Our lives and identities are shaped by the systems of racism and privilege that surround us.

If you have five minutes...

Watch this video of Robin DiAngelo, author of “White Fragility,” unpacking common excuses white people make about race–and how to address them. She invites white people to ask, "How have I been shaped by the forces of racism?"

33 Questions White People Have for White People

If you have twenty minutes...

Read and reflect on the Stages of Racial Identity hosted on the Racial Equity Tools website. Where do you see yourself? Where have you been in the past? Where do you want to be? What moments in your life have helped you move from one stage to the next? When have you had "awakenings"? What is still challenging to you?

Or watch this video: Ali Michael explores how white people can transform their racial identity through conversations about race. How Can I have a Positive Racial Identity?  I'm White! (16 min)

If you have an hour...

Read the transcript or listen to this episode of On Being: Let's Talk About Whiteness, featuring a conversation between Eula Biss and Krista Tippett (51 minutes). You can play the audio from your computer or download it -- both choices are on the top right of the page.

Could we learn to talk about whiteness? The writer Eula Biss has been thinking and writing about being white and raising white children in a multi-racial world for a long time. She helpfully opens up words and ideas like “complacence,” “guilt,” and something related to privilege called “opportunity hoarding.” To be in this uncomfortable conversation is to realize how these words alone, taken seriously, can shake us up in necessary ways — but also how the limits of words make these conversations at once more messy and more urgent.

Here are two essays mentioned in the video:

White Debt

The Condition of Black Life is one of Mourning

Questions for Conversation and Journaling

How has your life and your identity been shaped by the forces of racism? How have you moved through the stages of racial identity? What transformation would you like to experience in your life?