I’ve shared some of the worst moments of my life with you, and some of the best. All in an effort for you to learn to trust me. Because when there’s trust between friends, they can have hard conversations.
We’ve had some of those conversations already, as I and other people I know have been talking about how white people can be better. But the conversation we are about to have is probably the most difficult.
This conversation is about making change instead of just wanting change. As the chapter title says, being accomplices instead of allies—which is a concept that I first heard used by author and activist Mikki Kendall.
Merriam-Webster defines an ally as “someone that aligns with and supports a cause with another individual or group of people.”
This is someone whose friend is a person of color. One day they are in class, and one of the white students uses a racial slur toward their friend. They feel bad, but they watch and do nothing. Later they ask their friend if they are okay.
Merriam-Webster defines an accomplice as “a person who knowingly, voluntarily, or intentionally gives assistance to another in the commission of a crime.”
Now, I’m not asking you to commit crimes. I’m asking you to focus on the first part of that definition: “a person who knowingly, voluntarily, or intentionally gives assistance to another.”
An accomplice is a person who actively participates in some way.
This is someone whose friend is a person of color. One day they are in class, and one of the white students uses a racial slur toward their friend. They know it’s wrong, so they decide to do something about it. They might step in and say something to defend their friend, tell a teacher or administrator about the incident, or let their parents know and ask them to do something.
This is the difference between someone who is hoping for change and someone who is trying to make change. An ally versus an accomplice.
I’m asking you to be an accomplice. I’m asking you to make change for the boy in the stories you’ve been reading about, and so many children like him.
That’s why I wrote this book, why so many people agreed to share their thoughts, and why I wanted us to become friends—for change.
Not just for white people to change, but for all of us to change. I had to change from high school to college, and from college to adulthood. From being a hurt and confused boy to a man trying to figure out how to stop the things that hurt and confused me from happening to others.
During those times, I’ve grown frustrated, tired, and angry. That was often the sum of my experiences you’ve read about, and many others’: anger.
I think we deserve to be angry. As you’ve read, it would be an extreme understatement to say that being a Black person in society is hard.
There aren’t words that can explain the generations of trauma and pain that Black people continue to deal with, not just in this country but around the world.
Much of the same could be said for people of color from almost any group.
People like me who have dealt with enough trauma to last a lifetime before they were a teenager. People whose parents and grandparents dealt with all of that and worse. People who are tired and have every right to be.
For so long we have fought and lost not only our battles but also our lives, while just trying to create a world where people of color are treated fairly and equally.
Yet here we are, still dealing with many of the same issues, and some worse than ever. Being tired is understandable.
Many people have asked me why I was even writing this book. Some have called it pointless and a waste of my time when I could be “making actual change.” Honestly, there have been times when I’ve felt the same way.
When I started this book, I asked myself one question: “If I show people how they’re hurting others, will some of them be willing to change?”
There have been many times while writing this book that the answer was no. Times when people have gone online and called me a nigger or threatened my family. Just because I want better for people who are tired.
But I kept writing. Because frankly, I don’t know what else to do. This book isn’t filled with new conversations, new ideas, or an academic analysis. I didn’t want it to be.
All I wanted was to talk to you, and let you get to know me, and see if you were open to being friends. Because friends not only hear each other; they listen.
I’ve already lived through the moments that you’ve read about, and countless others that you haven’t. But my little brother hasn’t, my niece hasn’t, and neither have the children I hope to have one day (but am also scared to have one day).
They are the reason I wanted you to listen to me. The reason I’m asking you to help me make change.
The reason I have one more story for you. A story that I haven’t told anyone.
A story for my friend, to help you understand the importance of being an accomplice.
I’ve known I was Black since I was a kid. Once I started observing the world, it was hard not to know. For better or worse, my world was different. I was treated differently from my classmates, my family was different from the families I saw on TV, and I had to act differently from how I saw other kids acting in public.
My mother and grandmother also made sure I knew I was different.
I didn’t understand why they had to tell me I was a Black kid every time I pretended to play cops and robbers with an imaginary gun. Why they’d ask if I understood what Black kids couldn’t do when we’d see white kids play pranks on strangers. Why they’d make sure I remembered that police weren’t always nice to Black kids, and to stay still and be silent if I was around them.
I didn’t know why things were different for Black kids; I just knew they were, and I hated it.
I respected my mother and grandmother, so I listened to what they told me, but like any child, I also tried to get away with what I could.
Most of the times that I did things I was told not to, it was because I was trying to fit in. It was hard enough being an unpopular kid, but being an unpopular kid who also couldn’t be careless and fun made other kids like me even less.
Which is why by the time elementary school was over, I was tired of being unpopular, tired of being bullied, tired of being alone.
The beginning of middle school started pretty much the same as elementary school had gone.
I was still me, and kids still treated me like crap for being me.
But middle school was worse than anything I had dealt with, because it wasn’t just about being dorky anymore. We were all about eleven years old, and now kids were starting to judge one another by new things, like attractiveness and how much money your family had.
Based on how my level of bullying increased, I guess I was poorer and uglier than I was dorky.
But there was a silver lining, as in my first week of school, I finally made two friends: Ryan and Marcus.
Ryan was a young white kid who had just moved to Yonkers from New Jersey after his father had passed away. His mom was now raising him and his siblings as a single parent, and she didn’t have much money. They lived in one of Yonkers’s low-income areas, which I had never seen a white person do.
Marcus was pretty similar to me: a Black kid who didn’t have much, stayed out of people’s way, loved being a nerd, and someone who girls didn’t think was cute.
The three of us met in the cafeteria. Ryan and I didn’t know each other, but we each saw the other nervously looking for a place to sit. Ryan decided to come over to me and ask whether I had a suggestion. Marcus saw us searching aimlessly and invited us to the “safe zone” table. (Yes, the same one mentioned earlier.)