https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Ugly-Truth-of-Being-a/243234
“I wanted to hold a disagreeable mirror up to white readers and ask that they take a long, hard look without fleeing. My article, “Dear White America,” took the form of a letter asking readers to accept the truth of what it means to be white in a society created for white people. I asked them to tarry with the ways in which they perpetuate a racist society, the ways in which they are racist. In return, I asked for understanding and even love — love in the sense that James Baldwin used the term: “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
Instead, I received hundreds of emails, phone messages, and letters, an overwhelming number of which were filled with racist vitriol.”