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]
Resource Links Tagged with "Definitions"
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 History and Traditions of Día de los Muertos; Mexican American Studies Scholar Michelle Téllez Gives An Overview of the Autumn Holiday of Mourning That Originated in Mexico and is Now Celebrated Around the World.
by Kyle Mittan, University Communications |October 2021
Anyone who’s spent a few autumns in Tucson will know the signs of the changing season, especially the cooler temperatures and the increase in drivers on the road as snowbirds return. But the appearance of some other, more unique, symbols also mark the occasion. Calaveras, or skulls – often in the form of edible, decorative sugar skulls – and papel picado, pieces of colorful paper with intricately cut-out designs, are ubiquitous in southern Arizona come October, but what do they mean? They’re icons of Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead – a holiday with roots in Mexico that is now celebrated all over the world.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [Latino/a] [Indigenous] [Definitions] [Art & Culture]
Frequently Asked Questions About Critical Race Theory
by James Mulholland | November 2021
After their successes in the recent elections in Virginia and New Jersey, it is obvious the Republican Party intends use inflammatory and false depictions of Critical Race Theory as a strategy to frighten white suburban parents and play on latent racial prejudices. We can expect Critical Race Theory to be the boogeyman of the next election cycle. …The basic tenets of Critical Race Theory can and should be introduced to children in simple terms. For example, elementary children SHOULD be taught that the color of your skin does not make you better or worse than anyone else. High school students SHOULD be taught the history of legal and systemic racial discrimination in America. In addition, Critical Race Theory is vitally important for educators to understand. Teachers SHOULD be taught Critical Race Theory and it should inform their teaching philosophy and classroom content. Understanding Critical Race Theory will make our schools – which are institutions prone to systemic racism – less racist. Ironically, the problem in the United States is not that Critical Race Theory has infiltrated our public-school systems. The issue is that it has not.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Definitions] [Anti-Racism] [History] [Assumptions] [Individual Change] [Systemic Racism] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Teachers]
Jim Crow Laws
by history.com Editors| Updated January 2022
Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. Named after a Black minstrel show character, the laws—which existed for about 100 years, from the post-Civil War era until 1968—were meant to marginalize African Americans by denying them the right to vote, hold jobs, get an education or other opportunities. Those who attempted to defy Jim Crow laws often faced arrest, fines, jail sentences, violence and death.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Silencing POC] [Racial Covenants] [History] [Collective Action] [Denial] [Politics] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Black Lives Matter] [Policing] [Prison System] [Housing] [Justice System] [Advocacy] [Role Model] [Definitions]
What Is Critical Race Theory, and Why Is It Under Attack?
by Steven Sawchuk | May 2021
Is “critical race theory” a way of understanding how American racism has shaped public policy, or a divisive discourse that pits people of color against white people? Liberals and conservatives are in sharp disagreement. The topic has exploded in the public arena this spring—especially in K-12, where numerous state legislatures are debating bills seeking to ban its use in the classroom. …Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies. The basic tenets of critical race theory, or CRT, emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 1970s and early 1980s created by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, among others.
A good example is when, in the 1930s, government officials literally drew lines around areas deemed poor financial risks, often explicitly due to the racial composition of inhabitants. Banks subsequently refused to offer mortgages to Black people in those areas.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Housing] [Systemic Racism] [Politics] [Social Justice] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Defensiveness] [Slavery] [Definitions] [Racial Covenants] [Black Lives Matter] [Latino/a] [Teachers] [History]
Historical Foundations Of Race
by David R. Roediger | Date Unknown
The term “race,” used infrequently before the 1500s, was used to identify groups of people with a kinship or group connection… The modern-day use of the term “race” is a human invention. The world got along without race for the overwhelming majority of its history. The U.S. has never been without it. Race is a human-invented, shorthand term used to describe and categorize people into various social groups based on characteristics like skin color, physical features, and genetic heredity. Race, while not a valid biological concept, is a real social construction that gives or denies benefits and privileges. American society developed the notion of race early in its formation to justify its new economic system of capitalism, which depended on the institution of forced labor, especially the enslavement of African peoples. To more accurately understand how race and its counterpart, racism, are woven into the very fabric of American society, we must explore the history of how race, white privilege, and anti-blackness came to be.
