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Sesame Street recently revealed a new character to their show lineup, and it’s one that’s got us pretty encouraged. The new addition to the Street, Lily, is a homeless child that was first introduced several years ago. At the time, she talked about “food insecurity” because her family didn’t have enough to eat.

The beauty of Sesame Street has always been that they try to educate all young children and provide diverse characters to do so. But in including Lily, as well as other recent additions like Julia, a character introduced in 2017 who has autism, they’re showing that representation matters to them. They’re showing the countless kids who watch their show that everyone’s story matters, that everyone deserves love and friendship, and that everyone is important.

This does a lot of things. First of all, it models acceptance. Too often, kids learn bullying behaviors as a way of processing that which they perceive as “other” or “different.” When they’re taught diversity and inclusion from a young age, they won’t fear or antagonize another child just for being different. Ideally they will embrace that child and spread love and friendship themselves.

Second, it empowers kids who are the “different” ones. Minorities, kids with disabilities, kids with no home of their own. These kids can be forgotten by things like popular storybooks read in school, textbooks, general lesson plans. But when arguably the most popular show for young children is broadcasting and accepting the difference, the struggle, the power in being unique, kids are more apt to own those differences. To feel empowered themselves. To know that they can accomplish anything because they see it being done in their entertainment sources.

Many of us have never had to search for a character to relate to. Straight white people are the default heroes and heroines, and while female representation still has a way to go in equality of portrayal, white women are still not hard pressed to find strong role models for ourselves.

But what about little children of color? What about little children in wheelchairs, or children with mental disabilities?

What about children who don’t have a home?

Who is telling their stories? Who is telling the world that 1 in 20 children have experienced homelessness? When we think of “homelessness”, we tend to think of someone sleeping in a cardboard box under a bridge.

But it encompasses so much more than that. Homelessness can mean that someone had to move in with family or friends because their parents fell upon rough times, and it can mean that they have to change schools to go wherever their parents can find for them to stay.

It can mean ostracism and alienation. OR, now, it can mean acceptance and love. 1 in 20 is a large number; in almost any public school classroom there are more than 20 students.

Sesame Street is normalizing things like discussing feelings of insecurity about where a child will get their next meal or if they’ll ever have their own home. We should both rejoice about this representation and grieve that it’s necessary. We should laud Sesame Street and encourage the children in our lives to tune in, while doing what WE can to end homelessness as a problem for children and for the next generation. We should imagine how we would feel if it was OUR children, and work to help them with that same vigor in mind.

Source:
Sesame Street Introduces New Homeless Character, USA Today

It’s that time of year again! The holidays? No! (Well, yes. But not only!) I’m talking about election season! This is the one time a year we get to come together as a town, city, state, and country, to make our voices heard and show what we will stand for and what we will not stand for.

Voting may not seem like a big deal; in fact the majority of our population who votes at all, votes only in presidential elections. We are throwing away our constitutional rights when we do this my friends! Local and state elections have so much more effect on our everyday lives than the elections that come around every 4 years. Yes, those every-4-year elections are important, but the reality is that the President doesn’t have much to do with us.

Why are we talking about voting? Our local politicians, both on a city and state level, have a lot to do with how the homeless get treated in our cities. Do we put money into social programs, or do we allocate it elsewhere? If we care about ending homelessness, the people we elect to run our cities need to hear about it. We need to vote people into office who will make it part of their goal to eradicate the suffering of those who need a hand up in life, so that we can all walk safer, cleaner, more positive streets. Ending homelessness doesn’t just benefit the homeless; it benefits society. When someone has a safe place for themselves and their children to sleep and a job with a steady, livable income, they don’t have to resort to any means necessary for survival. They don’t have to turn to crime in order to make it. Fewer people committing crimes means fewer victims. Literally everyone wins!

But we have to get involved to make this happen. We have to make sure that we’re putting people into elected positions that represent our values and want to make the city a better place for everyone. This begs the question: can the homeless vote?

