By Remy

In August of 2015 in downtown Seattle, a city square was presented with a giant inflatable pachyderm with the word, “RACISM” on it. The whole city was invited into a living room scene to have some direct conversations about racism, the literal elephant in the room in white people’s lives. It’s important to note that these art installations were deployed specifically where #BlackLivesMatter took the stage to confront Bernie Sanders during his presidential campaign run.

In the months leading up to the day of action, progressive white organizations listened to the requests of local BIPOC to bring in BIPOC trainers such as myself to help plan and navigate a multi-layered direct action. The potential for incidents and confrontations to occur was very high in regard to the subject matter and location so BIPOC continually reinforced the training of white folks to confront racism when it arises.

The day of action comprised deploying multiple installations onsite – a living room scene complete with a 17-foot elephant, a memorial to 2015’s victims of police killings, a Cantastoria, and other numerous short, factual-based educational presentations.

Progressive white organizations and supporters had various roles to engage downtown Seattle, which in some cases included wearing “White Privilege” blinders. Throughout the afternoon passersby were invited to have educational conversations about racism in the provided living room.

Another component of this action against racism was creating a memorial for the 736 people who had been murdered by police since January 2015. The victims were represented by a white chalk stenciled outline along with a broken heart and their names written below. The local pedestrians were forced to engage in an overtaken sidewalk, lined on both sides with a memorial of the hundreds of people who were killed by cops.

After engaging in the exhibits, the public was encouraged to write their commitment to ending racism at home on an oversized speech bubble for social media. 500 informational fliers were also distributed throughout downtown Seattle which detailed the commitments that white people can make toward racial justice. In addition to the television stations present, the social media metrics reflected the action spread to half a million people and had over two million views.

When information is available at their fingertips, white folks have a responsibility to educate themselves to be an accomplice in tearing down racism alongside People Of Color. Participation in these types of actions is not a merit badge or a title to be earned, it’s a lifelong commitment to act in solidarity to destroy racism.