Reflections from a Token Black Friend

Found this really interesting thank you. As a white dude who grew up in rural UK I had very limited contact with anyone who wasn't white growing up and its not really changed too much as I've grown up and joined the world.

One of the problems people like me have is that the entire 'issue' is disconnected from our reality. The only context I have is the history I've learnt and the things I read now. The media I consume essentially. My subconscious has a load of shit programmed in to do with the idea of a black person or black people. I don't understand all of it but I _know_ I have prejudice that I don't want. What I do have is a desparate desire to always treat people equally and a lot of fear that I will get something wrong.

Unfortunately it's an order of magnitude easier to 'post something' than it is to change the way you react to people. To be vigilant of your own mind, to be constantly aware and sensitive to what's going on around you. To accept that you have predudice and you need to work in order to mitigate it. To accept you probably will do or say the wrong thing, to be OK with this and accept that you may need to change. It's hard. We can shout and post and demonstrate as much as we want but this is about other people, not ourselves. Will anything change after this? I fear not because we want other people to change, not ourselves.

This was really good and enlightening. Things like this should be required reading in schools across America. Along with a complete revamping of American History to hammer in the reality of what happened.