Racism takes up a lot of space in my life. I’m always thinking about it. Usually talking about it. Often writing about it. My libraries are full of books about it. My computer is slowed by archived content about it. People have used the word ‘obsessed’ — but I disagree. I’m no more obsessed with dismantling racism than scientists and clinicians are with curing cancer. A disease is a disease. Some are recurring – you know they’ll present, so you just live with them, albeit in a diminished state. Some lie dormant, the malignity of their onset matched only by the alacrity of their remission. But then there are the chronics, the ones that kill you slowly but steadily, from the inside out. Sometimes they have symptoms, hard to diagnose. Other times, they show signs invisible only by choice. Racism is one of those. I’m working on a cure.

Janet Marie