On Conversations about Racism, Conflict, and the Dangerous Art of Avoidance

Image Description: A picture of two people arguing. Silhouettes of their heads and hands can be seen in the foreground as they engage in a shouting match. In the background, a witness to the altercation can be seen covering their ears while wearing a blindfold.

Whiteness often looks at discussions about race as too confrontational, too heavy, too steeped in conflict. Many white people aren't looking to engage in this kind of conflict. It's scary. It's counterintuitive to the lessons of whiteness. But here's the thing: this work is conflict. It's a conflict with your values, your beliefs, your behaviors. It's a conflict with the white people in your life from whom you learned your values and beliefs. It's engaging in conflict with your history of perpetuating and participating in oppression.

It's conflict. Period.

There's no way you can talk about unpacking and unlearning 400+ years of white-led oppressive states, actions, and indoctrinated beliefs and have it be roses and kittens and kumbaya. It's not comfortable to talk about. It will never be comfortable to talk about. Nothing traumatic and generationally damaging will ever be comfortable to talk about. But we have to dive in and talk about this pain; we have to engage in this conflict. It's a matter of life, death, and breaking the chains of oppressive generational cycles - yours and mine. Avoidance doesn't promote change or make dealing with these conflicts any easier. It makes them worse and more untenable. Thinking that "somebody else will handle it" and that your whiteness absolves you of having to engage deeply has yet to yield long-term change for white people and white culture.

Does it suck that your white forefathers have left these conflicts in your lap to deal with? Sure. But don't do what they did and pass these conflicts on for the next generation to engage with and address. It might suck for you to engage in this conflict. But it sucks worse for Black folx, for Native folx, for people of color in the United States far more than it ever will for you when you choose to avoid these conflicts.