TAGS: [Strategies] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [History] [Slavery] [Definitions] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [Indigenous] [Economics]
10 Ways Your Social Justice Work Might Be Inaccessible and Elitist (And Why That’s a Problem)
by Hari Ziyad | October 2020
It’s comforting not to have to constantly explain yourself and your work. It’s beautiful to learn from and be around folks who understand ideas like microaggressions, gaslighting, white fragility, and all the other odd terms that describe the myriad, important, and insidious ways oppression operates. But some of those ways are too insidious to recognize even within these spaces. Some are, in fact, unique to these spaces. Some oppressions are fostered by the very things supposedly set up to help justice spaces thrive. Inadvertently, they create power structures mirroring those they’re working to address. Being in these spaces for a while now, I’ve noticed that I’ve been increasingly receiving feedback that my writing is inaccessible. I dismissed a lot of this critique on the basis that I am, at my core, a big idea and theory girl. My way of communicating isn’t supposed to be meant for everyone. But that became a more difficult excuse to embrace once I noticed these concerns coming even from those who generally embrace theoreticals.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Microaggressions] [White Fragility/Tears] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Social Justice] [Accountability] [Intersectionality] [White Privilege] [Definitions] [Black Lives Matter] [Indigenous] [Economics]
How Native Americans Were Vaccinated Against Smallpox, Then Pushed Off Their Land; Nearly Two Centuries Later, Many Tribes Remain Suspicious of the Drive to Get Them Vaccinated Against the Coronavirus
by Dana Hedgpeth | March 2021
More than 180 years ago, the federal government launched the largest effort of its kind in the United States to vaccinate Native Americans against the deadly disease of smallpox… In 1832, Congress passed legislation — the Indian Vaccination Act — that allowed the federal government to use about $17,000 to hire doctors to vaccinate Native Americans who were living near White frontier settlements. Many White settlers feared that Indians would spread the disease to them. “It wasn’t in the interest of Indian people,” said Pecos, who is also co-director of the Leadership Institute at the Santa Fe Indian School. “It was a way of vaccinating them to move them so White Americans could move them into Western lands.”
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [Health Disparities] [Politics] [Social Justice] [Systemic Racism] [Racial Terrorism] [Definitions] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Silencing POC] [History]
If You Truly Knew What the N-Word Meant to Our Ancestors, You’d NEVER Use It; It Was Used and Still Can Be Used to Make Us Hate Ourselves
by Brando Simeo Starkey | May 2017
A few years ago, I read slave narratives to explore the lives of black agricultural workers after the end of the Civil War. The narratives came from the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration, a program that employed researchers from 1936 to 1938 to interview former enslaved people, producing more than 2,300 narratives that, thankfully, reside online and are fully searchable.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Slavery] [Civil War] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [Definitions]
Retracing Slavery’s Trail of Tears; America’s Forgotten Migration – the Journeys of a Million African-Americans from the Tobacco South to the Cotton South
by Edward Ball | November 2015
“My grandfather went to the folks who had owned our family and asked, ‘Do you have any documentation about our history during the slave days? We would like to see it, if possible.’ The man at the door, who I have to assume was from the slaveholding side, said, ‘Sure, we’ll give it to you.’ When Delores McQuinn was growing up, her father told her a story about a search for the family’s roots. He said his own father knew the name of the people who had enslaved their family in Virginia, knew where they lived—in the same house and on the same land—in Hanover County, among the rumpled hills north of Richmond.“The man went into his house and came back out with some papers in his hands. Now, whether the papers were trivial or actual plantation records, who knows? But he stood in the door, in front of my grandfather, and lit a match to the papers. ‘You want your history?’ he said. ‘Here it is.’ Watching the things burn. ‘Take the ashes and get off my land.’ “The intent was to keep that history buried,” McQuinn says today. “And I think something like that has happened over and again, symbolically.”
