Sometimes I am more aware of my whiteness than other times. It’s a point of privilege, I realize, to be able to completely forget the color of my skin. Sometimes. It’s always a privilege, but it’s only sometimes that I forget. Other times, I am hyper aware of my whiteness and the ways that it... Continue Reading →
If my goal is to be an antiracist—not just as a badge I stick on my person for a nod & a smile from other white liberals but as a way of being that goes to the core not only of my actions but my beliefs and my ideas/thoughts—I’m going to be wrong a lot. A whole hell of a lot.
He should be alive, surely. They all should, those men killed for their Little Trees. Those children killed for a bag of Skittles. But America is poisoned to its core by racism and genocide. The killing of black men and women isn’t happenstance or accident. It is the Machine working as it was meant to—crushing... Continue Reading →
The first time I marched with Black Lives Matter, some friends were concerned. It was after Alton Sterling and Philando Castille were murdered by police in 2016. And literally the day after Dallas. Safety concerns were real. But safety concerns for black people have been real in this country since its inception. I could not... Continue Reading →
I don't know everything. Hell, I don't know most things. But here's one thing I'm sure of: if you are a white person getting down to the hard, soul-searching work of becoming anti-racist, you're going to need a life raft. Because there's a tidal wave of rage, grief, regret, and full-blown horror headed your way.... Continue Reading →
Sometime around 6th grade or so, I got ahold of The Diary of Anne Frank. And suddenly, my world was awash in both the goodness and insight of a 13 year old European Jewish girl from forty years ago and the abject horror that human nature can unleash. Both. At the very same time. I,... Continue Reading →
Hey, white folks! I've got an idea: let's stop shouting "Racist!" at each other just to end a conversation. Let's honor where each person is in the long, hard, soulful world of becoming anti-racist, meet them where they are, and help them along. Because it sure isn't black folks' job to do that. That's all... Continue Reading →
I did a very smart thing about 6 years or so ago: I started listening. Not very revolutionary, right? Except, holy shit at the things you can learn if you just stop talking long enough. Here's the thing: encountering feminism in college gave me the mistaken impression I had license to talk all the damn... Continue Reading →
Sometimes I get too big for my britches. That’s just cold hard truth. In a short, succinct, and damn powerful book, Austin Channing Brown managed to make me take an honest look at my relationship to whiteness and how I manage that in spaces where I’m working toward racial justice—hell, in any spaces at all.... Continue Reading →
Through quick glances in my rearview mirror, I watched my sweet 6-year-old sob on the way home from the grocery store yesterday. I wish it was because I wouldn't buy her something in the checkout line. Or because she'd gotten in trouble AGAIN for her reckless driving of the shopping cart. But it was much more complicated--and painful--than that.
