Resource Links Tagged with "Strategies"

Richmond Police Seize Guns from Group of Black Men at Gun Rights Rally While White ‘Boogaloo Boys’ Admit They Faced No Issues

by Niara Savage | January 2021
Richmond police seized at least two firearms from a group of Black men present at a gun rights rally in Virginia on Monday, Jan. 18, while white gun rights activists were not confronted by authorities. During the annual “Lobby Day” demonstration in Richmond, Black protesters expressed frustration about law enforcement’s disparate treatment of Black and white activists. … Just an hour before the group of Black men was stopped, the white leader of the Boogaloo Boys shared via megaphone that his group of anti-government, far-right extremists was violating gun and ammunition laws. The group of all white men called themselves the “Last Sons of Liberty.” Leader Mike Dunn, 20, shared with reporters and police alike that his group was openly carrying semiautomatic rifles “in pure defiance” of local laws, and “rocking mags (ammunition magazines) with double the legal limit.” Dunn told Reuters that the group did not face any issues. “We are here openly defying these laws, these unconstitutional city ordinances,” he said.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Policing] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Silencing POC] [-ing While Black] [Implicit Bias] [Justice System]

Black Professor at Loyola University Maryland Creates a Place for Positive Conversations about Race

by John-John Williams IV | December 2020
A series of deadly events culminated with Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead helping create a place at Loyola University Maryland where she wants positive conversations about race to exist and flourish. … Whitehead wants to bring students, teachers, community members and academics into the institute to train, discuss and devise solutions to combat racism. That means offering a curriculum and diversity equity and inclusion training for K-12 teachers through the institute’s Center for Teaching and Learning, which will be offered starting summer 2022. Junior fellowships will be offered to college students around the country so they can participate in discussions and research focused on race through the institute’s Center for Research and Culture as soon as this spring.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Advocacy] [Systemic Racism] [Teachers] [Policing] [Police Shootings] [Role Model] [Black Lives Matter] [-ing While Black] [Anti-Racism] [History] [Individual Change] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts]

Episcopal Church Established by Baltimore Slave Owners Creates $500,000 Reparations Fund

by Jonathan M. Pitts | January 2021
A Baltimore Episcopal church founded by slaveholders in the 1860s says it will spend $500,000 over the next five years to establish a fund intended as reparations for slavery.
Members of Memorial Episcopal Church in Bolton Hill voted Sunday to set aside $100,000 to donate in the next year to community organizations doing “justice-centered work.” The fund aims to address race-based inequalities that took root during slavery and proliferated for generations in the church and in the community at large.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Reparations] [Social Justice] [Systemic Racism] [Role Model] [Housing] [Environment] [Politics] [Racial Covenants] [History] [Civil War] [Collective Action] [Confederate Monuments] [Advocacy]

Racial discrimination Ages Black Americans Faster, According to a 25-Year-Long Study of Families

by The Conversation | November 2020
I’m part of a research team that has been following more than 800 Black American families for almost 25 years. We found that people who had reported experiencing high levels of racial discrimination when they were young teenagers had significantly higher levels of depression in their 20s than those who hadn’t. This elevated depression, in turn, showed up in their blood samples, which revealed accelerated aging on a cellular level. Our research is not the first to show Black Americans live sicker lives and die younger than other racial or ethnic groups. The experience of constant and accumulating stress due to racism throughout an individual’s lifetime can wear and tear down the body – literally “getting under the skin” to affect health.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Health Disparities] [Black Lives Matter] [Economics] [Strategies]

The Hurdles Ahead in 2021 for Maine’s Stalled Tribal Sovereignty Bid

by Caitlin Andrews | November 2020
Tribes are reviving a push to overhaul their relationships with the state, but they lost champions in the election and the complicated effort may face obstacles in a skeptical Gov. Janet Mills and special-interest opponents. … The complex issue of sovereignty would be revived in what promises to be one of the more high-stakes legislative sessions in state history in early 2021. Lawmakers will be facing an estimated $1.4 billion shortfall over the next three years. Racial disparities around the coronavirus, health and incarceration are also likely to drive policy conversations.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [Politics] [Justice System] [Systemic Racism] [Health Disparities] [Prison System] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Economics] [Denial]

