Reckoning is a practice of turning towards what we have been conditioned to turn away from. For white anti-racist practitioners, reckoning is often cyclical and ongoing.

A white supremacist system actively resists such reckoning, just as it vilifies the idea of reparations. The realities of Indigenous genocide and chattel slavery are not past tense; systemic racism continues to shape life expectancy rates, disparities of every kind, media stereotypes, location of polluting facilities, criminalization and exploitation of communities.

We are now witnessing an overt war on teaching and facing our racial history. 

Reparations can take a multitude of forms, and involves both internal and external work. The more we come into brave awareness of how white supremacy has shaped this country, the more we free up our agency to act, to reflect, to repair, to grapple and to heal in our communities, psyches, and families. Repair can be hyper-local, small or large, on the levels of an individual, family, community, state-wide or national.