

I’m a white girl from South Carolina. If I hadn’t learned over the years to make friends with conservatives, I’d have, like, six friends. It was mostly easy for me to focus on our commonalities, for me to tell myself that we all wanted the same things for ourselves and our country. We just disagreed on the best way to get there. Or it was about differences in fiscal policy. Or it was about differences in opinion over what the role of government should be in the life of a nation and its citizens. Mostly, we just didn’t talk about politics.

But larger events and the profound sickness they exposed forced my hand.

In 2015, I posted this Facebook status: “TFW the pastor of your Methodist Church forcefully declares in her sermon that black lives matter and you want to stand up and applaud.” From the beginning, I’d been surprised by the white reaction to Black Lives Matter. When I first heard the phrase, I thought, Yes. Of course. How sad that it has to be pointed out. It was impossible to ignore the news of shooting after shooting after shooting, of yet another black man or woman dead and law enforcement’s role in that death, of the pattern of inaction from the justice system. Each new breaking story, each new hashtag, sickened and angered me. Of course black lives matter. Of course.

Within minutes of posting the status, two Facebook friends responded to tell me that all lives matter. One was a woman I knew only casually through a local organization we’re both in, so that was an easy defriending. But the other was a longtime family friend. I’d known her since I was five. I remember her wedding, the birth of her sons. She holds a PhD and works as a school principal, where she is incredibly and deservedly well-liked. I loved her. I felt like I knew her. How could she say, “All lives matter,” but not see – or worse – deliberately avoid the racism inherent in such a statement? Maybe she wasn’t the person I knew, and I didn’t think I wanted to associate with the person she really was. I defriended her. It was painful. Still is. The ascendency of Black Lives Matter was the first time I had to confront the fact that the differences between me and my conservative friends might not just be a matter of policy or economics or constitutional interpretation. They would likely swear that they are definitely not racist, but maybe their definition of racism and mine were beginning to diverge in unbridgeable ways.

By the time conservative social media lost its collective mind over Hillary Clinton’s “we all have implicit bias” speech in April 2016, I had tuned many friends out. I didn’t engage. They were, as a group, a hopeless case. I knew it was possible – and necessary – for white people simply to say, “Yes, I’m racist.” I said it to my own like-minded friends and family members: “Yes, I’m racist. Of course I see color. I am a product of the same system of white supremacy in which all of us operate, and I’m one of the winners of the sperm lottery. I am trying to unlearn all the lies I’ve been told, and sometimes it’s a difficult process. I am coming to terms with the fact that I have done nothing to break down that system, and my inaction might as well be complicity. People are dying.”

Saying that to myself and out loud made me feel shame, but not defensiveness. In fact, I often had to check my pride: Look at me! Look how woke I am! I’m such a good ally!

Honestly, girl, get your shit together.

