Sure. I don’t believe in the concept of a “White Ally.” It’s most DEF a personal opinion, but framing White participation as White Advocacy for brown people is a dangerous proposition. I believe in the person 1000%. I think the idea of who they are and what they do actually leaves room for racism the thrive — encourages it, instead of discourages.

I write about that very thing in a series called “There Is No Such Thing as a White Ally.” It’s not at all what you think, given the title. Here is Part I and Part II, if you are interested. No worries if not.

As it happens, I also believe we use the concept as a crutch, most easily explained this way: what would you do if it was 1960 or 1870 and the future of POCs was almost exclusively the responsibility of POCs? We saw more gains in the 60s and 70s than we see now because we have conditioned our survival and advancement on White participation.

I’m going to stop here and say this again. At this point in my explanation, people are convinced I am drawing a line with White folks in the other side.

I’m not — not even slightly. We can win this as a team, with deep and satisfying relationships that carry us into the future as a collective. I live that very life personally and stand in awe of the extraordinarily exceptional family of friends I go through life with.

But what I mean is this: we each fight injustice because we have an intolerance for injustice, not because we’re protecting or advocating for the targets of injustice.

The distinction makes an extraordinary difference.

For POCs, that means we take individual responsibility for ourselves if we fail to engage. As I said, we made exponentially more progress during the civil rights era because we drew our power from ourselves and knew we’d perish if we didn’t bring horrific conduct to an end.

For White folks, that means they drive the process not out of altruism or entreat, but for the exact same reason we do: individual responsibility if they fail to engage. First, altruism can’t be sustained. No major movement has ever been conditioned on it. Next, Whites who are made to answer in the exact same way everyone we breaks a public contact answers — via consequences — drives change if for no other reason that to survive. When you have skin in the game, the whole game changes.

As long as we encourage and rely on White engagement, as far as we’ll get is as far as we’ve gotten. And that’s not good enough anymore.