Racism is a fundamental issue in today’s America. The rise of Donald Trump’s minions fostering open and vitriolic hate against “the other” isn’t something new. It is a continuation of deeply embedded beliefs, policies, and practices that have been in existence since the founding of this country. It is not sufficient for only people of color to lift their voices and take action against it. We will never defeat it unless there are strong white voices engaged in the battle to send it to the dustbin of history.
For the past two Sundays I’ve featured strong white allies against racism and white supremacy from two time periods. The first was on Albion W. Tourgée from the time of Reconstruction, and the second on Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, from the modern civil rights era.
Today, I’m having a conversation with white allies from Daily Kos, from my university, and two (on tape) who are key white organizers in the Moral Mondays movement.
Learning about racism, recognizing racism, and becoming an anti-racist ally doesn’t happen in an instant—it is a process. We are all shaped by our associations and experiences. It is important for us to hear how others came to the table and joined the struggle. This is true for all of us—no matter where we fall in the socially constructed boxes of “race.”
I am dedicating this conversation to the woman who shaped my relationship to white people, and who also taught me early on about racism from whites. Because of her love and guidance, I have actively sought out white allies. You will meet some of them here today.
I’ve talked about my grandmother here quite frequently, and celebrated her and my grandfather on Loving Day. The BBC featured my genealogical research on my family—black and white. I called her “Bobby,” which was my pronunciation of the Yiddish word for grandmother—“Bubbe”—since my formative years were spent in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Not all black Americans grow up with close relationships to people who are white. Plenty of us have worked for white folks, and raised their children. However, it didn’t make us equal in their eyes. Growing up, I had a black girlfriend who told me she was afraid of white people. We attended the same integrated schools, and yet she was never comfortable with white students. Surprised, I said to her, “But you love my grandmother.” She was stunned, and replied, “She’s white?” She couldn’t see Bobby’s whiteness, assuming she was simply a very light-skinned black person because in her mind, no white people loved and cherished a black person. I realized then that for some black folks, white people were like space aliens: to be avoided at all costs, interacted with infrequently, and not to be trusted—with good reason. History tells the tale of how many white folks think they are superior to us, who believe what they have been taught, and even when they consider themselves to be “liberal” or “left” have few (or no) deep and long-lasting friendships or relationships with people of color that are founded on an equal footing. That includes some people who are actually married to a person of color (see Lou Dobbs) or who have adopted or given birth to a child of color. So the fact that my grandmother was married to a black man and gave birth to a black son doesn’t explain her deep and abiding interest in fighting against racism.
Over the years I became curious about exactly what factors contributed to making my grandmother such a staunch anti-racist. Her stepmother and many of her brothers and sisters were open racists. She was crossed out of the family Bible when she married my grandfather. The only thing I could figure out in thinking over the many conversations I had with her while she was helping raise me was that as the oldest child she worked in the fields with her dad and resented her stepmother, who wanted her to stay in the house cooking, sewing, and cleaning, and who disciplined her severely. She rejected and rebelled against the gender norms at the time and that probably was a factor in her bonding with a man who was living under the yoke of society's treatment of blacks in the early 1900s. Abuse in the home enabled her to develop empathy toward others who were mistreated.
I don’t know the answer (this is supposition on my part) but since she died in 1976, I can’t ask her. i can only extrapolate from other conversations I've had with allies who have thought about how they got to be allies and anti-racist.
Bobby was also my first teacher about the subject of white folks’ racism. She warned me to be very careful about white people who smile in your face, but have only negative things to say about you when you ain’t there. She lived her whole adult life working in a white world that had no idea she was married to a black man, and as such was privy to white folks’ real thoughts when black people weren't around. In all the years she was in my life only one white co-worker was ever invited to our home and was accepting of our multi-racial family. Her name was Mrs. Winterberg. I wonder what happened to her?
So with this preface in mind, let me introduce you to some of the white ally-friends in my life, with whom I've had conversations about their anti-racist thoughts and actions. Three I met here at Daily Kos (we all joined in 2008) and they are all members of the Black Kos community. I’ve also spent time with them face-to-face. The fourth I met at my job, and we have supported each other there.
When I asked my friend Yasuragi to be a part of this, she had questions for me first—which I will answer briefly.
Yas: How do you define white allies? What makes someone an ally and simply just not “against you”?
