This is mostly true, but here’s how this works though. They can’t help being born white and raised in a society where they’re not given the tools to fight for anything beyond their own comfort. Some of them are at least trying but have no f*cking clue how to do it, and unfortunately it falls on us to teach them how to be around those of us who are being harmed. Some of them can see it but don’t know what to do about it. They know to be angry about it but don’t know what to do beyond it. Angry is all some of them got.

Nothing in their environment prepares them to care as much about PoC as much as they are taught to care about prioritizing whiteness. So what we can do is use some of that self interest to fight racism by tying it to ideas of them not getting the things they need. That way by fighting racism they know they might get something out of it too. After all racism was used to get them to act against their own self interests. It can be used in the opposite way.

The discomfort of tolerating racism should be greater than doing and saying nothing about it. It’s part of the reason anti-racists make the argument that white people suffer because of racism too, and it’s a (very valid) argument that seems to be working. We may not be able to get some of them to ever care about black people, but a lot of them do care deeply about themselves and their own comfort!

I’m not so much concerned with what’s in their hearts (although that is a factor) as I am with them doing the right thing, which is why I argue that dismantling systemic and institutional racism works for them too, not just black people.