Do White People Talk About Being White?

It’s a real question. And I don’t ask it lightly.

Image by Martino Pietropoli on Unsplash

When I look back on my life, I realize that most of the time, the answer was “no.” In my white communities, we didn’t talk about being white. If race came up, it was almost always about someone else. About people of color. Whiteness itself? It was like it didn’t exist.

When we did talk about race, it was awkward. Whispered. Like when someone mentioned black people but lowered their voice even though there were no black people around. It felt like the rule was clear—race was something that belonged to them, not us.

Maybe you’ve felt it too? That quiet, unspoken message that whiteness isn’t something to name or examine—that it’s just “normal,” the background against which other people’s stories are told and experiences lived.

That silence shaped me.

At school, the only times race really came up were in history lessons, and even then it was a watered-down version. We learned about slavery, but not that enslaved people freed themselves. We learned about civil rights, but not Jim Crow, sundown towns, redlining, of the Wilmington Massacre. We were told the U.S. was a place of liberty and justice for all, without being told the truth about genocide, stolen land, treaties broken again and again to uphold whiteness.

So the story I absorbed was this: racism was in the past, white America had redeemed itself, and everyone was equal now. It was a simple story, an easy and a tidy one. And it left me with a huge gap in understanding.

That gap has cost me.

When I went to graduate school to become a therapist, I was trained in the idea that what we don’t talk about is often what most needs to be spoken. I loved that idea. I carried it with me. But even then, I didn’t apply it to race—or to my own whiteness. Even in a program known for its deep self-reflection, I didn’t ask how whiteness shaped me, my profession, or the standards we call “normal.”

I see now that the silence left me deficient in my relationships. It made it harder to show up honestly and fully with the people I love. It added strain in ways I couldn’t name. And it left me ill-equipped to face the heaviness of whiteness—the way it gets in the middle of my mixed race marriage, my parenting biracial kids, my friendships with people of color.

Even in relationships with other white people, whiteness carries weight. The weight of the status quo. The pressure to stay quiet so we can belong. The fear of naming what’s right in front of us. I know that silence too well—the one that keeps us from saying anything because we don’t want to risk conflict with the people and culture we know best.

And yet, I’ve also come to see that silence as part of the problem.

Because here’s the thing: the narrative I learned growing up—the one that avoids talking about whiteness—doesn’t just harm people of color. It hurts me too.

Oppression dehumanizes everyone—those who impose it and those who are the targets of it. Looking back, I can see how so much of what was missing from my education—so many of the stories left untold—were the ones that revealed how whiteness was used to harm and control. And that silence left me disconnected from my own wholeness, unsure of how to step toward something better.

Th more I learn, the more I realize my own healing, wholeness, and freedom are tied up in facing whiteness and taking it apart. Not avoiding it. Not whispering about it.

Naming it. Talking about it. Being honest about how it shapes me and the world around me.

And I wonder—what if more of us could do that? What if white people talked openly about being white, about how whiteness works through us and around us? What might happen in our relationships, our communities, our families?

I don’t pretend to have neat answers. What I do know is this: in my own life, when I’ve had the courage to name whiteness and talk about it with trusted people, healing has begun. Connection has deepened. Strength has shown up. And I’ve seen glimpses of a freedom that I want—not just for myself, but for all of us.

Maybe that’s what I’m most curious about—what becomes possible when we stop keeping whiteness off the table and start talking about what it means for us, together?