Recently, at Happy Hour, I had a conversation with a white female friend and co-worker that really made me stop and think. She told me that I, or rather we—meaning the Black staff at our job—were being racist because we have a Black staff organization. She felt excluded, like she wasn’t welcome because she isn’t Black, and to her, that was unfair. In that moment, I had to break it down for her—explain why Black spaces exist in the first place and why her feeling left out is not the same as experiencing racism. But this conversation wasn’t just for her. Too many white people walk through life completely blind to these realities, and when they do encounter them, they mistake equity for exclusion. So, I’m sharing this message with her (again) and with the world, hoping that maybe—just maybe—some white people will read this, learn something, and begin to truly understand. It’s a wild concept that white people feel like they experience racism. Any time they feel excluded from something—a c...
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