Racial justice is not a zero-sum game

On Friday I took a pleasant walk down Garden Street in Cambridge to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I was there to facilitate a discussion about whiteness with students and professors at the Banneker Institute, a summer research program for students of color led by Professor John Johnson. I arrived ready to lay down knowledge. But, of course, I was the one in the room who learned the most.

That's how the Institute rolls: Minimize chi^2, minimize effects of systemic racism, a...