Resource Links Tagged with "White Blindness"

Here Are Concrete Actions White People Can Take to Fight Racial Injustice

“My call to action challenges white professionals to lean into discomfort and bring about change.”
by TaLona Holbert | July 2020
Every day of my life, I have experiences that infer Black inferiority and anti-Blackness. It is exhausting to wake up each day and convince myself and others that I belong, that my life matters and that I am capable, despite being surrounded by social, cultural and professional cues that suggest otherwise. No matter how subtle or seemingly innocuous signals of Black exclusion and inferiority are, they diminish Black people’s dignity and humanity, erode our identity as Americans, and reinforce decades of stereotypes and discrimination intended to cement our status as second-class citizens.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Black Lives Matter] [Policing] [Systemic Racism] [Confederate Monuments] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [White Fragility/Tears] [White Blindness] [Assumptions]

What We Get Wrong about ‘People of Color’

by Jason Parham | November 2019
The phrase turns a plural into a singular, an action that betrays all the ways we have come to understand contemporary identity.
This past summer, in one of the most bizarre applications, Representative Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, who is white and Republican, described himself as a “person of color” when discussing Trump’s comments about four Democratic congresswomen. “It’s time to stop fixating on our differences—particularly our superficial ones,” he said.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [Prison System] [Politics] [Racial Covenants] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy]
[White Defensiveness] [White Blindness] [Denial] [“All Lives Matter”] [White Fragility/Tears] [White Culture]

A Conversation about Truth and Reconciliation in the US

by Ezra Klein | July 2020
What would it take for America to heal? To be the country it claims to be? This is the question that animates Bryan Stevenson’s career. Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a clinical professor at the New York University School of Law, a MacArthur “genius,” and the author of the remarkable book Just Mercy — which was recently turned into a feature film where Stevenson was played by Michael B. Jordan.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Confederate Monuments] [Role Model] [Advocacy] [Prison System] [History] [Denial] [White Blindness] [Slavery] [Civil War] [Economics] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism]

The False Promise of Anti-Racism Books

*Paywall Alert

by Saida Grundy | July 2020
Texts that seek to raise the collective American Consciousness are rendered futile without concrete systemic changes. …When offered in lieu of actionable policies regarding equity, consciousness raising can actually undermine Black progress by presenting increased knowledge as the balm for centuries of abuse. Executives at major corporations such as Amazon, for instance, have invited race scholars and writers to “help [them] unpack” such topics as the American justice system and how to be an anti-racist ally. Yet Black employees at many of these companies have pointed to the hypocrisy of in-house dialogues about race while practices like labor exploitation continue. In the form of hollow public statements and company-sponsored conversations, consciousness raising is often toothless.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Anti-Racism] [Confederate Monuments] [White Blindness] [Denial] [Accountability] [Implicit Racism] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [History]

Liberal, Progressive — and Racist? The Sierra Club Faces its White-Supremacist History

by Darryl Fears and Steven Mufson | July 2020
As Confederate statues fall across the country, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in an early morning post on the group’s website, “it’s time to take down some of our own monuments, starting with some truth-telling about the Sierra Club’s early history.” Muir, who fought to preserve Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Forest, once referred to African Americans as lazy “Sambos,” a racist pejorative that many black people consider to be as offensive as the n-word.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Confederate Monuments] [POC Climate Action] [Indigenous] [Black Lives Matter] [Accountability] [History] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [Economics] [Employment] [Anti-Racism] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [Systemic Racism] [Strategies]

White Supremacy Shaped American Christianity, Researcher Says

by Carol Kuruvilla | July 2020
It wouldn’t be hard for many white Christians to find examples of white supremacy’s claims on their own family’s trees, Jones said. But white Christians’ image of themselves and their religion has been warped by what Jones calls “white-supremacy-induced amnesia.” Jones wrestles with that amnesia in his new book, “White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity.” He argues that white Christians ― from evangelicals in the South to mainline Protestants in the Midwest to Catholics in the Northeast ― weren’t just complacent onlookers while political leaders debated what to do about slavery, segregation and discrimination. White supremacist theology played a key role in shaping the American church from the very beginning, influencing not just the way denominations formed but also white Christians’ theology about salvation itself.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [History] [Slavery] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [White Privilege] [Police Shootings] [Accountability] [Politics]

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: [Strategies] [2020’s] [White Supremacy] [Silencing POC] [Systemic Racism] [White Privilege] [Black Lives Matter] [White Culture] [Economics] [Accountability] [White Defensiveness] [White Blindness]