Can Anybody Hear Me? How White Nonprofit Writing Standards Erase BIPOC Voices — and Why That is Definitely Not OK

by Yolanda Contreras | November 2020
So many times, we see the creation of BIPOC-serving organizations by all white people — organizations devoid of voices exemplifying the very communities that these white people are trying to help. This kind of white saviorism is commonplace because we live within white supremacy — it often exhibits as the erasure of diverse voices in favor of the white dominant voice. Which is tragic, because oftentimes, our personal voice is one of the only things that we have. I’ve orbited around nonprofits and volunteering for almost as long as I can remember, at least ever since I took on my first volunteer gig while in elementary school, assisting the school librarian. I’ve held various volunteer positions throughout the years, which have also included an internship at an esteemed nonprofit. But it took me almost four years after college graduation for someone to actually hire me — to pay for my labor — and for me to finally jumpstart my official nonprofit career. Time after time, I found myself in front of an all-white hiring committee, defending and selling myself. Time after time, I would receive a rejection letter from a white leader figure who deemed me not good enough. Maybe these nonprofits wanted to hire me — but didn’t — for reasons they couldn’t quite put their fingers on. I think it’s the fact that I am a woman of color. And maybe I should have taken those instances as a warning of things to come.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Silencing POC] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [White Culture]

Black Farmers Have Been Robbed of Land. A New Bill Would Give Them a “Quantum Leap” Toward Justice. “This is the Black Farmers Civil Rights Act of 2020, and it’s Long Overdue.”

by Tom Philpott | November 2020
A new Senate bill, called the Justice for Black Farmers Act, set to be released November 30, would mount a long-delayed federal effort to reverse the “destructive forces that were unleashed upon Black farmers over the past century—one of the dark corners of shame in American history,” lead sponsor Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told Mother Jones. …The Justice for Black Farmers Act’s much more modest proposal would amount to an “equitable balancing of the scales after decades of systemic racism within the USDA that disadvantaged Black farmers, excluded them from loans, and other programs, [and] prevented them from holding on to their land,” Booker said.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Civil War] [Slavery] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [Politics] [Reparations] [Advocacy] [History] [Collective Action] [Racial Covenants]

Audio Reveals Heated Exchange Between Biden And Black Leaders Over Cabinet, Police Reform

*Paywall Alert

by Andrew Solender | December 2020
President-elect Joe Biden had a contentious discussion about executive power, police reform and his cabinet appointments in a call with civil rights leaders on Tuesday, according to leaked audio excerpts of the call published by The Intercept. The civil rights leaders on the call, including Rev. Al Sharpton and the NAACP’s Sherrilyn Ifill, pressed Biden to use executive orders to institute sweeping reforms, create commissions and launch investigations to further the cause of civil rights. But Biden said he would not test the legal bounds of executive action and use it in lieu of legislation, stating “I am not going to violate the constitution,” and arguing unfettered use of executive orders can set a dangerous precedent for future administrations.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Politics] [Systemic Racism] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [Denial] [Policing] [Justice System] [Social Justice]

US Supreme Court Rules Half of Oklahoma is Native American Land

by BBC News | July 2020
Thursday’s decision in McGirt v Oklahoma is seen as one of the most far-reaching cases for Native Americans before the highest US court in decades. The ruling means some tribe members found guilty in state courts for offences committed on the land at issue can now challenge their convictions.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [Systemic Racism] [Collective Action] [Justice System] [Prison System]

Just How White Is the Book Industry?

