So I went to the bookstore for the first time in a while. I strolled to the section I typically buy books from, the “community & culture” section. I was proud to see that it has grown in size. Then I noticed an older white man. He had a book in his hands...()

It was @DrIbram’s “How to be an Antiracist”. He was reading the front flap. And then the back. And then he flipped through what looked like the table of contents. He was studying this book. I was kinda studying him. Because I was stunned. This man looked like your typical white..

Conservative man. Plaid shirt tucked into his ironed blue jeans, basic runners. He looked like someone’s grandpa. I couldn’t get over the fact that HE was interested in THAT book. I figured old white people that looked like him didn’t really care about being “anti-racist”.

I don’t know what his intentions were, but in that moment I thought he was interested in “helping” or “learning from” or simply “understanding” us. I wanted to ask him what he thought about the book and why he decided to pick it up; but I didn’t. I thought I would be intimidating

I didn’t want him to walk away from that book out of awkwardness from me. So I left him. I let him engage with blackness on his own terms. Comfortable and by himself. And maybe that is where most white people need to start with navigating racism - comfortable and by themselves.