I made the mistake once of piping in on someone’s post about what we as white people could do to help educate other whites about racism. That was early in my Medium days, back when I thought maybe the people who were asking would at least listen. I replied that I thought we needed to do away with the generalizations and comments such as, “If your skin is white, you ARE a racist.” I said, we might want to try skipping the lectures and/or yelling, and speak to people in their own language. As you can imagine, that went over like a lead balloon. I got schooled, big time. We’ve been kind long enough, they said.
There was one woman in particular who I went around and around with. I finally just said something to the effect of, “I get the impression you think that by ranting online, you can influence more people than I can by being a positive role model/educator for my daughter, granddaughter, neices, nephews, students (and their parents), and community. I’ll just leave you to it. If influencing requires yelling, count me out.”