by Richard Jean So and Gus Wezerek | December 2020
During last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, books written by people of color climbed the best-sellers lists. Was last summer a vision of equality to come for the publishing industry? Or a flash in the pan? Nana Kwame-Adjei-Brenyah had just turned 26 when he got the call in 2017 that Mariner Books wanted to publish his short-story collection, “Friday Black.” Mr. Adjei-Brenyah suspected that the contract he signed — a $10,000 advance for “Friday Black” and $40,000 for an unfinished second book — wasn’t ideal. But his father had cancer and the money provided a modicum of security. Mr. Adjei-Brenyah’s uneasiness over his book deal became more acute last summer. Using the hashtag #PublishingPaidMe, writers had begun to share their advances on Twitter with the goal of exposing racial pay disparities in publishing. Some white authors disclosed that they had been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their debut books.
TAGS: [Strategies] [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [Art & Culture] [History] [Accountability] [Economics]

How Prison Labor is the New American Slavery and Most of Us Unknowingly Support it

by Sara Burrows | June 2016
If you buy products or services from any of the 50 companies listed below (and you likely do), you are supporting modern American slavery. American slavery was technically abolished in 1865, but a loophole in the 13th Amendment has allowed it to continue “as a punishment for crimes” well into the 21st century. Not surprisingly, corporations have lobbied for a broader and broader definition of “crime” in the last 150 years. As a result, there are more (mostly dark-skinned) people performing mandatory, essentially unpaid, hard labor in America today than there were in 1830.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Slavery] [Prison System] [Strategies] [Economics] [Systemic Racism] [Individual Change]

A response to ‘Statement of Global Indigenous Identity and Solidarity’

by Rhiana Yazzie (Navajo) | October 2020
The following was written by Rhiana Yazzie (Navajo). It was originally posted on Facebook and is republished here with permission.
I’m responding to the “Statement of Global Indigenous Identity and Solidarity” that Rulan Tangen, the founder and artistic director of Dancing Earth Indigenous Contemporary Dance Creations published online on October 12, 2020. I urge you all to read this masterpiece justifying theft: the stealing of Native American identity, fellowships, grants, leadership, thought leadership, movie roles, and countless other robberies big and small, personal and public. …The letter details how over 30 years Rulan’s identity has evolved, and has allowed people, Native and non-Native to believe she was Native American. She now says, “I am often mistaken for or mislabelled as Native American, and my community kinship ties have possibly added to this mis-association.”
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [Systemic Racism] [Myths] [Art & Culture] [Assumptions] [Economics]

American Violence in the Time of Coronavirus

by Graham Lee Brewer | May 2020
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz digs into the roots of violence buried deep within the country’s history. From the election of Donald Trump to the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, American violence has been on unprecedented display. The pandemic has likewise exposed some of the nation’s starkest disparities, not only in justice and health-related issues, but also along racial and class divides.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [Economics] [Systemic Racism] [History] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [White Privilege] [Employment] [Immigration]

How to Use Stats to Fight Racial Inequality, Not Support It

by Alex Shashkevich-Stanford | June 2018
Using statistics to inform the public about racial disparities can backfire. Worse yet, it can cause some people to be more supportive of the policies that create those inequalities, according to new research. “One of the barriers of reducing inequality is how some people justify and rationalize it,” says Rebecca Hetey, a psychology researcher at Stanford University. “A lot of people doing social justice work wonder why attitudes are so immune to change. Our research shows that simply presenting the numbers is not enough.” If raw numbers don’t always work, what might?
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [Myths] [History]

Accounting for Race; A New Way to Compare the Financial Health of Households in States

by Prosperity Now | January 2019
Headlines of national economic strength belie the reality that millions in the US are living in financial precarity. Even worse, families that are still recovering from the last recession will be the first to suffer from the next recession, which many analysts warn is around the corner. Because people of color, particularly Black, Latino, Native American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander people, live in a different economic reality than what oft-cited national data shows, we need to be honest about the impacts race and ethnicity have on economic outcomes. The exploration and acknowledgement of racial and ethnic disparities and their origins make our data clearer and our local, state and federal policies stronger. Solutions to our collective economic peril will remain elusive if we do not center the impact of race and racism.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [Economics] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Indigenous] [Asian] [Latino/a] [History] [Housing] [Denial] [Politics] [Employment]

