Ariadne Schulz
2 min readJun 3, 2021

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I had exactly this conversation with my partner last night. I was trying to explain to him how his white privilege informs his perspective and gives him that "opt-out" option that BIPOC just don't have. I *think* he heard me but I also think this underscores that this is a white people problem and that even with people who genuinely mean well it takes SO MUCH WORK. I was talking to my partner on this issue for an hour. My voice got raggedy talking to him on it. And I genuinely don't think he *means* to be intolerant - I think he just doesn't want this to be his problem.

My instinct is to say to you as a Black person that this isn't your responsibility and you should be able to expect me and other white people to do the work because ... this is not your doing. Racism is a white people problem. But at the same time it took me an hour to get a "meh" response out of a man that I don't think is aggressively racist. While of course confronting the fact that as a white person myself I carry around latent racism as a result of the culture in which I was raised. So yeah ... I don't fully know how to approach this and I do think a lot of white people are going to get too defensive or even violent for this to be anything but a long painful slog.

(And the temper-tantrum thing ... I've seen white people do that so often and it just embarrasses me. Really sorry about that because it's all cringe.)

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Ariadne Schulz

Doctor of Palaeopathology, rage-prone optimist, stealth berserker, opera enthusiast, and insatiable consumer of academic journals.