For white people, learning about race can be uncomfortable.
We might discover something about ourselves that we wish weren’t true. we might realize we’ve made assumptions about other people. we might find ourselves struggling to articulate something we feel strongly about, worried that the wrong words will undermine what we’re trying to say.
And if you’ve spent time in conversations where white people seem to be competing to demonstrate how much they know, you might decide it’s safer to stay quiet. Several participants in Project 2045’s Skill-building cohort described a different experience.
At the group’s final gathering, they reflected on what had made the cohort meaningful. Again and again, they returned to the environment they had created together: a place where they could be honest about what they didn’t know, talk through difficult experiences, and learn without feeling that every misstep would be held against them.
One participant described the experience as refreshing. Instead of worrying about whether everyone was using the right terminology or referencing the right theory, the group could focus on more basic questions: Where do we start? How do we learn? What do we do when a real conversation doesn’t go as planned?
Another participant remembered how the group responded to difficult stories, including one involving his grandfather. He had pushed the memory away, he said, and never really dealt with it. In the cohort, he found that people could discuss painful material with grace and compassion rather than making shame and guilt the center of the conversation.
For him, that made a difference.
A different kind of learning environment
One participant had taken part in a work training several years earlier. The topic was largely the race and culture, but the experience was significantly different. In the Project 2045 cohort, he found a vulnerable learning environment where he could contribute without feeling that someone was waiting to attack him for getting something wrong. He described the psychological safety of the group as something that fundamentally changed how much he could learn and contribute.
These reflections point to an important distinction. A group can take a subject seriously without requiring its members to pretend they already know how to navigate it.
Participants can be challenged. They can recognize their own blind spots. They can talk about experiences that are difficult to revisit. And they can acknowledge that they still have a great deal to learn.
The question is whether those moments become opportunities for learning or reasons to retreat.
Making room for the messy middle
One of the cohort’s most memorable conversations involved a real-life case study. Participants worked through the uncertainty of difficult situations: wanting to speak up but not knowing what to say, wishing they had responded differently, or trying to discern what was appropriate when the risks were complicated.
There weren’t always easy answers.
A participant described the value of being able to talk honestly about those moments without someone immediately declaring what the person should have done. The conversation made room for nuance, vulnerability, and the possibility of doing better next time.
That kind of learning requires honesty. It also requires people to stay engaged when they recognize something uncomfortable about themselves.
Removing shame from the center of the conversation doesn’t mean removing accountability. It means creating enough room to examine what happened, understand it more clearly, and consider what a different response might look like.
The goal isn’t to make everyone feel good about where they are. It’s to help people keep learning about where they are and what they might do differently.
Learning together changes what’s possible
Project 2045 exists to equip white Americans to engage the demographic changes reshaping the United States with integrity, courage, and responsibility.
That work involves learning about race, privilege, and the ways racism shapes our society. But information alone doesn’t necessarily prepare us to put that learning into practice.
We also need opportunities to talk through what we’re discovering, to hear how other people are wrestling with similar questions, and to practice navigating situations where the right response isn’t immediately obvious.
The cohort offered participants that opportunity. Their reflections suggest that the experience of learning together mattered as much as the material they studied.
They left with new questions, a clearer sense of what they still needed to learn, and a greater willingness to keep engaging.
They didn’t all leave feeling completely confident. They didn’t claim to have mastered difficult conversations. What they described was something more useful than certainty: an environment where they could be honest about where they were and keep moving forward.
Perhaps that is one of the things we most need in this work.
Not a place where we never get anything wrong, but a place where we can tell the truth about what we’ve gotten wrong, listen to one another, and learn to do better.
Because the work doesn’t end when the cohort ends. It continues in conversations with friends, family members, and coworkers, and in the choices we make when we encounter something difficult.
The point isn’t simply to become more comfortable talking about race.
It’s to become more capable of engaging with it, even when we’re uncomfortable.
And sometimes, that begins with a group of people willing to learn together.