Anti-racist work for White People

Why do I write this? Because I needed to read it years ago. Heck, I needed to start learning about this in kindergarten if not earlier. All the links I’m adding in this post is for you to read, some will be pointed at more than once to drive home that point. I don’t want to just reference them in passing, I’m trying to point at them for you to go look closer at.

[Feature image via Voices of a People’s History on Twitter]

Introduction

Mid-Covid-19 pandemic, I found myself thinking “now is not the time to write this anti-racist article”. As those thoughts danced around my consciousness I realized that they are part of the problem. “Now is not the time to talk about racism”. We always find excuses not to talk about racism, and to not be political. It’s always the time to talk about racism, and anti-racist work. If you didn’t yesterday, there’s no better time than today.
And now, as May ended and June began with the Black Lives Matter protests against Police Brutality, it’s even more important for us to talk about. Racism isn’t a new thing, and racism isn’t something only pervasive in America. The racism that killed George Floyd was built in Britain [UK resources]. It is so easy to deflect and point fingers at another country as being guilty of racism and anti-blackness, but never look yourself in the mirror. It’s about time to learn your history, especially from the perspective of silenced voices.

This blog post is partially inspired by conversations I see regularly on Mastodon/the fediverse, conversations about how white that space is, and how we as white people fail to do our part. While sitting with the feelings those words evoked in me, I always found myself making excuses, because of my own health and disabilities. I accepted it as truth, even when reading and agreeing with people criticizing white women for hiding behind their queerness and disabilities. So I had to check myself, and thought: what can I actually do?
I can talk with other white people about these things, to slowly help change how people behave and talk, and think. When I can’t talk with them in a physical space I can always write.

This article is not me trying to provide all the answers, but rather me gathering some of the resources that other people have already shared, so you in turn can find it and share it with other people. I want to highlight some of these issues, but also help other white people to start looking at their own actions, behaviors and habits, and give you some tips for how you can change and challenge yourself.

For me this is one way to try and be more anti-racist, as sharing this with you should help alleviate some of the work that we tend to put on Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). This post will become a collection of resources, both embedded in the text for you to come back to when you’re ready but also specifically listed towards the end. You can read it through once and then go back and look at the links, or head over to each link along the way, whichever feels more comfortable to you. Take the time to process, take notes on how you feel, how you react. Sit with it. Be silent. Just listen.

I will keep referencing my own experiences, because I want to show you that it is a process, and that you wont change or improve over night.

White Privilege – Where to start

First of all you need to see that you as a white person have privilege because of the colour of your skin. This can be hard to recognize, and even harder to accept.

It is so easy for us to say “but I don’t have privilege because x y z.” There are many ways, a lot of us aren’t privileged, but other ways we are. When you’re white, you do not have to deal with people being biased towards you because of the color of your skin, you can never get away from that.

If you as a woman can reflect on sexism, and see how patriarchy has molded you, then taking the next step to also see racism, colonialism and capitalism, isn’t too far off. This is exactly the leap which Peggy McIntosh made in their “White Privilege – Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”, and in turn their text was definitely an eye-opener for myself and many other people.

Do you have White Privilege?

1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.

2. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.

3. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.

4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.

5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.

6. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.

7. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.

8. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.

9. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods that fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.

10. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.

11. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.

12. I can swear, or dress in second-hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.

13. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

16. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world’s majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

17. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.

18. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to “the person in charge,” I will be facing a person of my race.

19. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.

20. I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.

21. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.

22. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of race.

23. I can choose public accommodations without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.

24. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.

25. If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones.

26. I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more less match my skin.

There’s more to the original text than just the above list, and this list isn’t perfect. It is however an opening portal. Whatever your opening portal is, be it the White Privilege text, be it a break-in like described in this update from a Awaken Café, it doesn’t matter, because you are reading this far because you want to start to see, you want to unlearn your racism.

Understanding Racism: Everyday, Structural and Intersectional

It is so easy for us to be ignorant of our everyday racism and microaggressions, especially when we do not see that racism is so much more than just “individual acts of meanness“. We are unable to see that it is systemic issues, which we perpetuate on a daily basis. The hard truth is that we, as white people, are always benefiting from white supremacy, every single day.

Structural, systemic and institutional racism is pervasive through our society, and if you aren’t looking for it you probably don’t see it. Unless you’ve been taught to see it from an early age, like pretty much all BIPOC who are raised by non-white parents (adopted or birth) have been. White people however, were probably only taught in school that slavery was a thing, but it’s over since over 100 years ago, and the American people had the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . And then you are taught to not be mean to people because they are different than you, and that’s probably it.

For example, in Swedish education we are not taught about the systemic oppression of our indigenous population, Sámi people. And you should ask yourself, what do you know about the indigenous population of your country, and the history of how your government has treated them? And the fights they are still having to have in order to be recognized?

