by Isolde Raftery | June 2017
On a gray day last October, teachers across Seattle wore a shirt that read BLACK LIVES MATTER. They knew there might be criticism. John Muir Elementary in south Seattle had done this in September and received a bomb threat and hate mail from across the U.S. But they did, and the day was, by most accounts, uneventful. Some kids got it – most didn’t. Just another school day. And then, a backlash, but this time not from outsiders. White parents from the city’s tonier neighborhoods wrote to their principals to say they were displeased. A Black Lives Matter day was too militant, too political and too confusing for their young kids, they said.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [Black Lives Matter] [“All Lives Matter”] [White Culture]
Resource Links Tagged with "White Culture"
14 Words That Carry a Coded Meaning for Black People
by Tamerra Griffin | February 2015
The article, written by a Black woman begins: “You don’t hear overtly racist language very often these days. Here are some words with a subtler implication. She then provides 28 examples of sentences and how they are perceived in some contexts by some Black people, in a “what you say” “what we hear” format.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Implicit Racism] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [2010’s]
A Pop Quiz for White Women Who Think Black Women Should Be Nicer to Them in Conversations about Race
by Deesha Philyaw | September 2016
True or False: Gender oppression is way worse than racial oppression.
True or False: I am aware that Black women experience both, but feminists should stick together and focus on fighting sexism, instead of getting distracted by what divides us.
True or False: Racism is mostly about personal slights and hurt feelings, not a systematic form of oppression.
True or False: I am aware that white women directly benefited from American slavery and that enslaved Black women were routinely raped by white men, but that happened a long time ago and has no bearing on our lives today.
True or False: I am aware that Black women’s low-wage labor as housekeepers and nannies made it possible for white women to enter the workforce in record numbers decades ago, but we are natural allies in the fight for equality today.
True or False: I’m a beneficiary of white supremacy, but I’m sick of Black women making everything about race. I think they just look for things to be offended about.
You may be surprised to learn how many “true” answers you give.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [White Fragility/Tears] [Accountability] [White Culture]
11 Ways White America Avoids Taking Responsibility for Its Racism
by Dr. Robin DiAngelo | June 2015
“White people are all too quick to cite their good intentions. Unconsciously, they aim to preserve white supremacy…. Racism as a default system that institutionalizes an unequal distribution of resources and power between white people and people of color….[and] works to the benefit of whites.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Implicit Bias] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [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]
I’m Tired of Suppressing Myself to Get Along with White People
by Priscilla Ward | January 2015
I pocket my black rage, and swap “hey girl” for hello. But in making others comfortable, I’m making myself sick. How much of my day-to-day experiences as a black woman do I have to filter?
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [Silencing POC] [White Culture]
When White People Are Uncomfortable, Black People Are Silenced
by Rachel Elizabeth Cargle | January 2019
In 1962, Fannie Lou Hamer was fired from her job after she campaigned to encourage African Americans to vote. Two years later, when Hamer testified at the DNC in support of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party—specifically its efforts to further black voter registration —President Lyndon B Johnson called an impromptu news conference to make it impossible for national television networks to cover her testimony live.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [White Culture] [Silencing POC] [History] [2010’s]
Tackling Racism in Hartford
by Steve Nelson | November 2017
Are you saying that all white people are racist?” After a short pause … “Yes.” This exchange was between a white New York teenager and a workshop leader on racism. It is among scores of powerful moments in a film called I’m Not Racist . . . Am I?I’m proud that the Calhoun School, which I headed until last June, produced the film in partnership with Point Made Films, a leading documentary film company.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Culture]
When Black Conductors Aren’t Comfortable at Concerts, Classical Music Has a Real Problem: There’s a Reason So Few Black People Go to the Symphony
by Brandon Keith Brown (a black conductor) | February 2020
“Stepping out into society as a Black person is going to a party where you know you’re not wanted. Whether at work, school, orchestra concerts or the opera, we’re unwelcome, my darkness breaches its whiteness.”
TAGS: [Assumptions] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [2020’s] [White Culture]
White People Are Broken
by Katherine Fugate | August 2018
“…But [my friend] was telling me that, no matter how ‘woke’ or evolved I may think I am, I walk this world as a white woman, which means I’ll never truly understand what it is to walk this world as a black woman…. Very few describe themselves as racist, but all white people benefit from racism. White people benefit every time they rent an apartment, buy a car, apply for a job, apply for a loan, apply to college.”