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [History] [Slavery] [Silencing POC] [Confederate Monuments] [Politics] [Black Lives Matter] [Definitions] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Social Justice] [Civil War] [Accountability]
Reparations Matter: Accountability Begins with Understanding
*Paywall Alert
by Douglas Haynes | February 2021
Last month’s violent insurrection at the US Capitol overshadowed the re-introduction of H.R. 40 on January 4, 2021. Introduced by Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee (D-Texas), this bill provides for funding for a commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans. The two events could not be more different. One was a violent assault on the US Congress by extremists. The other reflected the deliberate law-making process of a modern democracy. In seeking to de-certify the votes of millions of Americans, the protestors sought nothing less than the restoration of white supremacy in the slogans “Make America Great Again” or “Take Back Our Country.” By contrast, the co-sponsors of the House bill called on the federal government to finally come to terms with the costs and consequences of the legal enslavement and differential treatment of Black people in both the past and present.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Reparations] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [Social Justice] [Definitions] [Slavery] [Politics] [History]
Understanding Africa: Shattering Myths about the Culture of the Second-Largest Continent
by Aukram Burton | February 2021
African culture is vastly misunderstood in western societies. This misunderstanding continues to be perpetuated by educational and media institutions in the Western world that consistently misrepresent the image and contributions of African culture and ethics to the world. For centuries, European-centric thinking has justified colonialism and imperialism as a “civilizing mission” meant to save the African “savages” who live in “sh–holes” often characterized by terms like “exotic,” “primitive” or “pagan,” which is a misconception. This thinking is rooted in the age of European Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries. This movement provided an intellectual backdrop for European theories about human differences.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [Myths] [History] [Definitions] [Slavery] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [Economics] [White Blindness]
Tignon Laws: The Dreadful Rule That Banned Black Women from Displaying Their Hair
by Farida Dawkins | February 2018
… there was a time when black women weren’t allowed to display their hair in public. Keep reading to learn about the Tignon Laws and how it was used to fuel racial tensions in the United States. A tignon (tiyon) is a headdress used to conceal hair. It was adorned by free and slave Creole women of African ancestry in Louisiana in 1786. The sumptuary law was enacted under Governor Esteban Rodriguez Miró. The regulation was meant as a means to regulate the style of dress and appearance for people of color. Black women’s features often attracted male white, French, and Spanish suitors and their beauty was a perceived threat to white women. The tignon law was a tactic used to combat the men pursuing and engaging in affairs with Creole women. Simply put, black women competed too openly with white women by dressing elegantly and possessing note-worth beauty.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [Silencing POC] [Black Lives Matter] [Definitions] [Denial] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [Slavery] [History]
Hypothetical Racism: The Trauma We Feel when White Terrorists Go Home and Innocent Black People are Shot on the Spot
by Taharee Jackson | January 2021
Hi. My name is Taharee Jackson, and I am suffering from HYPOTHETICAL RACISM.
I have not slept in two nights due to hypothetical racism-induced insomnia.
Allow me to explain. … Last night, on January 6, 2021, I was glued to the television, trying to see with my own eyes if the invasion of the United States Capitol by angry, White, gun-toting terrorists was actually happening. I kept waiting to see if throngs of police officers, special forces for insurrections, and National Guard members would show up in riot gear, handle them violently, spray rubber bullets, arrest them, shoot them, or even execute them on the spot. It happened. They did not. What truly kept me awake last night was my inability to identify the emotion I was feeling as a multiracial-mixed-with-Black woman watching the storming of the U.S. Capitol unfold WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE. Or, I should say, without the SAME consequences as the Antiracism and Black Lives Matter protests we just witnessed in all 50 states and the world over.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Accountability] [Black Lives Matter] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Definitions] [Policing] [Indigenous] [Social Justice] [Politics] [Silencing POC] [Economics] [Denial] [Justice System] [Police Shootings] [Racial Terrorism] [History] [Anti-Racism]
Prejudice + Pretend Ignorance = Racism
by Deborah L. Plummer | March 2021
Like many social scientists, I learned that prejudice + power = racism. Having power is key for determining how someone could turn their everyday bias into racism. We all have prejudices but not everyone has the power to turn it into racism. With power, one can make laws, establish structures, enact practices and procedures that benefit Whites and disadvantage BIPOC. This classic definition of racism remains true today, especially for how structural and systemic racism get created and maintained. However, there is another kind of power being exhibited today that has become an equal catalyst for establishing and maintaining structural and systemic racism — ignorance. For many Americans, denying, dismissing, minimizing or being ignorant of the nature of racism and its impact on American society is enough to release them from accountability for racism. If racism doesn’t exist, they cannot possibly be racist.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Implicit Bias] [Accountability] [Denial] [Definitions] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [White Defensiveness] [Politics] [Social Justice] [White Blindness]
Cornel West: The Whiteness of Harvard and Wall Street Is “Jim Crow, New Style”
by George Yancy | March 2021
Cornel West is a preeminent public intellectual, a brilliant philosopher-gadfly and a towering thinker whose critically engaging voice and fearless speech have proven indispensable for calling out injustice wherever it exists. He is a force grounded within a prophetic tradition that refuses idols, even if that idol is democracy itself. He is a bluesman who grapples with the funk of life through a cruciform of love within a crucible of catastrophe, where despair never has the last word. West isn’t a typical professional philosopher. As a professor at Yale in the mid-1980s, he was arrested for attempting, through protest, to get the university to withdraw its investments from all companies that were doing business in Apartheid South Africa. And he relentlessly exposes the limits of disciplinary smugness and the hypocrisy of epistemological “purity.”