Dee: I define a white ally as someone who sees racism as a fundamental evil to be fought, who accepts and groks that being born with white skin grants you privilege, who does not have a problem with working under black leadership, and who doesn’t get bent out of shape when racism is addressed and immediately call the black (or POC) person addressing it a racist.
Yas: What frustrates you in would-be allies?
Dee: People who seem to be constantly defending the the fact that they are neither racist nor privileged, and take any discussion of systemic racism as a personal attack, or who act totally clueless about how to get engaged.
Yas: If someone does want to step up their game and be an ally, how can they go about it? I’ve seen people who have questions as to how to proceed and—I feel at least—it’s not up to poc to teach them. What do you suggest?
Dee: The first thing I suggest is that they join a black-led organization like the NAACP or Moral Mondays. The second is that they begin to read blogs and websites that are run by POCs or that focus on issues involving racism.
Here are the questions I had for the folks I talked to:
- When did you begin to recognize something called “racism?”
- What in your life experience not only made you recognize it, but decide to do something about it (become an anti-racist)?
- How can you communicate this—and engage other white people to join you?
- What tools or things you have read might be useful in engaging others?
Please feel free to share your answers in comments.
Allies speak out:
Onomastic
For days I've been pondering how to reply to your questions on how I, a white grandparent from white bread Maine, became an ally in the fight for equality and justice. There is no one simple answer that encapsulates the journey my life has been, but there is a beginning.
It seems my journey as a white ally is rooted in the violence and fear of my childhood. In knowing what it is like to be afraid and hurt, to know what it is like to be afraid for those you love. To wonder if this was the day they would be taken from you.
A few things from those long years kept coming up as I thought about your questions and how I ended up being seen as an ally, when to me it was just being a decent human being.
The first time I saw racism was in someone I loved deeply, my grandmother, and it was not directed at a person of color. Her rage was directed at two French Canadian workmen who were fixing the ditch at the front of the house and asked a little girl for some water on a hot summer day. They spoke Canadian French. I only spoke English. They gestured their thirst and need for water. When I went into the house and asked Mama if the men could have some water her reaction shocked and frightened me. She was enraged, an anger I had never seen in her before. She told me I was never to speak again to such people, to stay inside, and stomped out to say god knows what to the men who were only working and thirsty on a brutally hot day.
I never saw my grandmother the same way again. It took me years to understand what had happened. Those workmen were "other," French Canadian, non-English speaking, and no doubt Catholic. When the KKK had a strong presence in Maine following the first World War, they targeted Maine's small black, Jewish, and Chinese immigrant communities. But their main focus of hate was against the state’s large Irish Catholic and French-Canadian immigrant populations. My grandmother did not live long enough for me to have a conversation with her about what had happened on that hot summer day so long ago. I've always wondered what she would have said.
But that is not the only childhood memory that has come to mind. The other is walking through the main hallway of my grandparents' home and suddenly seeing a creche set up for Christmas. I stood there looking at the baby Jesus, my 6-year-old self knowing he was going to be hurt and desperately not wanting him to be. Two years ago I wrote about that moment in time.
"One day, a beautiful creche sitting on its own table by the side door appeared in the entrance hall. Sun light streamed in through the windows, warming the carefully made figures of Mary, Joseph, the Wise Men and the baby Jesus. I stopped dead in my tracks and could not stop looking at the infant in the manger. I knew he was going to be hurt and wanted to protect him, wanted to save the "savior." The child I was could not bear the thought of another child being used so poorly, so selfishly. That is what it seemed to me at the age of six.”
In some ways, that child is still my moral center. I can't stand people being hurt. When I was a teenager during the 1960s and saw television coverage of what was happening in Birmingham and Selma—the dogs and hoses being set on people, the police beating peaceful marchers with bully sticks, hammering them to the ground, the images of the burned-out Freedom Rider bus, the hate distorting so many white faces as they screamed at people merely wanting to exist equitably and peacefully—I was horrified. People were being hurt.
The ghosts of Emmett Till and four little girls killed in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing have been joined by those of Jordan Edwards, Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice. Black and brown young people enjoying a pool party and suddenly being mowed down by gun fire. The list is far too long. In the week I've spent thinking about how to respond to your questions, the list of wounded and dying people has grown even longer.
Black teenagers are 21 percent more likely to be shot and killed by police than their white peers. Parents are losing their babies, families are being devastated. Communities are wondering whose child or loved one is next.
In what moral universe is it allowable for this to continue? How can any of us remain silent?
I'm angry at the abject unfairness of how easily the larger society far too often excuses it all. If we don't stand up against this, then what do we stand for? How many parents have to lose their children before it matters?
