[Julie Helwege]

https://laceonrace.com/2022/02/11/a-bigger-safe-ish-space/

A Bigger Safe-ish Space

Discussion

[Rebecca McClinton]

Julie, I always appreciate your eye-to-eye ability to truly name and call a thing a thing. I like how you point out that Black Spring scam part because you are right, saying that this space is some kind of cult is to say that racial justice as a whole is some kind of cult. this space has definitely made me safer for people of color around me…considerate of the way I move and interact, and helps me explore my motives and the ‘why’ behind what I do/don’t do and who that impacts.

[Kelsi Watters]

Julie, thank you for your thoughtful words of wisdom. Thank you for the reminder that this living room is bigger than the work we do in this online space,

it also involves how we bring that work out into the world and the relationships that we cultivate with Black and brown people outside of this space. This

community has also helped me to become a safer person. Without the repetition and catchphrases, I do not think I would be able to absorb the content and

Praxis here nor apply it to how I walk in my daily life. If the white supremacy soup is repeated to us over and over even in our subconscious, then it

seems the antidote is to unlearn that bye repeating our ethos and values over and over, continuously practicing and walking every day. I’m happy to be

here drinking orangeade with you. By the way, I love Harry Potter, but I never learned how to make a love potion, and even if I did, I highly doubt it

would be as strong or authentic as the Hesed in Lace’s orangeade.

[Emily Holzknecht]

The space is bigger than the living room, and surely someone who spends all their time at the takeout window can figure out that the person the person taking orders and ringing people up and the person who hands over the food are not the only people in the building. While some real world restaurants may have been operating that way during the pandemic to avoid paying higher wages so that they can hire more staff, this community is virtual and there’s more going on for anyone who is brave enough to take a step inside.

If LOR is expected to have large numbers of Black people visible on discussions, then who is going to take on the work of making white women safer for Black people before they come to those discussions? Or is the expectation that all Black people should just endure us no matter how unsafe we are when we show up? It is amazing that Lace has taken on this work! I am grateful for all the other Black contributors and community members who have shared this work over the years!

I am thinking about how we have discussed before that white people like to single out a Black leader and assume that person was so exceptional that they did it all themselves, dismissing the large support system and behind the scenes team that created the success. I must remember to pause and consider in a more communal sense rather than rely on individualistic white supremacist glasses.

[Julia Tayler]

Kool aid has gotten a really bad rap these past years. Someone told me the other day that it wasn’t even kool aid that they drank. It was a cheap knock-off brand. I think people like to put others into categories and wp are notorious for it. Something we don’t want to understand must be bad. I agree dying by kind candor and succor wouldn’t be a bad way to go. I’ve also been working on carrying lessons learned here into real life. It has made me more aware of white supremacy than I ever was before.

[Author]

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