Individual Change
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Avoiding ‘Whataboutism’ in Discussions of Race
by James Ross | June 2023
As we struggle today with a multiplicity of critical racial justice issues, we cannot afford to engage in whataboutism. Of course, we should be concerned about children’s access to education elsewhere. Yet, that is separate from the urgent reality that state legislatures throughout the United States are working to restrict what teachers can say and the educational outcomes they can seek – and even how students should “feel” – in courses in which race is an essential component of the discussion, such as history, civics, and literature. If we seek justice, we must focus.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Teachers] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Social Justice] [History] [Whataboutism]
James Forbes’ Ode to Juneteenth Calls on Americans to Embrace the Promise of Freedom
by Yonat Shimron | June 2021
(RNS) — The Rev. James A. Forbes Jr. was already an adult when he first began to understand the significance of Juneteenth. It was his wife, Bettye, whom he met in the early ’60s when they were both students at Howard University, who helped him gain an appreciation for the commemoration.
She had grown up in San Antonio, Texas, where each year on June 19, Blacks across the city celebrated their freedom with pageants, parades, performances and other public events in city parks.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Black Lives Matter] [History] [Civil War] [Policing] [Police Shootings] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [Social Justice] [Slavery]
White Hysteria, Critical Race Theory, and Eyes That Dare Not See
by David Gushee | June 2021
The hysteria over Critical Race Theory right now means many things.
Most immediately, it means that the relationship between skilled right-wing demagogues and their audience in the U.S. these days is positively Pavlovian. Stimulus-response, stimulus-response, rinse and repeat. If Tucker Carlson says over several nights on Fox News that Critical Race Theory is a huge threat to America, it won’t be long before crowds will be in the streets protesting, Republican legislators will be banning the heresy from being taught even in universities, and previously sleepy school board meetings will be broken up by hysterical white parents. … The deeper meaning of the manufactured Critical Race Theory furor is that there appears to be a massive audience in the U.S. for anything that triggers what is variously called “white rage,” “white fragility” and “white hysteria.” A significant portion of the U.S. white population simply cannot face the vicious history and ongoing reality of white racism in this country.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [History] [Systemic Racism] [White Fragility/Tears] [CRT] [Politics] [White Blindness] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [Prison System] [Policing]
One More Try At Explaining Racism To White People
by James Mulholland | June 2021
I understand the great frustration on the part of people of color with the lack of serious conversation in the United States about racism. When Mike Pence says systemic racism is a “leftist myth” and Republican legislatures are passing laws against teaching about structural racism, I can understand why people of color are tempted to violence. I’ve wanted to pound my keyboard during more than one recent conversation with another white person. I’ve begun to wonder whether such conversations are futile. If a white person is unable to see the evidence of racial prejudice and bias in our society, they are either unobservant or willfully ignorant. While I understand no problem can be solved that isn’t first acknowledged, I am discovering how many incentives there are for white people to pretend there isn’t a problem. When the game has been stacked in your favor so long and so well, there is little incentive to change the rules.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Fragility/Tears] [Implicit Bias] [Definitions] [White Culture] [White Defensiveness] [Policing] [Justice System] [Housing] [White Privilege] [Microaggressions] [-ing While Black]
White People’s Fear of Critical Race Theory is Based in Ignorance Separating Fact from Fiction
by Allison Gaines | May 2021
Our nation is in the process of exchanging color-blind ideology with anti-racism. White people will have to take a good, hard look in the mirror and into their family albums. Some are afraid of the skeletons they will find, and others are leery of the theory that will make them take a look in the first place. White people want to focus on selected parts of American history, lionizing their role. Many choose to ignore that the gap between Black and white homeownership is wider than it was 50 years ago. Or that Black families have one-tenth the wealth as white ones. Currently, Black people are 3.25 times more likely to die in police encounters.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [History] [Policing] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [White Defensiveness] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [Denial] [Racial Covenants] [Housing] [Health Disparities] [Economics] [Politics] [Social Justice] [Definitions] [Intersectionality] [Colorblindness] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [CRT] [Accountability] [Slavery]
Make Juneteenth Great Again: The Caucasians’ Guide to Celebrating Juneteenth
by Michael Harriot | June 2021
Now that Juneteenth is a federal holiday, we created a CRT-free educational curriculum to help colonizer Americans resist the urge to gentrify this celebration. Hold up, white people. Now that you have officially discovered Juneteenth,* you need to become familiar with the traditions, customs and history lest you succumb to the Caucasian colonization gene and gentrify this auspicious celebration. Before hopping on the Juneteenth bandwagon, you first need to realize that you have no say in driving the narrative about this special day. Left to your devices, Juneteenth might become a day when you parade around in African headwraps drinking Hennessy just like y’all celebrate Mexican Independence Day on May 5 by donning sombreros and taking shots of American tequila.** So, to protect the legacy of this special day, The Root created this handy-dandy guide to help you become familiar with existing in spaces you don’t own.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Tip’s-Dos/Don’ts] [History] [Slavery] [Definitions]
Understanding The Stages Of White Tears
by Hannah Drake628 | July 2021
In yet another episode of White Women Are Always Allowed To Be The Victim, I was scrolling on Twitter and discovered an incident between Abigail Elphick, a White woman that assaulted Ijeoma Ukenta, a Black woman, in a Victoria Secret at Short Hills Mall. Many online have dubbed Abigail “Victoria’s Secret Karen,” however, I won’t be referring to Abigail as Karen. While I have used the term in the past, I realize these women are becoming memes and the butt of jokes, and the harm they have caused historically and currently is secondary. However, women like Abigail are treacherous women. As stated in my blog, Karen Is You, “Just looking at Karen, she seems harmless. She is often very unassuming and is non-threatening in appearance. Still, women like Karen have not only supported racism but have instituted and upheld racism throughout history. While the Karen memes are sweeping across the internet and becoming a part of our lexicon, it is important to note women like Karen are dangerous women.” We have seen the impact on Black lives when a White woman cries wolf.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Fragility/Tears] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Social Justice]
Why Haven’t You Left Yet?
