I’ve written before about being frozen by big feelings in the face of overt racism (see post N _ _ _ _ r Lover). I talked about how shame, sadness and most of all fear, can take over so that I’m not able to show up as my best self.

When I think about who I am and who I am trying to become, I imagine myself responding in a decidedly different way than this – calling out racism, holding people accountable and resisting the pull of whiteness to remain silent. I’m pretty good at disappointing myself in this regard. I have stories – many of them – that leave me disheartened with how I’ve shown up at the intersection of race and big emotions.

A similar plot plays out when I’m questioned on why I married a black man. Or when I’m asked things like, what are you going to do with your kids?, followed by some caveat about how difficult it is for them because they’re both black and white.

In these times, it’s not about holding anyone but myself accountable. It’s about keeping myself from being held up in big feelings. Where engagement with race is about my individual emotional reaction rather than thoughtful and relational response.

Usually, when these types of questions come up, the first thing I feel is defensive. Defensiveness is an easy answer to questions about race – it’s a reply whiteness taught me. But I know that, for me, defensiveness can be a mask for something else and the something else in this case is guilt.

Overwhelmingly, I feel guilt when asked why I chose to marry a black man when there are plenty of white men for me to choose from. Or when facing questions about how can I handle raising kids who are differently raced than I am. The queries have come in various forms and the guilt is not about the questions or how they’re asked. The guilt is about whiteness.

I feel ashamed because these questions put me in touch with how entangled I am in whiteness. I wonder how can I stand for, love and preserve my black partner and kids. It feels near impossible a promise to make when the history and heritage of whiteness, the racialized learning that I know too well, has been and continues to be about pressing down and destroying black bodies.

But the guilt is also about how whiteness is the reason this question is asked. I’ve seen whiteness keep itself race-less by labeling what it sees as a deviation from white. My white and black marriage is not a marriage, it’s an ‘interracial’ one; my kids are ‘biracial’ or ‘mixed-race’; our neighborhood is a ‘black’ one; our elementary school is ‘majority minority enrolled’.

These questions of my marriage and family remind me of how problematic and insidious whiteness is. They awaken memories of times that I’ve participated in how whiteness names and in how whiteness harms. They call to mind that the ways of whiteness are embedded deep within me. I feel guilty when I think about how I’m implicated in whiteness.

But my guilt is not just about how whiteness names, it’s also about how with names whiteness assigns meaning and value. Perceiving difference and giving language to our differences is not the problem. The issue is that whiteness has power to name, misname and tell stories of race in ways that benefit whiteness and in ways that bring pain, suffering and loss to many.

While it may not seem like much – the naming and storying of things as not white – it is a fundamental part of white superiority. Whiteness was dreamt up as a way to separate and create distinction by skin tone. As a white person, whiteness told me a story about how race is named; that white must not be a race because it didn’t have a name; that white is normal. It taught me to center whiteness and keep it as the standard of measure for all else. This story convinced me that problems with race were not white problems.

Along with learning how to name what wasn’t white, unwittingly I came to know whiteness. I learned that whiteness meant, among other things, pure, safe, successful and self-controlled. My white experience falsely told me that I, along with everything and everyone counted as white, was free from the harmful outcomes of racialization. But I’ve discovered that whiteness doesn’t just harm others, it’s damaging for white people like me too.

It’s difficult for me to see on my own and distressing to hear when others tell me, the ways that I embody racial harm. On the surface, it may seem easier to live in the story whiteness tells. But, ultimately, whiteness tells stories which deny the realities of racism.

Living in stories that deny reality, keeps us all from thriving. Sustaining denial takes effort; effort that could be better used to attend to and set right harm. As a white person who loves black and brown people and a professional counselor who holds influence, the work of opposing whiteness and of confronting my complicity in whiteness, is essential for me to do.

I’ve found that this work involves understanding what it has meant to be white and female in America. I cannot claim exemption. I need to attend to the parts of my story that are aligned with the distinct role white women play in how black male bodies come to be storied and defined as dangerous. I also need to acknowledge and work against the ways white femininity harms black women and girls for the purpose of lifting up white women. I must question what I learned about being white and female and how the whiteness I learned is tied to the ways that bodies, not raced as white, have been and continue to be assessed and labeled as less than white.

But whiteness is not mine alone to change. I’ve needed to come to terms with how America has a whole system in place that works to maintain a story of white as innocent. This system protects white bodies and, at the same time, habitually and disproportionately steals black men away – limiting preferred partnership and taking dads from their babies. Who I chose or don’t chose to wed and how I raise my kids will not alone solve the problem of whiteness.

The truth is, racism is deeply entrenched and it’s complicated. Often I feel as though I don’t know where to begin. What I do know is that white people have a role to play and I don’t want the bigness of whiteness and the learning I gained in how to maintain it, to get in the way of me being the person I wish to be. Distancing myself from, making explanations for and softening the violence of whiteness, keeps me connected to it. Allowing emotional reactions to limit my ability to respond, keeps me from questioning whiteness and instead has me thinking about myself, about my feelings and about my discomfort.

The dominate narrative of race that I learned is a story about whiteness and whiteness works to keep the story as it is. It’s a story written in one voice and from one perspective. It’s a story that limits who we are and who we can become.

There are other stories available to us. Stories of possibility, of truth, of courage and togetherness. Stories where people name themselves and where meaning is made together. We can begin to change our shared story when we create space for the pain and suffering caused by whiteness and when we honor the voices, stories and experiences of those who whiteness works to leave out.

Lately, I’ve been working to identify my connection to the narrative of whiteness, figuring out how to be accountable, taking in new stories about race and growing my narrative. I’m also learning how to keep things, like white guilt, from getting in the way.