New HUD Report Shows Continued Discrimination Against People of Color

by Mijin Cha | June 2013
People of color looking for homes are told about and shown fewer homes and apartments than their white counterparts. Earlier this year, we highlighted how the racial wealth gap tripled from 1984-2009, mainly due to structural barriers to wealth accumulation for households of color, including rampant housing discrimination that constrained where African-American families could live and restricted access to affordable home loans. A new report from HUD shows the extent of housing discrimination against people of color. The report found that people of color looking for homes are told about and shown fewer homes and apartments than their white counterparts. This type of discrimination raises the costs of the housing search for people of color and restricts their housing options.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [Housing] [Economics] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Denial] [Accountability] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [White Supremacy]

Black Kids Are Way More Likely to be Punished in Schools than White Kids, Study Finds

by German Lopez | April 2018
Whether and how a child is punished for acting up in school could depend on his race, a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found. The report found that black students in K-12 schools are far more likely to be disciplined — whether through suspension or referral to law enforcement — than their counterparts of other races. Charts show the topline finding, demonstrating that black children are overrepresented based on their actual population in the student body.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Privilege] [History] [White Culture] [Accountability]

US Police Killings: What the Data Tells Us; Exploratory Data Analysis on Police Killings from 2015-20

by Nadar Nibris | December 2018
In this article, we will analyze one of America’s hottest political topics, which encompasses issues ranging from institutional racism to the role of Law Enforcement personnel in society. But first, I have a favor to ask. For the next 10 minutes, let’s leave our preconceived notions of what’s true at the door. Prior domain knowledge is vital for making inferences from data. But if we build our statistical models based on preexisting beliefs, we are less likely to get to the right answers and more likely to ask the wrong questions. That was my schpeal on the Philosophy of Statistics. Let’s get started.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [Police Shootings] [Policing] [White Culture] [History] [Black Lives Matter]

The A-Z List of Black Inventors; This list of Black and African-American Inventors Have Certainly Earned Their Place in History. Let’s Take a Look at the Legacy of These Inventors.

by Christopher McFadden | July 2018
The following join the ranks of many great African-American inventors who have contributed greatly to society throughout the years. Many black inventors have struggled with hardship, poverty and, in some circumstances, slavery, to prove their genius to the world. The following are but a few of the many inventive and talented members of the black community in the United States. Many of the entries on this list are derived from the dutiful work of one Mr. Henry Baker who worked for the U.S. Patent Office between the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. At this time, the African-Americans had few rights so Henry wanted to make sure that some, at least, received some form of unofficial recognition for their contributions to society. This list is not exhaustive but is comprehensive and is in alphabetical order.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [Art & Culture] [History]

Racism Is Killing the Planet; The Ideology of White Supremacy Leads the Way Toward Disposable People and a Disposable Natural World

by Hop Hopkins | June 2020
…As I struggled to maintain my posture and keep up the rhythm, I thought about the level of commitment it takes to hold someone down for nine minutes straight. The realization horrified me. The cop who has been charged with murdering George Floyd had to have been deeply committed to taking his life. The police officer had so many chances to let up the pressure, to let George live. Yet the officer made the choice not to. To spend nine minutes taking the life-breath from another person: That is what white supremacy does to white people. That is what white supremacy does to the rest of us too. White supremacy robs each of us of our humanity. It causes white people to view Black people as less than human. Every one of those cops watching George die was convinced that the man pinned to the ground was less than human, was in some way disposable. During the street protests and marches of the past two weeks, many people carried signs that read “Racism Is Killing Us.” It’s no exaggeration to say that racism and white supremacy harm all of us, because in addition to robbing us of our humanity, racism is also killing the planet we all share.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Racial Terrorism] [Policing] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [POC Climate Action] [Advocacy] [Indigenous] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [Collective Action]