by Ally Henny | January 2021
Dear Black Christian in a predominantly white or “multiethnic” church,
I want to start by saying that I value you. I don’t look down on you because I grew up in the Black Church and currently attend a Black church. I’m not trying to be one of those “woker-than-thou” types who refuse to consider any nuance in a given situation. I admit that I probably don’t know you, your church, your particular circumstances, or the reasons you worship there. Your church might be a wonderful place full of caring people. The white members of your congregation might be “doing the work” of antiracism and making sure that your place of worship is both life-giving and safe for you. I hope that is the situation you’re in and that people aren’t merely paying lip service while catering to white fragility.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [White Fragility/Tears] [Systemic Racism]
“Put the Fangs Back in Feminism”: Author Rafia Zakaria on How Feminism Loses Relevance to Whiteness
by Kylie Cheung| August 2021
“If we want to salvage feminism, you have to remove white racial privilege,” says “Against White Feminism” author
y now you’ve seen the jokes about the “girlboss,” and her depoliticized, so-called “feminism” that can be achieved through climbing the corporate ladder or buying an expensive pair of shoes. You’ve seen the scathing takedowns of women politicians like Hillary Clinton for their parts in U.S.-perpetrated atrocities in the Middle East. And you’ve seen videos of white woman after white woman calling the cops on Black people in their communities, and the lethal power of white women’s tears when called out for racism. What does all of this have in common? According to Rafia Zakaria, an author, lawyer, domestic violence survivor and tireless voice for women of color-led feminism, in her new book “Against White Feminism” (W.W. Norton & Company, Aug. 17) all of this extends from white feminism. White feminism, Zakaria notes on the very first page of her book, isn’t defined by an individual’s race, but their refusal “to consider the role that whiteness and the racial privilege attached to it have played . . . in universalizing white feminist concerns, agendas and beliefs as being those of all feminists.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Fragility/Tears] [Systemic Racism] [White Blindness] [White Supremacy] [Collective Action] [Politics] [Social Justice] [Tips-Do’s/Don’ts] [Prison System] [Racial Terrorism] [Assumptions]
When White People Stonewall; If White People Really Care about Their Relationships with BIPOC, They Need to Learn to Discuss Racism in an Open and Honest Way
by Savannah Worley | September 2021
I had a short romantic relationship with a white guy. He was cute, funny, and he didn’t get insecure when I helped him beat certain bosses in video games. But when I opened up to him about my past experiences with racism, he responded in ways a lot of white men do.
“Well, I’m Irish! We suffered discrimination too!” “I experienced bullying in school because I wore glasses.” “Are you sure what you experienced was racism?” “I’m poor, so I can’t have privilege.”
I eventually sat him down and tried to educate him on white supremacy and white privilege (even though he could have done his own research). After I was done, all he said was, “Okay.” That was it. He didn’t engage in the discussion at all. I was left feeling unheard and ignored. Shortly after our discussion, he started to make jokes about slavery and started calling me his “sassy Black lady.” Among other reasons, I decided to dump him. His being cute and funny just wasn’t enough for me.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [“All Lives Matter”] [White Defensiveness] [White Privilege] [White Blindness] [White Fragility/Tears] [Microaggressions] [Implicit Bias] [White Supremacy] [Silencing POC]
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Dear White People
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Dear White People
Being Allies
Reparations
Spiritual Foundations
Public Displays
Performance Art
Workshops
Activist Resources
Assessment Tools
History
Appropriation / Aggression
White Privilege / Supremacy
Introduction
Definitions
Facts
Maps
Dear White People
Being Allies
Reparations
Spiritual Foundations
Public Displays
Performance Art
Workshops
Activist Resources
Assessment Tools
History
Appropriation / Aggression
White Privilege / Supremacy
Introduction
Definitions
Facts