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The way some reporters are talking about Ukraine is revealing their implicit bias

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Protests against war in Ukraine in Moscow, February 24, Moscow. Tverskaya street

Unless you’ve been camping in the middle of nowhere without cell service, you'll know that Russia invaded Ukraine last week. The war in Ukraine has had the world’s attention since before Russian troops stepped foot on Ukrainian soil. It seems everyone has been glued to their televisions or other devices looking for updates on the conflict, but some people are getting a bit more than an update. Several journalists in European countries as well as the U.S. have made statements within their newscasts that have raised eyebrows and made people ask what exactly they mean.

Listening to reports on the refugee crisis resulting from the invasion is interesting to say the least. While it seems the majority of reporting is free from bias, others are steeped in so much bias that it goes beyond implicit to explicit in many ways. A reporter from CBS, Charlie D’Agata, had to make an apology due to his on-air remarks; he said “this is a relatively civilized, relatively European—I have to choose those words carefully, too—city, where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that would happen,” after making a comparison to Iraq and Afghanistan.

A French reporter Philippe Corbé, for BFM TV, a 24-hour French news network exclaimed, “We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin; we’re talking about leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.” In an interview with the BBC, a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine said “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair…being killed every day.” The comment went unchallenged by the anchors and was instead met with “I understand and respect the emotion.”

\u201cIt\u2019s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed\u201dpic.twitter.com/mKVtEY4IBC
— Petty Is Praxis (@Petty Is Praxis) 1645915194

One would hope this would be the end of the comments by professionals showing their bias, but unfortunately, there are more examples. A journalist reporting for ITV from Poland said “Now the unthinkable has happened to them. And this is not a developing, third world nation. This is Europe!” Yet another reporter from the Telegraph expressed his sentiments, writing “They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free elections and read uncensored newspapers. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations.”

This is a civilized city!\nThey're blue-eyed and blond-haired!\nThis is Europe, not the Third World!\n\nTonight on @MSNBC, @AymanM and I discussed some of the awful and, frankly, racist coverage of the Ukraine war & Ukrainian refugees compared to the MidEast:pic.twitter.com/ir6qWHBNE6
— Mehdi Hasan (@Mehdi Hasan) 1646017529

Unfortunately the bizarre statements continue without so much as a follow-up question in many of these instances. Comments like these imply that war is to be expected in developing nations, or because the people experiencing war in Ukraine lack a certain look they should be spared. It hasn’t gone unnoticed by journalists of color, or by people of color absorbing the news. In fact, a political commentator for MSNBC, Mehdi Hasan, rebuked the biased reporting while on the air asking the question while reciting quotes from news clips, “‘Well-dressed people’ and ‘this is not the third world,’ they really mean white people, don’t they?"

The question feels like it had to be asked after all of these on-air snafus, but bias is so sneaky that these reporters likely didn’t realize how their words would be received. Heightened emotions from empathetic humans can not only cloud your judgment, but allow for more bias to seep in as you consider your own safety when seeing people that look like you being harmed. No one is saying these reporters can’t be empathetic, but it’s uncovering the areas that should be worked through so the automatic thought isn’t that this shouldn’t happen to them because they look like us, but that this shouldn’t happen to people, period.

From Your Site Articles

"We cannot deny that this is a race issue."

On April 12, two black men were arrested while waiting for their friend at a Starbucks in Philadelphia. Their crime? Waiting for a friend, apparently.

The incident, caught on film, shows the two men being placed in handcuffs by police officers while confused customers tried to ask what exactly they had done wrong. The incident sparked a lot of justifiable anger and resulted in an apology from both Starbucks, and the Philadelphia police chief, a few days later.

@Starbucks The police were called because these men hadn’t ordered anything. They were waiting for a friend to show… https://t.co/gQ6HFw3fYZ
— Melissa DePino (@Melissa DePino) 1523567534

At NBC, writer Elon James White shared an "uncomfortable truth for white America" about the incident.

"While this incident went viral, it is only remarkable because of how unremarkable it actually is," he wrote, highlighting another Starbucks video from California showing a black man being denied access to a store's restroom, while a white man was allowed in without scrutiny.

People protesting at the Starbucks where the two men were arrested. Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images.

Starbucks announced plans to close all 8,000 of the company's corporate owned stores on May 29 for mandatory racial-bias training.

