I’m celebrating Juneteenth today by reading Ijeoma Oluo So You Want to Talk about Race. Though I’ve lived in the US for almost 24 years now, I’m still uncomfortable with the conversations about race. Most of the time I deflect to the territory where I feel myself more confidently — literature or “the international angle” (aka Russia). Though obviously conversations about race are hugely important in literature, there’s no good reason to shirk them in other areas of my life. As a writer and a workshop leader, as an editor and a blogger, I have to own the white privileges that I have and educate myself about the ways of supporting and amplifying the voices of the Black writers in my community and participating in other aspects of anti-racist work. So grateful to Oluo, Ibram X. Kendi, and other Black and Brown writers for their instructive and powerful books.