How I Stopped Being Afraid of Blackness and Started Prioritizing Black People

Liz Gross -

I was 23 when I sat in a graduate school classroom and realized I had been, to that point, oblivious to the privilege I enjoyed as a white person in the United States. That was the first step in a very long journey.

16.5 years later, I looked at a Black stranger being themselves in a crowd of other Black people and recognized their humanity and their Blackness at the exact same time, valuing both equally. This moment stood out to me as remarkable. I couldn’t find the words to describe why, then. Now, I believe it was because I wasn’t afraid of his Blackness—and more specifically, in that moment I wasn’t exhibiting anti-Blackness, “the systematic denial of Black humanity and dignity” (Williams Comrie, Landor, Townsend Riley, Williamson; 2022). I was 39 years old.

Why I’m Writing This

I’m not proud of the length of this journey. I’m writing about it to help other white people recognize our internalized fear of Blackness (a component of anti-Blackness) and take steps to shed it. To realize being “a good white person” isn’t enough. Specifically, I’m writing this for highly educated white people—especially white women—who think they have “done the work” by reading about racism, privilege, or white fragility. We must take further steps to prioritize Black people in our lives.

It’s crucial to “differentiate between an ally, who, despite a stance of partnership with BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and Other People of Color], profits off of suffering, and an accomplice, who has something to lose because of their partnership with BIPOC” (Moore & Farmer Cox, 2021).

It’s my sincere hope that it won’t take other people as long as it took me. Anti-Blackness (be it deliberate or subconscious) is killing people, hindering economic progress, and causing immense mental and physical harm to Black people and communities. It’s been like this (in the United States) for 400 years. In order for our country and society to become more just and equitable within this century, it can’t take white people nearly half their lives (or more) to make this shift.

Proximity To Blackness Didn’t Prompt Me To Change—2020 Did

Proximity to Black people didn’t help me recognize or overcome my anti-Blackness. As John Eligon wrote for the New York Times in The ‘Some of My Best Friends Are Black’ Defense, “the belief that proximity to blackness immunizes white people from having attitudes that are rooted in racism or doing racist things” is a myth. In my personal experience, the following things did very little at that time in my life to dismantle my internalized fear of Blackness (read more detail in my personal timeline of racial awareness).

  • Dating a Black man in high school
  • Working with one or more Black professionals in every job I’ve had since graduating college
  • Living in a majority Black neighborhood for two years
  • Living in an urban city center
  • Spending three years in graduate school with a very racially diverse group of classmates
  • Studying social justice and oppression in graduate-level college courses
  • Having a handful of Black friends—friends close enough that we visited each others’ homes

And then 2020 happened.

I understood COVID-19 was impacting Black communities more severely than whites. Black people were being murdered by police, as they have been for decades, and I—a white person—was actually noticing. Tyree Davis. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd was murdered in cold blood, America watched, and a racial reckoning was declared a riot by scared white people. As I watched white people around me declare Black Lives Matter a terrorist organization, defend our violent system of policing, and consistently deny humanity to anyone with Black skin, something clicked. On May 29, 2020, everything I’d learned in school combined with current events and I realized my status quo wasn’t good enough anymore. I started tweeting erratically to other white people while I processed my revelation of what was going on all around me. How I was complicit in it.

I was scared. Scared to go to the Black Lives Matter protest in our tiny town (we went anyway). Scared to fly a BLM flag for fear of what other white people might do to us or our property in a very conservative area (we realized that’s just a tiny portion of the fear someone with black skin feels in this country every day, so we fly the damn flag). I was afraid to give up any of my white privilege, to “suffer” in the most minute ways, to begin confronting the anti-Blackness in my life, my organization, my town, and our society. I was nervous to engage in social activities with Black people I wanted to get to know better. I knew I had to get past my fear of Blackness in order to be part of positive change, and I’d need to go beyond reading some books.

How I Learned to Value and Appreciate Blackness and Black People

Beginning in the summer of 2020, I took the following steps to build on my foundational knowledge of systemic oppression and actually do something to become a better accomplice to anti-racism efforts. I hope they inspire you to take similar actions.

