Antiracist Reader: A New Year’s Resolution

Over thirty-odd years of literacy, I’ve read thousands of books by white people, mostly men. I don’t regret a single one.  Here’s what I do regret: As a white man constantly, if unconsciously, fed the standard American fare of white history, white knowledge, and white culture, it scarcely even occurred to me to seek out…

It’s Not Enough to Not Be Racist

What if I told you the sad and ignorant man who called my wife the N-word in New Hampshire isn’t really the problem? What if I said that well-mannered “white” folk like you and me are just as much the problem as he? Let me explain. The term “structural racism” is redundant. Racism didn’t start…

Learning to love, and be loved by, the ‘other’

Hard though it is to admit, I grew up implicitly fearing black faces like his. Not because my kind and inclusive parents were consciously racist—because they and their society hadn’t yet learned how to be consciously antiracist. So I drank my portion of the poison of racism that permeates American life and defines dark faces…