Does the date Aug. 20, 1619, mean anything to you? It’s the day the first African slaves were traded into North America.

Daniel Pantaleo avoided civil rights charges last month in the death of an unarmed African American man, but on Monday he lost his job as a police officer. New York City Police Commissioner James O’Neill fired Pantaleo, who is white, for his role in the death of Eric Garner in 2014. O’Neill said he based his decision on a recent recommendation of an NYPD disciplinary judge.

A while ago, while working on a story about the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States, I met up with Rabbi Noah Farkas at Valley Beth Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles. There in his office, Farkas told me a story that I cannot ever forget.  

WASHINGTON—The U.S. State Department has suspended an employee accused of secretly serving as a prominent member of the white nationalist movement.

Tom Tarrants first questioned his extremist ideology while serving a 35-year sentence in prison for attempting to bomb a Jewish businessman’s residence. Previously, Tarrants had avoided any literature that didn’t support his white supremacist views. But with nothing to do in his tiny cell except think and read, he began devouring books about philosophy, history, and ethics. For the first time, Tarrants was forced to reexamine his beliefs—and he realized then how much he had been a slave to his ideology.

In 2013 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied an Oregon punk rock band’s request to trademark its name, “The Slants,” on grounds it disparaged Asian Americans. The band, led by California native Simon Tam, appealed: He says its goal was to reclaim the term from racial slurs and “inject it with pride.” In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the trademark denial violated the First Amendment and granted the band’s request. Since then, Tam has written a memoir and started a foundation to help Asian American artists.

Not long ago, I sat between two church friends in their 30s and listened to a heated debate about race. One friend is a black woman, the other is white.

Let’s call the first woman Esther, and the second Mary. They’re close friends and sisters in Christ who have walked through life’s hardships and joys together, but this was the first time they’d ever had such an intense discussion regarding race. I watched the whole interaction as a third party. This is what I observed.