The anguish of parents, family, and community, the fear every parent of color feels for their children, has always hurt my heart. The fear I felt as a child and teenager wondering when the next blow would fall, who would be hurt next, rises in response to parents having to give
"the talk" to their children. The fear I have felt for my oldest child reverberates to the fear parents of color feel for their children.
I have some understanding of what it is like to fight for your child's life while knowing they could be taken from you at any time. But my child's life is at risk due to forever health issues, not the color of their skin. My personal situation gives me an inkling, only an inkling, of what it is like for parents of color. But it is a starting place from which to learn, to grow the heart larger. When I hear the parents of Trayvon, Tamir, and so many others speak it is impossible to turn away. We can at the very least bear witness and let them know they are not alone. We can raise our voices for justice so more parents won't be left grieving the lose of their children while the killers walk away free.
I'm not a person of color. I can't and won't presume to understand everything that people of color face on a daily basis in this country. But I can listen, heart to heart. I can learn to understand, heart to heart. I can be there when people are hurting as best I can. What else are we here for? What else are we here for if not lifting one another up?
I've come to the point in life where I am thankful for everything that has brought me to this moment. I'm thankful for always feeling on the outside looking in, in this country. I'm thankful for the decades-long exploration of why that is so. I am thankful for the lessons learned from others who have been treated as "other" and in spite of it all, never bowed down or gave up. And yes, that includes you, my much loved Sis. Dee. I would rather stand with you, with people of color, the LGBTQ community, the Native American community, the disabled, and survivors of violence, than be anywhere else.
I always start from the position of knowing that I do not know nearly enough. None of us do. Our lived experience is not universal. The recognition of that allows us to expand beyond our "comfort zone," a comfort zone that all too often assumes that we are the center of existence. Stepping outside of that assumption can be uncomfortable, but it is a necessary discomfort, one that doesn't begin to measure up to the pain and loss so many have known.
As a human being, as an ally, it is my responsibility to listen, to learn, to care enough to do so. That is always the starting point. As an ally, I can encourage other people to take that journey toward understanding. We all do what we can, when we can and it never seems enough. But together, heart to heart, we will bend that moral arc towards justice. That is an imperative for me. People are hurting. People are dying for no other reason than the color of their skin. It has to stop if justice and caring are to be more than empty phrases.
Yasuragi
1. When did you begin to recognize something called racism?
I actually don't remember not knowing the word. I grew up in a left-wing secular Jewish home (despite my Japanese screen name). My Bohemian parents had been active in the movement, and we had close friends who were black, Asian, Latino … But I think I became more keenly aware of the significance—the full impact—of the word in junior high school. My neighborhood (the West 90s in Manhattan) was mostly black and Latino, and I went to Joan of Arc Junior High (PS 118), which the Board of Ed called their very own "disaster area" at that time. Though I didn't realize it at first, I was in a 1 percent minority in that school. And there were enormous tensions. There was what today would probably be a shocking amount of violence on a daily basis—knife fights, beatings, very occasionally a shooting.
I was already an activist demonstrating against the Vietnam War and fighting the school administration over various issues, and I was taken aback that I was seen as some wild-eyed leftist while, to my surprise, most of my black schoolmates seemed to be from far more conservative homes. But I made a lot of friends, and I think the concept of "Racism"—capital R—filled up my brain when I saw that we'd all go into a store at lunchtime, and my black and Latino friends would be watched like hawks, or challenged with questions when they went up to the cashier, as if they'd shoplifted more than they were paying for. It only happened to me a few times, but it happened to them far more often. Or we'd go into an army surplus store (y'know, it was the '60s/'70s) and they'd be followed the whole time we were in there. I regularly got a sideways look because, like them, I was identified as a hippie (and called that in angry terms) but no one followed me around. I guess that was one of the first occurrences to which I put the word "racist."
2. What in your life experience, not only made you recognize it but decide to do something about it (become an anti-racist)?
