Just a tiny admission that prior to age 23, Black people often told me I was wrong about race, but to be fair to them, I had been quite wrong about race at that time.

I'm 42, so it's been decades since I engaged in anti-Black behavior. Years of practice have allowed me to burn even racist habits out of my nature. It's been a long journey, but one that's made my life all the richer for taking it.

But it does remind you...when you're honest about having been there...why you chose to answer your own racism with silence, thoughtfulness, enthusiastically attentive ears. Why when you were called white by Black people, rather than assuming they were idiots, you assumed they were telling you something important about the difference between your lived experience. And they were; I was a recipient of white privilege in a way they never could be, despite not being white. My whiteness didn't make me safe to racists. My failure to engage with anti-racism made me safe to racists.

At the end of the day, it reminds you why you chose to be intellectually humble when you finally learned how fucking wrong you were.

So....

Then you have to wonder why so many people who remain so very attached to the identity of "whiteness" answer their own racism with, "Oh, I watched 12 Years a Slave last night, I thought Chiwetel Ejiofor did a great job, and now I'm pretty sure I'm ready to teach a course on African American History!"

Gods, please no. 🙄

#AntiRacism #Racism #WhitePrivilege #Whiteness #ListenToBlackVoices #PerformativeAllyship #PersonalReflection #Allyship #SystemicRacism #LivedExperience

P.S. Kahilah, I will never stop apologizing for failing to listen to all of the absolutely correct things you said in high school, and I will live my life ensuring racist lies do not go unchallenged to make up for it. 💙