In a statement posted to Facebook, the company explained they were working with well-established civil rights advocates and anti-racism organizations to develop a curriculum for its 175,000 employees. The plan has gotten some majorly mixed reactions, ranging from people arguing that the Philadelphia location and police did nothing wrong, to those who think this is an important step in addressing the issue, to people who believe this is simply too little, too late.

[rebelmouse-image 19532655 dam="1" original_size="615x454" caption="All screenshots are from Starbucks/Facebook." expand=1]All screenshots are from Starbucks/Facebook.

Whether the training itself will be considered a success remains to be seen. Still, the company's responses on social media have an important lesson for us all.

A lot of the time, when a company finds itself in the midst of a public relations disaster, their social media teams will come up with a few canned statements to respond to criticism on social media. Starbucks took a different approach — and has been offering personal replies to dozens of people.

Responding to criticism arguing that the Philadelphia incident was just a few bad apples, the company replied, "Because systemic racism and bias is bigger than one partner, one store or one company. We are shutting our stores for this training because we recognize that we have the responsibility to be part of the solution."

Others lamented the thought of going without their coffee for an afternoon, saying that the company's response was overblown. To that, Starbucks owned up to its less than stellar history, writing, "There are countless examples of implicit bias resulting in discrimination against people of color, both inside and outside our stores," and explaining that they have a responsibility to act.

"There was no reason for the police to be called to our Philadelphia store," they wrote to another commenter.

Another commenter used this as an opportunity to highlight legitimate grievances people and communities of color might have with law enforcement. The company responded by saying there are plans to meet with Philadelphia government and law enforcement officials to ensure this doesn't happen again. While it's not a national solution, it is something.

When someone pointed out that it shouldn't have taken a viral video for the company to get serious about fighting racial bias, Starbucks responded that the program rolling out May 29 will become part of new employee onboarding moving forward.

"Maybe train your employees on how to deal with loitering in general and not make it a color issue?" wrote another commenter. The company responded, "We cannot deny this is a race issue, which is why we are implementing this training."

Generally speaking, people should avoid calling the police in all but the most extreme cases, and Starbucks made its position on that clear in one of the responses, writing, "While there are situations where a call to police is justified (such as violence or aggressive behavior), this was not one of them."

The company was rightly wary of accepting praise for doing something it should have been doing all along. "We hope this proves to be an impactful step — one of many we know we have to take."

Yes, the manager who called the police has been fired.

Racism and unconscious biases are very real, and we'd all benefit from taking a step back and examining our own.

If one good thing comes out of what happened in Philadelphia, it's the chance for those who are white — and can't possibly know what it's like to be made to feel unwelcome in public spaces or to have our existence treated as automatically criminal on the basis of our skin color — to see the "uncomfortable truth" James mentioned in his article. This isn't a one-off incident, and it's not limited to just Starbucks. This is an everyday reality for many people of color. It's on all of us to push for a better world and to work to be our best selves.

What happened to those two men should never happen again. It almost certainly will, but it shouldn't. Take a page out of the Starbucks social media team's playbook and recognize this is a cultural problem that we have a responsibility to address — and then hold yourself accountable for your actions.

9 simple ways to talk to kids about race that can help make the world kinder.

Administrators at Fox Chapel Middle School in Spring Hill, Florida, recently fired a teacher who gave her sixth graders an assignment asking them to consider how "comfortable" they would be in the company of various people. Some of the 41 scenarios identified these "others" in terms of race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion.

For example:

"Your new roommate is a Palestinian and Muslim."

"A group of young black men are walking toward you on the street."

"The young man sitting next to you on the airplane is an Arab."

"Your new suite mates are Mexican."

"Your assigned lab partner is a fundamentalist Christian."

Many Fox Hill students and parents were upset. "They’re kids. Let kids be kids. Why are they asking kids these questions?" one mother to a seventh-grade student wondered. "I just don’t think it’s something that needs to be brought in school." Another parent said, "I just think that sometimes kids are just too young to start that at this age, and in school."

Such sentiments are familiar — and deeply misguided.

In the United States, a lot of us believe that children, especially white children, are racial innocents — completely naive, curiously fragile about the realities of race, or both.

Image via iStock.

The truth is that well before their teen years, the majority of children are well aware of prevailing biases, and most kids of all racial stripes have taken on a bunch of their own.

