immediately think of their social media following first. In light of the fact that so much of our biases are unconscious--paired with the fact that we are most receptive to constructive feedback from those closest to us--our best platform in the anti-racism movement is our close network of friends, family, and coworkers. These are the members of our community we can influence most. I challenge you to begin to see your role in anti-racism as first, internal, exploring your unconscious biases through resources like the Harvard test, reading, and listening to POC; secondly, as literally social, with the people you interact with on a regular basis and have built a rapport with; finally, on your social media platforms as a way to take part in the collective conversation, exchange of ideas, and pushing our larger culture toward justice for all its people.
As Dante Stewart shared to our readers,
“We must move from passivity to proximity, from sympathy to solidarity, from apathy to activism, from charity to justice.”
As a member of the Dressember community-- a community committed to the fight for justice for the oppressed across the world-- I call on you to commit yourself to the ongoing work of allyship in the anti-racism fight. In the words of MLK Jr, “No one is free until we all are free.”
About the Author
Blythe Hill— Iowa-born, Seattle-raised, and SoCal-transplanted, Blythe created Dressember as a style challenge in 2009 while pursuing her Masters in English at Cal State Fullerton. After seeing interest from friends and friends of friends, she began to consider aligning Dressember with anti human trafficking, an injustice she learned about years earlier and had been eager to become involved in. In 2013, Dressember became an anti-trafficking campaign, raising over $165,000 USD in its first year (watch Blythe's TEDx talk here). She was a volunteer CEO from 2014 to 2016, when she was able to come on staff part-time. In August 2017, she came on full-time, and has been running full speed ever since. Blythe oversees the strategic vision of the organization, and is increasingly interested in the overlap between labor trafficking and the apparel industry, as well as efforts to speed up intervention time in anti-trafficking work. Blythe is passionate about restoring dignity to women around the world. She loves a good cheese, a good pun (clearly), and taking her dog Friday to the dog park.