The short answer is yes. On a voter registration form, homeless people can enter an address of a shelter where they stay. They can even describe an area where they sleep, like “park bench at the crossroads of Tryon Rd. and Tyvola Rd.” Wherever they “physically live” is what goes in the address slot, and beyond that they just need their name and a birth date. You do also have to provide some sort of ID; a license or state ID, a bill or official mail with your name and address, something along those lines. Getting ID can be hard for the homeless, But the bottom line is they can vote, IF provided with adequate information. Who is making sure that disenfranchised people get to the polls? Who wants their votes and therefore is promising to make life better for them? Are there forces at play trying to prevent the homeless and other low-income, minority voters from casting their ballot?

Again, the answer is yes. Voter suppression is a real thing. There are many ways in which this can sneak under the radar, and one that may have crossed your radar is gerrymandering. North Carolina was recently in the news for this, because the way our districts have been drawn out was deemed extremely unfair. Gerrymandering is basically a way of determining districts based on who you want in power. So if you know that one area has primarily people of color, and historically people of color tend to vote for Democrats, you split that area up and portion it off into the surrounding areas, so that more of the vote goes towards Republicans. Our state is currently trying to work through this and find a fair map, but elections happen regardless, so we have to work with what we’ve got and put people in office who will represent all constituents fairly, no matter which party they come from. If you’re still a little confused about gerrymandering, here’s a good short youtube video to explain how it works. It’s worth your 2 minutes and 41 seconds.

Another method of voter suppression which is both legal and sneaky, is changing when people can vote. Early voting is a great way to get people to the polls because it makes it available to everyone and lessens wait time on Election Day. Our state congress passed a law recently to lengthen our election day in all branches, and because of this, we’re losing some early voting locations because all counties don’t have the full budget needed to maintain them. Again, this primarily affects the low-income and people of color, who work several jobs and can’t afford to take time off to vote. After business hours and on weekends are a good time to get everyone in to have their voice heard, but parties in power don’t always want a change to the status quo.

Voter ID laws are another way that those in power can make it harder for people to get out and vote. The language alone of having someone show ID to vote seems harmless at first, but in reality it’s yet another method of keeping people who tend to vote a certain way out of the polling booth. For more on why these laws are controversial, check out this short video.
Purging voter registries sounds absurd when we think about it, but it is so common these days! Disguised as a deed for the greater good, lawmakers lately have been purging voters from registries that haven’t been to the polls recently or ever. A “use it or lose it” mindset, that frankly isn’t constitutional.

In North Dakota, a controversial voter ID law, combined with the usage of a PO Box as an address, is barring Native Americans from heading to the polls. Let’s take a closer look at that: Native Americans typically live on reservations because white colonizers brutally destroyed their lives and kicked them off of their ancestral homelands. They then forced them to assimilate by taking their children and putting them in far away English boarding schools, cutting their hair, and compelling them to forget their native languages. Relatively recently in history, they were offered a smidgeon of reparations in the form of reservations, and now we’re telling them they can’t vote because they live on those reservations where we put them, and not at a conventional street address. What. in. the. World. (For more on the history and current life of Native Americans, check out this great book and more by its author.)

No political party in the history of our country (or any country) can be called blameless. Up until President Lincoln shook things up, most of our presidents were unashamedly ok with slavery. So we’ve got several million flaws in the system, and voter suppression is one of them. This matters because it typically hinges on suppressing the vote of low income people and/or people of color. These two categories frequently intersect. According to recent data, “1 in 6 older black people have been homeless at some point in their life.”

If this subset of the population (minority low income, and not the middle and upper class white people who live in the good parts of town) were able to freely and easily get to the polls, studies show that they would vote for candidates that push for social reforms and programs, healthcare, higher wages, and overall equality. These are typically Democrats, and that poses a problem for Republicans who are (as of now) the party in power. They don’t want these people showing up to the polls so they’re making efforts in our state and across the country to keep folks home and disenfranchised.

This relates to homelessness because it is already hard for homeless people to get a job/house/ID. If autonomy in voting, the cornerstone of democracy, is taken from a group of people (especially people of color who’ve experienced far less time even having the right to vote than others) then it isn’t a true democracy, it’s rule by a specific party who is only enacting the will of those exactly like them. There isn’t true representation of the people.

In a count from January 2017, there were over 550,000 homeless people in our country. In Charlotte during that count there were over 1,400 people, a number which was expected to rise in 2018. That’s a lot of people who need to be able to have their voice heard. Voting needs to be made easy on people, not hard. It’s the right of every citizen, and if we follow that up with more criteria, then the nature of our country and our democracy changes drastically.

