Introduction

After Malcolm X returned from a transformative pilgrimage to Mecca as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and founded the Organization of African Unity, he shared his new understanding that the enemy is White racism, not White people. When well-meaning White people then began to feel free to approach him and ask what they could do to help, he counseled working in their own communities, with other White people. I can’t speak for anyone else, but my own immediate reaction upon learning of this was, “Noooo! White people nooooo! Pleeeeze not White people! They’re such a royal pain!”

But then, some years ago, I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse to work with at least one White person—myself—when I had a vision during a spiritual gathering in which I was told that what I needed to do was eradicate every vestige of White racism from my being. In the moment, I was too stunned to talk back, but upon reflection I could think of things. What are you talking about?! Me racist?! Get out of here! I was living happily in what was then a majority-Black neighborhood (now gentrified, and not for the better), in a majority-Black building (ditto). Not only do I to this day know so many Black people that I have wonderful Black friends and lots of Black acquaintances, including people I work with in various areas, but also I even have enemies who are Black, which has to count for something—Who are you calling having vestiges of White racism? Also, I was reading James Baldwin and marching for civil rights from the time I was thirteen years old, so seriously, what are you even talking about?!

But then … if someone who went to a better world a long time ago has gone to all the trouble to appear in a vision and tell me I’d better do something, I figure I should at least give it a shot. I felt totally innocent of conscious White racism, so if there was White racism anywhere in my being, it was buried somewhere where I wasn’t conscious of it, and as Spalding Gray so wisely said, I don’t know my subconscious because it’s subconscious. What to do?