There won't be any more white folks around who think the 1950s were the good old days, because there won't be any more white folks around who actually remember them.

After all, acknowledging unfairness then calls decent people forth to correct those injustices. And since most persons are at their core, decent folks, the need to ignore evidence of injustice is powerful: To do otherwise would force whites to either push for change (which they would perceive as against their interests) or live consciously as hypocrites who speak of freedom and opportunity but perpetuate a system of inequality.

The system of white supremacy is intended to make folks of color doubt themselves, their intelligence, their abilities, their very sanity. And so it's important to remember that folks of color know their own realities.

What whites have rarely had to think about—because being the dominant group, we are so used to having our will done, with a little effort at least—is that maybe the point is not victory, however much we all wish to see justice attained and injustice routed. Maybe our redemption comes from the struggle itself. Maybe it is in the effort, the striving for equality and freedom that we become human.

The denial of racism is a form of racism itself.

Precisely because white denial has long trumped claims of racism, people of color tend to underreport their experiences with racial bias rather than exaggerate them.

People never hurt others in moments of personal strength and bravery, when they are feeling good about themselves, when they are strong and confident. If we spent all of our waking moments in that place, then fighting for social justice would be redundant; we would simply have social justice and be done with it, and we could all go swimming, or fishing, or bowling, or dancing, or whatever people do. But it is because we spend so much of our time in that other place, that place of diminished capacity, of flagging energy, or wavering and somewhat flaccid commitment, that we have to be careful.