43 Things White Allies Must Not Say

A Reminder For Juneteenth & Always

Today is Juneteenth, this 19th day of June, commemorating the end of slavery (over two years too late) in the United States and marking the day in 1865 when Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced that all enslaved people were finally free, in accordance with President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which had been issued on January 1, 1863. The delayed enforcement of the proclamation in Texas, due to the minimal presence of Union troops to enforce the order, meant that slavery continued there until Granger's arrival. His announcement brought freedom to approximately 250,000 enslaved people in Texas, marking the true end of chattel slavery in the Confederacy, over two year too late.

In honor of Juneteenth, I wanted to share a list I crowd-sourced on Facebook during the #BlackLivesMatter Summer of 2020, asking the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People Of Color) in our online community what they wished white folks who wish to be allies would avoid saying. The following is a list of “things white people say” that BIPOC might find activating and experience as micro or macro aggressions.

This list went on to become the unpublished book I’m publishing here on Substack for paid subscribers- LOVE BIGGER: An Exploration of Spirituality Withhout Spiritual Bypassing.

1. “I see you. I hear you. I care. #BlackLivesMatter.” (Then you do nothing, change nothing, and risk nothing.)

2. “You should go meditate if you’re this upset.”

3. “It’s only your negative thoughts that are the problem.”

4. “Fear is the opposite of love. Just choose love.”

5. “That’s your ego talking.”

6. “You manifested this.”

7. “Your soul chose this so you could grow spiritually.”

8. “All lives matter.”

9. “But I’m spiritual, so I can’t be a racist.”

10. “We’re all One. Stop being divisive by talking about race.”

11. “I’m color blind. I don’t even see race.”

12. “Why fight with reality? You just need to love and accept what is.”

13. “Take responsibility for your victim narrative and stop blaming others for your suffering.”

14. “You’re being so polarizing.”

15. “But I voted for Obama.”

16. “But I have a BIPOC family member or friend or spouse.”

17. “But I’m poor/ disabled/ female/ LGBTQIA+/ neurodiverse so I can’t have white privilege.”

18. “You’re just projecting.”

19. “Other countries had slavery.”

20. “This stuff is too heavy. You’re vibing my bliss.”

21. “I don’t believe in interrupting other people’s karma.”

22. But I was Black in a past life.”

23. “Racism isn’t really the problem here, it’s [fill in the blank whataboutism].”

24. “I know exactly how you feel.”

25. “I always support my minority friends on social media.”

34. “But [Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Candace Owens, or any other Black person) doesn’t believe in systemic racism.”

35. “Everything happens for a reason.”

36. “Let’s agree to disagree.”

37. “I’m too busy healing my trauma to do anti-racism work.”

38. “I’m an empath/ Highly Sensitive Person/ overwhelmed, so I can’t handle talking about race.”

39. “I don’t want to speak out about race until I’ve done all my work and can get it just right.”

40. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”

41. “I’ll listen, but only if you use Non-Violent Communication.” [As a way to tone police, shut down your legitimate emotion, and try to control you.]

42. ”Stay in your lane.”

43. “Well, then what SHOULD I say?”

The book I wrote Love Bigger is especially written for those who might have identified as “spiritual white women” before 2020 or after. You can sign up here to read more of what I’ve written on this topic.

I also recommend you read BIPOC voices, especially BIPOC female voices. I put together this reading list to bring you up to speed on what you CAN do to educate yourself on this Juneteenth. If you haven’t read it yet, I just invited my partner Jeff to read Me and White Supremacy by the Black Muslim woman Layla Saad with me. I read it twice and worked through the workbook during that Summer of 2020, but I’m curious to revisit it with him four years later. Layla Saad took on a big job and invested big emotional labor in trying to help “spiritual white people” understand how we’ve been complicit in racism because of our white privilege, white fragility, willful blindness, white silence, white apathy, and many other common mistakes otherwise caring people make.

Just because the big protests are over doesn’t mean we now have equal rights around the world or in the United States. The backlash since Summer 2020 has been big and painful, and we need to rally before the 2024 elections to remember that any spirituality worth keeping has to begin with remembering the Paul Farmer quote: “The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.”

On that note, if you’re not BIPOC yourself, I invite you to honor Juneteenth by reading the books on the book list we collected. Learn from the countless BIPOC leaders who are devoted to this work. Examine your own implicit biases. Do your own work. Take a class. Join a book club. Talk to a therapist. Participate in anti-racism activism. Invest your money in it. Google search “white allyship” and get involved. Register voters.

As Sikh Civil Rights activist Valarie Kaur says:

“What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb? What if our America is not dead but a country that is waiting to be born? What if the story of America is one long labor? What if all of our grandfathers and grandmothers are standing behind now, those who survived occupation and genocide, slavery and Jim Crow, detentions and political assault? What if they are whispering in our ears “You are brave”? What if this is our nation’s greatest transition?

What does the midwife tell us to do? Breathe. And then? Push. Because if we don’t push we will die. If we don’t push our nation will die. Tonight we will breathe. Tomorrow we will labor in love through love and your revolutionary love is the magic we will show our children.”