Waking Up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race

As I deconstructed the Indian world according to my wants and needs, and parceled out its parts to new roles and hidden spaces, I had no idea of the parallel playing out between my actions and those of white people over the centuries

I can help people of color by teaching them to be more like me

The ingredient that takes the natural human inclination to sort, and adds to it the need to rank, is power

I don’t like to rock

Trying to protect children by providing a worry-free childhood is a privilege of the dominant class—a white privilege.

it comes to culture, the only thing we all have in common is that we have one, and it shapes us.

namely, that ever-visible white skin and the perks (whether acknowledged or not) that come with it

What my mother didn’t tell me was that the white colonists had purposefully introduced alcohol to Native Americans, using it to weaken, subdue, and coerce them into signing over land and rights.

No one alive today created this mess, but everyone alive today has the power to work on undoing it.

Unless adults understand racism, they will, as I did, unknowingly teach it to their children.