Because here’s the truth: whiteness is not a solitary state. Whiteness is a system. Whiteness is a social phenomenon—as in communal, collective, community-based, and often family-based. Whiteness is rooted in relationships. Its rules and benefits are built and transmitted, in ways subtle and overt, between white people. Its habits and behaviors are only so powerful because they’re enacted by many white individuals, together, at the same time and across time. If you want to untangle the net, you have to work in tandem with other white people. A white person who “does the work” in isolation is like a pianist playing in a sealed room. They hear the music, and that’s great. They may be personally transformed—but they shouldn’t expect the world to start dancing.

And what a loss! Because it’s the very closeness of these relationships between white family members and white friends that makes them fertile ground for transformation. It’s within these close relationships that so many of the stereotypes about black inferiority and undesirability are summoned and used, even unconsciously, and racial hierarchy is therefore performed, cemented, and reproduced. What neighborhood will we live in? Where will our kids go to school? What aesthetics will guide our cultural consumption? Even choices made alone by individual white people are often made with awareness of other white people’s normative preferences—should I wear my hair curly or straight to this interview? And so on.