I read this article last night, and I found it to be incredibly profound, and I plan to pass it on. However, in the middle of the night I couldn’t sleep as I wrestled with the events of recent days and all the reading I’ve done and my life history and what I can do now to promote healing and love. And I realized some things that I’d love to point out after reading this article. And while I suppose I could write a book, I’ll try to keep my points down to a couple.

I am a white woman who grew up in a low income, largely African American neighborhood in the South. My parents still live in the house in which I grew up. I had a wonderful loving family and my childhood was filled with much joy and happiness. But there was plenty of fear, too. I will not write a list of all the things that happened in the neighborhood and home in which I grew up, but trust me, it would be a long list involving a lot of burglary and violence and in one extreme case, even my sweet mom getting nearly beaten to death (and tied up and left for dead) in our own home by an angry, drug addicted intruder.

I was also a minority in school, especially for sixth grade, in which I went to a sixth grade center. It was terrifying. I state that because I have seen other white people claim to have been bullied and scared at largely African American schools, and they have been mostly disregarded. And I want to use my experience to say that racism either isn’t okay, or it is. You can’t say that it’s not okay for white people to be racist against blacks, but in the rare case in which a white person is in the minority, it’s okay for blacks to be racist then because of all that whites have done to blacks. This, I believe, is part of the problem. I understand the logic of that, but true healing will never come without forgiveness somewhere. No matter who the minority is in a situation, there is no excuse for racism. Ever.

I grew up at the corner of a street that dead ended at railroad tracks, and I learned to fear any man who appeared from those railroad tracks. Were they always dangerous or up to no good? No. But they were a lot of the time. Were they usually black? Yes, they were. So was this profiling on my part? No, it was experience. Believe me, I feared any white man who showed up around those tracks headed towards my house, too. For this reason I say that I think this really isn’t always just a race issue. Again, I state that I grew up in a low income area. (And no, I’m certainly not saying that we should all fear poor people.) My siblings and I often even “joke” as adults that the trailer park near my parents’ home should be called Child Molester Central due to the number of registered sex offenders who live there. My point is, I did not grow up fearing black men in general at all — and I certainly did not lump black people into one, big stereotypical category (I don’t even like doing it now for the sake of this sentence). My absolute best friend in high school was an African American girl. I grew up dancing ballet, and one of my dance partners and dearest friends was a black boy who grew up not far from my house. But I share all this to say that yes, I was a bit more wary in my own neighborhood, but again, this was based on years of experience of seeing things stolen and prowlers in my yard at night and being roughed up myself as a kid when my sister and I walked to the corner store. And this is where I struggle largely. Did that make me a racist? I just don’t think so. Did it make me struggle with racism? I bet it did.

Which brings me to my final point. I have done a lot of reading and soul searching over the past week. I think that to be human is to be broken, and I want to root out any racism in my heart, because I know that deep down there is some there. How I want to do my part to reach across those lines that divide us. But in my reading, I have come across several articles with the same basic message: White people, this is your fault, and you aren’t doing anything. I think that with that, a deeper, more dangerous message is being conveyed as well: If you are white, you are racist, because this broken system benefits you. And while I understand (and grieve) the truth that this broken system does in fact benefit whites, that does not make me a racist. I think of my two year old son sleeping upstairs. He is white. But he is not a racist. And I think of how I grew up and went on to college and married and moved away, out of the neighborhood in which I grew up, and how this article implies that me moving away is indicative of part of the problem. And while I understand that, I have to say that there is nothing wrong — and it is even right — for me to want to raise my children somewhere safer. A safe place for our children to grow up is something we all want for our children, no matter what our race. And please know that I understand that due to the brokenness of things, this is often harder for African Americans, and that is definitely a problem we should work on, one I would even say is of top priority. But so does that mean I should stay? And what if I do stay? My husband and I lived in Chicago for awhile, and that is when we learned what gentrification was. It seems like sometimes we are damned if we do, damned if we don’t. If I leave the neighborhood, I’m racist…but if I stay and perhaps work on my home and renovate it and make it into something beautiful and others do the same, well, then we’ve shot the property values up and made the property taxes too high for those who already live there. So what are we supposed to do?

And that really IS my question. We’ve all grieved and pondered and soul searched for the past week or so. And my challenge is, please quit pointing fingers at me as a white person and telling me I’m a huge part of the problem without giving me something constructive to do about it. This is not a rhetorical question. I understand the finger pointing. And I want things to change. I want to change. So what do I, a stay-at-home mom of four children, do now?