White Silence on Social Media: Why Not Saying Anything is Actually Saying a Lot

by Christina Capatides | June 2020
…”It’s a very painful kind of silence because it removes our voice,” she said. “It doesn’t allow us to express our very specific pain… No one would ever go to a breast cancer walk and criticize them for talking about breast cancer. You wouldn’t walk up to someone who has experience as a breast cancer survivor or someone who’s lost someone from breast cancer, and say, ‘How dare you talk about breast cancer? Why not talk about colon cancer? How dare you exclude other cancers?'” Rachel Lindsay, who famously broke barriers as the first black Bachelorette, said she is taking note of which white friends and public figures have gone silent. And she believes that, in the digital age, it is the duty of public figures to speak out.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Black Lives Matter] [“All Lives Matter”] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [White Defensiveness] [White Fragility/Tears] [Systemic Racism] [Anti-Racism] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts]

How Racist Policing Took Over American Cities, Explained by a Historian; “The Problem is the Way Policing Was Built,” Historian Khalil Muhammad Says.

by Anna North | June 2020
Eugene Williams, a 17-year-old black boy, was stoned to death by white people in 1919 after he swam into what they deemed the wrong part of Lake Michigan. In response, black people in Chicago rose up in protest, and white people attacked them. More than 500 people were injured and 38 were killed. Afterward, the city convened a commission to study the causes of the violence. The commission found “systemic participation in mob violence by the police,” Khalil Muhammad, a professor of history, race, and public policy at Harvard Kennedy School and author of the book The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, told Vox. “When police officers had the choice to protect black people from white mob violence, they chose to either aid and abet white mobs or to disarm black people or to arrest them.”
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Policing] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism]

Influencers are Doing blackface to ‘show Solidarity’ with BLM

by Brit Dawson | June 2020
One group seemingly still clueless about how to support Black Lives Matter is influencers. First, they were posing at protests for clout, and now they’re doing blackface to ‘show solidarity’ with the movement. In an Instagram post, satirist and socio-political activist Saint Hoax shared screenshots of influencers who had painted their skin Black, along with a brief history of blackface. They wrote: “How can you ‘spread awareness’ about a subject you know so little about? If you genuinely care about a cause, the least you can do is educate yourself about it.” They continued: “It’s infuriating that we still need to educate people about the racist and painful history of blackface. We shouldn’t be having this conversation in 2020.”
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Accountability] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [White Supremacy] [Black Lives Matter] [White Culture] [Myths] [Strategies]

Huxley’s Adoption Story is Part of a Much Larger Narrative about Race, Disability and Abuse

by Lydia X. Z. Brown | May 2020
By now, you’ve probably heard about the YouTube influencers who made international news for abandoning their autistic child after adopting him from China almost three years ago. Huxley, originally adopted by the Stauffers, is one of thousands of children, many children of colour in the Global South who are adopted each year by predominantly white families in the Global North. Since his adoption – which was documented for YouTube in meticulous detail, including the fact that Huxley was disabled, the Stauffers have filmed numerous videos of him for their YouTube channel that they monetised and gained major corporate sponsors for producing. They filmed and posted videos that showed Huxley having meltdowns, which are terrifying, vulnerable moments. They are extremely emotionally, cognitively and physically draining for autistic people. They filmed and posted videos that showed Huxley with duct tape on his hands because his mother wanted to stop him from sucking his thumb. All of this is painfully familiar for autistic people, who routinely see nonautistic parents of autistic children exploiting and monetising their children for internet fame with no regard for their children’s autonomy, dignity, or privacy.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [Asian] [White Privilege] [White Defensiveness] [White Blindness] [Accountability]

CVS, Walgreens, Walmart Stop Locking Up Black Beauty, Hair Care Products

by Anne D’Innocenzio | June 2020
Drugstore chains Walgreens and CVS Health say they will stop locking up beauty and hair care products aimed at black women and other women of color, joining Walmart in ending a practice at some stores that has drawn the ire of customers. “We are currently ensuring multicultural hair care and beauty products are not stored behind locked cases at any of our stores,” Walgreens said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press late Thursday.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism]