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Role Model] [Systemic Racism] [White Culture] [Denial] [History] [Definitions] [Anti-Racism] [Social Justice] [Teachers]
12 Racist and Offensive Phrases That People Still Use All the Time
by Christina Sterbenz and Dominic-Madori Davis | June 2020
As language evolves, we sometimes forget the offensive origins of certain words and phrases. Or we never knew them in the first place. Many common terms and phrases are actually rooted in racist, sexist, or generally distasteful language. For example, the popular phrase “peanut gallery,” typically used to reference hecklers, originated as a term to refer to those — usually Black people — who sat in the “cheapest” section of the Vaudeville theaters.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Assumptions] [Implicit Bias] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Definitions] [History] [Slavery] [Accountability] [Microaggressions] [White Blindness]
20 Things You’re Saying That You Didn’t Know Were Offensive; Many Common Words or Phrases Have Insidious Origins
by Morgan Greenwald | November 2020
Cobble together—in your head, please, particularly if there are children around—a list of the most offensive words and phrases you can think of. Chances are, it’s full of the usual suspects: F-words and a whole lot of S-words, right? But here’s the thing: Your list is missing quite a few offensive phrases. And we’re sorry to report that it’s a good bet you use them a lot. For instance, did you know that the common phrase “basket case” comes from a saying used in World War I to describe quadriplegics? Or that “rule of thumb” has an insidiously violent origin? (And we’re sure most parents aren’t aware that “fuzzy wuzzy” was a racist term before he was the protagonist of a harmless child’s rhyme.) Before you accidentally hurl an insult without even realizing, read up on these 20 offensive words and phrases.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Assumptions] [Implicit Bias] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Definitions] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Indigenous] [Accountability] [White Blindness]
George Floyd’s Autopsy and the Structural Gaslighting of America; The Weaponization of Medical Language Emboldened White Supremacy with the Authority of the White Coat. How Will We Stop It from Happening Again?
by Ann Crawford-Roberts, Sonya Shadravan, Jennifer Tsai, Nicolás E. Barceló, Allie Gips, Michael Mensah, Nichole Roxas, Alina Kung, Anna Darby, Naya Misa, Isabella Morton, Alice Shen | June 2020
The world was gaslit by misreporting about George Floyd’s initial autopsy report. As concerned physicians, we write to deconstruct the misinformation and condemn the ways this weaponization of medical language reinforced white supremacy at the torment of Black Americans. Gaslighting is a method of psychological manipulation employed to make a victim question their own sanity, particularly in scenarios where they are mistreated.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Black Lives Matter] [Systemic Racism] [Silencing POC] [Racial Covenants] [Policing] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [History] [Collective Action] [Police Shootings] [Denial] [Accountability] [Health Disparities] [Definitions]
The White Anti-Racist’s Guide to Dealing With Black Conservatives; Y’all be Out of Pocket Sometimes (Playing Right into Theirs)
by Johnny Silvercloud | November 2020
Please understand that Black conservatives within the American conservative atmosphere serve, in warfare terms, as decoys and traps. When you, as a white liberal person, approach a Black conservative at a public demonstration, you need to understand that they are racial landmines explicitly placed for two purposes: Validate white supremacist conservative causes (because colonialism can never work without the consent of some of the colonized) and; Trap the less critically thinking, reactive white people like you into a “you heard what she called me? White liberals are the real racists” trap.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Politics] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [White Blindness] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Definitions]
How the failure of multiculturalism led to the rise of Black Lives Matter
by Colins Imoh | September 2020
Since the killing of George Floyd, an African American man, during an arrest in May, 69% of people in the US report having discussed racial issues with others. Meanwhile, as the Pew research suggests, 82% say they will work with black people in their communities to resolve issues and 67% say they are supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement. This is to be welcomed, because people’s inability to discuss race issues in a civil manner has further contributed to minority inequality and conflict. Indeed, this failure to have forthright discussions about race has led to people of different ethnic groups living parallel lives in the same cities. This, along with the decreased life chances for non-white people in many western countries, is what the Black Lives Matter movement aims to eradicate. But it’s also important to recognise that one of the reasons Black Lives Matter came about in the first place is because the concept of multiculturalism has failed black people. …It’s crucial to appreciate that racism is so systemic that without people drawing attention to the deep-rooted and often invisible nature of the issue, it would be easy for many people to ignore. This is why the Black Lives Matter movement wants to confront and shake up the system and bring the plight of black people to the global consciousness.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Black Lives Matter] [Policing] [Definitions] [Systemic Racism] [History] [Employment] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [Teachers] [Assumptions]
The Mental Health Impact of ‘Blame a Black Man Syndrome’ The Frequent Wrongful Accusation of Black Men Ruins Lives and Communities.
