Lucy, here is my point. I spent 24 years teaching at entirely or predominantly black institutions in Virginia — Hampton University and the urban campus of a community college, and have many friends and colleagues of African descent. So I dare say I know more about African American culture than most other white people.

If we are to communicate clearly, we must first answer the question, “What do you mean by ‘racist,’” for if we cannot agree on the meaning of a key term, the conversation goes nowhere. So the term “racist” needs to be clearly defined if it is to be useful. It USED to mean “a person with hateful, prejudicial attitudes toward those of a different ethnic background.” That is still the definition I accept — a definition by which I can assert, confidently, that I am not, and never have been a racist (my very first female friend in elementary school was a black girl. Now at the age of 71, we are STILL friends, and frequently correspond by email.)

However, some ideologues today have changed the definition of “racist” to something like “A racist is any white person in America, because all white people have been raised in a racist culture, which systematically devalued black people.” This was the definition you implied in calling me a racist. The second clause is true, of course — there is no denying that I was raised in a culture that systematically and cruelly devalues black people.

But it does not follow — at all — that anyone who had the good fortune (or bad luck — either way) to be born of European descent in a culture dominated by people of European descent is therefore a racist. By this definition, ALL white people are racists.

Sorry — that definition is so broad as to be meaningless. It equates individuals with the cultures into which they were born, through no fault of their own. In other words, I am guilty by birth, and therefore should be ashamed of who I am. And that in itself is a racist presupposition, which has been imposed on people of African descent for generations. Simply reversing it and applying the same logic to white people does not solve anything, other than to incur resentment.

So I plead not guilty. Though born to privilege as a European American, I have spent my life — and my career — befriending, teaching, and defending people of African descent from any and all forms of racism. The only path to peace in the world today is for all of us, of every ethnicity, to strive to transcend our own tribal prejudices, whatever they are, and begin with the assumption that everyone else has the same vulnerabilities, the same inherent dignity, and the same rights as we do. Or as Haile Selassie put it, “Until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes…the dream of lasting peace…will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained.”