Researchers have been studying the development of racial and ethnic biases in children for a long time, and we know quite a bit. We know that within a few months of birth, babies prefer own-race faces, probably because most are surrounded by people who look like them. Sometime during the preschool years, however, this relatively innocent pull toward the familiar morphs into something else.

By age 5, black and Hispanic children show no preference toward their own group compared to whites. On the other hand, white kids remain strongly biased in favor of whiteness.By the start of kindergarten, "children begin to show many of the same implicit racial attitudes that adults in our culture hold. Children have already learned to associate some groups with higher status, or more positive value, than others."

So, in reference to the doubtlessly well-meaning mom quoted earlier, the crucial question isn’t "Why bring issues of racial, ethnic, religious, and other kinds of bias into our schools?" It’s "How do we constructively engage the harmful biases we know pervade our schools and just about everywhere else? And what can we do to shape our children’s racial attitudes before and as they emerge?"

In that regard, research and experience offer some promising guidance to parents, guardians, teachers, and all of us who care for or about children.

These guidelines were developed by members of the Embrace Race team.

1. Start early.

Let your child know that it’s perfectly OK to notice skin color and talk about race. Encourage them to ask questions, share observations and experiences, and be respectfully curious about race.

2. Realize you are a role model to your child.

What you say is important, but what you do — how diverse your circle of friends is, for example — will probably have an even bigger impact on your child. If they don't attend a diverse school, consider enrolling them in activities such as sports leagues that are diverse (if you’re able). Choose books, toys, and movies that include people of different races and ethnicities. Visit museums with exhibits about a range of cultures and religions.

3. Let your child see you face your own biases.

We’re less likely to pass on the biases we identify and work to overcome. Give your child an example of a bias — racial or otherwise — that you hold or have held. Share with your child things you do to confront and overcome that bias.

4. Know and love who you are.

Talk about the histories and experiences of the racial, ethnic, and cultural groups you and your family strongly identify with. Talk about their contributions and acknowledge the less flattering parts of those histories as well. Tell stories about the challenges your family — your child’s parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and great grandparents — have faced and overcome.

5. Develop racial cultural literacy by learning about and respecting others.

Study and talk about the histories and experiences of groups we call African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and whites, among others. Be sure your child understands that every racial and ethnic group includes people who believe different things and behave in different ways. There is more diversity within racial groups than across them.

6. Be honest with your child, in age-appropriate ways, about bigotry and oppression.

Children are amazing at noticing patterns, including racial patterns (who lives in their neighborhood versus their friends’ neighborhoods, for example). Help them make sense of those patterns, and recognize that bigotry and oppression are sometimes a big part of those explanations. Be sure your child knows that the struggle for racial fairness is still happening and that your family can take part in that struggle.

7. "Lift up the freedom fighters:" Tell stories of resistance and resilience.

Every big story of racial oppression is also a story about people fighting back and "speaking truth to power." Teach your child those parts of the story too. Include women, children, and young adults among the "freedom fighters" in the stories you tell.

8. Teach your children to be "upstanders" for racial justice.

Help your child understand what it means to be — and how to be — a change agent. Whenever possible, connect the conversations you're having to the change you and your child want to see and to ways to bring about that change.

9. Plan for a marathon, not a sprint.

Make race talks with your child routine. Race is a topic you should plan to revisit again and again in many different ways over time. It’s OK to say, "I’m not sure" or "Let’s come back to that later, OK?" But then be sure to come back to it.

This story first appeared on Embrace Race and is used here with permission.

From Your Site Articles

'For someone who's part of a marginalized community, I feel like I'm finally being seen.'

Artist Fin Lee was living the not-so-glamorous freelance life, when they got the gig of a lifetime.

In fact, if you watched the 2016 Grammys, you probably saw their work. They designed and illustrated the costumes Lady Gaga's backup dancers wore during her tribute to David Bowie.

After years of struggling to catch a big break, Lee (artist name: Lostboy), who identifies as queer and uses they/them pronouns, finally got a foot in the door.

Lee's artwork in the style of Egon Shiele (Bowie's artist icon), as well as Bowie's actual hands on jumpsuits for the dancers. Image used with permission.

You'd think designing costumes for Lady Gaga would be a career-changing milestone. But that's not how things went for Lee.

