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Read the following three statements and write a short paragraph about your response to them and any impact they may have on your response to race and racism.

To continue reproducing racial inequality, the system only needs [W]hite people to be really nice and carry on, smile at people of color. Be friendly and go to lunch together on occasion…. Niceness will not get racism on the table and will not keep it on the table when everyone wants it off…. Where do we go from here? I offer that we must never consider ourselves finished with our learning. Even if challenging all the racism and superiority we have internalized was quick and easy to do, our racism would be reinforced all over again just by virtue of living in the culture. (DiAngelo, 2018, pp. 153–154)

When we shift our focus away from determining whether the intentions of individual white people are “good” or “bad” to instead focusing on the negative effects of white supremacy, we can focus on what matters most in the fight against racism. (Tenney, 2017, p. 55)

Every time I stand in front of an audience to address racial oppression in America, I know that I am facing a lot of [W]hite people who are in the room to feel less bad about racial discrimination and violence in the news, to score points, to let everyone know that they are not like the others, to make [B]lack friends. I know that I am speaking to a lot of [W]hite people who are certain they are not the problem because they are there. Just once I want to speak to a room of [W]hite people who know they are there because they are the problem. Who know they are there to begin the work of seeing where they have been complicit and harmful so that they can start doing better. (Oluo, 2019, para. 16)

If you feel comfortable doing so, share and discuss your responses with others.