Five White Louisiana Judges Uphold Life Sentence of Black Man Jailed for Stealing Hedge Clippers 23 Years Ago

by Namrata Tripathi | August 2020
A man from Louisiana, who was sentenced to life in prison for stealing a pair of hedge clippers over 20 years ago, will continue to remain in prison after the state Supreme Court denied a request to review his case. Fair Wayne Bryant, a 62-year-old Black man, was convicted for stealing garden equipment in 1997, which landed him in prison for the rest of his life. Bryant, in 2000, had appealed his life sentence to be unconstitutionally excessive and his case had made its way up to the high court of the state. However, his hopes were dashed after a Louisiana Supreme Court panel, consisting of five White men and one Black woman, upheld his life sentence 5-1 last week. The only person to dissent was the Black judge on the panel, Supreme Court Justice Bernette Johnson.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Prison System] [Systemic Racism] [Silencing POC] [Accountability] [Policing] [Economics] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Blindness]

The Wages of Woke, How Robin DiAngelo got Rich Peddling ‘White Fragility’

by Charles Fain Lehman | July 2020
Dr. Robin DiAngelo, the bestselling author of White Fragility, claims to believe in accountability. DiAngelo used to list the “racial justice” organizations she donates to as part of her extensive “accountability statement,” including a monthly “land rent” paid to the Native American tribe that used to occupy Seattle. But when the Washington Free Beacon began contacting the organizations she listed as recipients of her largesse, DiAngelo scrubbed the site, removing their names and the dates of her giving from the public domain—a version of the page remains available through the Internet Archive after briefly being unavailable due to what the site said were technical issues. The page was edited again as recently as Friday, when DiAngelo wrote she would begin donating 15 percent of her after-tax income, “in cash and in-kind donations,” starting next month—suggesting she had not previously, as the page exhorts, given a percentage of her income large enough that she could “feel it.” This about-face is odd for a woman who has made her career demanding white people not respond defensively in hard conversations.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [White Privilege] [White Fragility/Tears] [Accountability] [White Blindness] [Economics]

GREAT NEGRO PLOT OF 1741: THE RUMORS AND LIES THAT LED TO EXECUTION OF OVER 30 BLACK AMERICANS IN NEW YORK CITY

by Blackthen | August 2020
The details of the events that took place in New York City in the spring and summer of 1741 are recorded in numerous historic and later accounts, many of which contain contradictory information. According to nearly all accounts, a fire on March 18, 1741, at Fort George—then Lieutenant Governor George Clarke’s home—was the first in a series of fires in the city that may or may not have been set by slaves. The fires occurred at regular intervals and then with increased frequency until April 6, when four fires were set in a single day. Rumors raced across the city when a witness claimed to have seen a black man, identified as a slave named Cuffee, running from the scene of one of the fires.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [History] [Slavery] [Accountability] [Systemic Racism] [Policing] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Blindness] [Silencing POC] [Assumptions]

On Nantucket, a Racist Act Gets a Second Look

by Dugan Arnett Globe Staff | August 2020
On March 11, 2018, island residents awoke to a startling act of hate. The front door of the African Meeting House — a nearly 200-year-old former church that now serves as a symbol of the island’s rich Black history — had been defiled with racist graffiti: “N—– LEAVE.” The crime made national news, shocking many who couldn’t fathom such overt bigotry in a place of rarefied tranquility. Residents quickly condemned the vandalism, while local officials, labeling the act a hate crime, vowed to seek justice. But justice hasn’t come.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Policing] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [White Culture] [Accountability] [History] [Collective Action] [Silencing POC]

Letter to My Son; “Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body – it is heritage.”

by Ta-Nehisi Coates | July 2015
Specifically, the host wished to know why I felt that white America’s progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence. Hearing this, I felt an old and indistinct sadness well up in me. The answer to this question is the record of the believers themselves. The answer is American history. …When Abraham Lincoln declared, in 1863, that the battle of Gettysburg must ensure “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” he was not merely being aspirational. At the onset of the Civil War, the United States of America had one of the highest rates of suffrage in the world. The question is not whether Lincoln truly meant “government of the people” but what our country has, throughout its history, taken the political term people to actually mean. In 1863 it did not mean your mother or your grandmother, and it did not mean you and me. As for now, it must be said that the elevation of the belief in being white was not achieved through wine tastings and ice-cream socials, but rather through the pillaging of life, liberty, labor, and land.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [History] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [-ing While Black] [Policing] [White Blindness] [Slavery]

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]