Lee continued to get the occasional illustrator job, but still had to work as a barista to make ends meet. Occasionally, they'd be in the running for a big, exciting gig again, only to watch as someone else got the job instead. Lee noticed a troubling and frustrating pattern to who that "someone else" often was. Though not always the same person, these artists had a few traits in common — namely, they were male, and often white, straight, and cisgender too.

"I think the way our society is — we’re used to seeing a certain type of person in a certain type of field," Lee explains.

By Lostboy. Used with permission.

Employers or potential employers often aren't aware they might have subconscious biases influencing their hiring process, but the data doesn't lie. This is a problem.

According to a study recently published in the American Sociological Review, white men are more than three times as likely to get called in for a job interview than a woman with the same qualifications. And that discrimination gets exponentially worse for transgender women.

So where do you go to find work when a potential employer's subconscious biases about who you are prevents them from seeing the good work you're capable of doing?

The turning point in Lee's career came when they became an early user of a new website called Women Who Draw.

Women Who Draw is a database of artists designed to give marginalized artists visibility and a deeper sense of community in a competitive field. The website specifies that it is "trans-inclusive and includes women, trans and gender non-conforming illustrators."

Photo via Women Who Draw. Used with permission

Lee was brought on as a beta tester by one of the site's creators, San Francisco illustrator Wendy MacNaughton. MacNaughton, together with fellow creator and artist Julia Rothman, hoped Lee, a queer Asian artist, could offer advice on how they wanted to see the site operate.

Lee happily obliged. "It's the first of it’s kind that I’ve seen where it’s so inclusive," Lee says.

By Annelise Capossela. Used with permission.

“Women [on the site] can choose how they want to identify in terms of their race, orientation, location, religion," says MacNaughton. "There are many other ways people identify, but those four seemed very relevant in terms of visibility, and useful for art directors when they’re looking for specific people who might have specific experience, expertise, or perspective."

For employers who want to hire more diverse illustrators, Women Who Draw is an incredibly helpful resource.

Heather Vaughan, an artist and art director for a gaming company, explained over email that "[Women Who Draw] actually came at a really great time. She says she was "specifically looking to find female artists to work with ... since women in games are an even smaller group."

By Heather Vaughan. Used with permission.

Today, Women Who Draw features over 700 artists, with portfolios that are an incredible representation of diversity, both artistically and demographically. Gracia Lam, who is Asian-Canadian and identifies as gay, says that Women Who Draw makes it so much easier for clients to choose illustrators who can help tell "fuller, more well rounded" stories.

By Gracia Lam. Used with permission.

Similarly, Annelise Capossela, a Brooklyn-based illustrator, says that Women Who Draw helps art directors who are looking to diversify their hiring pool and make the conscious choice to search for illustrators and artists who have "uniquely personal insight into certain topics or experiences."

By Annelise Capossela. Used with permission.

Shortly after Women Who Draw's public launch in December 2016, Lee got their first big editorial job.

On Christmas Day, Lee got a call from Rodrigo Honeywell, the Art Director of the travel section at the New York Times, offering Lee an opportunity to illustrate the feature image for an upcoming article.

Honeywell found Lee through Women Who Draw's database.

By Lostboy. Used with permission.

Lee has also seen a major uptick in visits to their website since WWD's database launched — over 600 hits on the first day alone.

Lee has come a long way in the year since the 2016 Grammys. But it was Women Who Draw that really helped them open the door to a full-time career as an artist.

Thanks to all the exposure from Women Who Draw, Lee now has a full-time job with an illustration agency that represents artists. They no longer have to serve coffee.

While that's great news for them, equal opportunities for artists like Lee may diminish under a Trump administration. There couldn't be a better time for a site like this.

"For someone who's part of a marginalized community, I feel like I'm finally being seen," Lee says.

From Your Site Articles

He's admitting to something embarrassing, for the sake of helping others.

Frank Somerville, a father from San Francisco who works as a news anchor, discovered something about himself that felt horrifying.

He has internal biases. He discovered they can creep up on you even when you're convinced you don't have any.

Let's go back to August 2016 when Somerville saw a white woman sitting at a bus stop. About 30 feet away was a black man walking toward her. Somerville subconsciously made up his mind to keep watching just to make sure the woman was safe. At that moment, a little boy ran up to the black man and caught his daddy's hand.

