By white, I mean for white people in the U.S. And honestly, I can't say for sure. Some people in my life would answer, unequivocally, yes. Maybe if I tell you a little more about my own history with the 4th, as a white person in this country, it'll help explain why I'm even asking the question. Photo by Bruno Ngarukiye on Unsplash I was born on July 4th. So — a great big happy 250th to the U.S., and happy birthday to me. I can say without a doubt that the 4th has always been

I want to speak to you like I would a friend. A fellow white person who is trying to stay engaged in a world that feels like it keeps asking more of us. Because it does. I’m writing to you as a friend who recognizes that being committed to equity isn’t always exciting. Today, we’re talking about actions to support mail-in voting and TPS status for Haitians in the U.S. Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash Every week, it can feel like something new. Another policy shift. Another th

I know. You might be tired of hearing me say this name. Trust me — I’m tired of saying it. (Scroll to the bottom for what we can do!) I’ve written about it here, and here, and here. I have thought about it, wrestled with it, and talked about it more than I ever wanted to. I genuinely wish the SAVE Act — and every voter suppression attempt like it — would disappear forever. Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash I’ve written about it here, and here, and here. I have thought about it,

I want to talk about a pattern we have in the U.S. I’m not the first person to point it out. It goes something like this: White people commit violence in defense of power. Then, over time, the story changes. Photo by Dani Adkins on Unsplash The people who caused the harm become the ones who were really harmed. Persecuted. Treated unfairly. Accountability becomes oppression. Consequences become cruelty. And once the story flips, support often follows. Sympathy expands. Politic

I try to stay away from the words always and never. I'm not all-knowing. There's no way I can parse out what will always or never be the case. Language matters. And here's the caveat I need to offer before we go any further — when it comes to my brown kids or my Black partner and protecting them — it's always white people who feel the most unsafe. Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash I also want to share this hope, that white folks can truly hear this and sit with it. I’m coming

It isn’t. It never was. But that’s what I was taught — and for a long time, I believed it. Photo by Matheus Viana on Unsplash For most of my life, as a white person in the U.S., I carried an assumption I didn’t even realize I had: that race belonged to other people. Black people. Brown people. Indigenous people. Race was their story to navigate. And I — a white person who wasn’t openly or actively racist — somehow imagined myself standing outside of it all. Neutral. Exempt. I

“I’m so tired of white people.” Photo by ostudio on Unsplash Another white person said this to me recently. I've said versions of it too. But every time I hear it, I hesitate. Something about this way of thinking doesn't sit right with me. I think I understand what could be underneath it. Exhaustion. Confusion. Anger. Fear. A desire to name real harm. But something important can happen when we stop talking about whiteness as the problem and start talking about people as the p

Let's start with what just happened. Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash On April 21, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice — under the Trump administration — filed an 11-count criminal indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Wire fraud. Bank fraud. Money laundering. The charges focus on a now-defunct program the SPLC used to place paid informants inside white supremacist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations — groups that have historically thr

Does This Photo Make You Feel Nostalgic? Screenshot of U.S. Dept. of ED post taken by the author. An old looking photograph . A classroom full of children standing at their desks, hands over their hearts, facing the American flag. All white children. A classroom that looked like it was lifted straight from 1959 — because it was. And across it, in bold white letters: “Make Education Great Again.” This was an official post from the U.S. Department of Education. I wasn't surpri