Scott Ratliff is a professional lacrosse player for Archers LC of the Premier Lacrosse League. The Atlanta native took to Twitter Friday to publish his thoughts on the current conversation surrounding racism in America. That thread is republished here, with his permission.

Ratliff also expanded on his thoughts, taking the time to answer a few questions while going deeper into how people can truly make a difference during a time he considers a potential turning point in American history.

Below, we’ve transcribed Ratliff’s Twitter thread as it was originally published. It’s linked here.

I have been inspired by friends, peers, and strangers speaking up and sharing their stories. People like @Julesheningburg @canadatj @trevorbaptiste9 and more. I believe we need more white voices to speak up and share our stories to continue to push the conversation forward.

My first memorable introduction to racism in American came in 7^th grade as a member of an all black basketball team. We were told to leave a community pool during the YBOA national tournament in Tampa Florida because of the color of my teammates skin.

One of my teammates older sisters who was chaperoning us at the time, became upset and argued with the white couple who was demanding that we leave. As she grew angry and raised her voice, they quickly the call the police.

I remember when the police arrived I was very confused as to why they were questioning my teammates sister, and why we did indeed end up leaving the pool. The cops continued to question her about her response.

Then my parents showed up and spoke to the police. Their body language changed, their tone changed and they left us alone shortly after having a conversation with my parents. I was young, but I very much understood what had just happened, as did my teammates.

I have spent the last 5 years of my adult life studying and teaching leadership development. I have learned that habits, emotions, thoughts and behaviors can all be trained, and untrained.

Through desire, awareness, repetition and perspective we can create new patterns of thinking & become kinder, more resilient, & positive. As the BLM movement sweeps the globe, awareness is being raised 4 those who have the desire & willingness to listen and empathize.

We can’t stop there. Simply noticing racism will not change it. Conscious practice, repetition, and understanding of a better way to think, will. Don’t stop at one uncomfortable conversation, commit to a lifestyle of them.

Find the courage to speak up, to reflect on what we have seen and experienced and where we could have done better. Commit to the practice of changing, growing and improving for the better.

I see and condemn racism and the systematic oppression of black people. Black Lives Matter. (End)

CAN YOU ELABORATE ON HOW THAT INCIDENT SHAPED YOU MOVING FORWARD?

When I reflect on it, the first thing that I’m really grateful for is my parents, who made the decision to give me that opportunity and that experience. I was playing on a basketball team in my community, you know, we had one black kid on the team, and a coach approached me after a tournament and said, ‘Hey, we have a team that’s participating in a tournament, and we’d love for Scott to be a part of it.’ We went and watched the team, and it was kids from a different socioeconomic background. Everyone else besides me was black.

My mom and dad were really quick to just jump on it, dive in fully. It gave me so much perspective that I wouldn’t have had had I not had that experience. I think one of the beautiful things of growing up in Atlanta is there is a lot of opportunity here to be in situations where you’re the minority. I think that’s been a really important part of my development as a person.

I’m really grateful that I had that experience at that age in my life, when I was able to be in a situation different than a lot of my classmates and friends had ever been in. Prior to that point, my education on racism was, ‘America used to be racist. Racism is bad. Don’t do it.’ That’s all I knew. To go through that and see it with my own two eyes, obviously I was young and didn’t have a full scope or understanding, but I was old enough to really be aware of what was happening. I remember being so surprised and confused by the behavior of this racist couple.

The part that has always stood out in my memory was the response of the police. My friend’s older sister rightfully got angry and was shouting at the woman who was saying this stuff, but she didn’t get violent. It wasn’t close to a physical altercation. It was verbal, and they couldn’t be quicker to call the police.

When they got there, so much of the attention went to my teammate’s sister. The cops went straight to her. They didn’t go to her with a posture of, ‘Explain to use what happened.’ They came to her with the posture of, ‘You need to calm down. You guys need to leave. Did you assault these people?’

Now they’re talking to Coach George. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I could see how uncomfortable he was. The part that I mentioned in my story that has really made a lasting impact for me was when my parents showed up.

From that point on, I was never going to believe that racism didn’t exist. Put simply, that was the No. 1 takeaway.

HOW CAN PEOPLE HAVE CONVERSATIONS WITH LOVED ONES WHO AREN’T EMPATHETIC?

It’s challenging, and if I had a perfect approach to that, I would certainly share it, but I think all of that is unique to your family, to your point of view, to where you’re at in your understanding and relationship with racism.

