Let’s talk about those people in our lives—you know, the Nice Ones. They’re in our families, our workplaces, our universities, our churches , and they are having a heck of a time dealing with their whiteness, their lack of racial literacy, and their anti-blackness... (1/x)

When I get frustrated with the Nice Ones, when I want to slam my head into my desk and scream into the void at their sheer ignorance, their luxurious naivety, and their almost supernatural lack of self-awareness, I remember how that was me. That. Was. Me. (2/x)

[Real talk: *still* going to be me some days.] (3/x)

I may be younger than some of your Nice Ones, and colorism was what my community leaned into best, but I did *not* understand what I do now. Being a brown person doesn’t make me auto-exempt from anti-Blackness. That’s not how this shit works. (4/x)

It’s really, really easy to think people are just going to people, that they are stuck in their ways. We complain about those Fundamentalist Christians who are pretty much *the worst.* Or maybe we claim that the origin story of The Racist started in a place we’ve never lived. 5/x

We cannot comprehend how any of this changes. But I promise you it can, and it does. Because THAT. WAS. ME. (6/x)

I grew up in a (historically white) Southern Baptist Church in Florida, a True Love Waits advocate, trained by F.A.I.T.H. Evangelism (it’s horrible, you can google it) who was homeschooled via The Institute in Basic Life Principles (a cult) for three years. (7/x)

Y’all, I thought Focus on The Family was too liberal. I spent 4-5 days a week involved in a church activity, 2x on Sundays. I was taught that my modesty was responsible for preventing others from “stumbling” & refused to listen to rock music on the off chance it was satanic. 8/x

(I know. I KNOW.) 9/x

I grew up being told that God only allows women to lead as a “reproach to men.” We never talked about race. I didn’t know that not everyone at church got asked, “What are you?” I couldn’t figure out why faces in the pews were so fair. 10/x

I started wearing sunscreen because I didn’t want people to think I was too dark. (That. That right there is anti-blackness.) 11/x

Yet, my Puerto Rican upbringing left room for dancing, drinking, and dominoes (because Baptists are just silly sometimes). And all the women simply *pretended* men were in charge. 12/x

In my 20’s, I heard my first sermon by a female pastor. My vocabulary broadened. I started reading and writing. For me, like most, college was the first time I realized my reality was really, really wonky. 13/x

It took time to understand I can perpetuate white-supremacy while also being a victim of it. 14/x

And all of that. ALL of it is what I try and remember when I’m working through what it means to be an antiracist in community. I know sometimes it seems like nothing moves. EVER. And we see Christians out there literally fighting against what Jesus taught. 15/x

There’s a male-centric white-supremacist message preached as a means of saving souls. It ignores the people of the Bible. It Ignores Jesus was indeed radical. And it hopes we forget that the person we’re supposed to follow got pissed and flipped tables. 16/x

We’ve ignored context, culture, and meaning. We forget Jesus got angry about inequity. Instead, we made him in our image—the image of the Pharisees we mock. We got it wrong, so fucking wrong. 17/x

But we can come out of that. We can wake up one day, stringing pieces of truth together, seeing how utterly mistaken we’ve been. And we can also be honest about the harm we did in judging, othering, and getting it all fucking wrong at the expense of people’s humanity. 18/x

We can grow. We can change. And we can realize our version of Christianity never even came from Scripture. 19/x

We can also remember that others are at different spots on this same journey.

Note: This isn’t an excuse to dismiss accountability because “we’re all at different places.” Nope. Nope. Nope. 20/x

This just means we can have grace, and show kindness, and be patient w/ others while holding onto hope. Side Note: If BIPOC aren’t patient with you, deal. Hear the words. They can deliver the truth however they damn well please. This thread isn’t about that. 21/x

Patience is part of the process with our Nice Ones. It’s a massive piece of sustained antiracist work. I didn’t wake up knowing that. I was shown over and over and over again by how patient yet uncompromising people have been with me, *specifically* Black women. 22/x

So to others who grew up in the muck of Legalistic Morality and The Church of White and Wrong, there’s hope for us, our families, and even our idiot neighbor. 23/x

We can choose our approach, we can set healthy boundaries, and we can also know that while this shit takes time, we can push for things to move faster. It’s not either/or; it’s both/and. We are capable of extraordinary change. 24/x

The day someone told me they would’ve never guessed I grew up the way I did, I took it as the compliment it was. And then I got back to work. This was never meant to be easy. It’s meant to be worth it. And I can get behind that Gospel. (25/25)