Week of Why Introduction

As a white woman, I will never be able to fully understand the deep and hurtful history that has shaped the inequality faced by black people every day in this country. However, I have a voice that can do good and the privileges of an education and a strong community to allow me to use it. I decided to use my voice by creating an email series which I’m calling “Week of Why.” Over seven days I sent one email a day highlighting a different organization or fund that supports black lives and communities of color, and discussing important questions that I’ve been asking myself, such as “why is this happening?” “why is this important?” and “why do we need to get involved?” 

The idea for Week of Why came about from a sense of helplessness and hopelessness that I felt during the first few days of the George Floyd protests. While watching the documentary 13th on Netflix, I was incredibly disturbed by how closely the acts of overt racism and police brutality I was seeing on the news resembled the horrific violence experienced by the black community during the Jim Crow era and civil rights movement. Despite this, I was also struck by the incredible privilege I had to be able to be feeling this way safely at home with my family, distanced from the violence and death. 

While researching systemic racism, I also came to a better understanding about my place as a white person trying to be an ally and an advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement. I found that some of the most beneficial things I could do are educate myself while encouraging the same for others, make donations of time, money, or supplies, attend a protest, sign petitions, or write emails to stand in solidarity and demand justice, and begin open and honest conversations about race in this country with people in my community. Week of Why was a way for me to work on many of those things at once, while sharing it all with the people I care about most.

I have documented the 7 days of emails that were sent the from June 6 - June 13, 2020 here to be referred back to and shared to a larger community.