Resource Links Tagged with "Assumptions"

Why Reverse Racism is a Myth

by Noshin Jannat | September 2019
In today’s society, the term ‘racism’ has been for the most part, incorrectly used. The term is not interchangeable or synonymous with ‘prejudice’. Prejudice describes having irrational and unreasonable feelings or attitudes towards a group of people. Racism occurs when people act on their prejudice — it is action, not just internal feelings. To go further, racism is a system that disadvantages groups based on race. Therefore, people of colour simply cannot be racist as they cannot benefit from it.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Myths] [“Reverse Racism”] [Systemic Racism] [White Privilege]

Speak Out! Dangerous White Woman

by Pegi Eyers | September 2016
There are no shortage of tools for the highly-relevant learning curve that Allen Johnson calls “racial reconciliation and cultural competency.”1 And whether we are approaching anti-racist activism as a new direction or have been working as a change agent for years, it is extremely useful to look at the model of “The 8 White Identities” by Barnor Hesse… White Suremacist, White Voyerism, White Privilege, White Benefit, White Confessional, White Critical, White Traitor, & White Abolitionist.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Definitions] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [Individual Change] [Collective Action]

When White People Are Uncomfortable, Black People Are Silenced

by Rachel Elizabeth Cargle | January 2019
In 1962, Fannie Lou Hamer was fired from her job after she campaigned to encourage African Americans to vote. Two years later, when Hamer testified at the DNC in support of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party—specifically its efforts to further black voter registration —President Lyndon B Johnson called an impromptu news conference to make it impossible for national television networks to cover her testimony live. TAGS: [Assumptions] [White Culture] [Silencing POC] [History] [2010’s]

Detroit Man is Suing Three White Women Who Called the Police on Him for ‘Gardening While Black’

by Blacknews.com | March 2019
“Marc Peeples, a 33-year old Black man from Detroit, is filing a lawsuit against three white women who repeatedly reported him to police just to get rid of him in a public park. In the case described as ‘gardening while black,’ the women falsely accused him of being a pedophile and even threatening to kill them.” TAGS: [Assumptions] [Calling Police] [-ing While Black] [2010’s]

White People Are Still Raised to Be Racially Illiterate. If We Don’t Recognize the System, Our Inaction Will Uphold It

by Robin DiAngelo | September 2018
“ ‘If I am a nice person with good intentions I am free of all racial bias and cannot participate in racism.’: Within this limited paradigm, to simply suggest that as a white person, my race has meaning and grants unearned advantage, much less to suggest that I have absorbed racist messages which may cause me to behave in racist ways — consciously or not — will be deeply disconcerting.”
TAGS: [Assumptions] [Implicit Bias] [White Fragility/Tears] [2010’s]

When Black Conductors Aren’t Comfortable at Concerts, Classical Music Has a Real Problem: There’s a Reason So Few Black People Go to the Symphony

by Brandon Keith Brown (a black conductor) | February 2020
“Stepping out into society as a Black person is going to a party where you know you’re not wanted. Whether at work, school, orchestra concerts or the opera, we’re unwelcome, my darkness breaches its whiteness.” TAGS: [Assumptions] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [2020’s] [White Culture]

Don’t Talk about Implicit Bias without Talking about Structural Racism

by Kathleen Osta and Hugh Vasquez, National Equity Project | June 2019
“Most work on implicit bias focuses on increasing awareness of individuals in service of changing how they view and treat others. This is important, but insufficient to advancing greater equity of opportunity, experience, and outcomes in our institutions and communities.”
TAGS: [Assumptions] [Implicit Bias] [2010’s]

Why So Many Organizations Stay White

by Victor Ray | November 2019
“In the United States, white organizations are a kind of social structure combining ideas about race (for instance, who should manage and who should work) with organizational resources. The forming of this structure goes all the way back to the central role slavery played in the formation of the country.”
TAGS: [Assumptions] [White Privilege] [Employment]

