One of the questions I am asked most often is, “Michelle, why do you do this work?” People ask it with genuine curiosity. Sometimes they wonder what could motivate a white woman to spend nearly two decades facilitating conversations about race and writing a book called, "Liabilities of Whiteness."

Us simple folks have a deep-gut feeling that the lives of the rich and famous are not just out of reach, but that they have something, something profound and inaccessible that’s completely different from us. It’s a weird feeling that we could never truly mix with that world even if our skin color, wardrobe, and way of speaking didn’t set us apart.