Dear fellow white people, I’m glad you’re following so many Black activists! It’s amazing to get their perspectives, and learn from them!

I see you’ve also discovered the delights of their humor about us. They’re funny! But that doesn’t mean those jokes are for us to tell.

And I’d challenge you to ask yourselves if you’re suddenly joking about mayo and unseasoned chicken and karens because it makes you feel virtuous, like you’re “one of the good ones” instead of doing the work.

Relieving the tension we feel about racism isn’t the goal.

Part of what white supremacy is teaching us to do is to try to reclaim our own white innocence whenever we feel guilt about racism. And jokes like this are one of our ways of doing it.

We have got to resist this. Feel the bad feelings. Let them motivate us into real action.

Take all those feelings and do what the activists of color are asking us to do, instead of things that relive our tension.