Hi Ranjeet. Thank you for your response. This is advancing the conversation we all need to have and I will look into the reading you suggested. My 25 yo daughter was here last night and she drove home the point that because we are White, we have definitely been privileged. She was fighting hard to have me see that. I guess I think that if I (and my book group friends) support racial equity, are openminded and liberal and want Black Lives to Matter, we are not racist. We cringe too at the stories of police brutality. My daughter and other commenters here are telling me that I am part of a longstanding system of ingrained racism that has a long way to go to be righted.

However, I will not lie--saying White peope should "Sit down and shut the F up" does not seem productive in terms of racial equity goals. But maybe that book "Rules for Radicals" which I read in a college class, has its points. Maybe we have to be radical to get our points across. Maybe the sufragettes had to be radical in their own right, leaving hearth and kitchen to protest for women's rights. Maybe in their own way, all of those years ago, they were telling men to "Sit down and shut the F up," that it was time for women to have the right to vote. What do you think?

Sincerely, Alice

P.S. Several people responding have said I have no Black friends. How ridiculous and assuming. How would they know? Because my book group is a group of 7 White women? That is such extrapolation of the facts reported.