What do I do?

You wrote a post for social media.

You went to a protest.

You made a sign.

You posted your protest photos on social media.

You shared. You retweeted. You liked.

And now you want to know if that was enough. You want to know if there is anything else you should do. Signs and protests and social media posts are fine, but I believe the work that we as white people in the United States must do is deeper than attending a protest and retweeting a hashtag. Protests are very good for demanding legislation or specific change and spreading awareness, but protests cannot dismantle white supremacy in our hearts. In order to do this heart level work of dismantling white supremacy, I suggest starting here:

1. We must recognize white supremacy in us. It is easy for us to point out white supremacy in profane language about people of color, in confederate flags, and in the KKK and other hate groups. It is easy to bring attention towards their racism, but it is much more difficult to recognize our own. It is comfortable for us to think about racism and white supremacy as a problem that exists outside of us, but the truth is that white supremacy is deeply ingained in each of us as white individuals and it is going to take a lifetime to daily continue to confront and attack and expose and dig out every root of this evil within us. If you are uncertain and have some doubts that white supremacy is in you, here are some questions to consider:
• Do you think of yourself as being "colorblind"? Do you insist that you don't see color because we are all the same, one human race? 
• Do you look for opportunites to serve or volunteer in communities where many people of color live so that you can feel good about yourself and convince yourself that your good deeds make you automatically not racist? 
• Did you go to a protest over the last few weeks and think that your presence there proves that you are not a racist person?
• Do you think that having Black friends or friends who are different races makes you automatically not racist? 
• Are most of the authors that you read and voices that you listen to and leaders that you look to white people?
• Do you wonder why some people of color don't just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and climb out of poverty?
• Do you have a hard time admitting that you have white privilege?
• Are you more suprised when you meet an articulate person of color than you are when you meet an articulate white person?
• When you hear a racist joke or comment, do you ignore it or change the subject in order to avoid conflict? Afterall, it was just a joke and they probably didn't mean it that way because you know that the person who said it is a good person.
• Do you think that you are not racist? 
• Do you think that racism is limited to individual acts or words of hatred?
• Do you think that, since you never owned slaves, you are not a participant in any racist systems?
  (Each honest "yes" answer to the above questions is an evidence of white supremacy within you. I encourage you to honestly evaluate yourself and perhaps reach out with humility to some white friends who have identified their own white supremacy and racism so that they can help you uncover your own. What you find will not be pretty. But it will only get uglier if you do not face it now.)
2. We must repent for the white supremacy that is in us. This needs to happen as often as we uncover white supremacy in ourselves. Skipping repentance indicates that we believe that the problem exists only outside of us. We may be sad about racism. We may feel upset about what we see on the news. We may be sorrowful about the pain in our country. But sadness and sorrow are not enough, and are actually inappropriate without accompanying repentance. If my friend’s home is set on fire, I may express sorrow or sadness or even anger and rage on behalf of my friend. But if I caused the fire, my sorrow and sadness and anger and rage is meaningless, offensive even, without repentance and repair. Similarly, our sorrow and sadness about racism means nothing in the absence of true repentance that leads to transformation and repair of wrongs becuase we have been complicit in systems that benefit us and hurt those around us.
3. We must learn real history of our country, of whiteness, of power. We must study. We must read about how to be anti-racist. There are books about this. There are podcasts about this. There are articles about this. There are courses about this. It should not fall on our black friends to teach us about racism. If you are unsure where to start, I have compiled a list of my personal recommendations here. Something we have been breathing for 400 years does not go away overnight. It takes intentionally fighting it daily, challenging our beliefs and thought patterns and theology, and asking questions that make us uncomfortable. Though current national focus is on police reform, the effect of white supremacy can be found in every area of our lives. White supremacy is present in our education systems via eurocentric curriculums and funding education through property taxes and the school-to-prison pipeline. It shows up in our health care system, in mass incarceration, in housing discrimination, in unemployment, in politics, and in church. These things must change, but before changes can be made, we must understand the source and depth of these problems.
4. We must make changes. Our life cannot remain the same after we begin to dismantle white supremacy:
• We must hold leaders accountable. Church leaders, community leaders, school leaders, and elected officials all make decisions that impact large groups of people. When they fail to recognize their own white supremacy, their decisions can be dangerous. As congregation members, community members, and constituents, we need to call our leaders to also dismantle their white supremacy and pursue justice in their decisions.
• Our money should get involved. There are many organizations that are doing great work teaching about white supremacy, pursuing justice, amplifying voices of oppressed people, teaching real history, and creating a more equitable society. Money is needed to increase the impact of these organizations, but wealth has largely been limited to the pockets and bank accounts of white families and corporations in our country since its foundation, which creates a challenge for many of these organizations that are often founded by people of color who have been systematically excluded from amassing wealth over generations. If we want to see change happen around us, our money is needed.
• There should be no tolerance of racist jokes or comments. This means we may need to educate the white people around us. While we may not be able to change our friends, our colleagues, our neighbors, or our family members, we can be vocal enough that they are uncomfortable saying certain things around us. Over and over again, we see white people being racist on camera. We see them calling the police on people of color, we see them saying racist things, we see them killing black men, women, and children. But these acts of racism that are caught on camera are rarely the very first time that the people doing the acts have chosen to be racist. They are comfortable doing these things on camera because people in their lives have let them get away with racist comments and actions on a regular basis at home and in the office and at church. We all know people who say racist things and we often avoid the confrontations and just walk away or change the subject instead of engaging in discussion with them. May our friends and family and colleagues not be the next people caught being racist on camera becuase we have made them comfortable by not challenging their comments or actions. Sometimes what ends in another hashtag started long ago with a few racist jokes that did not get challenged.

Most of this work is not glamorous. There are not many photo ops in uprooting and dismantling white supremacy. If you find yourself reading the suggestions above and feeling dissatisfied, I encourage you to question yourself. What were you hoping for? Did you want the answer to be less heart work and more hands work? Did you want to be able to do something tangible to make you feel less bad about the things that you see on the news without having to make any serious changes in your life or challenge your comfort? Were you hoping that good deeds and volunteering would be enough? Good deeds and volunteering are good, but divorced from repentance and transformation, these good deeds serve to make us feel good about ourselves while we continue to prop up white supremacy. The protests, the signs, the social media posts, the sermons, the retweets... those things are performative and on their own they do nothing to actually uproot and dismatle white supremacy in our hearts. If we are not doing the personal, private, unglamorous, life-long work in our hearts, then our outward show of solidarity is only surface level. Yes, attend the protest and make the sign, but know that you must do the heavy lifting at home on your own or with a small group who will hold you accountable to transformation that has lasting effects on your thoughts and choices, far beyond attendance at a rally or protest.