As a cis white man, I stumble across phrases sometimes that stop me in my tracks. Recently, while scrolling TikTok, I heard someone call themselves a “non-practicing white.”
I had never encountered the term before, so I did what I always do—dug around for context. From what I can tell, it doesn’t have roots in the civil rights era or any long-standing historical use. It seems to be a fresh coinage, born online.
And yet, it has stuck with me.
The more I sat with it, the more I realized this little phrase holds a mirror to both American history and my own identity. To say non-practicing white is to admit that the greatest problems facing our world—structural injustice, systemic inequality, climate collapse, the hollowing of our social fabric—have been authored and perpetuated by white people in power. The story of the United States is, in large part, the story of whiteness building systems that served us and left everyone else with the bill.
So when I say I’m a non-practicing white, I don’t mean I can scrub off the identity. I don’t mean I get to claim a badge for being “one of the good ones.” I mean I refuse to practice the habits that have caused harm: silence in the face of injustice, complicity when institutions crush the marginalized, comfort over truth.
Being a non-practicing white means using the power I didn’t earn—my voice, my safety, my access—not to fortify the walls but to chip at them. It means speaking to institutions that still listen to someone like me, not pretending I don’t carry privilege. It means teaching my child the truth about race in this country: that the myth of innocence and neutrality is just another disguise for domination.
And here’s the thing about whiteness: history keeps holding up mirrors. Often we don’t like what we see in them. But the answer isn’t to smash the glass or pretend the reflection is flattering. The answer is to adjust ourselves until what shines back is something we can live with—and something future generations might even thank us for.
Because if we can have non-practicing Catholics, non-practicing Jews, even non-practicing vegetarians, then surely we can also have non-practicing whites. After all, whiteness in America has always been less about biology than about practice. And practices, unlike skin, can change.