Note to my white self…

You need to listen.

I know you don’t want to hear this, but – when it comes to discussions of racism with people of color – you have difficulty listening. You have convinced yourself that you are color blind, that you treat everyone equally regardless of the color of their skin and that any criticism you make of people of color is based on their behavior or attitudes and not their race.  So when a person of color says something about white people, you stop listening.  You don’t think they are talking about you.

They probably are.

You need to listen to people of color. They are experts when it comes to white people.  They have spent their entire lives surrounded by white people.  They don’t have to befriend a white person to understand them.  White people have been their teachers and their bosses.  They’ve watched us…