“What I ask of you is that you don’t turn away from the pain you are witnessing in this moment. Don’t bury yourself in work or how the markets are doing. Don’t tell yourself there are more important things or issues that the country needs to deal with. Look at what is happening for what it is—people who are tired of being abused in every way imaginable by whiteness, white people and white supremacist ideology and institutions in this society—boiling with rage. Resist the feelings of being persecuted for things you didn’t and wouldn’t do. Resist the urge to judge or condemn looters. Resist the impulse to impose your preferred modes of problem solving. Don’t turn to your typical experts for tips and talking points. Accept that you don’t understand and that you are not supposed to because you have not done the work yet. And you have not done the work because no one has ever challenged you to do it. Or if they have, you haven’t accepted the challenge. Either way, a deep, compassionate understanding of the black experience has never been presented to you as a requirement or prerequisite to anything that capitalism places any value on. You didn’t need it to get through high school or college or to get a good job or to rise the ranks of whatever industry you are in, or find a home in a good neighborhood or fall in love. Engaging with blackness is an option for you, one you can always ‘opt’ out of.”
A Letter to My White Male Friends of a Certain Age
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The Virtual Jackdaw 