greetings white people,

there was a lot of talk about race on the radio last night as the tragic and heartbreaking killing of trayvon martin in florida continues to gain more exposure in the national media. while it can be easy to see this as something that happened in another part of the country under laws that allow for more extreme behavior to go unchecked and unpunished, i think we have to take this opportunity to look around, listen up, and participate in the conversation about race as it unfolds. but i know as a people we don't always like being told what to do so i'll just tell you what i'm going to do. i hope you'll have some thoughts that will inspire me. i certainly can't claim to have this all figured out.

i'm going to believe the black commentators when they say that this is a story that is happening in one form or another all across the country all the time, that these situations aren't isolated incidents but part of the fabric of structural racism that we all live with every day, in one way or another, regardless of our color.

i'm going to think about my white skin privilege and consciously look for ways in which it benefits me today ( if you're not sure about the meaning of the term white privilege, the article "unpacking the invisible knapsack" by peggy mcintosh is a good place to start.

http://ted.coe.wayne.edu/ele3600/mcintosh.html

i'm going to do some reading on the subject of white privilege and structural racism (today i'll keep on with colorblind by tim wise and michelle alexander's the new jim crow).

i'm going to avoid saying "can you believe how screwed up the racial situation is in florida? unless i'm absolutely sure it's worse than my own backyard here in new york ( which i doubt it is. it's just different ).

i'm going to acknowledge my own racism. this was hard for me at first. i had so much invested in being a good liberal, free of prejudice and all that, but prejudice really isn't the issue for most of us here. it's racism, it's a status quo that benefits me as a white person. it's a system of racial control. if i do nothing about it i'm allowing it to continue! once i could own my racism i could begin to look at it and work to eliminate it. i believe that will take a life time. i grew up in a country in which inequality has been a part of the story since white people landed. i had very little contact with people of color in my early years but i sure had a lot of contact with the status quo and that meant for me that my sense of white privilege was deeply ingrained by the time i was a young adult, as were the many negative images of people of color which came via the predominantly white media. thank god for music, it pushed back against the power of these negative images but it certainly didn't take them away. i struggle every day to try and erase from my heart the fear of "others" that was planted so early on. if i can begin to deal with the fear i can begin to open my heart to the ways in which i can fight back against racism and participate in the building of an equitable society.

i'm going to try, in my way, however clumsy and awkward it may be, to use this moment, as we discuss the sad and needless loss of another young man of color, to talk about race, particularly with other white people. we have to be in this conversation. to turn away is to allow the inequity and injustice to continue.