What I will say is that the first step is to have the courage to have the conversation. Something that’s struck me this week, I do see a lot of white people expressing, ‘I’m unsure of what to say or how to speak out. I’m supporting the cause in my own way.’ I certainly can support and appreciate that, and I recognize that not everyone is going to speak publicly about it on social media platforms and things like that, but I also feel like there’s a little bit of a cop out in there because it’s not that you have to know what to say or how to say it or things like that, it’s just the simple fact that you have to have the courage to be willing to act or to say that you don’t know.

I’ve learned how to approach this topic through leaning into my close friends, my friends who I’m comfortable with to be really vulnerable and to ask and share and learn. Doing that over the course of time has helped me to find the courage to share my point of view publicly on it. Beyond that, it gives me the confidence and the courage to have those conversations with my white family members.

WHY IS THIS INSTANCE OF RACIAL INJUSTICE DIFFERENT THAN OTHERS?

I remember after Ferguson and after Michael Brown, that was kind of the first major nationwide response to one of these instances that I can remember experiencing. What I think has felt different about this one is, I think leaders in the black community have done an incredible job of calling on white people to get more involved and to do more than just say, ‘I’m your friend and I’m not racist.’ If that’s true, put your money where your mouth is.

That call from them has been heard more, from my perspective, than in the past. And I speak to this on my Twitter, but awareness of this is at an all-time high. I don’t know if there’s ever been a time in my life where a pure awareness of racism and bias in our country, and specifically, police brutality towards black people, has been higher.

Awareness is part of the solution, but it’s definitely not the solution. Way more white people are having conversations that they haven’t had in the past that they’ve needed to have, and I think that’s awesome, and as others have expressed, that makes me really hopeful, but I’m careful to feel, I guess I’d use the word satisfied. The bias is so deeply ingrained, it takes more than one week or one incident. It takes a commitment to practice. It’s going to take sustained work to really push us forward.

It has to be a stepping stone. It’s not the top of the hill. Frankly, it’s the first step of the hill.

ARE YOU PROUD OF HOW THE LACROSSE WORLD HAS SPOKEN OUT?

I think there’s more that can be done. More than anything else, I’m proud to be part of the lacrosse community. I’m really proud of the lacrosse community, proud of, as I’ve mentioned, so many of my teammates and peers who have spoken out, but I’m far from satisfied with it. I think, specifically, there’s more white players and coaches and people involved in our sport that need to speak about it.

More than that, we need to educate young people. The amount of people in lacrosse and pro lacrosse that coach and work with young people in privileged communities, there’s a massive opportunity there. It’s one thing to post on social media and be vocal. I think that’s huge and that’s important. But we need a sustained commitment to teaching young people how to have these conversations and work through these things. If we don’t do that ourselves, we won’t be able to teach it to others.

I’m really proud of the response that has been out there, but I would certainly call on a greater one, and I would just call on more white people to become a little more vulnerable, to share an experience where you’ve seen it. Don’t just educate everyone else, but take a hard look at our own lives and where we have fallen short and where we need to make a change. If we can change ourselves, then we’re empowered with the ability to help teach and change other people.

I haven’t had a single black teammate at any level that hasn’t gone through racism in the sport of lacrosse. We can’t shy away from that. We can’t hide behind that. We have to address it.

HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED RACISM ON THE FIELD?

On the field, in the locker room, in the culture in general. Nothing to the blatant outward extent of the story I shared on Twitter, but I’ll say this: Implicit bias is rampant. I see it when I coach. I’ve experienced it with teammates.

Again, I don’t think I’ve gone through a single season that I couldn’t think of at least one incident where I’ve witnessed a black teammate deal with some sort of bias that, frankly, a lot of us don’t even notice half the day because we didn’t have that raised awareness level to it.

I’ve seen it, I’ve experienced it. There’s never been a stop on the road where I haven’t seen it. There’s a lot of really, really great people and leaders in our sport. This is certainly not to condemn the lacrosse community, but we have to own the issue that it’s been and we have to acknowledge it and we have to talk about it more.

HOW DOES THE PREMIER LACROSSE LEAGUE EDUCATE ABOUT INCLUSION?

They made us all take the US Lacrosse [Cultural Competency] course, which I thought was excellent. I thought it was really educational, and every player in the PLL was required to take that before we were allowed to participate in camp, and I thought that was huge.

I’ve never experienced that at any level of lacrosse, that sort of requirement. It makes Paul and Mike [Rabil] easy to follow. I’ve talked about the lacrosse community, it needs to be more than Kyle Harrison and Jovan Miller speaking up about it. We have leaders that have been bringing this to light for a long time, but it’s time for other voices to amplify the message.

I would encourage more white players to follow their lead and speak up and become a more active part of the solution. Don’t let the fear of not knowing what to say or how to handle it discourage you from speaking about it. Dive in and learn. Get uncomfortable. That’s how you grow.