A QUICK READ FOR WHITE PEOPLE WHO DON’T CONSIDER THEMSELVES RACIST. My newsfeed turned into a sea of black squares (June 2, #BlackOutTuesday). … Initially, this warmed my heart — I thought, YES, these are the kind of friends I want to have. All day, I contemplated sharing the same image, but the more I thought and read, the more I realized that, while initially well-intended, a black square won’t do very much for black lives. I decided to say something instead.

It’s taken me longer to write this than I had expected. I have found it exceptionally difficult to string together the phrases, which I feel might actually make a difference. I am not deluding myself into thinking that my words will have some huge, reverberating impact. Right-wing fanatics, extremists and bigots do not follow my page and my words will not reach them, and on the off chance that they do, they will likely fall on deaf ears.

Fascists, Neo-Nazis, and the kind of people who genuinely believe that they are superior to others thanks to the pigmentation of their skin, aren’t really the problem. This kind of racism is obvious, it’s loud and most people, not just in the US, but all over the world agree that it’s wrong. Too many of us, too easily consider ourselves allies to people of color. We would never describe ourselves as racists because we don’t have the Confederate flag hanging in our living room, we’ve befriended black classmates, and we shame Trump’s xenophobic remarks on social media. …

Written by Ola Caracola.