Jeanette. This essay is everything it should be and wanted to be. You wrote about what needs to be said.

I totally agree with you and as much as I try to be the best person I can be, I do not exclude myself from what you say.

Is it difficult to admit this? Absolutely. It is embarrassing and unacceptable. I don’t want to have a racist bone in my body and I continually work to erase any faint trace. This is not who I am/want to be.

And see, that is why, as you so aptly point out, the conversation falls apart when it is had here and there and almost everywhere. People don’t want to feel bad about themselves. But as you say, get over it. The problem is tons bigger than that.

And just to be clear, as I write here, I am not talking about in-your-face racism, I am addressing the smaller things. The pieces a white person needs to stop and notice. Because to those living with the harm from racism, no part is too small or excused. As should be the case.

I highlighted the part above because that IS one of the secrets to fixing this mess. And I believe that the steps going forward need to happen on almost a 1:1 small scale and spread out from there.

I respect what you tried to do at your school and wished it would have worked out better. It still seems to me like one of the most practical ways to start a snowball-of-good rolling down a hill. Yet the work needed is immense.

Your example of the treatment of women is a good parallel. That is an overriding passion of mine, the equality of all women with all men. Yet that does not diminish my wish and need to see racism ( all degrees of it) eradicated once and for all.

Thank you for everything you wrote in this piece.