TAGS:[White Privilege] [Bystander Intervention] [Racial Terrorism] [Individual Change] [Assumptions] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Accountability] [2010’s] [White Culture]
This Is What Racism Sounds Like in the Banking Industry: A JPMorgan employee and a Customer Secretly Recorded Their Conversations with Bank Employees
by Emily Flitter | December 2019
“Jimmy Kennedy earned $13 million during his nine-year career as a player in the National Football League. He was the kind of person most banks would be happy to have as a client…. But when Mr. Kennedy tried to become a “private client” at JPMorgan Chase, an elite designation that would earn him travel discounts, exclusive event invitations and better deals on loans, he kept getting the runaround.”
TAGS: [Systemic Racism] [2010’s] [White Culture] [Assumptions]
How the GI Bill’s Promise Was Denied to a Million Black WWII Veterans the Sweeping Bill Promised Prosperity to Veterans. So Why Didn’t Black Americans Benefit?
by Erin Blakemore | June 2019, updated September 2019
But when he spoke with a salesman about buying the house using a GI Bill-guaranteed mortgage, the door to suburban life in Levittown slammed firmly in his face. The suburb wasn’t open to black residents.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [Systemic Racism] [History] [2010’s] [White Culture]
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 …
How “Good” White People Silence People of Color Every Day
by Donyae Coles | February 2018
“Good” white people uphold and support white supremacy because they are unwilling to see their own roles within systemic racism. But never assume your initial reaction is the correct one, especially when faced with brand new information. Your bias plays a part in how you see things and must be actively overcome. Don’t do white supremacy any favors because something hurt your feelings.
TAGS: [Silencing POC] [Assumptions] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [Implicit Racism]
Minority NYPD Officers Admit Their Fellow Cops Go ‘Hunting’ For Vulnerable Citizens Of Color
by Rachall Davies | July 2016
The inhumane killings of Black men, women and children across America at the hands of police officers has many people wondering why the officers NOT involved in these shootings don’t speak out, and now a few brave cops are breaking their silence. The NYPD is one of many U.S. police forces who face constant criticism and are often at odds with the Black community over poor handling of incidents involving their officers and Black men, but a few minority NYPD officers say it’s no accident that people of color seem to be the targets. “You might not see anything, but you go hunting, like, bounty hunting for an arrest,” NYPD officer Derick Waller told NBC New York back in April of this year.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Police Shootings] [Policing] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege]
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]
Transforming White Fragility Into Courageous Imperfection
by Courtney E. Martin | June 2015
“I’m grateful for a framing that helps me understand my own fragility. Experimenting with how I use the power that comes from my privilege is a messy process. Sometimes I feel like I manage to do something really useful in the world, whether its recommending a brilliant person of color to speak at a conference and working with them to hone their transformative message for a broad audience or saying I won’t speak on a panel that I’ve been invited to because there isn’t a person of color on it. Interestingly, white fragility often shows up as talking a lot, a kind of flood of effortful explaining, or the equivalent of a peacock’s display of anti-racist sentiment — posting on social media with great fanfare or calling out other white people with a sort of zeal.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [White Fragility/Tears] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [Accountability] [Systemic Racism] [Collective Action] [Definitions]
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]
7 Invasive Things People Tell Afro-Latinxs (And Why You Must Stop Saying Them)
by Alan Pelaez Lopez | September 2016
Which one of your parents is the Black one? You never told me you were Black – you speak Spanish! I didn’t know [insert country] had Black people! Being both identities does not mean that I only live my life as Black 50% and Latinx 50%. Instead it means that I live my life as Black 100% of the time, and my life as Latinx 100%. The math doesn’t need to make sense! Below is a list of invasive comments, phrases, and questions that I, and many in my community, have received – and they must stop in order for us to work together, and really be a community.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [Systemic Racism] [Implicit Bias] [Implicit Racism]
Why I’m Skipping the Women’s March on Washington [OPINION]
by Jamilah Lemieux | January 2017
I don’t know that I serve my own mental health needs by putting my body on the line to feign solidarity with women who by and large didn’t have my back prior to November. I’ve never felt any thing remotely resembling sisterhood with White women. That lack of sisterhood haunted me at times during the 2016 election season. As Election Day approached and Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton emerged as the frontrunner, I waited to feel something. Some sort of connection between her and me, some sort of emotion tied to the likelihood that a person who shares my gender expression would be the “leader of the free world.” It never came. However, the absence of that sisterhood never felt more real for me than it did when I learned that 53 percent of White female voters cast a ballot for a man whose bigotry was, perhaps, his greatest selling point. I never expected that White women by-and-large would favor Clinton over Donald Trump because she promised criminal justice reform or would do more to protect the rights of people of color than her opponent. But I did believe that Trump’s incredibly public misogyny—manifested in attacks on women’s looks, a boast about “pussy” grabbing and promises to prosecute people who seek abortions—would have made him less than favorable. Silly me to expect self-preservation to take priority over racism, I suppose.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [Accountability] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Fragility/Tears] [Politics]
