by Zack Linly | March 2021
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: A lot of white teachers have no business whatsoever teaching Black students. A Black mother in San Marcos, Texas, has filed a complaint with the San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District over an incident involving her daughter and a teacher who allegedly told her white students that it’s OK for them to say the n-word as long as Black people continue to say it.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [Teachers] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [History] [Cognitive Dissonance] [Accountability]
Resource Links Tagged with "Cognitive Dissonance"
Whitesplaining Explained
by Chloe Edwards | February 2021
Mansplaining is a pejorative term used to describe the action of a man commenting on or explaining something to a woman in an often condescending or oversimplified way. … While there are obstacles for all women and stereotypes related to competence, Black women specifically face concrete ceilings that supersede gender as they are doubly oppressed. Black women are ranked the most educated group by race. … While many have heard of the terminology mansplaining, most may not be familiar with the concept whitesplaining. Whitesplaining is when white people condescendingly explain something — typically about race as well as other topics— to Black, indigenous or people of color. Whitesplaining shows up in a variety of common ways, so much so, the categories keep growing.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [Microaggressions] [Slavery] [Cognitive Dissonance] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [Implicit Racism] [Indigenous] [Colorblindness] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts]
Breaking From White Solidarity
by Erin Monahan | August 2019
Several times in the last week alone I have had encounters with white women who identify as liberal who have gotten upset when I address someone in the group about the casually racist or sexist thing they said. In one instance, I gave a very gentle mention to the person who said the casually racist statement. Because we are adults and we should be able to speak plainly about these things, we moved on. Everything seemed fine. As the night went on, a casually sexist thing was said, and then another casually racist thing was said. I interrupted both times with the intention to engage in conversation about it. … I have been addressed about my racism too many times to count. There are times that I have been defensive and violent in my response to being called out. And though I feel deep regret and shame for that behavior, I am always reflecting on these situations and thinking about how I can receive information with less guilt, shame, and anger the next time. I ask myself, what do I need to heal in myself in order to respond with more reception, true humility, and less ego? It’s never comfortable to receive how I have been racist. I feel a surge of embarrassment and desperation. I want to find a way to deny it, a way to rationalize my way out of it, a way to make myself feel better. This is my whiteness centering me. I focus on my feelings instead of my impact.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [White Fragility/Tears] [White Culture] [Cognitive Dissonance] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [Social Justice] [White Defensiveness] [White Blindness] [Anti-Racism]
What Do We Do About John James Audubon?
by J. Drew Lanham | Spring 2021
The founding father of American birding soared on the wings of white privilege. The birding community and organizations that bear his name must grapple with this racist legacy to create a more just, inclusive world. Last summer, the Sierra Club denounced its first president, John Muir, as a racist unworthy of organizational adulation. Muir is a founding father of the American wilderness movement; he also characterized Blacks as lazy “sambos” and Native Americans as “dirty.” The National Audubon Society followed suit, stating that Audubon, too, was a racist. He enslaved at least nine people. He mostly referred to them as “servants” and “hands,” but never seemed especially concerned that the people helping him could be bought, sold, raped, whipped, or killed on a whim. Then again, relatively few men of his time did. Presidents did not. Why would he? Audubon’s callous ignorance wouldn’t have been unusual for a white man. It would have been de rigueur—an expectation of race and class that he enjoyed.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Slavery] [History] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Accountability] [Systemic Racism][-ing While Black] [Environment] [Myths] [Black Lives Matter] [Indigenous] [Implicit Bias] [Cognitive Dissonance] [Art & Culture]
There Is No Such Thing as a ‘White Ally’ — “TNSWA” Part I
by Catherine Pugh, Esq. | June 2020
The logic behind the expression “White Ally” makes about as much sense as me going into your room, folding your affirmations and putting them neatly away, cleaning all the introspection off of your mirror, gathering your feelings for the laundry, and then you pick up your golliwog, put it away, and announce triumphantly, “We’re in this together, and I am totally committed to helping.” Mmmm, not so much with that.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [White Fragility/Tears] [Racial Terrorism] [Black Lives Matter] [Systemic Racism] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Cognitive Dissonance] [Social Justice] [“All Lives Matter”] [White Defensiveness] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [Accountability] [Policing] [-ing While Black] [Colorblindness] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts]
White Violence, Church Silence; Many white churches have been guilty of not only espousing racist rhetoric, but also of preaching a theology that urges Christian silence when it comes to standing up for justice.
by L.A. Justice | November 2020
While Black people are being relentlessly pursued because our lives have been determined to be expendable, numerous churches across this country have not only been silent, but too many have been complacent and complicit with these atrocities. Myriad white churches have been guilty of not only espousing racist rhetoric, but also of preaching a theology that urges Christian silence when it comes to standing up for justice, especially when it means standing against the racially motivated brutalization of Black bodies. This encourages the perpetrators of such inhumane violence to continue to act with impunity, no matter how abhorrent the violence committed against us may be.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Policing] [Denial] [History] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Blindness] [Accountability] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Black Lives Matter] [Collective Action] [Cognitive Dissonance]
White Clicktivism: Why Are Some Americans Woke Online but Not in Real Life?
by Brianna Holt | December 2020
“I’m a Democrat. I’ll be friends with anyone, like anyone from different sides of the political spectrum. I guess that makes me liberal,” she said. “Liberals are more open to experiences.”
Maybe they are. But a woman of color would be physically threatened if their date exposed their Proud Boy membership over a few drinks. Kansen, a white woman, did not feel at risk and so it was partly her privilege – not her tolerance – that gave her a hall pass to entertain a member of a white supremacist group. … Despite racism being a structural problem, individual actions still matter. But, Cavanagh warns, people may believe in equality while opting out of decisions that are hard for them personally. “Voting can be thought of as a relatively low-cost act of solidarity and commitment to justice, unlike cutting off ties to your racist mother,” she says.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [White Blindness] [Accountability] [Cognitive Dissonance] [Collective Action] [Colorblindness]
Yiddisher Black Cantors from 100 Years Ago Rediscovered Thanks to Rare Recording
by Renee Ghert-Zand | November 2020
Early 1920s newspaper ads for the blockbuster New York Yiddish stage shows Dos Khupe Kleyd (The Wedding Dress) and Yente Telebende (Loquacious Battle‐Ax), featured a Black artist among the spotlighted performers. This was Thomas LaRue, a Yiddish-speaking singer widely known in the interwar period as der schvartzer khazan (The Black Cantor). Although long-forgotten now, LaRue (who sometimes used the surname Jones) was among the favorites of Yiddish theater and cantorial music. Reportedly raised in Newark, New Jersey, by a single mother who was drawn to Judaism, he even drew interest from beyond the US.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [History] [Cognitive Dissonance] [Art & Culture]
How ‘Good White People’ Derail Racial Progress
by John Blake | August 2020
Angry White parents gripping picket signs. People making death threats and a piece of hate mail reading “Blacks destroy school systems. Community panic about school desegregation orders. But this wasn’t archival footage of White Southerners from the 1960s. This took place last year in Howard County, Maryland, a suburban community that prides itself on racial integration. It was there that progressive White parents mobilized with other groups to try to stop a school integration plan that would bus poor students, who were mostly Black and brown, to more affluent, whiter schools.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [History] [Economics] [Housing] [Cognitive Dissonance]
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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