If you are a white person in a racialized personβs life, especially as a partner or close friend, you should go out of your way to ask regularly βhey is there anything you have been holding on to that I did?β and critically both fix it and NOT DO ANYTHING TO PUNISH THEM FOR TELLING YOU.
As a white person raised in a white supremacist society, youβre gonna fuck up sometimes. Thatβs just a fact. But racialized people often arenβt able/comfortable speaking up when yβall do some shit because of the power imbalance/not feeling up to educating when you may be resistant/donβt think the βfightβ will be Worth It.
Show initiative without making it A Struggle or playing the white guilt card. Show you actually care about them, their struggles, and the way you interact with them BEFORE they have to have a bigger Conversation with you, beyond when they need to yell about someone else being racist.
And for fucks sake if theyβre making/showing you something from their culture fucking act like you realize the importance of that, that theyβre showing you shows they grew up with or making you food they made with their families, that theyβre letting you in and trusting you more than other whites in their life.
This would honestly be life changing for me. The idea came up because I feel so incapable of telling the people in my life when they do racist shit. And like furthermore, actually respond beyond just an I'm sorry. Like for the love of god actually internalize the shit the Black and Brown folks say to you.
