I've often been in situations where I noticed race-related feelings or where my thoughts around an interaction with a person went to race. E.g. did I find that person intimidating because they were black? Or group situations where race comes up and I thought I might have something valuable to add but feared it would be interpreted as racist. Or perhaps was racist to some degree or at least a bit naive. But the anxiety and lack of confidence in the words that came to my head made me just shut up about it. But that's bad. Because if I was thinking about race, so was everyone else. It was definitely a thing that was there, and out of fear of getting it wrong nothing was said. So real issues became suppressed. And the opportunity to navigate whether my feelings were about race or whether they were about a particular person or situation unrelated to race was lost. Often people with these conflicts are genuinely interested in equality and seize opportunity to promote equality when that promotion doesn't really put race dynamics squarely in play. For example, advocating liberal political policy. Or joining marches or civil rights movements that are sufficiently diverse. Or calling out racists. Or damning police for targeting black people. Any way to comfortably demonstrate that it's wrong to be racist, sign up. Etc.
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