How the Myth of a Liberal North Erases a Long History of White Violence

by Christy Clark-Pujara and Anna-Lisa Cox| August 2020
Anti-black racism has terrorized African Americans throughout the nation’s history, regardless of where in the country they lived. There is a toxic myth that encourages white people in the North to see themselves as free from racism and erases African Americans from the pre-Civil War North, where they are still being told that they don’t belong. What Langston experienced was not the massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921 or Rosewood, Florida, in 1923—this was Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1841, 20 years before the Civil War broke out. This was the third such racist attack against African Americans in Cincinnati in 12 years. This article was originally published as the first of a five-part series titled “Black Life in Two Pandemics: Histories of Violence” and provides link to view all parts.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [History] [Myths] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [Slavery] [White Privilege] [Silencing POC] [Denial]

What Kind Of White Person Would I Have Been?

by Ali Michael, Ph. D. | January 2017
When I was growing up, we learned about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in school. And I always wondered which side I would have been on if I had lived in his time. I imagined I would have been one of the White people who marched in his marches, and befriended Black children in the newly integrated schools. I was sure that I would not be one of the mean people who resisted integration, who thought that White people were better than people of color because of the color of their skin. But that was all I knew — that there were two sides. There were White people who supported what Dr. King was doing and White people who fought against what he was doing. I didn’t realize at the time that there was a third kind of White person. And in fact, I’m sorry to say, it’s much more likely that I would have fallen into the third group.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Colorblindness] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Accountability] [White Blindness] [White Privilege]

Why I’m Absolutely an Angry Black Woman

by Dominique Matti | October 2017
*Because when I was five, my kindergarten classmate told me I couldn’t be the princess in the game we were playing because black girls couldn’t be princesses. Because I was in third grade the first time a teacher seemed shocked at how “well-spoken” I was. Because in fourth grade I was told my crush didn’t like black girls. Because in sixth grade a different crush told me I was pretty — for a black girl. Because in 7th grade my predominantly black suburban neighborhood was nicknamed “Spring Ghettos” instead of calling it its name (Spring Meadows). Because I was in 8th grade the first time I was called an Oreo and told that I “wasn’t really black” like it was a compliment. Because in 9th grade when I switched schools a boy told me he knew I had to be mixed with something to be so pretty. Because in 10th grade my group of friends and I were called into an office and asked if we were a gang, or if we had father figures. Because in 11th grade my AP English teacher told me that I didn’t write like a college-bound student (though I later scored perfectly on the exam). Because when I volunteered in Costa Rica that summer, I was whistled at and called Negrita.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [Assumptions] [Accountability] [White Blindness]

Walking While Black

by Garnette Cadogan | July 2016
*On my first day in the city, I went walking for a few hours to get a feel for the place and to buy supplies to transform my dormitory room from a prison bunker into a welcoming space. When some university staff members found out what I’d been up to, they warned me to restrict my walking to the places recommended as safe to tourists and the parents of freshmen. They trotted out statistics about New Orleans’s crime rate. What no one had told me was that I was the one who would be considered a threat. On one occasion, less than a month after my arrival, I tried to help a man whose wheelchair was stuck in the middle of a crosswalk; he threatened to shoot me in the face, then asked a white pedestrian for help…
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [-ing While Black] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [Policing] [Black Lives Matter] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Blindness]

11 Things White People Need To Realize About Race

by Emma Gray and Jessica Samakow | July 2015
#BlackLIvesMatter doesn’t suggest the other lives don’t – it’s about making sure black lives do. The same way men need to be forced to confront, interrogate and reckon with masculinity in order to address sexism, white people need to face their whiteness. And it is not the responsibility of people of color to educate white people about race. People of color don’t need to be taught that racism exists — they live it every day. It shouldn’t (and can’t) be on their shoulders to enlighten the rest of us. We have to do that for ourselves. Here are 11 things every white person who doesn’t want to be Part Of The Problem should know.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [White Blindness] [White Privilege] [Accountability] [“Reverse Racism”]

The 5 Types of ‘Becky’

by Michael Harriot | August 2017
*Becky: (noun); a white woman who uses her privilege as a weapon, a ladder or an excuse. Ex: “A random Becky hit me up on Twitter to explain why not all white women are racist.” An eyeopening description of different levels of racism, could you be one of them? (note: in 2020 “Becky” changed to “Karen”)
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Accountability] [White Blindness]

Things I Didn’t Know

by James Mulholland | May 2019
Nine years ago, I began to slowly awaken to my racial prejudices and white privilege. It was a rude awakening. During the past three years, I’ve blogged about that journey from racial ignorance. Recently, someone asked me what have been the biggest surprises along the way. What do I know now that I didn’t know before? What follows is a short list of some of my bigger epiphanies and the posts where I shared these revelations.

