This is a whole new process to me. Becoming socially conscious, endeavoring to be an ally for oppressed voices…it doesn’t come easy nor comfortable. But for me, it is a necessary conviction and evolution if I ever want to be come socially conscious and empathetic. Because what’s lacking most in society…is empathy. I’m not doing my cause, and the cause of others, any good if I can’t center myself and allow the conversation to shift away from what makes me comfortable. Not because I don’t matter (because I do believe that everyone has an opinion, whether I agree with it or not), but because the conversation isn’t about me. It’s bigger, broader and much more intricate than anyone can take at face value. To be an ally means to accept ones position as a privileged member of the dominant group who resides outside of an oppressed community, but actively participates and supports their struggle.

When I was growing up, I lived in a very diverse area. Nowadays, it seems that “diverse area” is code for “a lot of black people live there” and “not a good place to raise your upwardly mobile white family.” I suppose that I wasn’t so far off in that estimation, because 15 years after I graduated high school I still get those slightly horrified looks from people when I tell them where I grew up.

And by diverse area, I mean that I did go to school with predominantly black and latinx classmates, and the white population was, in fact, the minority if based on percentages. But never did I feel like a minority, never did I feel exclusion, and never did I feel racial barriers from anyone else. Except my fellow white community. The roadblocks never felt more real or more constricting than when navigating within my own kind.

I remember very clearly being in Mrs. Dodd’s kindergarten class when I received my first lesson in empathy in a school setting. I was taunting a fellow classmate, a skinny boy named Tony. I was reprimanded for calling him “Bony Tony” because it wasn’t kind, it wasn’t nice, to make someone else feel bad. And I still to this day feel violently ashamed of my behavior, and seeing the forlorn look on his face. It shouldn’t matter that he was black, but in owning my perspective and struggle for alliance, it highlights all too well that I was the aggressor.

And white people, despite our collective “best efforts” (note: sarcasm) otherwise, have been and will continue to be the aggressor to oppressed cultures simply because that’s historically the way it’s always been. White supremacy conjures up images of skinheads and the Ku Klux Klan, right? But what if white supremacy didn’t look so ugly? What if it wore pretty, designer clothes and drove a Mercedes SUV? It lurks within all of us – any of us, who, based solely on our skin color, is in a position of power. And acknowledging that power is heavy and scary.

Within the walls of my tidy hometown hid the rotten mold of racism and supremacy on every street corner. The town was very clearly divided into three parts – South of Merrick, the Village, and North Amityville. South of Merrick meant you lived in a 99.9% white neighborhood with grand old homes, manicured lawns and a mom who shuffled you between dance class and lacrosse practice after spending the day at your expensive private school. Living in the Village meant you were slightly on the outskirts of the idyllic and expensive groups, but still well within the realm of whiteness and middle class luxury. If you lived in North Amityville, you were black, or low-income white, or hispanic. You lived in the bad part of town.

I first lived in the Village, in a beautiful old Victorian which my parents lovingly restored. Later, in high school, we moved South of Merrick, although I didn’t go to dance class, or lacrosse practice, and my mother didn’t drive a Mercedes. And I, along with my two sisters, went to public school – most of my peers went to private parochial schools. Because the public school system had been branded “bad” (how generic) over the years, and it wasn’t the place to send your college-bound teenager; the budgets rarely passed, we lacked technological updates to the curriculum, and sports, arts and extracurricular activities were always on the chopping block. But I loved it. I loved every single second of it, even when Chantell slapped me in gym class in sixth grade. I may not have loved it then, but I can absolutely appreciate my formative years and how they have led me to this place.

By this place, I mean the realization of my white history, and how it affects my interactions with others. It’s called unpacking, a reference to the seminal essay, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh, which I read as a freshman History major in college. It was my first introduction to “white privilege.” To be told, or accept, that such a thing existed was at first shocking. And like most people, when confronted with something uncomfortable or accusatory, your initial reaction is to defend – defend yourself against false accusations and that, my friends, is “white fragility.”

White fragility is the horrified look (like above) that people give you when you call them out on that racist comment, or racist meme on Facebook. “I’m not racist! I have black friends! My cousin is black!” That’s your white fragility talking. It’s a deeply rooted, entrenched sense of entitlement. We live in a world of our own making that consistently upholds the belief of our superiority. And we avoid taking responsibility for our own whiteness because it seems in some way to betray how feel about ourselves, or how we portray ourselves to others. We can’t admit to something we don’t feel to be true.

 But it is true. Because the imbalance of power between whites and the oppressed is horribly shifted. And there’s no shame – really, there isn’t – in saying that you accept something about yourself that’s uncomfortable and squirmy and simultaneously wanting to do something about it. We believe that racists are bad people – and yes, people who are active aggressors towards oppressed people and cultures, who make it their mission to spread hatred and abuse, are very much indeed bad people. However, people who believe we live in a post-racial society (the Civil Rights Movement! Spike Jones! Rap music!) and that we are well-intentioned people who are simply incapable of racism. But you have to realize, racism is systemic, it is structured, it is engrained in the very fabric of our communities. And we all participate within our communities, which merely uphold the racist construct. Societal default is white superiority. Our voice is the default, the standard, and that’s not OK. We can’t have a genuine, constructive dialogue until the power balance shifts to make everyone’s voice equal. You are complicit in racism if you are not seeking to tear it down.

 Yes. You’re racist if you choose to sit back and allow the racist constructs of our society to continue. And to be an ally, to alleviate the racial stress and conflict, we must do our part to dismantle the boundaries that separate our communities, that speak to the unwritten rules in which we conduct ourselves and to accept the ugly truths about our privilege, to act not with white fragility, but with an openness and determination to disabuse ourselves of such beliefs.