Somerville was angry with himself. He was embarrassed he assumed the man might harm the woman based solely on the color of his skin.

Here's the thing: Somerville is the proud father of an 11-year-old black girl.

He and his wife adopted Callie in 2005. They also have a 17-year-old biological daughter named Sydney.

He tells Callie she may be treated differently in this world because of the color of her skin. That's not OK. Then he realized he was doing the exact same thing by assuming the worst from a man based only on him being black. That's also not OK.

He wrote about his realization in a Facebook post. Somerville said he was disappointed in himself, but wanted to use the experience as a way to teach others about internal biases we may not know we have.

Let Somerville tell you himself in this heartwarming video below.

I can't take my eyes off Khoudia Diop's beautiful skin.

Even in pictures, it's easy to get lost in it. Deep and rich, like a thousand night skies. She refers to herself on Instagram as the "melanin goddess," which would normally be boastful and trite, if it weren't so clearly true.

😩 i really glow this much?😍 Picture by :@kailaboulware @thecgirlinc makeup:@bellisima81 Hair: @touched_by_tiff #melaninpoppin #melanin #darkskinbeauty #darkskinwomen #hair #skin #hair #glow #beauty #melaninonfleek #blackbeauty #curls #blackgirlmagic #blackgirlsrock #flawless
A photo posted by Khoudia diop (@melaniin.goddess) on Sep 18, 2016 at 8:05am PDT

But not everyone sees her beauty, or her worth. Diop was called names and bullied for her skin color as a kid.

“Growing up, I faced it by confronting the bullies," she told The Daily Mail U.K. "As I grew, I learned to love myself more every day, and not pay attention to the negative people.”

Today, the 19-year-old is leaning into her unique, stunning complexion by working as a model. Her 303,000 Instagram followers can't get enough of her striking look.

Same love, same strengh, same inner beauty ,different shades 💕 @lipsticklawd @diandraforrest @thecgirlinc #blackgirlmagic #melanin #beauty #blackgirlsrock
A photo posted by Khoudia diop (@melaniin.goddess) on Aug 24, 2016 at 6:33pm PDT

"If you’re lucky enough to be different, don’t ever change," she said.

Though Diop wrote her own happy ending, bullying around colorism is all too common and rooted in historic and systemic issues.

Colorism is the false and outdated notion that the closer people are in complexion to the white or fair-skinned ideal, the better. Complexions that are closer to white are seen as prettier, smarter, more worthy of time, and more worthy of attention. But too often this leads to bullying and discrimination for people of color with darker complexions, from within and outside the same racial or ethnic group.

This issue is complex and has deep historical roots.

Slaves with lighter skin were often assigned to work in the house, while slaves with darker complexions were sent to the fields. This practice continued for decades, turning into discriminatory exercises like the paper bag test. That's where a brown paper bag was used as a kind of "skin-tone barometer" for privileges, like access to certain churches or black Greek life at colleges and universities. Those lighter than the bag were welcomed in. Darker than the bag? Not so much.

Photo by iStock.

But as stories like Diop's illustrate, colorism is not just a thing of the past, and it affects people of color of all complexions. Those with lighter skin may find others challenging their authenticity and their "black experience." Men and women with darker skin or coarser hair may not see themselves represented in the media, specifically as love interests or idealized depictions of beauty.

And colorism is a difficult thing to combat because this type of prejudice and internalized racism begins when we're young.

In 2010, Margaret Beale Spencer, a leading researcher in the field of child development from the University of Chicago, was recruited by CNN to recreate the famed "baby doll test" from the 1940s. In the original, black and white children were asked questions about whether they favored a white doll or a white doll painted brown. The results showed both white and black children had a bias toward the white or lighter skin doll.

When Spencer conducted a version of the test more than 60 years later, though, she found that the results had changed, but not by much. White and black children still have white bias, though black kids have far less than their white peers.

Photo by iStock.

"All kids on the one hand are exposed to the stereotypes," Spencer told CNN. "What's really significant here is that white children are learning or maintaining those stereotypes much more strongly than the African-American children. Therefore, the white youngsters are even more stereotypic in their responses concerning attitudes, beliefs and attitudes and preferences than the African-American children."

It's a grim reminder that historical, external, and media-driven forces behind colorism are having an impact on all of us, no matter our race or ethnicity.

That's why people like Khoudia Diop are so important.

