I’m writing in my office on a quiet spring morning, and I’m feeling unprepared to write about race. Frankly, I feel like I don’t know what I’m talking about; and I wonder if I have the authority, perspective, or right to be talking about race at all.

But one thing I’ve learned from my last years of learning about racism its that silence doesn’t help. We need each other to practice the work of creating a more equitable, just world; and to do that we need to push through the uncomfortable, sticky, feelings and try to communicate.

I am a racist person. I live in a society where racism is baked into every institution, into the way we live, and into the way we understand the world. I may work hard to be anti-racist, but as a white person, living my anti-racist ideals is an ongoing intention rather than a goal that gets met.

What is at stake if we don’t have conversations about race? It seems like a whole lot. I grew up thinking that ignoring people’s race (that being color blind) was the best way to honor other people’s humanity. The idea was to see the person and not the skin they are in. I felt good about that approach. But now I can see how ignoring race also denies people the right to experience the world differently because of their race. For example, if I don’t see my teammate as being Black (just as a lovely person), how do I respond when she complains that she’s being discriminated against because of her race? I may rush to assure her that race doesn’t matter, thereby effectively invalidating her lived experience as a Black woman. By taking a color-blind approach, I may not see or be open to the many, many ways that being a person of color can be a fundamentally different experience than being a white person.

Over the last four years or so I have been looking for ways to grow in my understanding of race. One of the areas I have most needed to work on is getting my head and my heart around what whiteness means. I’ll write about that more in the future.

Thanks for reading and for bearing with me as I fumble my way along. ♥

One small thing: today, can you learn one new thing about whiteness and talk to someone about what you learned?