Black Americans are carrying a heavy burden, and we could use your help with the load - The Dallas Morning News

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I lived more lives in the last few weeks than I had in my last 38 years. Just six days before George Floyd’s killing and the resulting call to action in our country, I became the executive director of one of the largest education nonprofits in North Texas — its second-ever woman and first-ever black commander in chief.

At the time, there were already two major crises facing our country, both disproportionately affecting the black and brown students in our classrooms: a pandemic that kept students with limited technology away from their teachers and peers indefinitely, and a financial crisis that threatened to rip out already fragile financial security.

Then blatant acts of brutality and racism began circulating, repeating incessantly in the news and on my social media feeds. I watched with the rest of the world as Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd died on the screen in front of me. And then, I turned to my black husband and 5-year-old son. An all-too-familiar fear gripped me. What would the world do with these black men I can’t live without?

Over the last couple of weeks, so many friends have graciously recognized my pain, messaging me, “Thinking of you; I see you’re holding so much.” They see that I carry a load, but do they see that it has become too much for one person (or race) to bear?

To my non-black friends, thank you for your empathy. I now ask you to lend more than your words. Lend your hands.

If I ran into a friend while carrying 10 bags of groceries in the Tom Thumb parking lot, that friend would not just notice I was carrying a lot and keep walking. My friend would offer to help carry a bag or two. We’d do this even for a stranger, a mother balancing a baby and a cart, an elderly man carrying groceries and walking with a cane. We’d take a bag, perhaps without even asking.

My hands are full with invisible grocery bags. I have an abundance of personal and professional success, yet still I’m a black person living in America, a wife who worries about her black husband’s safety when he leaves the house and a mom who worries about when society will decide her son is not just a cute preschooler but a threat. And sometimes the load of all that, along with the magnitude of responsibly leading a team, organization, community and city toward becoming way more just and equitable than it is today, is just too much to carry alone. I need help holding the unimaginable and invisible weight of this moment.

You can take some of the burden for the black people you love by having that difficult and uncomfortable conversation. Talk about race — yes with the people who don’t look like you, but more importantly, with the people who do.

I’d also invite you to not let the learning, activism and empathy shown last week be simply a blip in time, but rather a lifelong practice of racial consciousness, like you would golf, tennis or meditation. Don’t stop at buying books on Amazon and posting on Instagram. Add racial equity to the list of life areas you evaluate and set goals for regularly like you do for your finances and health every January.

Don’t let the fear of falling short of perfect keep you from trying. Being conscious of what you are feeling, saying and doing is a step in the right direction. There is no wrong way to start except to not begin at all.

And to my fellow black mom-bosses, remember to take care of you. Give yourself permission to put down a bag, to let someone else carry one or to use the resource of a shopping cart. And even if you must carry them all, take breaks along the way to rest and recharge. Don’t carry the weight of this moment all alone or all at once. Because at the end of the day, we still have to get up and lead tomorrow. We know all too well that our childrens’ lives depend on it.

Rea Foster is the executive director of Teach For America Dallas-Fort Worth. She wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

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Black Americans are carrying a heavy burden, and we could use your help with the load - The Dallas Morning News
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