I think exactly those situations: seeing it firsthand. And, at that age, at least, the concept for me was one of the basic unfairness of it. I don't know if I ever talk in terms of "fair" and "unfair" any more, but back then the disparity drove me crazy. "Fairness" is a big thing when we're young. "That's not fair!" is the ultimate outraged cry. And I just kept being hit in the face with my honest good friends being treated as suspect, or even as criminal. Then Martin Luther King was assassinated, and racial tensions in the school went off the chart. And that's around the time I was approached by a group of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) students. My brother was high up in SDS, and I didn't ever find out whether that had anything to do with it, but they approached a couple of us who were hanging outside the school. They hooked me up with the Black Panthers and the Young Lords, and a couple of activist ministers working out of Riverside Church. Just listening to their conversations and reading their literature—plus what we were being taught in school at that time—really galvanized my thinking on the issue. A lot of my teachers were young folks right out of the Peace Corps, heavily politicized, and they didn't pull any punches when they taught history. And lastly, the reading we were assigned at JoA was powerfully influential. In Junior High I read Black Boy by Wright, The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Haley, Down These Mean Streets by Thomas, Invisible Man by Ellison... all of it. You can't read that stuff at that age, I think, and not have it motivate you. So those political influences of the Panthers and the Lords, my teachers, and the reading assignments all coalesced. Plus it all came on top of the influence of my family and their background.
3. How can you communicate this and engage other white people to join you?
I was talking to a life-long friend one day last year. We grew up in different neighborhoods and went to different schools. We were talking about a recent story that had blown up about an author (whose name, thankfully, escapes me) who had thrown a fit about cultural appropriation and how it would strangle the creativity out of writers if we could never write about people different from us. I was so annoyed about her, and we were talking about the issue. I told him I don't hesitate to write characters of color, if that's how they present themselves to me, but that if I write a fictional piece about a black character, I run it past black friends to make sure I haven't made any missteps. And he said to me, "You have black friends?" It was so innocent, and kind of sad, and wistful ... it broke my heart. So I smiled and said, "Yes, and you should, too." I really was shocked—it never occurred to me that someone from the same political background would live in a totally white world. I'm not sure I motivated him enough to take action, but I know he thought a lot about it. Of course he's on the right side of issues, but he still lives a segregated life for the most part.
As for others, I talk about the issues (a lot). I speak freely about white privilege, about cops shooting down unarmed people, about the openly racist background of people in the new administration—I never mention Bannon without citing his white-supremacist background. And if they ask questions about it, or seem open to it, I press further. I recommend books, websites, Dee's posts. And I push Rev. Barber a lot. I send them videos of his sermons, links to Repairers of the Breach and Moral Mondays. I feel that, in this time, he's the best motivator out there.
My best advice is to talk openly and without rhetoric about the issues. Engage people on the issues without being too didactic. Show your honest concern for what's going on rather than preaching. Be prepared with details if they ask, but don't overwhelm.
4. What tools or things you have read might be useful in engaging others?
First, I want to make the point that I feel it's important for those of us who are white to respond helpfully to people who want to become an ally, but don't let them hector POC for instruction. If someone of color is willing to help, that's fine, but I think POC have enough to deal with without having to "teach" white people about racism.
And if you don't understand that no cop is going to ask a black man or woman for their W-2 form before they shoot them in cold blood, or if you think "All Lives Matter" is an appropriate response to a protest about those shootings, then I don't have anything to say.
Having vented about that, I need to admit that I never really thought about the tools, because I never had to learn this from the outside. And in a way, I feel like explaining it makes me sound like an anthropologist (sorry, Dee) studying some totally alien culture. It's not that, obviously, but it feels a little uncomfortable to me. Still, there are a number of things someone can do in aid of becoming a solid ally.
Read black writers. Go to websites that cover the issues, and hopefully are run by POC. Absolutely read Black Kos (Tuesdays and Fridays at 5 PM Eastern, right here!) along with the discussions in the comment sections. The same goes for Support the Dream Defenders (Fridays at 8 PM Eastern). Find people of color on Twitter to follow, and read what they link to. Read Denise Oliver Velez on Daily Kos. Watch Jay Smooth on YouTube and Twitter. There are dozens of good writers and speakers out there who can build your perspective. Find them. Or find someone you consider a solid white ally, and see who they follow.
Find black spaces that will welcome you. Even if you're not religious, go to a progressive black church and hear the sermon, sit with folks, talk to them, listen closely. I became who I am because I was immersed in black spaces so early I never even thought about being an outsider there. Or, more accurately, I felt so much like an outsider everywhere, that it was no different there. Go there, be there. You will be welcomed. If a few people give you the side-eye, don't sweat it—they have every right to be suspicious. Don't take it personally. Just be open and polite, and they'll see who you are.
Get involved with an organization that's run by POC, for example, the NAACP (founded by white allies, not for nothing) has local chapters everywhere. Join. Go to the meetings. Volunteer there. Find a Black Lives Matter group in your neighborhood.
