What Can White Folks Do for Black History Month? Keep Their Promise.

Whites yelled Black Lives Matter at the top of their lungs in 2020. Blacks haven’t forgotten the promise assumed in doing so.

It’s been a little over six months since social uprisings and protests swept the country. 2020 was the year when Black people had enough (again). Between police brutality, white supremacy, and everything Trump, Black people hit the streets en masse to tell America to cut the shit.

In the midst of it, something unusual happened. White people started yelling, too. And in that yelling, a large contingent of white people and corporations made promises of change.

That bill is still due.

Last year, America faced the manifestations of its own ugliness. A buffoonish, cartoon-like version of its worst traits that it found embarrassing. America’s racist and nationalist id swelled beyond its moralist superego.

Whether it was genuine guilt or opportunism (or both), white people began policing themselves as individuals and as a tribe. For many Black people, it started with messages from white friends offering material support. Money, food, foot rubs, everything seemed to be on the table if it meant it would assuage some of the guilt that now permeated whiteness.