This Is What Racism Sounds Like in the Banking Industry: A JPMorgan employee and a Customer Secretly Recorded Their Conversations with Bank Employees

by Emily Flitter | December 2019
“Jimmy Kennedy earned $13 million during his nine-year career as a player in the National Football League. He was the kind of person most banks would be happy to have as a client…. But when Mr. Kennedy tried to become a “private client” at JPMorgan Chase, an elite designation that would earn him travel discounts, exclusive event invitations and better deals on loans, he kept getting the runaround.” TAGS: [Systemic Racism] [2010’s] [White Culture] [Assumptions]

How the GI Bill’s Promise Was Denied to a Million Black WWII Veterans  the Sweeping Bill Promised Prosperity to Veterans. So Why Didn’t Black Americans Benefit?

by Erin Blakemore | June 2019, updated September 2019
But when he spoke with a salesman about buying the house using a GI Bill-guaranteed mortgage, the door to suburban life in Levittown slammed firmly in his face. The suburb wasn’t open to black residents.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [Systemic Racism] [History] [2010’s] [White Culture]

Racist Language Is Still Woven into Home Deeds across America. Erasing It Isn’t Easy, and Some Don’t Want to

by Nick Watt and Jack Hannah, CNN | February 2020
“Buried deep in the small print of deeds to a home that sold recently in this ritzy city lurks this stunning caveat: ‘Said premises shall not be rented, leased, or conveyed to, or occupied by, any person other than of the white or Caucasian race.’ … And though now illegal, language like it still exists in the deeds to homes all across the United States.”
TAGS: [Assumptions] [Denial] [White Privilege] [Housing] [Racial Covenants] [2020’s]

Why Do People Believe Myths about the Confederacy? Because Our Textbooks and Monuments Are Wrong

by James W. Loewen | July 2015
“As soon as the Confederates laid down their arms, some picked up their pens and began to distort what they had done and why. The resulting mythology took hold of the nation a generation later and persists—which is why a presidential candidate can suggest, as Michele Bachmann did in 2011, that slavery was somehow pro-family and why the public, per the Pew Research Center, believes that the war was fought mainly over states’ rights.”
TAGS: [Assumptions] [History] [Confederate Monuments] [White Supremacy] [Civil War] [Slavery] [2010’s] [Myths]

How “Good” White People Silence People of Color Every Day

by Donyae Coles | February 2018
“Good” white people uphold and support white supremacy because they are unwilling to see their own roles within systemic racism. But never assume your initial reaction is the correct one, especially when faced with brand new information. Your bias plays a part in how you see things and must be actively overcome. Don’t do white supremacy any favors because something hurt your feelings.
TAGS: [Silencing POC] [Assumptions] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [Implicit Racism]

Confronting White Supremacy in the Work Place

by Caroline Taiwo | Date 2010’s
Two years ago, I started work as a recruitment and retention specialist for a small Minnesota nonprofit. The organization’s mission was to serve youth in crisis and their matriculation rate was 90 percent poor Black kids. I was hired on to replace a woman they fired a month prior, a Black woman, for reasons unresolved. She had been telling people that she was pushed out for challenging racist policy. Our department had tripled the number of volunteers coming in for weekly shift rotations but incredibly, the entire pool was white. When I brought it up, and offered to lead an effort to all in more volunteers of color, the more outspoken of the bosses interjected with, “Well we could look for more Black volunteers but I don’t think they would pass our background check.”
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [Silencing POC] [Accountability] [Employment] [Denial] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [Economics] [White Privilege] [White Defensiveness] [White Culture] [Assumptions] [Myths]

Mapping Police Violence

Black people were 24% of those killed despite being only 13% of the population.
There were only 27 days in 2019 where police did not kill someone.

