“People have always wanted to talk to me about race. I identify as Black with a white father – what many people call biracial.”
“People have always wanted to talk to me about race. I identify as Black with a white father - what many people call biracial. I had one grandfather who was the editor of a major newspaper and I can trace his family back to 1060. And I had another grandfather who couldn’t read. He memorized passages from the Bible to teach in Sunday School. One went to Northwestern and one didn’t finish the fifth grade. So I had this really bifurcated experience. I had these people in my life who loved me and whom I loved that were so different. And I was always able to see that the same world was so different for both of them. I think that’s helped me understand and meet people wherever they are. I’ve always known that many things can be true at the same time. There are lots of right ways to do things. There are many things that might seem like an either-or choice, but really multiple things can be true at the same time. We all inhabit the world differently, we all move through the world differently. So it’s really not about “THE truth” as it is about your truth and their truth and negotiating the space in-between.
Most people’s fear, most people’s pain, most people’s history comes from a logical place. People believe the things they do for a reason. Even if the things they believe are problematic or even amoral, there’s usually a reason. Helping people unpack that reason and understand where those fears, motivations, actions, thoughts come from I think is the key to navigating racial and cultural differences. And unfortunately, that’s hard work, not easy work. It’s not “here, read this book” or “watch this documentary,” it’s “why do you have this deeply-held belief, from where does it come?” And then, what psychology tells us is that for every deeply-held bias, we need 24 counter-examples to begin the process of unlearning it. So that means we need new diets of media consumption, we need exposure to one another, we need exposure to different narratives. It’s going to take a bunch of people who don’t give up on the people they want to give up on.” -- Corey
When January 2020 started, Corey was happily in the midst of developing a clean-living website, with product recommendations, healthy tips for raising families, eco-travel suggestions, etc. Then, after George Floyd’s death, everything changed. Corey started vlogging each day and trying to answer the questions, most earnest and some not, that her followers wanted to understand. To follow Corey, go to CoreyWilliams.com #NorthCarolina
