White Privilege: Starting a Difficult Conversation at a Moment of Reckoning

“Start now. Start where you are. Start with fear. Start with pain. Start with doubt. Start with hands shaking. Start with voice trembling but start. Start and don’t stop. Start where you are, with what you have. Just… start.”― Ijeoma Umebinyuo Photo credit: The White Supremacy Iceberg, Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence

In my waspy middle-class family, we avoid difficult conversations.

We don’t talk about the elephant under the rug. We serve cocktails on its back, engaging in “polite” conversation about “safe topics” as the pachyderm looms ever larger through lack of acknowledgment. Through lack of witnessing.