Black people are most likely to be killed by police
3x more likely to be killed by police than white people.
1.3x more likely to be unarmed compared to white people.
It’s not about crime

White People: Which Side Are You On?

by Karen Fleshman | June 2017
White People: Which Side Are You On?
I realized just recently that my original stomping ground was a “sundown town,” a place where people of color could not rent nor own a home, much less stay in a hotel. Sundown towns were as American as apple pie, omnipresent in this country until the 1960s, when federal law made their ordinances and practices illegal.
The law changed. Residential patterns, and mindsets, did not. De Facto. Instead, the problem — the phenomenon — shifted, took on a different shape to accommodate present conditions.
TAGS: [History] [Collective Action] [Assumptions] [2010’s] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism]

28 Common Racist Attitudes and Behaviors

by Joan Olsson | Date Unknown
Below is a list of 28 common racist attitudes and behaviors that indicate a detour or wrong turn into white guilt, denial or defensiveness. Each is followed by a statement that is a reality check and consequence for harboring such attitudes.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Colorblindness] [“Reverse Racism”] [White Privilege] [White Fragility/Tears] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts]

11 Common Ways White Folks Avoid Taking Responsibility for Racism in the US

by Robin DiAngelo | August 2015
I am white. I write and teach about what it means to be white in a society that proclaims race meaningless, yet remains deeply divided by race. A fundamental, but very challenging part of my work is moving white people from an individual understanding of racism — i.e. only some people are racist and those people are bad — to a structural understanding.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [White Fragility/Tears] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Accountability]

The Day I Discovered I Was A Racist

by Eloise Farthwargle | July 2016
I can only remember feeling loved by my nanny, Thelma. At 3 years of age you don’t question the sociopolitical implications of a black woman leaving her own child alone and crossing town by bus in order to come to your home and nurture you. My mother, however, did. When she left my father, that same year, and went to live with my nana – she took Thelma too. Thelma brought Gregory to work with her at my Nana’s house.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [Individual Change] [Accountability] [Colorblindness]

How I Explained Microaggressions to My Non-Black Partner With 4 Simple Truths

by Danni Roseman | July 2016
I’m a black American from the South Side of Chicago, and as traveled as I am, I will always view the world through this cultural lens to some extent. On the other hand, my partner is not black, nor is he American. And, naturally, he lacks the context and certain vocabulary to talk about issues that affect me and other minorities on a daily basis.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Implicit Bias] [Individual Change] [Microaggressions]

White People: Stop Microvalidating Each Other

by Stephanie Jo Kent | July 2016
Most American whites are unaware of white supremacy in everyday life because the system invented by the founding fathers is effective at hiding the ways white privilege works. This means most white people are raised unconscious of the role whiteness plays in overall society. Waking up to this reality is typically painful, which is what leads to the observable patterns of white fragility.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [White Fragility/Tears] [Collective Action] [Individual Change] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Systemic Racism] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [Implicit Racism]

Are All White People Racist? (No. Well, kind of. Let us explain.) PODCAST

by Brandy Liebscher and Danielle Beck | January 2017
In order to try and answer that question you need to understand the difference between prejudice and racism, know what systemic racism is, and be aware of implicit racial bias. All of which, Drs. Brandy Liebscher and Danielle Beck talk about in episode 7.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [“Reverse Racism”]

Why ‘I Have Black Friends’ Is a Terrible Excuse for Your Racism

by Shae Collins | March 2017
If you’ve ever used your black friends to try and pardon your racism, you need to understand these three reasons why “I have black friends” is not a legitimate argument. For all we know, your black friend could be like Steve Harvey, Ben Carson, or Kanye West, who overlook Trump’s racism. Your black friend may allow you to be racist. There are many reasons a black friend would do this. Saying “I have black friends” is kind of like a misogynist saying, “I don’t hate women. My mom is a woman, and I love her.” This isn’t a logical argument.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [White Blindness] [White Privilege] [Individual Change] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [White Defensiveness] [Accountability]

