People live life steeped in their own reality. If someone in your life names a struggle they are having because of racism, it is an invitation to hold space for them to share their experience. As a white-identified person you have no experience of racism to draw on so you may not be able to understand.

This is how oppressive systems work. The greater our proximity to power in oppressive systems, i.e. whiteness, maleness, financial privilege and the like, the less likely we are to know or even see what it means to live in the constant experience of being othered.

You best know your life.You best can identify what your struggles are. The same is true for people of colour, who are the target of racism and other forms of oppression. What you are hearing may be hard to hear, but that alone doesn’t make it untrue nor does it prioritise your experience as witness or observer over someone with intimate knowledge of racism and oppression.

Reflect on the source of your discomfort. What contributes to it being hard for you to hear someone naming an experience that was painful for them. Take action to meet your own needs, not by declaring how someone else should respond to their experience, but by stating what is up for you.

You could try: This isn’t fair and it might not even be right, but I just can’t hear you right now. I’m agitated. And I don’t know why.

In such a statement you are speaking about your own capacity to know and understand based on your own life, not dismissing that experience of others–experiences that you likely have little access to.

Tip: Antiracism is a lifelong commitment, not a quick fix. It requires pacing, acceptance for where we are, willingness to hear hard messages about how we cause harm and resolve to do better. We may never get to a place of fully embodying antiracism which means we will need to continue to listen, believe, learn and practice how to be antiracist for the rest of our lives. Let go of urgency, let go of self-blame, let go of perfectionism. Embrace mistakes and feedback and the practice of self-compassion.