November 6th is election day. Early voting has already begun in North Carolina, and ends Saturday November 3rd. Your vote matters in giving agency and power to the right people, and the failure to exercise that right gives power to the wrong people.

We’ve listed some voting facts below. Do research to find out who you want representing you and who will represent everyone in their district well. Make sure that the party that you generally prefer is doing right by you and by the people. Find out who is accepting money from which big donors and corporations, and think about how that will affect their time in office. Will they care about us with our one vote? Or will they care about a company whose only interest is gaining more money?

I know it can be hard to get to the polls. I know that you may have small children that could cause a scene, and I know that you may have long work hours or you may not feel like any candidate fully represents your wishes and goals. But it’s up to us to put in office the people who we feel most aligned with, and then we don’t stop! We keep up with what they’re doing and if they stray from what they said they’ll do, if there’s an issue that you feel they aren’t addressing well, you get them on the phone! They exist because we put them in office and they are public servants. It’s their job to listen to their constituents when we call in, send a letter, or write an email. So even if your kid will pitch a massive fit, they need to see you voting and taking charge. Everyone else will be fine even if they witness a child being a child in public. Even if you just ran in from the gym, people can deal with a little sweat. Your civic duty is too important to ignore, now and every year.

We’ll leave you with these excerpts from a 2016 decision in the US Court of Appeals regarding North Carolina voting rights:

Ten cases ended in judicial decisions finding that electoral schemes in counties and municipalities across the state had the effect of discriminating against minority voters.
There the Supreme Court affirmed findings by the district court that each challenged district exhibited “racially polarized voting,” and held that “the legacy of official discrimination in voting matters, education,housing, employment, and health services . . . acted in concert with the multimember districting scheme to impair the ability” of African American voters to “participate equally in the political process.”
And only a few months ago (just weeks before the district court issued its opinion in the case at hand), a three-judge court addressed a redistricting plan adopted by the same General Assembly that enacted SL 2013-381.

The court held that race was the predominant motive in drawing two congressional districts, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
The district court failed to take into account these cases and their important takeaway: that state officials continued in their efforts to restrict or dilute African American voting strength well after 1980 and up to the present day.

The State then elaborated on its justification, explaining that “[c]ounties with Sunday voting in 2014 were disproportionately black” and “disproportionately Democratic.” In response,SL 2013-381 did away with one of the two days of Sunday voting. Thus,in what comes as close to a smoking gun as we are likely to see in modern times, the State’s very justification for a challenged statute hinges explicitly on race -- specifically its concern that African Americans, who had overwhelmingly voted for Democrats, had too much access to the franchise.

Go Vote!

Voting Facts

• You can register AND vote at the same time during the early voting period, and during this time you can also vote at any polling location in your district
• On Election Day (November 6th), you must vote at your assigned polling place, and you must be registered to vote before this day
• You can find a sample ballot at our state Board of Elections site
• You can find out who will be on that ballot and a little bit about them at Ballotready.org
• I Side With is a good voting guide and resource for checking out which candidates align with your priorities
• You have the right to enter the polls with your phone or a written list of the candidates for whom you would like to vote
• You have the right to remain in line and cast your vote after voting hours end, as long as you got in line before the poll closing time

Sources
Gerrymandering, Explained. The Washington Post / Youtube.
Voter ID Laws, Frontline PBS / Youtube
America’s Shameful History of Voter Suppression, The Guardian
NC Can Use Gerrymandered Map in November, NPR
Many Native ID’s Won’t Be Accepted at North Dakota Polling Places, NPR
Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians but were Afraid to Ask, Anton Treuer
4th U.S. Circuit judges overturn North Carolina’s voter ID law, News & Observer

Buying a home seems like the quintessential American adult experience. At least I assume it is; I’m a millennial so I don’t own my home. I’m much too broke after paying to survive. But I would love to own a home! Getting something in my own name that I could remodel a là Joanna Gaines is the dream. Don’t like the kitchen? Who cares! Change it! Don’t like that bush outside? Rip it out! Plant an herb garden!

