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 "Microaggressions"
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]
What it Means to be Black in the American Educational System
by The Conversation | October 2016
Sadly, racism and discrimination are facts of life for many black Americans. As an African-American scholar who studies the experiences of black college students, I am especially interested in this issue. My research has found that black college students report higher levels of stress related to racial discrimination than other racial or ethnic groups. The unfortunate reality is that black Americans experience subtle and overt discrimination from preschool all the way to college.
…The results of a recent survey by the Pew Research Center underscore this point. The survey found that black Americans with some college experience are more likely to say that they have experienced discrimination compared to blacks who did not report having any college experience.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [Microaggressions] [Police Shootings] [Policing] [History] [Black Lives Matter] [-ing While Black] [Teachers]
5 Phrases Your Black Friend Wishes You’d Stop Saying; If You Start Practicing Now, You Can Probably Eliminate These Words from Your Vocabulary by Black History Month
by Ajah Hales | January 2020 Statistically speaking, about 75% of White people don’t even have a Black friend, but on the off chance that you are one of the White people who do, I have a message for you from your (one) Black friend: Do better. In her New York Times...
The Aggressive Fragility of ‘I’m Not Racist: and ‘Not All White People’
by Jeremy Helligar | March 2021
Dear Sharon Osbourne, Piers Morgan, and Becky from ‘The Real World Homecoming’: Please. Stop. People can be so exhausting. Correction: Some people can be so exhausting. Although exceptions are generally implied when we generalize, for some people, nothing can be left to implication — especially if the subject is racism. I see evidence of this in the comments section of nearly every article I read or write about race. There are always a few in the audience, usually White, who take offense because they presume that when Black people write about the racism White people inflict on them, unless “White people” is qualified with “some,” they are being lumped in with the main offenders. Apparently, for them, the true horror of racism isn’t racism itself but being accused of it due to association.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [History] [Social Justice] [White Fragility/Tears] [White Supremacy] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Microaggressions] [White Privilege] [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]
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]
Ghosted by Allies: Why BIPOC Still Can’t Trust White People with Social Justice; We Always Knew Last Summer’s Allyship Was Fleeting
by Angie Franklin | February 2021
We all knew it was coming. I’d venture to say every single Black person in America not only knew it was coming but was actively waiting for it to happen. After the black square badge of anti-racism, the allyship die-off was not surprising, nor was it a new experience for us. What was new was Black Lives Matter and social justice going viral. All of a sudden people gave a fuck about us — or acted like they did — because it was trending and the perception of white people teetered on whether they showed public support for Black lives. … Few people are willing to consistently rub against the grain, bring up conversations about race with family, speak up for co-workers, step back or resign when a BIPOC person is more qualified, or question the status quo. Maybe they could do it for a week, or a few weeks, but six months later? Apparently not. The ghosted allies are those who spoke out against police brutality and murder, posted videos protesting in the streets, shed tears in their stories, followed as many Black accounts as they could find. This group was, for a moment, utterly shook by the reality of racism. But what they didn’t realize was their bewilderment — their shock — in waking up to what Black people go through every day in this country and have for hundreds of years was what added a real insult to injury.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Social Justice] [Black Lives Matter] [White Fragility/Tears] [White Defensiveness] [White Privilege] [Advocacy] [White Supremacy] [Anti-Racism] [Policing] [Microaggressions] [Denial] [White Blindness] [Accountability]
Mississippi School Asks Students to ‘Pretend’ to Be Slaves and Write Letters About Their ‘Journey’ to ‘Family Back in Africa’
by Zack Linly | March 2021
I don’t understand these “educators” who insist on taking slavery—the most brutal, cruel, and inhumane thing America has ever done to an entire race of people whose freedom, heritage, families and humanity were stripped from them—and turning it into some Sesame Street-ass game or activity that trivializes the centuries-long practice. Just last week, I reported on a school in Delaware in which kindergartners were being taught yoga positions that mimicked the way enslaved people were positioned on slave ships.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Slavery] [Teachers] [Black Lives Matter] [Systemic Racism] [White Blindness] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [History] [Microaggressions] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Accountability]
Slavery Yoga Was Taught to Kindergarteners in Delaware for Black History Month. No, Seriously.
by Zack Linly | March 2021
Just Saturday, I wrote in a report that “It’s about time we have a serious conversation about how a lot of white teachers have no business whatsoever teaching Black students.” I based this statement on three separate stories—all of which occurred during this Black History Month—involving white teachers being racist while downplaying and/or distorting narratives around American racism during lectures to their students. Well, now there’s a fourth story—one that doesn’t necessarily feature educators denying the cruelty of slavery; they just made a fun game out of it which parents are rightfully calling “culturally insensitive, offensive” and “disturbing,”
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Teachers] [Slavery] [Black Lives Matter] [Systemic Racism] [White Blindness] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [History] [Microaggressions] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Implicit Bias]
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]
Confronting Racism Is Not About the Needs and Feelings of White People Too Often Whites at Discussions on Race Decide for Themselves What Will be Discussed, What They Will Hear, What They Will learn. And it is Their Space. All Spaces Are.