Proactively diversify my social media feeds, particularly Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Some are completely “listen and learn” efforts—following creators who I’ll likely never build anything beyond a parasocial relationship with. Listening and learning about their lives in this way gives me perspective and deeper capacity for empathy. Other connections are professional and personal relationship-building efforts—people in my field or adjacent fields who I can converse with regularly, on and off social media. Seeing Black faces in my social media feeds frequently—and the topics they discuss—puts the Black experience front and center, and makes me conscious of my whiteness. I’ve learned that the algorithms will perpetuate a network and narrative centered in whiteness if I don’t purposefully disrupt that pattern.

Learn more Black American history through movies, books, podcasts, and cultural experiences. Make sure the sources you consult are written, curated, produced, etc., by Black people. I’ve compiled a brief selection of sources that I consulted. The short section of “civil rights history” included in the curriculum of most American schools doesn’t even begin to touch on the history of Black people in our country.

Read, watch, and listen to media that centers the Black experience. While Black history absolutely informs the current experience of Black people in the United States, it’s not enough just to know the history. Curious white people have more access to Black spaces now than ever because we can enter them digitally and asynchronously, without disrupting the Black joy in the spaces or otherwise causing harm. These are just a few windows into Black culture I’m grateful to peek into.  

Develop closer personal and professional relationships with Black people who aren’t afraid to call me out when my whiteness—or anti-Blackness— is overshadowing my humanity. I do my best to be a good white friend (this article includes satire but also lots of truth). This includes not prompting Black people to share their trauma with me in order to teach me. There are books and Google for that. You can’t expect to be invited into Black people’s lives until you’ve demonstrated a minimal level of racial competency and ability/willingness to protect them from further harm. One way I ensure the ongoing development of professional relationships with Black people is by prioritizing them when I make time for networking and mentoring.

Invest in expert services (training, coaching, etc.) from Black people with the goal of making myself a more culturally competent leader. I run a company, and it’s important for me to understand the impact of every leadership decision I make. I engaged the services of Exponential Development Group, but there are many Black-owned companies out there that will equip you to be a more inclusive leader. This is ongoing work.

Get comfortable talking about Blackness and whiteness, online and in-person, in personal and professional settings. This is harder than it appears, particularly because it’s not accepted by many folx who are benefiting from the white supremacist systems in most organizations, industries, and economies today. This takes courage and bravery, as well as practice. You will feel discomfort at first—and perhaps for some time. This is normal. My friend Amma Marfo told me, “This discomfort is normal because it’s new, but not a sign of being unsafe. You get comfortable by first being uncomfortable, and pushing through (not past) that discomfort is a crucial part.” I’m pushing through discomfort right now by writing this. Find some allies you can practice with.

The Moment I Realized I Was No Longer Afraid of Blackness

After purposely working to dismantle my anti-Blackness for nearly two years, I embarked on my first business trip during the pandemic. Connecting through the Atlanta airport, I descended the escalator to the plane train. With my noise-canceling headphones on and soothing music playing in my ears, I was both in the crowd and separate from it. I looked around and realized that the crowd was mostly Black, but I saw people. Families, airport workers, other business travelers, students… Black people whose existence I understood and appreciated differently than I had in the past. I saw a particular Black man and noted he was incredibly stylish—I was struck by his shoes/pants combo (my personal sense of style and ability to dress myself is… questionable). I recognized that his particular style was an expression of Blackness and I appreciated it.

I continued to my next flight, where upon arrival I met a Black male colleague. I knew (although we didn’t discuss it) that I needed to drive the rental car, and I would do so much closer to the speed limit than my normal practice, because the last thing we needed was to get pulled over in rural Pennsylvania and have an interaction with the police. At every moment in public during this trip I was aware of the presence or absence of Blackness and I never felt fearful or nervous. Often, I felt grateful and appreciative. This is the week that I recognized I had changed. It was March 15, 2022. I was 39 years old.

I’m a highly educated, extremely liberal white woman. I’m ashamed that it took me 37 years to develop sufficient awareness and empathy to see Blackness, rather than look away or hide from it. Any Black people reading this probably aren’t surprised because this is what we (white people) do. We go about our lives without awareness of or appreciation for the Black people who literally built our country after being brought here in bondage and have lived with 400 years of willful, systemic oppression. That’s an awful lot of shit to ignore. I accept that this is who I was, and recognize it’s similar to many of the white people I interact with everyday. All of us can be better. We must be better.