Yes, hopefully one day I’ll own a home. I’ll go into a bank (or more likely, go online to their website), I’ll fill out the paperwork, and I assume I’ll get a pretty good interest rate. I have great credit and a stable income. Nothing in the world is preventing me from getting a house except I don’t have 20% of around $250,000.

But what if it wasn’t so straight forward? What if I hadn’t grown up in (predominantly) white middle class suburbia? What if I was born and raised on the “wrong side of the tracks?” What would my prospects look like then?

You might be asking yourself (or me) what skin color and neighborhood have to do with getting a home. “I worked hard to get where I am today” or “not everything is about race”. We’re not here to question your work ethic; after all, working hard to get ahead in life is the American dream! It is also true, though, that not everyone starts out on the same footing. And I, a white person with a solid income, have a better chance of even getting a foot in the door of the housing business. I’m not remotely concerned that when the time comes, I won’t be dealt a good interest rate or even get approved for a home loan. However, this may not be as true for a person of color.

Higher interest rates for people of color can’t be legal though, right? Well, not technically, but banks have been getting away with legally discriminating against people of color for decades. What originally began as a policy called Redlining was banned in the 60s, but banks today still come under fire for treating people of color differently than white people when it comes to home loans. What’s the history behind this?

Let’s take it back several decades to 1933. It was one of the worst years of the Great Depression, with effects all over the world. Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and opened the first concentration camp in Dachau. South Africa hadn’t yet delved into the atrocity that was Apartheid. Japan was invading China. Western Australia was trying to secede from the rest of the Commonwealth of Australia. Great Britain still colonized many places that are countries on their own today. President Herbert Hoover had just lost his bid for re-election to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

FDR is remembered as a hero of American history for pulling our country out of the Great Depression, saving jobs and lives, and stepping the country into World War 2 in 1941 to help put an end to the Axis Powers. But as with all of American history since Europeans colonized this part of the world, events are more complicated than the simple “we were the good guys making all the good decisions” that helps us all sleep better at night. Oftentimes events in our history are straightforward for white people, but gray or straight up negative for people of color. FDR wasn’t a racist president, as far as we can see. Of course, many of our presidents literally had slaves so it didn’t take much to be on better terms than them. His policies were in fact frequently beneficial to people of color, but to understand the situation fully means we have to remember that Black people at the time were legally treated quite poorly. So he was a “friend” to Black people in that he was liberal and worked to help them, but they were still not on equal footing as white men. FDR was aware that if he fully sided with those who were marching for Civil Rights, he would lose many southern White votes so he took his time fully leaning into the cause of Black equality.

Sometimes it’s hard to stomach that our “heroes” aren’t faultless. It provides cognitive dissonance because we’re raised to see in black and white absolutes and act on those beliefs. In our textbooks, someone is either “good” or “bad” based on the few lines we’re given about their whole lives. But we’re not shown the shades of gray that tell us the whole story. George Washington was a great leader of our country, and yet he (and many of our presidents) owned slaves. Woodrow Wilson gave women the right to vote, but only after realizing that it would be political suicide to deny the female population that right any longer (and still black women were denied the right for many years.) He wasn’t actually a champion of women’s rights. Dr. Seuss is one of the most famous children’s authors of all time, and yet there’s rampant racism evident in his writing and illustrations. Franklin Roosevelt brought the US out of the Great Depression by enacting social programs and expanding the government’s responsibilities towards economic relief. But he also signed off on an order to allow hundreds of thousands of Japanese people residing in our country (62% of whom were US Citizens) to be locked up into internment camps of our own making, without any sort of due process.

What does all this have to do with redlining? Well, Roosevelt was inaugurated and immediately began work on what was deemed the “New Deal.” FDR’s New Deal has to be something we all remember from history class, if not the specifics then at least the name. In this deal, Congress, through committees, and the President, through Executive Orders, instituted programs that would help to pull the country out of its economic slough. FERA, the precursor to our Social Security program, was born in these first 100 days of FDR’s presidency. (In fact, this was the first presidency in which the “first 100 days” was a thing. This has become common to use as a gauge to see what a new president is accomplishing right away.) You might recognize the FDIC and the SEC, also formed during this time.

