Let’s just get radically honest from the start: calling out racism is not just a moral imperative—it’s the bare minimum for anyone who claims to care about justice, humanity, or progress.
In a supremacist country obsessed with power, money, and control, staying silent is being complicit, no matter how liberal your hashtag or “Black Lives Matter” yard sign.
I am done whispering in private. I am done protecting comfort.
Calling out racism has become a life practice, not just a moment, because silence is violence, and I will never participate in that harm again.
Calling out racism can take on a million forms
Confronting trash talk at family gatherings, pushing back on coded language in the workplace, challenging police violence in the streets, and especially interrogating our own complicity in upholding supremacy.
This isn’t a one-time thing; it’s daily, even hourly, and always evolving. When you commit to calling out racism wherever it shows up, you become a living disruption to the status quo—a status quo designed to keep Black and Brown people in a state of fear, poverty, and surveillance.
I refuse to be part of that machinery ever again.
When I Realized My Silence Was Part of the Problem
I spent years thinking I was a “good person,” a “true ally,” or even a “woke ” because I posted and read and donated in the right circles.
The truth is, calling out racism means so much more than quietly supporting “progressive” policies, arguing on social media, or feeling bad about things that happened in the past.
It is about refusing to let any racist comment, policy, practice, or norm go unchecked, especially when it costs you something—because if it doesn’t cost you, it’s not real.
It took me witnessing a situation that was so egregiously racist and seeing how everyone froze… how everyone waited and tried to “keep the peace.”
That taught me: silence isn’t neutral. Silence is a choice. And every time I stayed silent, I sided with the racist, not the person harmed. That truth changed me.
From then on, I vowed to live fully, bodily, loudly devoted to calling out racism, even when it puts me at odds with friends, family, or power. There is no neutral.
The Deep Impact of Calling Out Racism
When we start calling out racism as a practice, not just a performance, something seismic shifts in society. Systemic racism survives on silence, gaslighting, and the insistence that “it’s not that bad.”
Calling out racism is a direct refusal of that gaslighting. It cracks the code of social acceptance and exposes the layers—micro and macro—of supremacy woven everywhere.
It disrupts comfort. It shows we are watching, that we care, and that we’re willing to shoulder the backlash that inevitably comes with telling the uncomfortable truth.
It’s wild how just a sentence—a “that’s not okay,” “can you repeat what you just said?”, or “here’s why this policy harms Black people”—can clear a room or light up a Zoom call with awkwardness.
But that’s the point. When you center the feelings and safety of people who experience racism over the comfort of those who perpetuate it, you allow real accountability, and with that, real freedom and healing are finally, possibly, on the table.
The Cost and Power of Refusing Silence
You can kiss a certain kind of “niceness” goodbye, especially if you’re engaging in majority or “liberal” spaces.
In so many friend groups, workplaces, and even activist circles, anti-racism is a buzzword until it requires discomfort, accountability, or the redistribution of resources and attention.
Then, suddenly, you’re “divisive,” “disruptive,” or “too angry.”
Nothing threatens the status quo like a person (or anyone with some form of privilege) refusing to cover for racism.
The truth is, calling out racism is deeply tiring—and that’s just a glimpse of what Black and Brown people endure every day.
I will never understand what it’s like to live under the constant threat of hate, microaggressions, and violence, but I can at least refuse to ever make it easier for people who inflict that pain.
I can commit to making my everyday choices, conversations, and platforms a constant disruption to that norm—especially when it’s unpopular, inconvenient, or risky.
Community Is Built by Calling Out Racism
What do we gain when we all stop staying silent? We make room for community, for solidarity that isn’t about charity but collective liberation.
Because calling out racism is not about ego or “saving” anyone—it’s about being worthily trustworthy, about being someone who can be counted on to risk rejection for truth and justice.
It’s about showing up not just in the headlines, but in the in-between moments of daily life- the break room, the bus stop, the group chat, the family dinner.
Solidarity means listening, learning, apologizing for missed chances, and starting again—and building cultures where calling out racism is welcomed, not shunned.
It means making it impossible for people to say racist things around you ever again and empowering others to do the same.
That’s where the work is: changing norms by persisting, confronting, and doing the damn thing, day after day.
How I Keep Calling Out Racism—Even When It’s Uncomfortable
Let’s be real- calling out racism won’t make you friends with everyone.