I’m Learning To Prioritize Black People

Some Black people in my life tell me that I’m different from a lot of other white people. That I care about them more/differently. I want to make it clear that I wasn’t always this way, and it took a conscious effort to step out of the complacency of whiteness-as-default. I’m not done, and never will be. I still recognize my own anti-Black behavior more often than I'd like to admit. But I feel like I’ve reached a point where I’m not consistently causing harm to the Black people in my life or who are impacted by the work I do. I just turned 40, and intend for the rest of my career—indeed, the rest of my life—to include a focus on decentering whiteness, fostering Black Excellence, and systematizing equity and inclusion in business and higher education.

I’m not going to write about being Black in America. I’ll never truly understand that. But I know that as a white person, I will cause harm to Black people in my life unless I commit to antiracist practices and prioritize Black people. Kim Crayton kindly educated white people about this reality on the first episode of her podcast, The Antiracist Economy and summarized this in a Twitter thread.

I don’t want a trophy for writing this. I don’t need you to hold this up as an example for all white people. I don’t need a single comment/response to this from a Black person. I need my white readers (that’s 90% of you) to think critically about your internalized fear of Blackness and start doing something to change it, now. White people’s support of anti-racist movements is lower now than it was before the “summer of racial reckoning” in 2020. Frankly, this makes me sick. You and I can be a part of changing that statistic with purposeful, sustained action.

White People: Take Your Next Step

Educate yourself.

Develop more empathy.

Recognize the role that whiteness plays in your life and our society.

Get over your fear of Black people—and Blackness—and become an active accomplice in Black excellence, Black joy, Black competence, Black justice, and Black liberation.

There are plenty of resources below for you to get started.

And when you finish reading this, and want to talk to someone about it? Talk about this with other white people—the Black folx are tired.

Resources

When purchasing books by and about Black people, I encourage you to purchase from a Black-owned bookstore, such as Mahogany Books. They ship quickly, and also have ongoing book club recommendations.

Black History Resources

Black Experience Resources

Note: Many of these resources are Black spaces. Particularly when they extend to online or offline communities, honor the Black space and don’t try to jump in and claim it as your own through some misguided sense of wokeness.

  • Grown Women podcast. “Two millennial women navigating black female adulthood.” I’m incredibly proud to cheer on this podcast because one of the hosts is a part of my professional circle in higher education.
  • The Antiracist Economy podcast. The latest from Kim Crayton, this is just getting started but episode 1 was 🔥 for any white person looking to support the Black community.
  • Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper.
  • Code Switch podcast. It’s not always about Blackness, but it’s always about race.
  • Stop Playing Diversity podcast. Dr. Monica Cox provides bite-sized think pieces for people who really want to make their organizations more inclusive. And her website offers valuable resources at an affordable price.
  • Blavity is an internet media company created by and for Black millennials. Their content, events, and communities highlight all things Black and relevant to the Black community. Follow them on social media, subscribe to their content, and learn.
  • Madison 365 is a Wisconsin-based non-profit journalism source that centers the experience of Black and brown people.
  • Black in White Space: The Enduring Impact of Color in Everyday Life by Elijah Anderson is an ethnography of what it’s like to be a Black person living in the white space. Chapter 10 The “Token,” The “Tom,” and “The HNIC”, is a particularly poignant read for white people.

Black-Owned Companies Providing Racial Justice Training and Coaching

White Affinity Spaces to Develop Your Black Allyship

My Personal Timeline of Racial Awareness

Childhood: 1982 - 2000

I’ve been “learning about racism” my entire life. I grew up in a mostly white town in central Wisconsin. Although I had friends who weren’t white, I was under the impression that being “colorblind” was the best way to approach any difference in skin color. Part of the MTV generation, my experience with Black culture came through the television set—popular movies like Friday, Juice, Set It Off, Menace II Society; music from Tupac, Boyz II Men, Dr. Dre, Usher; and TV sitcoms like “The Cosby Show”, “Sister Sister”, “The Fresh Prince”, “Family Matters”, and “In Living Color”. Blackness was entertainment, not something I encountered in my daily life.

College and My First Job: 2000 - 2005

I went to college 30 minutes away from home, and I remember my social circle being entirely white during those four years. It wasn’t remarkable to me at the time, because whiteness was the equivalent of “normal” for me.

After college I moved to Washington, D.C., where I was quickly taught about “good” and “bad” neighborhoods. Bad neighborhoods of course, were the Black neighborhoods. “Nice white people” wouldn’t actually say that, of course—but that’s what we meant. I managed to live a nearly entirely all-white existence in a city that was 30% white, 60% Black—with the exception of one Black woman who worked in my office. She was a student at Howard. That was the first time I learned about HBCUs—after I’d already finished college.