The Home Owner’s Loan Act was another key action of the first 100 days meant to pull people out of poverty and help with their delinquent mortgages. Part of this process included surveyors outlining different zones in cities and deciding which zones were eligible for loans. “Redlining” was the act of literally drawing red lines around portions of the city that were deemed “undesirable” to loan money to for homes. These areas typically were inhabited by minorities, frequently African Americans and Jews.

Take a look at these excerpts which briefly discuss redlining and its effect on communities:

Otherwise celebrated for making homeownership accessible to white people by guaranteeing their loans, the Federal Housing Administration explicitly refused to back loans to black people or even other people who lived near black people. As Ta-Nehisi Coates puts it, "Redlining destroyed the possibility of investment wherever black people lived." (source)

As a consequence of redlining, neighborhoods that local banks deemed unfit for investment were left underdeveloped or in disrepair. Attempts to improve these neighborhoods with even relatively small-scale business ventures were commonly obstructed by financial institutions that continued to label the underwriting as too risky or simply rejected them outright. When existing businesses collapsed, new ones were not allowed to replace them, often leaving entire blocks empty and crumbling. Consequently African Americans in those neighborhoods were frequently limited in their access to banking, healthcare, retail merchandise, and even groceries. One notable exception to this was (and still is) the proliferation of liquor stores and bars which seemingly transcended the area’s stigma of financial risk. (source)

Neighborhoods which were redlined weren’t popular with companies looking to grow or start a business, and therefore employment became more and more complicated of an issue. This led to a rise in crime, as people turned to feed their families any way they possibly could. The crime rates then led to the neighborhoods fulfilling their destiny as “bad investment zones” in the eyes of the banks, so this problem, created by the government, became a vicious cycle.

The lack of investment in these areas contributed to landlord abandonment, which created empty spaces for criminal activity to prosper. Redlined areas were also the first to be mowed down when the Federal Highway Act was created. This displaced people living in those areas, further contributing to homelessness in those areas.

Redlining was officially outlawed in 1968 [FACT CHECK] but the problems were not solved right away and in many places still have not been solved. Redlined areas were left at a stand-still and as noted above, in a “state of disrepair,” while the rest of the country moved forward. Businesses started up in other areas and grew, white homeowners continued to gain equity while minorities struggled to even get a loan to buy a home. In a 1999 paper entitled “Racial Discrimination and Redlining in Cities,” authors Zenou and Boccard make the argument that black people who live in the “ghetto” (their word) have less of a chance of suburbanites to get a job.

The reason the Dream Center exists is because homelessness exists. We believe that it’s a human problem that we can work together to solve, and part of solving that problem is understanding the many ways in which our systems have worked against some members of society both in the past and present so that we can use our place in life to stand up and say “hey - that’s not ok, and we won’t be supporting this kind of behavior.” We need to speak up because if the only people who speak up are the ones directly affected, nothing will change.

Homelessness is a multifaceted topic. It isn’t easy to identify the root causes because there are so many root causes. One of those is the disenfranchisement of people of color from the very start of this country, and one way we can work toward the goal of ensuring every person has the safety of a roof over their heads is to understand our history as a country and identify our privilege, and use it to lift up those who do not have what we have.

Sources
“Redlining was banned 50 years ago. It’s still hurting minorities today.” The Washington Post
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Encyclopedia
Blacks and Hispanics face extra challenges in getting home loans, Pew Research
“Is the Cat in the Hat Racist?”, School Library Journal
The Living New Deal

Modern-Day Redlining: How Banks Block People of Color From Home Ownership, The Chicago Tribune
Redlining, Black Past
The Racist Housing Policy that Made Your Neighborhood, The Atlantic
Racial Discrimination and Redlining in Cities

I’ve become aware of an interesting and terrifying phenomenon lately.

We had an evening to meet the teacher for our son’s 4 year old preschool class, and while I was chatting with a parent off to the side, my husband overheard a troubling conversation between a parent and the teacher. He said the mother was quietly telling the teacher of her daughter’s experience the previous year, in another school’s classroom. This woman’s daughter was extremely excited to start preschool, but the other girls in the classroom (it was a “girl heavy class” meaning it was mostly girls) were all familiar with each other from the 2 year old classroom the year before. They had formed a clique already. THREE year olds. Not thirteen, THREE. They wouldn’t allow this little girl to be their friend, and she came home in tears every day from school until the parents decided that they would pull her out and try again at a different school the following year.

