I've made this place my online home and community and I've spent the last 20 years here learning pretty much non-stop. I've probably been mulling over my response to these questions and how to articulate it the whole time... learning more and more all the while, which makes this a fluid reality so to really try and pin it down on these terms is a challenge.. I'll take a stab at it...

In life my default stance has always been empathy. life has been a beautiful and painful continuous journey of discovering and dispelling my naivety and ignorance. for example I used to think everybody started from this stance imagine my surprise growing up to realize real assholes, idiots even monsters exist.

The flip-side of that is a lot of frustration and anger... I've been mad about the environment, race, war and society my entire life.. All the while I've had all the breaks afforded to take advantage of my position and live an otherwise comfortable life i.e. white privilege. If I didn't have those opportunities my anger would be a juggernaut on a collision course. My anger is a white privilege in and of itself in that I have not had to really suppress it to survive and navigate my way and I have not found myself in a direct situation that rankled it to the point of disaster.

I fucked around as a youth and for far too long into adulthood I caught breaks I wouldn't have if I wasn't white. From mere warnings at school for selling drugs, cops stopping me and turning me loose for things that I in no way believe a Native or Black person would be given the same pass for, to being arrested and given the least of wrist slaps and even the luxury of no permanent record. I wouldn't have a halfway decent job let alone a good one. I'd be in jail. I've also no doubt I'd have been in so many more fights than I have just out of anger and frustration for the obstacles I would have faced.

As for OKP I think I used to be louder about my opinions but you know I learned, got older and I prefer to listen... I stepped in shit more times here than I likely know and honestly wish I had been called out directly on more of it than I have been because when I have been they're valuable lessons.

As for the ongoing work and stepping it up in these times... I am still discovering aspects of my perception and attitude that are complicit if subconscious.. for example when I read Malcolm X's autobiography there was a section where he described the different types of white folks and their attitudes toward the Black culture and I realized that I fell far too much into a category of folks who's admiration of the culture is not rooted appropriately, you know the romanticizing a curiosity that doesn't really acknowledge and respect the harm and damage of encouraging and perpetuating problems... growing up on Tom and Jerry thinking the Mammy was cool just a Black woman you know thick Black gams willing to swing a broom instead of skinny white ones posted up on a chair, my favorite loony tunes was Inky and the Minah bird.. i also loved the crows in Dumbo... my favorite scene in Fritz the cat was when he had sex with the female crow.. it's a fetishism.. I recognized that stuff earlier on in my OKP life, but the autobiography made me look even deeper to my relationship with hip-hop and other aspects of society. I'm not proud of it but this stuff is insidious and it dies hard. I thought I was further down the path of understanding and enlightenment than I am but that's the thing about learning it's cumulative and continues to break through barriers to show one more.

I've spent 20+ years here trying to build relationships and represent myself honestly. I try to have a clue you know? I know for a fact it has given me a perspective and window on things that most of the people in my orbit outside of OKP do not have, but there are many levels I'm sure I still don't get. there are many folks here who I wish I had a better rapport with and I still am trying to build with. I've written off many people in my life for their ignorance and bigoted attitudes, I've argued and tried to persuade and sadly I've learned I am better at educating myself than I am at debate and educating others and that some folks have bricks for brains so there just is no talking to them. These days I default to self preservation and keeping my anger in check.. it's weak and I'm not proud but believe me when I tell you the anger I feel about these issues is just so huge I need to check myself. I'd be positively homicidal. I don't know how so many people more directly affected manage to be so level headed. I've also learned that it's not for me to make the call on these issues, fuck a white savior, I don't presume to know, instead I'm listening. Call me racist I'm not going to tell you I'm not I"m going to look at the reason I'm being called that, the thing at hand and consider it sincerely. One of the largest lessons about myself I've learned in life is my fallibility.

I don't know.. I have anecdotes, stories I'm not getting into... plenty of thoughts and observations I don't know how to properly articulate.. am I an ally? Well like Brew said it's not my place to make that call.. I know Black lives matter. I know and see systemic racism is pervasive in my country as well as yours (and plenty of others).. I can't stand it, I am against it and I do my damnedest to conduct myself accordingly.

edit: spell check didn't like perpetuating and had made it personalizing.. not the word I meant.