Today I received a gift. And it was an extravagant, unmerited, painful, beautiful thing.

At work we had a Lunch & Learn for African American History Month. I found myself seated at a table right in the middle of the room with three of my colleagues. You’ve all been to an event like this. They gave each table a topic to discuss and we were supposed to share our insights.

Our topic was the Civil Rights Movement. As the discussion time came to an end I magnanimously, humbly, handed the sheet to my colleague across the table – encouraging them to report out since it wasn’t my place as a white girl.

Ah, if only this was how it really went.

But the truth is I, without thinking twice…

Wait. Rewind. I actually did think. I intentionally thought I was being anti-racist and self-aware by singling out the one black colleague at my table and “suggesting” they share.

And do you know what she did? She gently, deliberately, quietly, boldly said,

And you just made me a token.

Ah…and there it is. Her words, the truth that she generously named for me, landed squarely on my own heart. She doesn’t know me. She had no obligation to risk calling me out. And yet…

She gave me a gift.

I, who have spent the last few years deliberately examining my privilege, wrestling with what it means to lend my privilege to those who don’t have it, found myself mired in the racist worldview that persistently holds my privilege, holds my whiteness, yet again. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t in private. I was embarrassed by myself. And all I could say was,

You are right. That is exactly what I did. I’m sorry. Thank you for calling me out.

I am reminded of a passage in Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis about Eustace. He is a boy who is turned into a dragon as a result of his selfishness and his greed. He described his undragoning this way.

Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke - 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws. I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-o but it is such fun to see it coming away...Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass...And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been.

I can’t extricate myself from the privilege that my skin clothes me with on my own. And I am not so naive, most days, as to think that today will be the last time that my unexamined power, privilege and advantage will make me reckless and allow racism to thrive. Who I listen to, who I read, who I spend time with, the battles I choose to fight all need to change.

But tonight, tonight, I am grateful and humbled by the gift of an almost stranger who was willing to speak brave, unambiguous truth to my dragon-like heart.