Listen to Black Women — Recommended

One of the biggest components necessary to effect change is empathy. Empathy — the ability to understand or share someone’s feelings — isn’t lacking among white people . . . they just commonly “understand” other white people. As such they’ll sympathize or understand racist behavior by a white person, but have a hard time directing those emotions to a minority victim.

Year round should be a time to read and learn about the experiences of others, because it helps with compassion and empathy. It will also help you identify certain remarks or defenses you, as a white person, have used and help you to understand our reactions. If you’re serious about becoming an ally, it’s time you learned more about our experiences in the US.

Black women’s voices are typically not amplified and their creations are often co-opted by white people — especially white women — who are then given the credit. See Tarana Burke’s #METOO movement and how she is conspicuously absent from the women on the Times “Person of the Year” cover. A cover which credits those women as “the voices that launched a movement” sans the actual creator of the hashtag that began a movement long before celebrity white women were all aboard.

In the US, movements for marginalized people are all too often overrun by white people, who then take over the movement and drown out the voices…