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Standing Up to Racism

Although Makena is fictional, her story is based on real racial injustices that Black people experience, from being followed with suspicion in a store to having police called on them in their own homes. People often make snap assumptions about others when they don’t know much about that person’s ethnicity, cultural background, or religious belief, and those assumptions can turn hurtful, or even dangerous, fast. Changing false assumptions starts with getting curious about people instead of guessing at who they are. Here are a few ways to start:

• Find videos that help you learn about other people’s life experiences and points of view, in their own words
• Look up articles about anti-racism, or pick up books by authors of color whose main characters live a different life than you do
• Learn another language, even if it’s just a few words or phrases, as a way of showing interest in someone else’s culture
• Watch a show or movie featuring people from a different racial group than you, and notice what feels familiar and what doesn’t
• Research the racial makeup of your own community to better understand the neighbors and classmates around you
• Try new recipes to make food you’ve never tried before from a different ethnic group, since sharing a meal is one of the oldest ways people connect