by Rob Whitley, Ph.D. | November 2017
Blame a Black Man Syndrome describes a common tendency to falsely accuse a black man of a crime or misconduct. It can take two forms.Firstly, it can refer to generic racial hoaxes, where an accuser blames an imaginary black man for a non-existent crime. Famous examples include Susan Smith, who alleged that a black man carjacked her vehicle and kidnapped her sons, when in fact she had murdered her children herself. Another is Bonnie Sweeten, who claimed that she and her daughter were kidnapped by two black men when she was actually vacationing in Florida. Secondly, it can involve accusations against a named but innocent black man. Famous examples include football player Brian Banks, who spent five years in prison for a rape he did not commit. Another is Patrick Lumumba, whose life was ruined when Amanda Knox falsely accused him of murder.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Prison System] [Calling Police] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [-ing While Black] [Definitions] [Prison System] [Policing] [Assumptions]
7 Racist Slurs Which You Should Drop from Your Vocabulary; Odds Are That You Use These Phrases Every Day
by Shourya Agarwal | October 2020 On this uphill climb to social justice, we have uncovered an underlying structure of discrimination that lurks beneath our milieu. As our language has been shaped alongside a predominantly racist climate, it has absorbed some of the...
Thirty Everyday Phrases That Perpetuate the Oppression of Indigenous Peoples
by Alex Kapitan | October 2020
Language isn’t neutral or objective. It is a vessel of cultural stories, values, and norms. And in the United States, everyday language plays into the violent, foundational myth of this country’s origin story—Europeans “discovering” a virtually uninhabited wilderness and befriending the few primitive peoples who lived there—as well as other cultural myths and lies about Indigenous Peoples that are baked into U.S. culture and everyday life.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [Myths] [Systemic Racism] [History] [Definitions]
The Truth about How Microaggressions Work; Microaggression as Social Control
*Paywall Alert
by Max Smith | June 2020
What is a microaggression really? I looked up the definition because I wanted to be sure I was clear. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, it is: a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority).
In thinking about it, I couldn’t come up with any extraordinary examples. And maybe that’s the point: the everyday nature of microaggressions. How they seep into conversation and under skin…My advisor, who happened to be white and middle-aged, advised that I not get my hopes up about getting a white collar job, predicting that quite likely I would have to settle for a job as a waitress or secretary, and that I should take it as it would be my first post-college job, and might pay better than low-level white collar work.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Microaggressions] [Definitions] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [White Culture] [Black Lives Matter] [Systemic Racism]
There Is No Such Thing as a ‘White Ally’ — “TNSWA” Part II
by Catherine Pugh, Esq. | July 2020
Part II of TNSWA series. Racism is not mine, it’s yours, and it’s not called “help” when it’s your mess we’re cleaning. Part I is available here. I get stuck when I try to see the “White Ally” label as something bigger than a White woobie. Normally, that’s no problem, but this woobie comes at the expense of Black living. “White Ally” remains a term I neither use nor care for. Originally, I kept my own counsel here because my objections felt cranky. “White Ally” was a deft marketing plan recasting potential “haters” as heroes, but hardly a reason to engage. As it happens, I have no love for “White Privilege” either and shrugged it off from within the same genre of indifference. “White Privilege” was our ironic tongue-click when you acted like the child who commits patricide and then begs an orphan’s mercy. As with the other, it merited little attention. Then Travis and George McMichael executed Ahmaud Arbery, and everything changed. It is from this place that There Is No Such Thing as a White Ally was born. So many questions to ask ourselves.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Individual Change] [Accountability] [Definitions] [Systemic Racism] [White Blindness] [White Privilege] [Anti-Racism] [-ing While Black] [Police Shootings] [Policing] [White Fragility/Tears] [“All Lives Matter”] [Advocacy]
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]
Conversations on Racism with White People Getting Stuck or Looping? Thirteen Questions to Get it Moving Again
by Tad Hargrave | August 2017
In this blog post the author, a white man, suggests 13 questions that white people might consider including in their conversations with other white people about racism, as well as possible follow-up strategies depending upon the answers given. A sample question: “If you woke up as a person of colour or indigenous person tomorrow in North America do you think it would change anything in your life? If so, what?”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Definitions] [White Culture] [White Fragility/Tears] [White Privilege] [History] [Systemic Racism] [2010’s]
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Dear White People
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Reparations
Spiritual Foundations
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