Early Career and Graduate School: 2005 - 2009

After less than a year I returned home to Wisconsin, but this time to Milwaukee—one of America’s most segregated cities. Even as more Black people entered my professional, educational, and personal circles, I maintained a generalized fear of Blackness. When walking alone or riding the bus, I felt threatened when unfamiliar Black men got close so I’d leave lots of space between us whenever possible. I served on hiring committees that defined “professionalism” in ways that marginalized Black candidates. Looking back, I know I ascribed more trust and goodwill to unfamiliar white people than unfamiliar Black people.

During approximately a decade in and around Milwaukee, I worked on college campuses and pursued graduate education with intentional focus on social justice.

It started in the classroom at Marquette, during the first semester of the Student Affairs in Higher Education program. We were assigned a four-page reading called White Privilege: Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack. This should be required reading for all white people before they reach adulthood, but I’ve realized (via a recent Twitter poll) that it’s not as commonly known outside of select academic circles. Later in this program I took an entire class on social justice advocacy—where I studied critical race theory, along with identity development and issues of inequity and oppression in higher education. I had two Black professors during my four years in this program. I learned a lot from them, but I didn’t unlearn my internalized anti-Blackness.

While attending Marquette, I purchased (with down payment assistance from my parents because generational wealth opens doors) my first home. It was the cutest little thing—just one bedroom. I bought it knowing it was located in a majority Black neighborhood. Yet, in the two+ years I lived there I made absolutely no effort to get to know my neighbors (except for the white guy next door). For some reason I thought proximity to racial diversity would make me a better person. Thinking back, I remained standoffish, distant, and afraid. I did absolutely nothing that would make my neighbors believe I cared about them as individuals. When my house was broken into, I believed what the police told me—that I’d never really be safe there—and I sold the house and left the neighborhood. The police were repeating a narrative that diminished the credibility of Black people and reinforced the idea of an iconic ghetto, and I bought it.

Doctoral Studies: 2010 - 2013

A year after finishing my masters degree, at age 27, I started a doctoral program at Cardinal Stritch University focused on Leadership for the Advancement of Learning and Service in Higher Education. Social justice and equity was infused into this program, and our cohort was more racially diverse than any academic experience I’d had prior. We were forced to engage with one another in ways that made us uncomfortable—like facing each other in a circle while we read Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter From Birmingham Jail out loud and discussed its relevance to our life. Our study groups were interracial. We visited multiple locations on Milwaukee’s nearly all-Black north side. Some of my colleagues focused their dissertations on Black student experiences. We spent an entire year studying systemic oppression.

I grew immensely as a person during these three years, and developed meaningful relationships with Black people (including my dissertation committee chair). However, I didn’t extend what I’d learned to the generalized Black population. I just happened to add a larger number of Black people to the small group I felt I understood—and who I deemed credible. (I’ve since learned that Black people enter white spaces—like a college classroom—with a deficit of credibility they must overcome to secure white approval.) Whether I actually understood these Black colleagues or not, of course, is up for debate. They were code switching like mad to ensure acceptance into the institution of academia, which is built upon white supremacy and norms of whiteness. They were protecting themselves from harm, and keeping much of themselves from me and the other white students in the process. We were classmates, but we weren’t friends.

Corporate Grind: 2013 - 2020

I finished this coursework when I was 30, right around the time I left campus-based employment. I’d developed a general understanding of equity, oppression, systemic racism, and introductory inclusive organizational practices, largely through academic inquiry. I didn’t see my personal role in it, though. And after joining a corporate environment, my work colleagues no longer talked about diversity. Whereas on campus it was a topic we were expected to engage in regularly, it was never discussed in the rooms and cubes I now occupied. I’d done the readings, and I figured I was good to go.

So for the next seven years or so, I lived a life centered in whiteness both personally and professionally. Yes, I hired a Black staff member and maintained at least one reasonably close friendship with a Black woman in my book club. But I rarely thought about race. I existed as a well-meaning white person, and I know I harbored ingrained anti-Blackness and a generalized fear of Blackness—I just never had to confront it. While I wasn’t confronting it, my ignorance was causing harm to colleagues, potential employees, and my wider personal and professional network. As Taylor Swift would say, “Hi, I’m the problem—it’s me.”

And then 2020 happened. (jump back up to continue reading)