The message that this white liberal heard the loudest the last few weeks is that “Do no harm” is not enough. It’s not enough to try to treat everyone decently. Antiracism requires more than passivity.

African Americans are understandably tired of whites asking them for suggestions of what to do. Yet it can be hard to figure it out, especially for introverts uncomfortable with agitation. (Acknowledgment: our comfort level may be irrelevant.) My past actions, like volunteering to tutor and to cook meals, won’t help change underlying systemic racism.

This post isn’t going to conclude with an answer, but heeding How to Be an Antiracist author Ibram X. Kendi’s call for self-examination, I can think about questions such as the following:

• I’ve lived in a big city for 30 years but not among African Americans. I experience black people mostly as store clerks, transit employees, and strangers on the sidewalk. How has that affected my notions?

• I can count on my fingers the number of African Americans colleagues I had in all of my jobs combined. But why didn’t I reach out to the few, asking them to lunch and taking more time to chat? When they seemed to keep to themselves, why did I assume that was their preference?

• There have been a few times that I’ve felt rudely treated by black strangers. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about one. Why did I feel guilty about standing up for myself? Was race relevant? Was it biased of me to detect an attitude? Could I have misinterpreted because I don’t understand black behavioral norms ? On the other hand, isn’t it offensive to attribute what feels like rudeness to racial difference?

• I have ventured into few neighborhoods on the South and West Sides because of the assumption that it would be unsafe to do so. Why haven’t I double-checked that assumption, neighborhood by neighborhood?

• How should I have responded when an acquaintance said, “I did not enslave anyone, I’m not guilty”?

* How have I benefited from white privilege?

• Why does it make me uncomfortable to hear that I’m part of the problem if I’m not doing anything to solve it? There are so many people discriminated against — other minority groups, women, people with disabilities, lesbians and gays, gender-nonconforming people, seniors, etc. — how could a single person take action for all?

*****

ANTI-TRUMP COMMENTS: 118TH IN AN ONGOING SERIES

The planned Trump rally in Tulsa is “an extraordinarily dangerous move for the people participating and the people who may know them and love them and see them afterward.”

— Dr. Ashish Jha, director of Harvard’s Global Health Institute