I came home and immediately told my neighbor this story. She was watching my kids so we could be at the parent night. She didn't seem very surprised; she told me that the previous Sunday in the church Sunday school, her daughter, also three, was told by a group of girls that she couldn’t come to one of the girl's birthday parties. Only certain of the other friends could come. My neighbor said that her daughter was in tears when they picked her up from Sunday School and she took time to reiterate to her daughter, a delightful little bubble of joy whom I personally love, that the other girls don’t make the rules and she is actually invited to said birthday party. She made a point to avoid all talk of "mean girls" because she didn't want to introduce that as a concept at this age. But all day her daughter would get upset about her treatment in Church.

HOW is it possible that cliques are happening at three years old? My son’s new teacher assured the mother of the girl who will be in his class (and his new best friend if I have any say in the situation, which I do because I signed up to be room mom and am using Beverly Goldberg as my role model) that since this was a “boy heavy class” there almost definitely wouldn’t be the drama that this little girl had experienced before. When we got back home, we told our son about all the kids who would be in his class and made sure to name-drop this little girl in the hopes that he would feel comfortable with her and be her friend.

What are we doing, moms? Why are our daughters being mean girls at age three?

I’ve been thinking about it, and looking at what role I could play in tearing down this negativity that’s sewn into girls, towards other girls, from a young age. There was a line in an episode of Black-ish after the election of 45 where Wanda Sykes questions her white female co-worker on why her “sisters” didn’t show up for Hillary, and why 52% of them (us) voted Conservative. The woman said something which I’ll never forget (salute to the writers) “first of all, white women aren’t sisters. We hate each other.”

That stuck with me because it rang so true, but it’s just not something I've ever put my finger on. Sisterhood is not something I’ve been raised in. I grew up with brothers and formed amazing female friendships, and I can’t say that I personally witnessed intense mean-girling myself. But I certainly witnessed negative competition between girls as I was growing up, and in little ways it’s perpetuated over and over. We can't be born this way, can we?

And I wonder what I can do, right now and for the rest of my life, to encourage the sisterhood mindset in my daughter and all the little girls that I come into contact with. Because I live in a neighborhood surrounded by little friends for my children, there are girls everywhere! What can we as moms, in particular, do to model sisterhood and not mean-girlism for these future queens?

If I’m being honest with myself, I can cut back on the gossip.

It’s HARD because we don’t really see it as gossip. I don’t anyway; sometimes it feels so necessary to commiserate with another mom, especially if someone is doing something particularly nuts. But my son has just turned 4, and I can see how this plays out now that our children are getting old enough to pick up on subtle cues. I’ve made it a point recently to make sure I reach out to everyone equally so that my children (and the small horde of children that are usually around the house) see that as normal. Everyone is a friend, everyone is worth your time and attention. Everyone gets socializing. Every little friend gets cared for in the exact same tone and with the same care. Am I going to feel the exact same towards every child who crosses my path? No because humans don't react to every human the same and we don't always connect on the same levels. Children are just small humans, so it's fine that every single one isn't going to be my favorite. But I can treat them all with the same respect so that they pick up on that habit.

If we want our girls to grow up being decent, inclusive humans, we have to actively model decency and inclusivity every chance we get. We have to take a hard look at our lives and ask ourselves in what ways we can raise up other women. In what ways can I support the women around me, and how am I speaking to my children about it? And what about you: if a woman around you needs something, like last minute childcare due to an unforeseen circumstance, do you offer to take her kids so she can handle her business? You don't have to love babysitting, you just have to have a passion for the success of women. When women succeed, the world succeeds.

As much as it's important for me to see my daughter being inclusive and befriending anyone in need of a friend, I want my son to see this just as much. For one reason, men are so obviously not getting the emotional education that they require from a young age and boys need friends and feelings talk just as much as girls. But for another, slightly more selfish reason, I don't want my son bringing home a Regina George-esque mean girl one day! (If he so chooses to bring a girl home) Because that will be really inconvenient for me when I have to tell him to politely and respectfully break it off with her and go for whomever most resembles Leslie Knope (again, if that's his heart's desire.)

