The wrongdoings of white ancestry are why we Black Americans celebrate our history | Brianna Holt

If white Americans took the time to learn white people's role in US history, then equality and justice would be more attainable

Last week, I was talking to one of my closest Black friends. Why is it, I wondered with frustration, that Black people must constantly educate white people about racism? He replied: The problem isn't that white people have trouble grasping racism, the problem is that they know very little about themselves. Everyone else in America knows more about them than they do." I had yet to fully grasp the truth of that realization - until now.

This past summer, I found myself explaining white history to my white peers in ways that they could never do. They had little understanding of how systemic racism works, despite benefiting from it; had no idea that white slave owners regularly raped young Black boys or cut off the toes and feet of runaways. Their understanding of the full horrors of slavery is shallow. They could not tell you what Malcom X was known for, while simultaneously singing the praises of Martin Luther King Jr. And few of them were familiar with the term Jim Crow, yet also had ancestors who lived through that same era.