Ten Days of ABAR Reflections, Day 2: Rachel Bray Spezia
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Ten Days of Reflections
Shalom,
There are ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. These days are often referred to as Days of Awe or Days of Repentance.
They are a gift of time - given to us to use wisely. To see opportunities for change. To make choices. Make promises to ourselves on what we want to do better and do differently in the year to come.
Congregation B’nai Amoona is committed to being a place that is Anti-Bias and Anti-Racist. This commitment calls for Action. This commitment calls for us to DO MORE and to ACT MORE.
During these next ten days we will be sharing with you voices from the B’nai Amoona Community and the greater Community. Sharing how we can and we will commit to working towards Tikkun Olam; Repairing our World through Anti-Bias and Anti-Racists Acts. Where we can say Mah Nora HaMakom Hazeh! How Awesome is this Place!
Today's Reflections Come From Rachel Bray Spezia
One of the biggest lessons I learned during my time participating in our ABAR program is that being silent is being complicit.
I think back to the times when I would hear someone make a racist comment and just think silently to myself that what I was hearing was a racist remark.
I think back to the times when I would read a racist comment posted by a user on social media and silently wish that someone (else) would call out their racism.
I think back to the news stories I would hear about racist acts in my community and silently hope that something or someone would do something about it.
Mypassive silence in each of these scenarios was actually a display of active complicity that reaffirmed time and time again that things like my reputation and comfort are more important than calling out racism and working towards a nation where (people) will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character -Martin Luther King Jr.
It is now my personal goal to call out racism and do my part to be active in the ABAR effort.
I'd also like to share a short story:
In May of 2014, I made the move across the Mississippi River to live in the St. Louis area. Less than three months later, Michael Brown was killed and the Ferguson protests and riots followed shortly after. As a new resident of the St. Louis area, I honestly had no idea how close my apartment was to Ferguson, MO and night after night, glued to the television, I cried in fear that the "unrest" would make its way to where I lived.
At that time, I shared many of the same thoughts as people have today regarding the protests and riots that have followed the recent deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and countless others. Thoughts like, "What good does it do to loot your own city's businesses?" or, "Riots are just temper tantrums, why can't they just have peaceful conversations or write letters to the government?"
But one thing I've learned since 2014 is that, day after day, black men and women are facing systematic racism in nearly every aspect of their lives, egregious penalties for petty crimes and the risk of violence and death because of the color of their skin. We've criticized every type of peaceful protest they've organized and stripped them of their dignity, their feelings of safety and support and all they are left with is anger. I believe that this is the foundation for a lot of what we are seeing in the media today. Nobody wants riots in their town just like nobody actually wants to feel like rioting is their only outlet - andit is my sincerest hope that when people make their voices known, whether we agree or not with their methods, that we do our best to hear their message.
