This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Solvable.

I'm Rodald Young Jr.

They're calling me the N-word because they want me to feel bad, and I'm not

going to give them that opportunity. And so I try to think about the why, which then allows me to

separate the offensive comment from feeling offended. In the summer of 2020, while in the

throes of the global pandemic, many Americans found themselves rustling with another

virus of sorts, racism.

I would say to black people that I don't expect anyone else to free us.

That we freed ourselves during the Civil War and we're going to have to free ourselves,

you know, from racism too.

But on the other hand, I do not think it is all on us.

With the killing of George Floyd, the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, and the killing of Brianna Taylor,

the phrase Black Lives Matter suddenly became mainstream.

The stark nature of inequity and injustice became apparent for many who had tried to ignore it for so long.

Even for people accustomed to doing the work of anti-racism, and especially for black folks doing that work,

the mainstreaming of the movement has been both energizing and emotionally exhausting.

We may need to take breaks, and that's okay.

People should listen to their bodies and to their feelings.

And knowing that three months from then or a year from then or in a different type of way that that baton, you know, is going to be picked up.

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is a professor, scholar, writer, and most recently, the host of the Pushkin

podcast, Be Anti-Racist. When it comes to teaching anti-racism to all, he has had to become a kind

...