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]
White Niceness as the Enemy of Black Liberation
by Elle Dowd | January 2018
“White people love niceness, but we fail to see that our ideas about polite society are not very nice at all. They serve instead to preserve a system that is criminalizing people of color and dehumanizing white people with our callous indifference. They act to protect institutions built on killing the bodies of people of color to the detriment of our own souls. We say we value niceness, but what we really value is being in charge of what that looks like and when it’s appropriate, by our own standards. We value control.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [“All Lives Matter”] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [Accountability]
Man Who Uploaded #AltonSterling Video Still Paying a Price, Has Not Been Allowed Back to Work
by Ricky Riley | July 2016
After uploading the video of Baton Rouge, Louisiana police killing Alton Sterling on July 5, Christoper LeDay has been arrested and not allowed back to work. According to Fox 5 Atlanta, LeDay revealed in a Thursday news conference that he has not been allowed back to work at Dobbins Air Reserve Base due to security-clearance issues. He was working security for only a month when the chaos surrounding the video occurred.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [Policing] [Police Shootings] [White Privilege]
No Charges for Cops Who ‘Accidentally’ Fired 107 Bullets at an Innocent Mom and Daughter
by Andrew Emett | January 2016
Los Angeles, CA – Exposing the double standard between police and civilians, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday that no criminal charges will be filed against the eight LAPD officers responsible for nearly killing an innocent woman and her daughter. Although the cops ambushed the unarmed women without warning and fired over 100 bullets without provocation, the district attorney justified the case of mistaken identity due to the fact that the officers involved were afraid and incompetent. At 5 a.m. on February 7, 2013, Margie Carranza and her mother, Emma Hernandez, were delivering newspapers throughout a residential neighborhood in Torrance when eight LAPD cops suddenly opened fire. As Carranza suffered cuts from the flying glass, Hernandez was shot twice in the back while trying to protect her daughter. One bullet exited just above Hernandez’s collarbone, while the other bullet struck her lower back, near her spine. A fragment of shattered glass also flew into her eye.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Policing] [Police Shootings] [Systemic Racism] [-ing While Black] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [White Culture]
Three Things White People’s Love for “Get Out” Says About the White (Sub)Conscious
by Jamie Utt | April 2017
White people tend not to be supportive of anything that challenges Whiteness unless we have a clear interest in doing so. So what is our interest in the film? Well, I see the film as serving three of the functions that are necessary to the continued functioning of the modern White racial (sub)conscious: a signal that we are, in fact, the “good’ White people, an opportunity to enjoy and consume Black suffering and death (while also lauding a Black hero), and an opportunity to emotionally distance ourselves from the truths of the brutality of Whiteness.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege]
Beyond the KKK: Getting at White Supremacy in the Church
by Rebecca Florence Miller | May 2017
White supremacy is a loaded term, conjuring up hooded robes, burning crosses, and Heil, Hitlers. But there is another way to understand it, and the phrase is increasingly becoming a helpful conceptual marker, helping us to understand the core of racial problems in society. The term white supremacy gets at the heart of what some would call colonialism or giving precedence to white culture. Ultimately, what is comes down to is believing or living as if whites are superiors to blacks or people of other races. As if Whites are “supreme.”
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [White Culture] [Colorblindness]
8 Times the U.S. Government Gave White People Handouts to Get Ahead
by Tanasia Kenney | June 2016
The G.I. Education Bill, Veteran Administration Housing Authority, and Health Care System, The Wagner Act of 1935, Federal Housing Administration, 1960s Jim Crow Laws, The 1790 Naturalization Act, The Social Security Act of 1935, and The 1830 Indian Removal Act. Read how these bills were for white people, and excluded all others (with a few minute exceptions).
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [History] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism]
The Problem Isn’t White Nationals, It’s White Moderates
*Paywall Alert
by Kevin Shird | September 2017
In his 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice.” That’s as true today as it was then. The silence of white moderates who won’t speak up when faced with extreme racism exacerbates the problems we have today. White moderates have become comfortable with their lives and don’t want to “rock the boat” or make too much noise. To white moderates, I say that your silence is aiding and abetting their agenda and your moral leadership is needed now more than ever.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [White Culture] [Accountability]
8 Ways People of Color are Tokenized in Nonprofits
by Helen Kim Ho | September 2017
There’s a type of racism in the workplace many of us have personally witnessed, perpetrated or experienced: tokenism. Nowhere have I seen this play out more than in the nonprofit space. But how can a sector dedicated to the common good fail at being the most diverse, safe and woke-est place imaginable? Because the vast majority of charitable dollars are generated from rich white men, which ultimately influences the direction of funding. So what does tokenism look and feel like?
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [White Culture] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [White Privilege]