As a white person who grew up in suburbia, I felt pretty proud of myself for being at the 2014 police brutality protests in New York City. I’d sat in my living room watching a video of a white police officer choking Eric Garner to death in broad daylight. I watched his mother weep on television, and I—after years of teaching philosophy at one of the most racially diverse schools in the country, where I had come to love so many of my students of color—shook and wept on my couch. Overwhelmed with a need to do something, I walked out into the night to march with others who were as outraged as I was.

I’d come a long way in my own racial justice awakening. Not only did I feel like maybe marching in the streets would change something, I felt visible as a Black ally. I passionately posted photos and videos of the protests on social media, along with quotes from activists of color, with all the appropriate hashtags. I felt like I could say, “I’m one of the good ones.”

Two weeks ago, I sat in my living room watching a video of a white police officer choking George Floyd to death in broad daylight. I again felt the desire to take to the streets.

And then I felt myself stop.

Unlike in 2014, we are in the midst of global pandemic, and I now have a four-year-old. I felt myself get small and afraid to put my child and my family in danger. And then I immediately felt guilty. Children of color are more likely to be killed by racism, police, or poverty than they are by COVID-19, and their parents don’t have the privilege or luxury to opt out of danger.

I spent several days wringing my hands. I was ashamed of my fear and selfishness. I wanted to demonstrate and show up as I had in the past, but marching felt too scary, and I certainly couldn’t post that on social media and feel like a good ally.

As a philosopher and an expert in logic, I am well aware of my own ability to rationalize my fear and to attempt to justify my decisions. I knew that making a feeble attempt to justify my lack of protesting publicly was not helpful, at best, and damaging to the cause, at worst.

All the while, I kept reminding myself—and reading posts on social media from activists of color telling me—feeling bad is not enough. White guilt, outrage, despair, and performative displays of it, don’t change anything. As Ijeoma Oluo put it in a tweet, “Don’t make us swim through your tears while we fight.”

“One of the Good Ones”

So, I decided I would write an essay—this essay—about how I am taking this “opportunity” to do other kinds of actions that help racial justice. Of course, this is action I’d failed to take in the intervening years between 2014 and now, because I had convinced myself that, by marching and hash-tagging back then, my work was done.

I started to make a list of what I’m doing in working toward racial justice: following more people of color on social media, calling my Congressional representatives, donating money to anti-racist community organizations, and finally, after years of being afraid to do so, reaching out to my conservative, Trump-supporting family members to invite conversations about race and racism. (I’ve started to have those conversations, by the way, and as uncomfortable as they are, I wish I had initiated them years ago.)

I wrote paragraphs, (like this one), finger-wagging at my fellow white people to say that the dismantling of centuries of codified, ossified white supremacy doesn’t happen because you go to a march and post about it for a week on Instagram. It is work. Much of that work is not glamorous. It is not bullhorns, chanting, and drum playing. It is endless meetings, canvassing, phone calls, uncomfortable conversations, and tedium. And like any other work, it happens through the sustained and organized effort of networks of people, a little at a time, day after day.

And I believe that all that is true, (while also recognizing that increasingly, everyday, we are seeing the power of protesting in the streets to initiate reforms). But, I was writing it because I wanted to justify my cowardice and to make my work as a white ally for racial justice visible. I still was trying to rationalize—to make it known that I’m one of the good ones.

As a white woman, “being good” is so important to my sense of self worth. It is a perfect example of white fragility. But the more aware I become of my own desperate need to be seen as a good person who always does the right thing, the more exhausted I become with my own performative efforts to demonstrate my goodness. More importantly, I see how much harm it does in undercutting the people and causes I’m purporting to help.

On Showing Up and Being Seen

One sentiment that I see from a lot of my white friends and allies is that we need to show up, speak up, and not stay silent in the face of oppression. We hold signs and make posts that say, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” True enough.

But I wonder how many of us do it, not because our fellow humans are being treated inhumanely, but because, when the cameras are running and protests are on the news, we don’t want to be on the wrong side of history.

If this is our aim, it only makes sense that we need to make sure that we are being seen doing good, so we can show the photos of ourselves at the marches to our kids and grandkids and tell them that we fought for justice.

In performing activism for our own images, we white folks again place more value on our own egos than on the humanity of other people. How often do we subtly insist that people of color congratulate us for recognizing our privilege and making any modicum of effort to do something about it?

Demonstrating our solidarity at protests and on social media is not a bad thing. In fact, the last few weeks have shown us how powerful it can be. But if we do it as a replacement for speaking up when our colleague makes a racist comment, or lobbying our lawmakers to enact reform, or donating our money to racial justice organizations, or patronizing Black-owned businesses, or boycotting a company that harms people of color, because we think our work is done, (again, all things I have been guilty of and continue to be guilty of), we are missing the real nature of anti-racism work.

Yes, white folks need to show up. Yes, we need to show our solidarity. Yes, we need to not remain silent. But we also need to remember that so much meaningful anti-racism work is publicly invisible and happens in the days between public uprisings.

“I Don’t Know Where to Start”

By now, I’m sure you’ve seen the lists of resources and action items for how to help fight for racial justice as a white person. Here, here, here, here, and here are just a few examples.

Upon reading these lists, it is tempting to swing from “I don’t know what else to do” to “There are so many things to do, I don’t know where to start,” and to once again let our white despair take over as we fall into complacency and quietism.

For white people who are, comparatively, used to having our actions be seen, heard, respected, and making an impact in the world, we can easily be overwhelmed with the magnitude of the task at hand. The thought of working tirelessly toward a goal that may or may not be realized in one, two, or ten lifetimes feels too hard.

But activists of color have been doing that work, largely without white people, for years. Let’s not add another insult to our friends of color by telling them that the job of fully recognizing their humanity is too difficult to achieve.

Pick Something. Do It. Repeat.

Here is what I am now telling myself: If you don’t know where to start, pick something. Pick one thing that makes good use of your skills, resources, access, and talents, towards racial equity. Do that one thing.

Do it regularly, year-round, and not just when racial justice is a media trend. Do it, knowing that your effort may be ignored, dismissed, criticized, or make no discernible difference. Do it, in spite of fear, anger, sadness, shame, or lack of visibility. Do it, knowing that you are joining the quiet, invisible, unappreciated work of so many people of color who have been doing this work for years, often at great physical peril.

Do it without needing to be seen, as “one of the good ones,” doing it. And then, repeat.

Danielle LaSusa Ph.D. is a Philosophical Coach, helping new moms grapple with what it means to make a person. She is the co-creater and co-host of Think Hard podcast, which brings fun, accessible, philosophical thinking to the real world. To join her mailing list, subscribe here.