{"id":13923,"date":"2020-08-26T11:45:49","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T17:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=13923"},"modified":"2020-08-26T11:45:49","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T17:45:49","slug":"silence-is-complicity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/26\/silence-is-complicity\/","title":{"rendered":"Silence Is Complicity"},"content":{"rendered":"

By JoEllen Collins\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
JoEllen Collins\u2014a longtime resident of the Wood River Valley\u2014is a teacher, writer, fabric artist, choir member and unabashedly proud grandma known as \u201cBibi Jo.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I<\/span>n a time of increasing and, at times almost unbearably negative, rhetoric, how do we employ our own means of communication to best express our views and also react to the kind of racist issues that make many of us desire change?<\/span><\/p>\n

As I have grown older, and as a former public speaker and teacher, I grapple with my need to just shut up sometimes and not insert my stories of similar situations I experienced or react to comments I thought required my response. I never would have dreamed I would embody the nightmare of being a \u201cgarrulous old lady.\u201d Maybe I do.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a toughie for me as, while I like to share some of the amazing experiences I have known, I am trying to listen more and speak less. I am working with several wonderful people on examining and trying to improve our relationships with minorities. Our gatherings to explore those roles were in reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement, but we realized that our heritage requires that we be inclusive to all the unrewarded, disenfranchised or disrespected peoples we live among.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have been reading many books and articles that might help us heal the wounds inflicted by \u201cwhites.\u201d (Do we all \u201cpurely\u201d belong to any racial group: does that appellation even hold truth in our very mixed society?)<\/span><\/p>\n

The other day I was planning to attend a meeting of people from different backgrounds than I, and I was told by a friend that I might not be welcome there. I thought that shocking, as someone who has always been able to attend almost any gathering without fear. Nevertheless, I needed to go out of my comfort zone, even if the warning was valid. I realized something that I had never once thought of before.\u00a0As an empowered white woman, I had never experienced that trepidation, something so many minorities have.<\/span><\/p>\n

Right now, in the midst of all my learning and self-discovery about the truths I never realized about others in America, I still have trouble speaking up to racist comments. Last night, Joe Biden quoted the term \u201cSilence is Complicity\u201d when we fail to admonish demeaning, hateful words and actions. It applies to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

I leave you with one example of a situation exemplifying the challenges to concerned citizens.\u00a0What would I do or say if, as a friend witnessed, I was walking behind some young people who passed by a bus stop seating Black and Hispanic kids and yelled ugly racist terms at them?\u00a0Would I have followed and admonished the bigotry of the passing gang? Would that have changed anything?\u00a0Would my jumping in as the \u201cwhite\u201d savior have been fruitless or condescending, or an acknowledgement that maybe I shouldn\u2019t \u201crescue\u201d people who can help themselves, especially if I don\u2019t even know them? Is there some way that a meaningful conversation could have developed?<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what I would have done. What would you do? What can we do, here and now?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JoEllen Collins\u00a0 In a time of increasing and, at times almost unbearably negative, rhetoric, how do we employ our own means of communication to best express our views and also react to the kind of racist issues that make many of us desire change? As I have grown older, and as a former public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-commentary","8":"category-on-lifes-terms"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}