The bottom line is you need to learn the culture, the feelings, the resentments, the love, the anger, the support, and the feeling of community. You need to be comfortable with people of color before people of color will be comfortable with you. Get involved, and always—always—listen to what you're being told.
Lastly ... leave your ego out of it. If you hear someone speak disparagingly of white people, remember that it doesn't mean you specifically. Remove yourself from the equation. Just as you've probably learned (if you're embarking on this mission) to not get your hackles up when you hear the words "white privilege," learn not to react personally if you hear harsh words about the white world. The white world has earned that harshness. You're there because you want to help change that, so don't get defensive.
Having been acculturated in mixed spaces, it's been a bizarre experience to move to where I now live, which is a mostly white bubble—and not particularly comfortable. But I continue to speak the same way about social justice issues, and to forge friendships with people who support that. I've suggested programs at my library that would speak to those matters. They haven't agreed ... yet. But I'm working on them. You might do the same.
Moviemeister76
When did you begin to recognize something called “racism”?
I recognized race long before I recognized racism. When I was about 3 or 4, a kid I was playing with said something that caused me to race into the kitchen and ask my mom if white people were better than black people. She said “no,” and that was that. I guess it’s pretty surprising to me today that race wasn’t mentioned that often around when I was living in a trailer park in central Illinois. It wasn’t until I was 9 and living on an Army base in Germany that I recognized my first incident of racism when one of my white friends used the N-word in front of me. Though I had been taught by that point that racism was wrong, I was never taught how to deal with anyone being racist in front of me. The experience was so shocking, I just froze and remained silent. I think about that moment a lot now because I know for a lot of us white folks, hearing someone say the “N-word” is the only kind of racism we easily recognize.
What in your life experience not only made you recognize it — but decide to do something about it (become an anti-racist)?
Because I spent a lot of time growing up in areas that were fairly diverse, I suspect I have always been on this journey to becoming an anti-racist. But there were a few key moments which defined this journey.
The first was the trial of the cops who beat Rodney King and the riots that broke out in L.A. after the verdict was announced. At the time, I was fortunate enough to be in a DOD high school in Germany with a fairly large black student population. I overheard a few of them talking about how they felt. At the time, I didn’t really understand. I thought the beating was over the top, but it wasn’t enough to make me want to riot. But I heard the pain and frustration in the voices of the black students, and it sounded real. So I knew something was wrong.
My next point occurred many years later here in North Carolina when I watched my white boss treat some black teen-aged customers markedly different than I had ever see him treat any of our white customers. More importantly, I was able to hear how the black teenagers responded after my boss walked away. Contrary to the stereotype, these teenagers did not confront my boss on what they were only fairly sure, and I was 100 percent sure, was a racist encounter. More than likely because they knew there was no proof. Instead, they looked and sounded resigned to this racism and walked away. It sticks with me to this day how teenagers could look so used to being treated unfairly.
The real turning point in my evolution began as Barack Obama took office while I was continuing my degree studies. For a few years, I watched how the president of the United States was treated by many white people from both sides of the political aisle. At the same time I was engaging in coursework that furthered my understanding of the history of racism and how systemic it actually is. The culminating moment came when I read Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow. To borrow what Cornel West wrote in the forward, it felt like crossing the Rubicon. I could finally look back to when white Americans forcibly brought over slaves in ships and see the unbroken line of racism that extends all the way to today. At that point, I felt like I could no longer just passively be against racism. I had to be explicitly anti-racist.
How can you communicate this — and engage other white people to join you?
The first thing I learned when I decided to be anti-racist was that I wasn’t going to single-handedly end racism as we know it. I had to be strategic, and pace myself. I finally learned what black folks meant when I heard them say it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
When it comes to majority white spaces, I see my role as a disruptor, to make sure white people around me never feel completely comfortable repeating racially blind narratives. I’ve encountered so many white liberals who really do hate racism and are desperate to do something about it, but who feel that it’s more important to be nice and polite to those who exhibit racist behavior. This is just another form of white supremacy that masks the seriousness of denying another person their basic humanity because of their identity. So a lot of times, I am deliberately the opposite of polite.