Watching Diop, and stars like Viola Davis and Leslie Jones, find success in their respective industries is a strong indictment against the narratives that women with dark skin are undesirable or unworthy of admiration or respect. But it doesn't mean their journeys are easy or smooth. All of these strong women experience bigotry and ignorant comments, not just from the dregs of the internet, but from critics who should know better too.

Jones experienced intense online harassment this summer when trolls lobbed insults and images of gorillas her way. Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images.

Colorism is real. We live it every day. And speaking out and talking about it, like Khoudia Diop, is the first step to putting an end to it.

Whether or not you're a famous face, it's important to speak out against colorism.

Check your friends and family when they make ignorant and prejudiced comments. Support brands, magazines, and movies that showcase people of color with darker complexions. Signal boost voices when those who've been discriminated against are brave enough to tell their stories. Buy dolls and picture books with protagonists of color for the children in your life.

There's a lot we can do to weaken the hold colorism has on our society so more folks like Diop can rise to the top of their fields. And it starts with all of us.

Photo by iStock.

Sitting in the passenger seat of her car, her 18-year-old nephew behind the wheel, Serena Williams had a terrifying thought.

"In the distance, I saw cop on the side of the road. I quickly checked to see if [my nephew] was obliging by the speed limit. Than I remembered that horrible video of the woman in the car when a cop shot her boyfriend. All of this went through my mind in a matter of seconds," the tennis champion wrote on Facebook.

Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images.

Williams was scared, she wrote. Were she or her nephew about to become another statistic?

"I would never forgive myself if something happened to my nephew. He's so innocent. So were all 'the others.'"

Racial bias in law enforcement and disproportionate police brutality against people of color is very real. It's telling that even someone like Williams — a celebrated, successful athlete and businesswoman — was sent into a panic just from spotting a cop car.

In her Facebook post on Sept. 27, 2016, Williams opened up about these terrifying thoughts. The post has since garnered over 117,000 Likes and 20,000 shares.

Today I asked my 18 year old nephew (to be clear he's black) to drive me to my meetings so I can work on my phone...
Posted by Serena Williams on Tuesday, September 27, 2016

"Why did I have to think about this in 2016?" Williams asked in her post. "Have we not gone through enough, opened so many doors, impacted billions of lives?"

"I had to take a look at me. What about my nephews? What if I have a son and what about my daughters? As Dr. Martin Luther King said, 'There comes a time when silence is betrayal.'"

Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images.

Williams and King are right: We all need to speak up — even though (if we're being honest) staying silent can be so much easier.

Staying on the sidelines is safe, especially if you're a white person. It can be easy to brush off ignorant comments ridiculing Black Lives Matter supporters when you hear them in line at the grocery store or sitting around the dinner table.

It's easier to share your take on last night's episode of "Game of Thrones" on Facebook than it is to share an emotionally charged post about systemic racism in law enforcement.

Silence is easy. But silence costs lives.

So here's how you can speak out and spark real change when it comes to police brutality:

1. Listen. Listen to the stories of those who've been targeted by police because of the color of their skin. Listen to the (many) amazing cops who agree that change is necessary and also want solutions. Before you speak your opinion, hear their stories. Get their perspective.

2. Educate yourself. This takes some work, but knowing the facts is crucial. Let the data about racial bias sink in. And if you're white, know that it's your responsibility to understand this issue — it's not a person of color's job to enlighten you.

Photo by Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images.

3. Know when to speak up (and when to shut up). These conversations can be tough, but we have to have them. When you hear loved ones saying something problematic, chime in — even if your voice is the minority opinion. And if you're white, know when to take a step back; your voice should never drown out or contradict the experiences of those who know this discrimination firsthand.

4. Get involved. The bad news is that police brutality has been disproportionately affecting communities of color for decades. The good news is that we're finally talking about it. And there are many political leaders and grassroots efforts fighting to make change when it comes to our policies and systems. Help them do it.

And just to say it, speaking out against systemic racism and demanding we do better at protecting and serving our communities of color doesn't make Williams — or you — anti-cop.

As Williams wrote in her post, "I am a total believer that not 'everyone' is bad. It is just the ones that are ignorant, afraid, uneducated, and insensitive that is affecting millions and millions of lives."

For those millions and millions of lives, we all need to take a hint from the tennis champ: "I won't be silent."