You’ll probably lose people who never deserved your energy. You might even become the “difficult” one at work, or the one everyone rolls their eyes at for “making it about race.”
Good. It is always about race, because race is used every day to determine who gets life, freedom, resources, safety, and joy in this country.
Every time I want to shrink, stay quiet, or prioritize the feelings of someone being called in, I remind myself of histories that haunt us.
I remember the lives cut short, the possibilities stolen.
I remind myself of what I learned from the Black women, queer leaders, and organizers before me-complacency is complicity.
I return to the stories of activists on the ground, like those spotlighted in Here’s What I Learned Digging Into BLM’s Real History and in Why I Believe BLM Matters and Why You Should Too.
These stories fuel my fire.
Accountability in Calling Out Racism
It isn’t enough to be quietly “against” racism. We must be loud about it. Calling out racism means being more scared of complicity than of confrontation.
It means knowing you will get it wrong sometimes and being grateful when you’re corrected—that’s genuine allyship.
You don’t call out racism for credit or applause; you do it because any society that tolerates racism in small ways, tolerates it in fatal, systemic ways, too.
I invite everyone who claims to really care about Black lives, queer lives, disabled lives, immigrant lives, to turn up the volume.
Calling out racism is showing up again and again, publicly and privately, making it impossible for the old way to persist.
I find constant energy in learning more about how I can support movements for justice, like what I share in How I’m Choosing to Support BLM—And How You Can Too and in pushing for real reparations What Reparations Really Mean and How We Can Make It Happen.
Not Just Hateful Words
So much of calling out racism gets reduced to policing a few words, telling people not to say “the N-word,” or refusing outright slurs.
But racism is always bigger. It is in who gets hired, promoted, bailed out. It is in who gets to survive a police encounter, who gets to live childfree and joyful, who gets to choose their own gender without terror.
Calling out racism is about exposing all the intersections—the blade of supremacy that cuts through gender, class, ability, sexuality, and so much more.
When you see something racist, it is your job to name it, not minimize it, not turn away.
For those of us who are called in or called out, our work is to stay present, to listen, apologize, and make material changes—not to seek absolution or to center our own guilt.
Part of never staying silent again is refusing to get stuck in shame and instead moving forward, more accountable, more awake, and more ready to disrupt harm before it happens.
allyship
Here’s another thing that’s become crystal clear to me: any feminism, any progressive “allyship,” that doesn’t relentlessly commit to calling out racism is nothing more than white supremacist patriarchy in a pink hat.
Too often, mainstream feminism centers the issues of white women while ignoring,dismissing, or actively silencing the voices and struggles of Black women, Indigenous women, trans women of color, and so many others.
White feminism has always been more interested in preserving comfort and privilege rather than dismantling the racist roots of patriarchy.
If we are serious about liberation—real, radical, intersectional liberation—then white feminism must die, giving rise to a new movement built on unapologetically calling out racism at every turn.
This is not just about speeches or statements; it’s about taking real action.
True anti-racism requires calling out racism everywhere it lurks, from policies to protests, from boardrooms to brunch tables.
It’s refusing to believe that any win for women matters if it doesn’t center the women most oppressed by the intersecting systems of racism and sexism.
You cannot be genuinely pro-woman or pro-LGBTQIA2S+, or support BLM, or even call yourself an ally, if you’re not all-in, every damn time, on naming and calling out racism.
I know some readers are wondering, how do I start? How do I keep that courage, when it’s exhausting, or when I mess up?
My answer is- you keep going. You learn, you grow, and you show up anyway. You reach out, support movements, and never stop educating yourself.
You read stories about what active support looks like—honestly, my post on How I’m Choosing to Support BLM—And How You Can Too is written for that very purpose.
You want to go deeper? Don’t miss my breakdown on why BLM Matters and Why You Should Too.
And dive into history with Here’s What I Learned Digging Into BLM’s Real History, because understanding roots helps us see why today’s calls to action matter so much.
There’s one final, crucial thing: we all have to keep calling out racism whether or not it’s easy.
No more cowardice, no more silence, and absolutely no more fake “neutrality”—neutrality is just siding with oppression. Let’s stay wildly, relentlessly committed to justice, together.
What do you think? Have you tried calling out racism in your life, and how did it go?
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Thank you for reading, and let’s keep talking! (This was written just for you, in a way everyone can understand—so don’t be afraid to share your own story.)