There has to be something better we can do, moms. Let's be sisters and raise our daughters to be sisters. Let's lend a helping hand whenever we can because we raise each other up always, we don't break each other down.

It’s the holiday season! For many of us, it’s impossible not to get swept up in the vibes of joy and giving. It’s a time that we associate with generosity.

Financial and charitable organizations list Thanksgiving to December 31st as the time that organizations receive the most financial gifts. And providing funds to help good work continue is a noble thing. A necessary thing.

The line that we have to navigate around this time is putting the needs of those we aim to help over our own needs of personal fulfillment. It makes us feel good to help others. It fills that cup of being a “good samaritan”. And especially for those of us who are parents, we want to raise our children to ultimately be good people. One way to do that is to be a role model in charitable giving of our money and time.

And in that time, that Saturday that we serve in a soup kitchen, that early morning where we walk around passing out blankets, that time spent helping low-income and poverty-stricken folks shop for free or low-budget Christmas gifts for their kids, it can be tempting to snap a quick photo (or several) of ourselves helping out the “less fortunate.”

A caption where we humble-brag about giving of our time and energy to those who are truly in need seems harmless, but in actuality it centers us in the narrative. It puts us as the helper at the crux of the story rather than dignifying the person we’re helping with a platform to speak their truth. It puts us smack dab in the center of a square photo, surrounded by those who are needy and potentially have not consented to be photographed, as the “likes” pile on. This is a phenomenon that I have to admit I’ve just recently learned about, and it’s called being a “white savior.”

What is that and how can it be a bad thing to be some sort of savior? A white savior is a white person who acts to help non-white people, with the help in some contexts perceived to be self-serving. It’s all a little bit of a put-off, no? We’re just trying to help, so surely people should be grateful for our time and energy!

But what seems like the right and most-helpful thing to do in our minds may in reality not be what people truly need. It’s easy to get an idea of what helping should look like, and diving into providing the aid that you want to provide. There are great people doing great work in the world, and those people have been living in situations or working on causes for years. They have learned, they have listened, and they have discovered the ways in which people in that sector can be truly helped. When we dive in, ready to volunteer with our own mindset about what that should look like and with an attitude of being so helpful to these poor people, we miss the mark. In many cases, the work that is being done by us can be even more damaging.

I learn best by seeing real-life examples, so this was made even more clear to me after doing some research about examples of this phenomenon in our media. White-saviors are something that are portrayed by our entertainment machine so often that they’re ingrained in our DNA as heart-warming, beautiful, and what we should all aim for. Here are some examples from a few popular, award-winning films:

• Hilary Swank in Freedom Writers
• Brad Pitt in 12 Years a Slave
• Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side

These are situations in cinema where children or people of color could not move forward in life without a white person swooping in to save the day. (More on this phenomenon in film over at Teen Vogue.) This is problematic because in this centering of whiteness and white characters, the people of color end up becoming props, which only perpetuates ideas of otherness and unimportance, which then establishes a status quo of racism. (Please go read the rest of author Fariha Róisín’s piece on Hollywood’s white savior complex and colonialism. It’s an eye opening piece that challenged my thinking on this topic.)

People who ask us not to be white saviors are not saying “don’t help”, they’re asking us to go in with a mindset to learn and an attitude of humility and respect for the people who we are helping. To echo what we’ve said before here, it’s easy to look at a person holding up a sign asking for help on the side of the road with some sort of high and mighty pity, but in reality, there but for the grace of God go I. And we need to remember that we’re never very far from the possibility of needing immense help ourselves.
There’s a quote that’s been attributed to many different figures throughout history that’s always struck me as powerful, and it goes something like this:

“One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.”

I draw a comparison between that quote and what we’re talking about here today in that when we remove the personhood from someone, when we group that person in with a bunch of people and paint with a broad brush, we remove their humanity. We don’t see them as Maria who fled an abusive relationship with nothing but her children and the clothes on her back so that they could survive. We see her as “homeless and in need of help.” She may very well be those things, but volunteers heading to a homeless shelter and putting ourselves at the center of a story, i.e. by posting to Instagram that you’re here to help the homeless in your limited time off from work, takes away from the real needs of people by way of accruing likes while allowing people to think they’ve somehow been involved by simply encouraging you and telling you “you’re such a good person!”

