Should white allies shun racist friends and family Or engage them?

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.
– Frederick Douglass

Some people think “All Lives Matter” except Black Lives. That is equivalent to putting a chain around Black people’s ankles and thinking the other end is not fastened around the necks of whites.

All over white Americans wonder what their role should be as allies against racism. Should they shun racist friends and families or have discussions about race? Everyone has to do their part to end racism. It starts with individual choices, and from there, we dismantle structural racism together.  White people have a huge role to play in ending a system of racial oppression, persecution and power that is part of their cultural heritage.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. – Frederick Douglass

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Author: Angela Grant

Angela Grant is a medical doctor. For 22 years, she practiced emergency medicine and internal medicine. She studied for one year at Harvard T. H Chan School Of Public Health. She writes about culture, race, and health.

19 thoughts on “Should white allies shun racist friends and family Or engage them?

  1. Re: “Should they shun racist friends and families or have discussions about race?” First they should ask themselves: “How come I have racist friends?”

    As long as people are in need of a scapegoat (and there are a lot of them), racism will never end, no matter what you do.

    1. I believe discrimination will always exist but racism is an unnecessary evil whose end will benefit humankind.To evolve we have to move beyond racism.

    1. Hi Andreas, Solomon Burke is right, None of us are free! That tiny minority believes they can live in their bubble while keeping the rest of us divided and fighting each other. No matter how luxurious, bubbles pop.

            1. Come on, aren’t those great songs? 😛

              Btw:
              I always was mega attracted to women like this Ayesha (that hair!) en Sona (those eyes!).

              As for the second song? I truly loved the connection between the black guy and the white woman in it. It moved me to the core of my being. Even now years later it still does.

              Oh, and the third one? Yes, that’s totally me. The velvet underground is my world. It’s there where I always felt free. MainstreamLand? It’s there where I don’t feel free. More in a straitjacket. And it stinks too. Yuck!

          1. Oh sure, them hard-boiled Mainstreamers would call it my soft side. Same as they talk about soft skills and other soft crap. But I simply say, I’m multi-polar. Of course Mainstreamers would easily diagnose me for that with one or more disorders as described in their silly DSM-5, as they already do this with a person they diagnose bi-polar. Little do these scared Mainstreamers, a.k.a vanillas, how pathological they are themselves, and laughed at in the velvet underground, my world.

  2. As our Black Ancestor Scholar Dr. John Henrick Clarke said to us Black people -We have NO Friends beside ourselves. There are other Black nations all around the earth that we need to connect with.

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