Preface

In the summer of 2020, there were two significant developments in US race relations, the first of which was unprecedented and the second of which has been repeated countless times across our history.

First, following the killing of George Floyd on May 25th, for the first time ever in the United States, there was widespread public recognition of the existence of systemic racism. Proclaiming one’s support for ending racial injustice became so trendy that seemingly every corporation and policy maker in the United States issued a public statement in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Second, by July, as has happened over and over again, our collective attention to systemic racism had quickly and substantially waned. The mainstream media had largely moved on from covering this issue. Most of those newly “woke” corporations were back to business as usual once the protests were over and the process of actually eliminating the racist policies and practices being protested had begun. And the vast majority of policy makers were doing what they nearly always do in the face of protest: figuring out the bare minimum amount of change needed to quell the uprising and get things back to “normal.”

When faced with such widespread loyalty to a profoundly unjust status quo, it is unclear how much progress those who remain committed to racial justice will be able to make in the coming months and years. As of the time of this writing (August 2020), I am optimistic that the uprising being led by the communities most impacted by systemic racism will be able to create the waves of transformative change that are so obviously necessary and overdue. I am, however, also realistic about the need for many more people—of all races and ethnicities—to become active members and supporters of the racial justice movement before we will truly be able to eradicate systemic racism from US society.

This book is for all those who think they might want to become part of that effort. Make no mistake: in the coming years, we have a chance to institute the most significant social change in US history. Of all the things we could accomplish as a country, of all the milestones we could achieve, of all the injustices we could remedy, none would be more significant than dismantling the centuries-old systemic racism that continues to devastate and marginalize tens of millions of people of color across the United States. It is the foremost challenge of our lifetimes to not merely be content in saying “black lives matter,” but to collectively step up and truly actualize those words. I sincerely hope that you will find a way to contribute whatever you can to this movement and that this book can be helpful to you along the way.