>as you can see, it is constant work...for all of us. Thank
>you so much for being the first to reply and put yourself out
>there.
>
>Do you have children? If not, i definitely encourage you to
>mentor young people (if you don't already)...as well as do
>some more reading and studying specifically around antiracism

No children yet - and that's a really good idea. I'll for sure look into that. I have several nieces and nephews who I've mentored a bit on racism and related issues, but I'd love to expand that potential sphere of influence. My oldest nephew and I had a really great chat a couple years ago about Kaepernick and Nike; his mother's (my step sister) boyfriend was going around the house bitching about how they shouldn't wear Nikes anymore because they backed Kaep, so I tried to straighten him out without making things uncomfortable for him with his potential future step-dad.


>I think alot of white people are pretty good at identifying
>obvious racism but have to work harder to see the subtle
>things...the microagressions, or need to be centered in
>conversations and places and ideas

For sure - I only came to learn about and better understand microaggressions more recently (probably around 2014/2015 when the videos of police brutality and murder were coming out en masse) and I continue to learn about more of them on a fairly regular basis. My wife's sister and I had a really good discussion recently about this. She is a speech pathologist in a mostly-black school in my neighborhood in Boston, and she recently learned about a ton of microagressions that she didn't even realize were problematic. It was really great to hear her immediately acknowledging *why* they were problematic and pledging to adjust her own behavior in that regard the more she learns. She also taught me about a couple I hadn't considered.

Something else I've learned more about recently is how a lot of seemingly innocuous "nursery rhymes" that were common in my and our youth have roots in deplorable racism. "Ring around the rosie" and shit like that. I couldn't believe some of the original lyrics to some of these nursery rhymes. Heinous stuff.


>I'm not sure what work you do, but your white male privilege
>can be a powerful tool to demand inclusiveness and diversity
>in places where you see it lacking.

Yea definitely - this is a space I feel like I can work harder to have more of an impact. I really regret not having spoken up more at the first company I worked for out of college; I worked for a major insurance company and my office was like 90% white with no POC in management roles.

My last company had way better representation. It's also a huge company and my office was probably somewhere around 50% black/POC, with appropriate black/POC representation in management positions. That's not to say that there still couldn't have been issues, just that it felt like this particular company was a better representation of the community and promoted and supported diversity.

My current company is really small, and maybe 20-25% black/POC. I feel like this is a place where I can have a more significant impact, just need to do the work.


>Anyway, thanks again for opening up.

Of course. And thank you for the advice/suggestions.