Avery,
Chicopee, MA.
I’m white, but many of my friends growing up were children of color. I always thought that we were treated the same because nobody was overtly racist. Then I started educating myself and learned about concepts like dog-whistling and microaggressions. I was stunned to realize that I had been totally wrong the whole time–white people in my “diverse” suburb were just as racist as the “uneducated country people” they spoke of with disdain. Further, I realized that I wasn’t exempt from this; I had been just as guilty of some of these subtle acts of racism as the people around me. “Race doesn’t matter” is a nice pipe dream, but in today’s world, it isn’t accurate. We’re all complicit in racism and white supremacy, and the best thing I and other white people can do is recognize that.
