It'd be great if racism didn't exist. If you didn't have to give your kid an explanation for why a person clutched a bag as a black man walked by. If black families didn't have to hold multiple versions of "the talk" in hopes that their child doesn't become the next Michael Brown or George Floyd. But that's not our current reality, nor has it been across our nation's entire history. As psychologist Beverly Tatum puts it, anti-blackness is a smog, one we're breathing in everywhere, knowingly or not. "Cultural racism—the cultural images and messages that affirm the assumed superiority...
