Now, as ever, we must commit ourselves to the responsibility of our inheritance. This requires study, humility, attention to history. Learn to hold unknowing in your gut, to sit with complexity, to not be sure. It is a beguiling aspect of the present era that more and more people like me are starting to see ourselves as white, that we are starting to reckon with the remnants of our inheritance, to see the thread connecting black and white images of racist violence to Facebook streams of police shootings. This is a welcome development, but there is no manual for this, only best practices. Choose restraint over excessive enthusiasm, listening over talking, presence over comfort, maturity over innocence. You will fail at this, as I and many other white people concerned with racial justice have inevitably failed. But you cannot bow out. The tension between silence and protest, between taking up space and ceding it to others, is one that must be constantly negotiated. Mistakes will be made. Acknowledge them, repair the damage, move forward.

—Mason Bryan, in “White innocence is a fantasy. Here’s how I’m confronting it”