*Paywall Alert
by The Guardian | March 2019
I was leaving a corporate office building after a full day of leading workshops on how to talk about race thoughtfully and deliberately. The audience for each session had been similar to the dozens I had faced before. There was an overrepresentation of employees of color, an underrepresentation of white employees. The participants of color tended to make eye contact with me and nod – I even heard a few “Amens” – but were never the first to raise their hands with questions or comments. Meanwhile, there was always a white man eager to share his thoughts on race. In these sessions I typically rely on silent feedback from participants of color to make sure I am on the right track, while trying to moderate the loud centering of whiteness.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Fragility/Tears] [White Defensiveness] [White Blindness] [-ing While Black] [Economics] [Employment] [Anti-Racism] [Denial] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Microaggressions]
How to Be a Black Ally
by Michael Harriot | January 2021
The most prominent member of White Twitter has been kicked off the internet. Parler (also known as Caucasian Clubhouse) has been dismantled. And, because the TSA put them on the no-fly list, our beloved Brads and Beckys are literally forced to sit on the back of the bus. Sure, they control 95 percent of the Fortune 500 corporations, legislatures, courts, media outlets, financial institutions and police departments in America. But white privilege also means that, when times get hard, they need someone to speak up for them. Our silence has to stop. For years, the Black community has ignored economic anxiety, racial resentment and white fragility. Very few African Americans attended the March on Wypipo-ing in Charlottesville or the Coup Klutz Klan cookout on the Capitol. We make excuses like: “There were too many Nazis there.” But, if we are being honest, it is because Black America loves to engage in this selfish practice called “minding our damn business.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Politics] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [Economics] [White Fragility/Tears] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [“Reverse Racism”] [Microaggressions] [White Culture] [Systemic Racism] [Accountability]
When White Women Practice the Politics of Polite, the Violence of Nice We Must Admit That, When We’re Moderate, We’re Complicit.
by Real Talk: WOC & Allies | August 2019
It turns out, not so much. Our extreme discomfort with discord and our inability to sustain even the mildest of stress fractures when our tools fail us, is why we are not moving the needle on the meaningful dismantling of systems and institutions that intentionally uphold white supremacy. We recoil from the concepts of subversion and disruption like vampires from the hot sun. Because subversion is not polite and disruption is not nice. We need to embrace the discomfort, the edges and the messiness of overturning that which has kept us in the number two slot of the power and privilege pyramid for over 500 years.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Politics] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [White Fragility/Tears] [White Supremacy] [Bystander Intervention] [Policing] [Anti-Racism] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Microaggressions] [Assumptions]
The war on ‘microaggressions:’ Has it created a ‘victimhood culture’ on campuses?
by Fred Barbash | October 2015
Larry Mantle, a radio host in California was moderating a discussion last month at UC-Irvine on the fraught subject of “microaggressions,” words, though uttered innocently by white people, are said to deeply offend those who are less privileged when he made a big mistake: As he called on the first questioner, he asked “Where are you from?” That’s a standard question for talk show hosts. But the audience froze in silence, briefly and uncomfortably, before breaking into a nervous laughter. Katrina, the questioner, explained: “People are laughing because of the question,” she said. But she forgave Mantle. “I don’t need to take offense at that,” she said, “because I’m part of the privileged majority who don’t constantly have to put up with questions of where I am from.” Asking someone of color or any minority “Where are you from or where were you born?,” the guidelines suggested, could send the message that “you are not a true American. You are a perpetual foreigner in your own country.” The same for comments like “you speak English very well” and “What are you? You’re so interesting looking!” Saying to an African American, “When I look at you, I don’t see color” is a kind of “color blindness” that denies “the individual as a racial/cultural being.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [Colorblindness] [Microaggressions]
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]
Teaching First-Graders about Microaggressions: The Small Moments Add Up
by Bret Turner | March 2019
For young children, learning the power of words, personal boundaries and social dynamics is a crucial part of their development. In my first-grade classroom, students are in the thick of learning to read and write. And just as actively, they’re learning how to communicate with others. They experiment with tone, diction, intent and body language with one another and with the adults around them. It’s an expected, developmentally appropriate part of learning how to coexist with others. Sometimes, as in the common cases of name-calling, teasing and excluding, that experimentation can be painful. Addressing unkindness is part and parcel of working with young students. But not all unkindness is the same. It can be particularly detrimental when the hurtful language relates to race, gender, religion or other aspects of a child’s identity. These are microaggressions: small, subtle, sometimes-unintended acts of discrimination.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [Microaggressions] [Teachers] [Implicit Bias] [Implicit Racism] [White Privilege] [Anti-Racism]
Black Attitudes Matter: Why I Don’t Care If You Think I Look Mean
by Ashleigh Shackelford | November 2015
This Black Girl Attitude phenomenon lies within the idea that Black girls, women, and femmes are inherently angry, bitter, unrelenting, and a threat to functioning institutions and spaces. In understanding that this is how I’m seen, I do not intentionally align my presentation, navigation, or performance as a Black girl in a way that embodies the opposite of the stereotypes codified upon my existence within white supremacist patriarchy. Black girls are scripted as angry, bitter, ungrateful, savage beings that are denied the ability to be seen as dimensional or nuanced. So when a Black girl like me is walking around, existing, not forcing myself to assimilate to this politicized idea of ‘approachability,’ I am in direct affirmation of society’s idea of black femininity’s abrasive nature.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [Microaggressions] [White Culture] [Systemic Racism] [Implicit Racism] [Implicit Bias] [Accountability] [White Supremacy]
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]
Curriculum for White Americans to Educate Themselves on Race and Racism-from Ferguson to Charleston
by Jon Greenberg | July 2015
When Teaching about Race and Racism, I Invite Participants to Consider the Following Analogy: Think of racism as a gigantic societal-sized boot. “Which groups do you think are fighting the hardest against this boot of racism?” I ask them. Invariably, participants of diverse races answer that those fighting hardest to avoid getting squashed by the boot are people of Color. Includes a list of articles from Ferguson to Charleston, articles specifically written for white americans, understanding whiteness, white privilege, microaggressions, and a history of racial discrimination, joining groups, and parenting racially-conscious children. A helpful collection of resources.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [History] [Accountability] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Individual Change] [White Supremacy] [Implicit Bias] [Microaggressions]
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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