Systemic racism is also upheld through capitalism. Capitalism relies on a lower class, an othering, in order for us to shift the work onto someone else. Since the birth of capitalism, with chattel slavery, up till now, our society relies on this. Our society has built its wealth off of the backs of BIPOC for generations.

“Racial capitalism, which is to say all capitalism, is not a thing, it’s a relation. However, if we look back through the history of capitalism as it developed, we see that the understanding that those who own the means of production had of their differences from those whose labor they exploited were understandings that we can recognize today as racial practice.”

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Geographies of Racial Capitalism

This brings us onto one of the things which makes it possible: othering is used to divide and dehumanise groups. It makes us think of others as less than ourselves. It makes it easier for you to accept that those people don’t deserve to be protected. It’s a way to distance yourself, they don’t have names or faces. You will view them as “those people” or refer to them, to their faces as “you people”.

We often actively do not want to see the connections between all of these things. We do not want to see how all injustices in our society are interconnected. We’ve all heard about the cobalt mines with child labour over the past few years, right? Yet we’ve still bought a new device which uses lithium batteries during that time. This makes us complicit. It makes me complicit and it makes you complicit.

Yes, I know, this is a lot. And there’s even more to untangle. I just want to help you grasp that we ignore some of these things as defense mechanisms, it’s too big to grasp all at once. For example if we’d try to only eat ethically sourced food we may have to spend most of our time focused on finding that food until it becomes a habit, until we know a lot of the good choices out there, same goes with clothes, electronics etc.

I would like to use intersectionality to help us understand the things we don’t see. It’s a word that gets thrown around a lot, but I do think that you can use intersectionality to help you use your understanding of one oppressive structure to begin to see another. If you for instance know and understand ableism, sexism, or transmisia, you may be able to use that to recognize that there are other things you don’t see yet:

You know that other people don’t see the things you do because it’s not their lived experience. You know how difficult it is to explain these things to them because it is just out of their realm of things they know and understand.

In a way it’s an unknown unknown, they don’t know that they don’t know it.

If you think you know and understand everything in the world, it pretty much means that you don’t.

Sit with that. Let it sink in.

It can be painful to accept, but once you do it will unlock so much room for growth and things you can learn in the years ahead.

Human beings are naturally curious, sometimes this curiosity can be used for good.

Allow it to do that for you, get curious again, and listen.

Sometimes listening means just being silent, and hearing what people are saying. Sometimes it means engaging with what they are saying, not necessarily with them, as a way to process the content. Sometimes it means to sit down and write something, like this.

Where do we go from here?

There’s a lot in this article, and you may not be ready to process everything yet. Take your time with it. I hope you came here because you already started to see the cracks in the facade of white supremacy, and wanted to start untangling it, without really knowing where to start.

Now that you’ve begun to see, to put it in the words of Ursual K. LeGuin in her Essay “A War without End”:

The shift from denial of injustice to recognition of injustice can’t be unmade.
What your eyes have seen they have seen. Once you see the injustice, you can never again in good faith deny the oppression and defend the oppressor. What was loyalty is now betrayal. From now on, if you don’t resist, you collude.

The Wave of the Mind—Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination

You now have the opportunity to begin resisting, together with millions of others across the world, and that is a beautiful thing.

Do not put the burden on BPOC

It is so important that white people put in the work on their own. We can’t continuously expect other people to check us and tell us when we’re doing something wrong, we have to learn to review our actions and introspect.

It is easy to say “just come to me and tell me when I’m being racist or anti-black”, but that is putting the onus on someone else to do the work, instead of yourself doing quiet introspection over time. It’s okay to look at yourself and say “I have been racist, I participate in the structural racism, as I’ve been socialized and indoctrinated to do. I have acted in ways harmful to others.” Accepting the wrong you’ve done is the first step to doing better, and less wrong. No, you can’t take it back, but you can start harm-reduction today.

Things you can start doing:

There’s a saying about if you can look back at yourself 10 years ago and cringe, it means you’ve grown. So allow yourself that, by admitting to the unsavory things that you’ve done in the past. Here are 10 things you can start doing today:

  1. Forgive yourself. Drop the act of guilt. Change what you do moving forward. Use your privilege for good, without trying to be a white savior. Accept that you’ve acted racist and anti-black. Learn to recognize it.
  2. Start by listening to at least one other voice that is Black, Indigenous or a Person of Color. If you use Twitter or Youtube, you can start by extending who you follow with few black voices in something that interests you. E.g. a few years ago I woke up one day realizing how white my entire twitter feed was. I slowly started to listen to more and more black voices online. We shared similar interests which allowed for an intersection. And since we had very different lived experiences I got a sneak peek into a different world. I began learning about cultures I didn’t know much about. I continued by following other voices that were associated with them, got boosted by them, and so on. And I was there to listen, and give support. When you do this I think it’s important to just listen for a long while. Read, fav, boost. Listen. If something makes you curious, see if you can google it, or ask a friend.
  3. Read, watch, and listen to more culture produced by Black, Indigenous and People of Color. In the long run you will learn a lot about how cultures can differ, even within the same country or state.
  4. Practice being silent. Any time you read something and you want to RESPOND. Don’t. Yes, this takes practice.
  5. Start with an Anti-racist work book. I’d personally recommend Me and White Supremacy and How to be an Antiracist. Or join Anti-Racism Training.
  6. Talk with your family and friends. Now this one can be difficult, because they may not be in the same place as you. There’s a few things you want to keep in mind, but start with gauging where they are in their understanding of Racial issues (this threads give a great explanation and examples). But also, try to start from common ground, like how you used to be where they are. And talk in private, so it’s easier for them to allow themselves to be wrong. Allow yourself to be vulnerable.
  7. Understand that words have meaning. How you talk about people, places and things; and how you talk with people matters. Racism is embedded in the English Language, exotification is the norm. And you really need to stop using racial slurs.
  8. Do not use the N-word. Do not quote it. Do not sing it in lyrics.
  9. If you have money, donate to a fund that hasn’t reached it’s goal yet, I’d recommend starting from the bottom of any list you find. There are a lot of underfunded crowdfunds, bail funds, and 115 other ways you can help by donating.
  10. And lastly, be willing to learn, and expand your horizons by learning about how vast the world truly is.
  11. Learn how to apologize.

The journey continues

Made it all the way to the end? It doesn’t actually end here. Being an anti-racist is defined by your ongoing work, not that you declare “I’m not racist”, because being not racist isn’t enough if you do not start seeing the issues you are perpetuating.

Growth is painful, and you will feel a lot of weird emotional stuff through your journey. Even writing this whole thing has been a painful work for me, with a lot of anxiety for various reasons, but we have to push through. We have to keep doing the work to change the world for the better.

Just keep in mind that you’re not alone, and I’ve been where you are. The things that look like a lot of work right now will become habits and internalized soon enough, and then you’ll start being able to see when others are doing the things you used to do, and you can help them start their journey to becoming an anti-racist.

There is a lot more to talk about, and if you’re noticing something that’s missing, you can join the conversation with your own article, or blog post, extending upon what we’ve talked about here. Let us continue this conversation together.

Additional materials and resources

Video Material

13TH has been on Netflix since 2016, and I keep recommending it to everyone who start to open up their eyes to racial inequality. Now it’s also available to watch for free on YouTube, in full (embedded below). On Netflix there’s also an interview with Ava DuVerney (director and producer of 13th) by Oprah Winfrey.

The Colour of Fear. Documentary.

Poem. Maya Angelou, Still I Rise and We Wear A Mask.

Angela Davis, says and writes so many thoughtful things, and have for such a long time. Hear her talk about intersectional Feminism, see the intersections between injustices.

James Baldwin’s Pin Drop Speech, and response at an interview.

Blue eyes–Brown eyes exercise, Jane Elliott teaching people about racism: A Class Divided (full film), a more recent documentary on her exercise with two different groups of people, and recent interview.

Reading Material

Article about police defunding the police: “We Don’t Have Time to Wait”: Minneapolis Anti-Police Brutality Organizer Kandace Montgomery on Defunding the Police.

Read Audre Lorde’s, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. If you already have at some point in your life, read it again. Then come back to it once in a while.

Free Ebooks by revolutionary BIPOC. With subjects such as racial politics, black and Marxist feminism, prison abolition, racial capitalism, critical race studies, indigenous studies, revolution, and more.

Body and Soul—The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination, by Alondra Nelson, available to read for free online.

Activism: White anti-racist activist can burn out activists of colour, as a Twitter-thread, and scientific article.

Covid-19

Links with quotes, about Covid-19 and Racism.

Facing a slew of media requests asking about how protests might be a risk for COVID-19 transmission, a group of infectious disease experts at the University of Washington, with input from other colleagues, drafted a collective response. In an open letter published Sunday, they write that “protests against systemic racism, which fosters the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 on Black communities and also perpetuates police violence, must be supported.”

In Slate “Public Health Experts Say the Pandemic Is Exactly Why Protests Must Continue

Racism in Medicine, “Is Covid-19 Racist Too?

Audio Materials

Audiobook of Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning – The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (Unabridged) for free on Spotify.

Podcast: Behind the Bastards, The Bastards Who Killed The Black Panthers Part 1 and Part 2.

Podcast: Hella Black, Abolishing the Prison Industrial Complex. Feat Mariame Kaba.

Podcast: Beyond Prison

Misc

TEDtalk (video) “How to deconstruct racism, one headlines at the time”, combined with their resources at LivingWhileBlack.

PBS’ list of resources to learn about Institutional Racism.


The body of this article will not receive any major updates, however the resources may get links added or removed to it.
I will update with future articles, connecting with this.

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