Why I Stopped Talking About Racial Reconciliation and Started Talking About White Supremacy

by Erna Kim Hackett | March 2020
Recently, people have asked me, “Why isn’t talking about white privilege enough, why white supremacy?” There is an obvious discomfort with the term by white people. The one exception to that is when things like Charlottesville happen. When people march around with Nazi flags, most folks I know feel comfortable saying, “I’m not down with that.” Which is a pretty low bar, but OK. However, when the term white supremacy is used for anything less obvious than tiki torch-wielding, Nazi flag-waving people, lots of folks get uncomfortable. Most of my crowd was taught to use the terms “white privilege” and “racial reconciliation”. Here is why I no longer focus on them and instead teach on white supremacy.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Policing] [History]
[White Fragility/Tears] [White Privilege]

Why Juneteenth Matters: Professor Brenna Greer Shares the History and Significance

by Wellesley College | June 2020
Historians are increasingly illuminating the nature, extent, and consistency of investments in Black people’s oppression, which accounts for why, in this nation, Black freedom and racial equality have always required hard-fought battles, sometimes in the most literal and bloodiest sense. Juneteenth reminds us that, in this nation’s history, Black people’s freedom has traditionally been a question of economics and politics, not morality.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Economics] [Politics] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Slavery] [Civil War] [White Blindness] [White Supremacy] [Policing]

The Injustice of This Moment Is Not an ‘Aberration’; From Mass Incarceration to Mass Deportation, Our Nation Remains in Deep Denial.

by Michelle Alexander | January 2020
We are now living in an era not of post-racialism but of unabashed racialism, a time when many white Americans feel free to speak openly of their nostalgia for an age when their cultural, political and economic dominance could be taken for granted — no apologies required. Racial bigotry, fearmongering and scapegoating are no longer subterranean in our political discourse; the dog whistles have been replaced by bullhorns. White nationalist movements are operating openly online and in many of our communities; they’re celebrating mass killings and recruiting thousands into their ranks.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Immigration] [Systemic Racism] [Politics] [Prison System] [Employment] [Housing] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [Colorblindness] [Slavery] [Police Shootings] [Advocacy]]

I’m Black and Afraid of ‘White Fragility’; Robin DiAngelo’s Corporate-Friendly Anti-Racist Screed Actually Reinforces Racist Beliefs

by Cedrick-Michael Simmons | June 2020
DiAngelo views racism as a problem to be combated with sensitivity training. The premise of diversity and cultural competency training is that by educating European-Americans on the persistence and consequences of racism, they can be transformed into non-racist (or, ideally, anti-racist) individuals. But diversity training has been shown to be a largely ineffective way to address racism in American workplaces. These lectures and workshops do little—if anything—in the way of addressing the structural tensions that workers must navigate on a daily basis.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [White Fragility/Tears] [Anti-Racism] [Accountability] [Art & Culture] [Black Lives Matter] [Denial] [Myths] [Assumptions] [Systemic Racism]

Glorifying White Authors like DiAngelo Erases Decades of Black Writing on Whiteness

*Paywall Alert
by Anastasia Kārkliņa | June 2020
For weeks, white liberal Americans have been praising White Fragility, treating it as a must-read manual for white people, forming online discussion groups, and joining book clubs all across the country. What is troubling about the current white liberal obsession with DiAngelo is how digital conversations that glorify her most recent work rarely consider writings on whiteness and white people by Black American authors, at least not with the same sense of urgency and importance. If DiAngelo’s readership is earnestly committed to decoding whiteness, we must ask a glaringly obvious question: why are white liberal Americans so quickly inclined to praise and venerate a white expert on race but generally don’t extend the same attention to what Black writers, intellectuals, and political leaders have have had to say about whiteness and white people for decades?
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [White Fragility/Tears] [Black Lives Matter] [Anti-Racism] [Art & Culture] [Denial]