You probably are a good person, but this isn’t about you. If you really want to help, figure out how to center the stories of the people affected (in a safe way of course.) Figure out how to forge relationships and connect with people. Find out what brought them where they are today, and what could be done to prevent that from happening to others. Understand that “helping people” doesn’t mean you require some sort of award or medal. And, importantly, don’t eclipse the work and efforts of those who have been out there for long before you arrived, those that know from experience what they’re talking about.

I’ll be honest: this is a hard pill for me to swallow. My personality type thrives on praise. I still report back to my parents in the hopes that they’ll be proud of my endeavors. But I’m not helping those less fortunate by posting a photo of myself serving a meal; I’m helping my own ego. I’m showing everyone that I’m a good person and I’m out here doing a good thing.

What’s a better way to spread the word? Literally spread the word. Let people know how they can help out. People are frequently only one challenge with detailed instructions away from getting involved in something themselves; maybe all they need is someone to encourage them to take the next step. Maybe what they need is a reminder that with just a couple small differences in our lives, we could be like Maria or any other people seeking aid and shelter. What stories can you (safely) center to bring attention to the right causes or issues?

Engage in how we might profit off of and perpetuate racism. Be open to the fact that the system benefits some people more than others, and look at how that can be changed.

Use whatever position you have in life to raise up those who don’t have as loud a voice in the conversation as you do.

Are you a CEO of a bank? What does your staff look like? Is it a diverse group that brings many perspectives to the table or is it a largely white and male cast of characters? When people of color from all backgrounds don’t have a seat at the table, their needs are not being appropriately discussed or addressed.

Are you in a position of power in local government? Who is missing from the discussion around you? Is there diversity amongst your colleagues and staff? Representation matters; studies and anecdotal data show this. One thing that helps low income communities is having people who look like them and come from the same circumstances as them in positions of power, because they get it. They know exactly how to help.

Are you a stay at home mom? Do some research on good quality diverse educational materials for your children. And what do I mean by educational materials? Books! Books are a great way to bring diversity and differing perspectives into your children’s lives, and it’s such a simple way to do so. Books take readers on an adventure, so let their minds wander into different lives and see different ways of doing things. As an added bonus, bringing normalcy to “different” is a good way to prevent bullying. Children tend to act aggressively when they don’t understand things, and this can bring lasting scars to the victims. Do your part by educating your children on the beauty of accepting and loving all people that are different than each of us.

Are you a teacher? What stories are your students learning in your classrooms? History is written by the victors, so are we getting the perspective of those who did not come out on top? Are we teaching American History from the perspective of the Natives who were here first? Are we teaching about more African history than just the origins of slavery? Are we teaching about the conflicts that the US government has stoked in Central and South America, leading to the destabilization of countries and current ongoing crises that send their refugees to our borders, where we treat them as less than animals and punish them for being products of a problem we caused?

What kind of platform do you have in your life, and how can you use it to bring a less-heard voice up to your level?
This holiday season, give generously. Sacrificially. And quietly. Spend time learning and loving. Spend your life working to elevate those who should be elevated. Love on people by giving them time and giving them your humility.

Here is a diverse list of children’s books for all ages, from Charnaie over at Here Wee Read. Gift copies of books that show diversity and allow everyone to see themselves in a character to children, schools, libraries, so that all children feel accepted and feel confident in showing love to others, even those whom they see as different.

Sources

Why Hollywood's White Savior Obsession is an Extension of Colonialism
How to Avoid Becoming a White Savior
How not to Become a White Savior
How to Avoid Being Part of the White Savior Industrial Complex
A Guide on How Not to Act like a 'white savior' While Volunteering in Africa
Here's What a White Savior is, and Why it's the Opposite of Helpful
Wee Read Diverse Books
Why Year-End is the Most Generous Time of Year

It Sounded Like a Good Idea at the Time…

To start a podcast while we raise a gaggle of small children and try to succeed professionally plus keep an active gym routine and generally have an ok life!

We’re Caroline and Hannah, and we want to chat! We’re bringing our deep-dive conversations about being moms, loving our work, and trying to make it all happen as modern women to the public so we can laugh about our foibles along the way.

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