You're a White person newly waking up to 400 years of racial injustice.
This is good. We need you. Continue on your journey. Don't get stuck on the "I don't know what to do about racism" track.
You do know what to do about racism.
What you don’t know how to be is consistently visibly antiracist.
You don't know how to be associated with antiracism in a demonstrable public way.
You feel nervous making the transformation. Stepping into the unknown. Taking a risk.
Sure, you're concerned about saying the wrong thing, offending Black people, White guilt.
But you're more worried about how your relationships will change with your White friends.
Jeopardizing the social capital you've accrued with White people who have never known you to be antiracist.
The people who don't see you as "that kind of person". Who will be surprised by the new you. Who may tease, mock, and belittle you. Who will ask you why you're so serious all the sudden.
Whose friendships you may strain. Or even lose.
You don't know how to navigate this. How to absorb the criticism. How to embody the new antiracist you.
Because you don't yet have the fluency and confidence, you feel awkward, anxious, uncomfortable.
And you have to push through the discomfort.
If you don't, nothing changes.