I didn’t know scholars and sociologists believe nearly 100% of enslaved women were sexually assaulted. I didn’t know how much the free access of white men to black bodies was part of white culture. Some sociologists estimate 50% of all children of slaves had a white father. This kind of sexual aggression continued throughout Jim Crow. I didn’t know the conviction of a white man for raping a black woman was extremely rare before 1960. When Rape Was Legal.
I didn’t know that – in some ways – the years after the end of slavery were worse than during slavery. I didn’t know vagrancy laws allowed white people to “arrest and convict” nearly any black person and enslave them. Thousands of black families were torn apart as fathers were sent off to “serve their time” in factories and on farms. The death rate at these prison camps was as high as 50%, meaning that the penalty for “vagrancy” in the south was often death. Worse Than Slavery.

TAGS: [Slavery] [Racial Terrorism] [White Privilege] [History] [White Blindness] [2010’s]

10 Things Every White Teacher Should Know When Talking about Race

by Angela Watson | September 2017
Most of this white teacher’s wide-ranging detailed guidance for other white teachers also contains many links, guidance and reminders that appear useful to other white Americans. “Begin the lifelong habit of rooting out your own biases…. We ALL have internalized anti- blackness (even people of color!) because our ways have thinking have been influenced by living in a white supremacist society…. Understanding and working through your own limitations and prejudices is the MOST important thing you can do, and will better equip you to begin doing the actual work of fighting for racial justice.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Teachers] [Implicit Bias] [Anti-Racism] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [White Privilege] [White Fragility/Tears] [Colorblindness] [“Reverse Racism”] [Systemic Racism] [Accountability] [2010’s]

4 Ways White People Can Process Their Emotions without Hijacking the Conversation on Racial Justice

by Jennifer Loubriel | May 2019
If you’re a white person who has been in many activist spaces, then you’ve probably experienced a specific, often unspoken ground rule: There’s no room for white tears in this space. This sort of rule is instilled because oftentimes, in other spaces, your emotions, and the emotions of other white people, are constantly centered, nurtured, and coddled when it comes to conversations about race. Too often, People of Color are pushed aside so that white people feel safe and calmed. This is racism in itself. Rather than focusing on the lived experiences and traumas of People of Color when talking about racism, the focus is placed on the host of emotions that white people go through when confronted with racism.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [White Fragility/Tears] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness]

Black People Can’t Be Racist

by Sobantu Mzwakali | October 2015
A man cannot hate the whip with which he is being flogged but then be expected to love the person doing the flogging. When such a black man, lying helpless bleeding on the ground expresses hate for the white person wielding the whip, it is only reasonable.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s [White Blindness] [Accountability] [Systemic Racism] [White Privilege]

Racial Disparities Opportunity Atlas

Racial disparities in income and other outcomes are among the most visible and persistent features of American society. This map allows you to search by a wide variety of demographics: Household Income, Incarceration Rate, Individual Income, Employment Rate, High School/College Graduation Rate, Hours Worked Per Week, Hourly Wage …

Confronting White Supremacy in the Work Place

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

White People, It’s Time To Prioritize Justice Over Civility

by Tauriq Moosa | May 2017
In striving to be ‘civil,’ white moderates provide cover for deadly white supremacy. .. Welcome to our current reality, in which white supremacists are treated like B-grade celebs on a reality TV show.
White supremacists are, after all, routinely landing profiles in leading media sites — because it’s apparently surprising Nazis can brush their hair and tuck in their shirt — and often getting invited onto popular shows, as if their ideas deserve more attention and platforms. …The way things are doesn’t equate to how things should be.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [Politics] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [White Culture] [Prison System] [White Privilege] [White Fragility/Tears]

An Open Letter From An Admitted Racist

by Gretchen Palmer | July 2016
If you would have told me three years ago, before Michael Brown, before Eric Garner, before the Black Lives Matter movement that I am a racist, I would have fought you tooth and nail. Absolutely not, no way ― how dare you accuse me of such an awful thing? I really DID believe that I wasn’t a racist – but the truth is , I hadn’t really examined the topic very much and I certainly had never been called to the mat on it… ”I was an unconscious liar.” Includes 5 articles for those ready to move forward.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [Colorblindness] [White Fragility/Tears] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [Accountability]

White People: Stop Microvalidating Each Other

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

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

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

To The Racist Guy Who Picked Up My Pencil During Class

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