Three Things White People’s Love for “Get Out” Says About the White (Sub)Conscious

by Jamie Utt | April 2017
White people tend not to be supportive of anything that challenges Whiteness unless we have a clear interest in doing so. So what is our interest in the film? Well, I see the film as serving three of the functions that are necessary to the continued functioning of the modern White racial (sub)conscious: a signal that we are, in fact, the “good’ White people, an opportunity to enjoy and consume Black suffering and death (while also lauding a Black hero), and an opportunity to emotionally distance ourselves from the truths of the brutality of Whiteness.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege]

To The Racist Guy Who Picked Up My Pencil During Class

by Valeria Alvarado | March 2017
We are friends on Facebook. I have seen all your statuses about “building the wall.” You share #AllLivesMatter posts. You start off your comments with “I am not racist, but…” Every once in a while, you pick Facebook fights with other students about how undocumented immigrants “should just become legal,” black men “should have listened to the police officer’s orders,” and about how “we cannot tell which refugees are terrorists.” … So thank you for being polite enough to do small favors for me, but I cannot make this clear enough: We are not friends. This is not enough.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [White Blindness] [White Supremacy]

I Don’t Discuss Racism With White People

By John Metta | July 2015
Despite what the Charleston Massacre makes things look like, people are dying not because individuals are racist, but because individuals are helping support a racist system by wanting to protect their own non-racist self beliefs. Here’s what I want to say to you: Racism is so deeply embedded in this country not because of the racist right-wing radicals who practice it openly, it exists because of the silence and hurt feelings of liberal America.” Racism is the fact that “White” means “normal” and that anything else is different.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Systemic Racism] [History] [Collective Action]

Beyond the KKK: Getting at White Supremacy in the Church

by Rebecca Florence Miller | May 2017
White supremacy is a loaded term, conjuring up hooded robes, burning crosses, and Heil, Hitlers. But there is another way to understand it, and the phrase is increasingly becoming a helpful conceptual marker, helping us to understand the core of racial problems in society. The term white supremacy gets at the heart of what some would call colonialism or giving precedence to white culture. Ultimately, what is comes down to is believing or living as if whites are superiors to blacks or people of other races. As if Whites are “supreme.”
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [White Culture] [Colorblindness]

It’s Not the White Working Class That is Hurting the Most

by Ana Swanson | January 2017
President-elect Donald Trump was lifted into office by white adults over 25 without a four-year degree, who favored him by a margin of 39 percentage points. Their economic frustration and suffering are real, and white working-class America is a large group – 42 percent of the country. Yet month after month, economic data show that African Americans and Hispanics in the United States are, on average, in a worse position. Jobs data released last week put the white unemployment rate in December at 4.3 percent, compared with 7.8 percent for African Americans and 5.9 percent for Hispanics. “Even just looking at one month, we can say that the economy disproportionately has worse outcomes for workers of color,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Economics] [Systemic Racism] [Employment]

Racial Trauma is Real: The Impact of Police Shootings on African Americans

by Administrator | July 2016
The violence witnessed towards people of color from police continues to damage perceptions of law enforcement and further stereotype people of color negatively. Decades of research have noted the impact of discrimination and racism on the psychological health of communities of color (e.g., Bryant-Davis & Ocampo, 2006; Carter & Forsyth, 2009; Comas-Díaz, 2016).
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [Police Shootings] [2010’s] [Policing] [Assumptions] [Systemic Racism] [History]

Turning the Lens- Seeing White

by John Biewen, with special guest Chenjerai Kumanyika | February 2017
Part 1 of a 14-part documentary series exploring whiteness in America—where it came from, what it means, and how it works. Just what is going on with white people? Police shootings of unarmed African Americans. Acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists. The renewed embrace of raw, undisguised white-identity politics. Unending racial inequity in schools, housing, criminal justice, and hiring. Some of this feels new, but in truth it’s an old story. Why? Where did the notion of “whiteness” come from? What does it mean? What is whiteness for? Listen to the Podcast or download the transcript.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [Podcast] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [2010’s]