Throughout life, there are moments that become part of our collective memory. They prompt people to ask questions such as, “Where were you when the towers came down?” or “What were you doing when you heard Michael Jackson died?”
For most of us, seeing the video of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck while he begged to breathe and called for his mother was one of those moments. How we reacted says much about our lives as people of color, or not, in America.
This marks the end of another gut-wrenching week in the murder trial of Chauvin for his role in George Floyd’s death. It was one filled with vivid details of Floyd’s final moments — watched by millions of Americans who could not look away from 17-year-old Darnella Frazier’s cell phone video. They could not ignore that another Black man had died, not at the hands of a white police officer, but while under his knee.
Less than 100 days ago, there was another moment when Americans watched in horror as violent extremists stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. They were among the 74 million, predominantly white Americans, who voted to re-elect Donald Trump — the president who told the Proud Boys to “Stand back and stand by” and who declared, “you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides” after the deadly 2017 protests by white supremacists in Charlottesville.
In the aftermath of these incidents, white people who consider themselves “not racist” and “anti-racist” have struggled to respond. I am writing here aimed at these well-intentioned individuals to say: I appreciate good intentions and having your heart in the right place, but understand that is not enough, especially in today’s America. The reasons you oppose racism are as important as the fact that you do.
If you are a self-identified “white ally” in the fight against racism, you have likely assumed risks and repeatedly shown up to fight injustice — publicly and privately. You may have marched in a Black Lives Matter protest or even ended relationships and disowned family members during the 2020 election cycle. While that is all-important, it says nothing about your motivations. Absent an honest look at why you’ve done what you’ve done, we have a problem that has the potential to undermine America’s tenuous quest to form a more perfect union.
For hundreds of years, most white Americans have been voyeurs of systemic racism and witnesses to racist acts while being complicit through their inaction. Worse yet, some refuse to accept that racism exists at a time when violence against Black people has been in heavy rotation in conventional and social media.
A critical mass of white Americans watched George Floyd dying as Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck, and they could not look away. They saw the video of Ahmaud Arbery gunned down in the street by a white vigilante, and they could not look away. They saw photos of Breonna Taylor’s apartment after she was killed by police, and they could not look away.
Although these high-profile tragedies led to months of protests against police violence and anti-Black racism; an avalanche of corporate “commitments”; the retirements of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben; the sunset of the Mississippi state flag and Confederate flag at NASCAR; and even with Major League Baseball’s recent decision to move the All-Star game out of Georgia in response to voter laws that unfairly impact Black voters — it remains difficult to believe this is the moment America will change.
I am skeptical that the critical mass of white allies required to end racism are ready for America to reject its racist proclivities because so many still benefit from maintaining the status quo in large and small ways.
I have spent much of my professional life focused on improving the public’s health by eliminating identity-based inequities, particularly those rooted in racism. More recently, I have crisscrossed America, speaking to audiences about equity, privilege and racism while challenging them to get uncomfortable. I say things they don’t expect to hear, in ways they find difficult to dismiss. At the end of those talks, I engage with audiences and inevitably, white people discuss allyship while people of color watch, listen, and remain skeptical.
Why? Deep down, many white people don’t think racism is their problem although they know they benefit from it. It’s why every discussion about racism is uncomfortable. But for many, the first mention of racism leaves them feeling blamed and shamed for something they did not create so they reject the idea of silence as complicity. That becomes their truth, their emotional anchor, and the source of their resistance to self-awareness and change.
No place is that clearer than when I talk to white people about white privilege.
For most white people, discussions of white privilege are perceived as character assassination and blatant disregard for their hard work and struggles. To be clear, white privilege reflects a value society places on whiteness. It creates the context in which white people experience America — privy to certain benefits and advantages while limiting the things about which they need to worry. Even if they accept that, this is when the real motivation for their allyship often becomes a problem.
When I discuss racism with white allies, they focus solely on racism’s impact on people of color — particularly Black people. Not once without being prompted have I heard a White person explain or raise the possibility that racism is directly harmful to them. In other words, racism happens totally outside of their personal universe.
That is the problem. That is the reason this agonizing moment of America’s racial reckoning is even more fragile and tenuous than we realize. That is why I remain skeptical of white allies — not of their intentions, but of their motivations.
If well-intended white people are willing to risk protesting publicly or questioning institutional racism — but they cannot articulate how it is harmful to them — then they are acting in full-blown white savior mode, which is to say, deep down they are congratulating themselves for confronting racism rather than taking it on as a personal and moral obligation.
That’s dangerous. The power dynamic associated with white savior mentality will always be harmful for people of color. America’s religious justification of slavery is the perfect example.
In the late 1600s, the Puritan minister Cotton Mather justified the institution of slavery as the way in which white Christians would save Black African souls — by converting them to Christianity — with little to no concern for their lives, bodies, feelings, families, happiness, histories, or traditions. Far too many Black people died at the hands of those Puritan “saviors” who were most concerned with their own heavenly reward.
There are white allies who have the potential to dismantle America’s racist ways. They aren’t interested in self-congratulation. They have no desire to ignore racial identities — thinking us “post-racial” or encouraging us to be “color-blind.” They fight against racism not because they have a biracial grandchild or a Black friend but because they are compelled to save themselves. They are people motivated by feeling the constant press of racism on their lives like George Floyd felt Derek Chauvin’s knee on his neck.
The last white ally Black Americans need is one who at any moment can decide they are too tired to go on, too discouraged to continue, or too scared to take the risk. To be successful in the fight against racism, they need to have skin in the game too.
So, what is a white ally to do?
1. Figure it out. Identify in detail and in every way possible how and why racism, racist acts and racist ideas are harmful to you. Consider how unconscious bias, white guilt, fearing people of color, and being held accountable for racist behavior could be destructive to a white person’s life and career.
2. Don’t take the easy way out and Google how racism harms white people. Do the real work of self-reflection.
3. Talk to other white people about it.
4. Remember that as much as you hope to help others, this is first about helping yourself.
5. Understand, this is not an attempt to equate the impact of racism on white people to the danger, trauma and harm of racism as it is experienced by Black people and other people of color. Don’t ever attempt to compare oppression or pain.
6. Recognize that this will be a lifelong journey that requires effort and time to learn about racism.
When every white ally knows the threat that racism poses to them and the harm it does to their lives, America will reach a tipping point. Fueled by seasoned anti-racist warriors, recovering racists and white allies with real skin in the game, we just might create that more perfect union.
Burke is the president and CEO of CommonHealth ACTION, a national nonprofit that works with people and organizations to produce health through equitable policies, programs and practices.
