Three breaths to help us stay rooted in who we are and who we want to continue becoming. Especially when old relationships and expectations try to pull us toward who we’ve been. Photo by chris robert on Unsplash Here in the U.S., it’s almost the holiday season again. And with it comes a question I find myself asking every year: Who do I want to be with the people I’ll spend time with? In the spaces I’ll find myself in? There’s something about gathering this time of year. Many

The 2026 U.S. midterm election results last week brought me some relief. As I watched them come in, I could breathe a little easier. I’ve heard the same from a lot of other folks. Photo by Ian Taylor on Unsplash Then came the day after. The relief was still there. But so was something else. An uneasiness. A fear I can’t shake. What sits at the center of it isn’t one party winning or another losing. It’s what has long shaped winning and losing in this country. I think the reli

I’ve heard this sentence more times than I can count. And I get why white people might say it. The same thought has crossed my mind, and sometimes my lips. For a long time, it was a stopping point for me. A way out of conversations that made me uneasy. I wonder how often it does the same thing for other white folks. Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash Recently, I was talking with two white guys about Hello Whiteness, the organization I started. They knew a little about my work

Growing up, one of the things I learned about being white in the U.S. is that we white folks have good intentions. I’ve heard us say it time and again. We mean well. That’s the story about us that was repeated to me. Photo by Edgar Chaparro on Unsplash And there’s some truth in it. Many white people do have good intentions. But good intentions don’t tell the whole story. Here’s why I say whiteness isn’t good. When I look at the history of whiteness, I see malice. I see that h

I got this feedback recently. I think I understand where they’re coming from. I do talk and write a whole lot about race. Created by author using Wix AI image generator I agree that it does seem odd for a white person in the U.S. to talk and write so much about race. You think I’d run out of things to say. Alas, everyday life in my country continues to provide ample content for me. But I do want to push back on one thing. I don’t talk and write about race—and especially white

It’s a fair question. From what I’ve witnessed, white folks in the U.S. have had a complicated relationship with race and racism for a long time. So when white people say they care about racism, antiracism, or even race, it’s worth asking what we mean by that. Photo by Stephen Harlan on Unsplash My short answer is, I care because it’s a white people problem too. It’s a problem we—white people—created. It’s one we’re needed to help fix. I care because racial inequity is the gr

If you’ve been hearing a lot about whiteness lately, maybe you’re tired of it. Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash Maybe someone talks about how bad whiteness is, and your first thought is: Not all white people. Or: I’m tired of hearing about how terrible white people are. Or: I can’t help that I’m white. Maybe you think that whiteness isn’t even a real thing. Maybe you want to tell people—or you already have—that they shouldn’t be talking about it. Maybe you’ve said, out loud

It was Friday night, and I was doing what I often do—mindlessly scrolling social media. That's where I found it—a white man telling me that criticizing ICE for killing people in the streets was basically the same as arguing for making the world more dangerous for his white daughter. Because of the rapists, apparently, that he seemed to think I was defending. Photo by Ian ODonnell on Unsplash He was responding to something I'd written about ICE killing people with little to no

Not long ago, I found myself at a celebration for a friend. Photo by Gama. Films on Unsplash Beautiful home. Warm energy. People I was happy to be around. The kind of night where you're genuinely glad to be where you are. At some point I ended up in conversation with three white men—guys I'd met before, easy enough to talk to. I'm white too, for context. It had been a while since we'd seen each other. One of them remembered that I used to work as a therapist. He asked if that