One thing I would really like to get across to white folks who are interested in fighting racism is that our white privilege can sometimes be our greatest weapon in being anti-racist. We can say what POC, particularly black folks, cannot. We can also say things in white spaces that POC aren’t in or deliberately avoid. White people might hate me, slander me, and insult me, but they will not drive me from a space where they all agree I have a right to be and speak. It’s especially potent because I am a white woman. I sometimes freely say things to other white people that would get black folks especially permanently thrown out of certain spaces or even physically threatened if they ever dared to say the same thing.
So many POC I’ve met on social media explicitly stay away from a lot of majority-white areas and blogs because they don’t feel safe or comfortable enough to speak their truth. It becomes too much of a hassle to have to deal with white folks constantly doubting every single thing they say, so they don’t say anything at all in those spaces. I see it as my job as an anti-racist to try and create enough space for the POC who do try and stick it out in majority white spaces to be able to speak as much as they choose and to have their truths validated by more than just other POC.
What tools—or things you have read might be useful in engaging others?
Like a lot of white folks, my entry point into understanding racism was another white person. I start this way because it’s important to realize that the segregation of races in America isn’t just physical. It goes as deep as our entertainment and news sources as well. In the same way we liberals talk about how most conservatives get their news from Fox News, most of us white people of all political persuasions get our news sources from white media.
Tim Wise taught me a lot in the beginning. A more polite entry point than Tim Wise, and probably the most basic, is Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” In fact, her particular piece is a pretty good barometer for whether or not the white person you are talking to is even ready to have a discussion about racism. If someone can’t even agree with the idea of white privilege, they are not ready to go into the more complicated areas of systemic racism.
After I got comfortable with Tim Wise, though, I quickly moved on to reading and listening to POC. There is a massive resource of digital and print media available, and POC voices are available across the spectrum. I started listening to a lot of podcasts, starting with This Week in Blackness (TWiB), and later moving on to The Black Guy Who Tips. These days, I listen to a variety of podcasts created by and for POC.
The hardest part of moving forward into this, especially when moving into POC spaces, is the transition from being a centered and very important member of the community to someone whose identity is not centered. This crystallized for me the night the verdict in George Zimmerman’s trial was announced. This Week in Blackness went live after Zimmerman was pronounced ‘not guilty’ for an hour and a half. For much of that time, black folks were calling in expressing their pain and fear, particularly for their children.
The impulse I felt, as a white person, was to call in and also express my outrage at this injustice, and how much I was hurting for black people that night. But I finally realized that I didn’t always have to give my opinion or center my feelings. I wasn’t the parent of a black child, and while I could empathize, I couldn’t really know the terror so many black people felt that night for their children, their cousins, their nephews. Even worse, it was white supremacy that led to this, of which I am an unwilling culprit. My calling in to express my feelings would have just been a painful reminder for some why Trayvon Martin had been murdered in the first place. So that night, all I could do was sit and listen, to give silent witness to the terror and anguish and anger so many black people expressed.
In the past couple of years, I have moved from being a passive observer in POC communities to fully participating. All of the online groups I belong to outside of Daily Kos which are centered on video games, or politics, or nerdy stuff in general are minority-white and very intersectional in their outlooks. Whereas four years ago I had, at most, two POC friends online, now more than half my online friends are POC. Of course, this is largely because I lost a good chunk of my white online friends who couldn’t handle being friends with me after I started calling out their racist behavior.
I’ve also recently begun to be able to read the body language of POC a bit more than I used to. I can see when an Asian American man is smiling only out of politeness or hear when a black woman is taking deep breaths to try and hide her frustration. Simple body language clues that are so obvious but I never learned to read them until I started spending a lot of time around POC.
Being an anti-racist white person is never going to win you a lot of praise from white folks. I’ve lost a lot of white friends, some of them in very ugly ways, since I decided to become an anti- racist. And it’s incredibly difficult to make new white friends, both online and in meat space, because so many white people are unwilling to even discuss racism, and others freak out at the idea that they might be racist, even though we all are. And after spending just a couple of years in spaces centered on black and brown folks, I find I can no longer stomach being friends with white people who would hate my POC friends. It’s unthinkable.
freckles8
There was not one particular moment that I recognized racism, but instead, several moments that culminated into an understanding of what I would eventually name as racism. Washing the words N-lover off my priest’s house, seeing the remnants of a burned cross on my church’s land, coming to the realization that there was a reason people always wanted to know what my grandfather “was”, what was he mixed with and making the connection that people always asked that because they did not read him as white but couldn’t quite figure out what he “was.” One memory I have is sitting in front of an A&P grocery store with my grandfather and a white woman approached me and whispered in my ear “Honey, are you okay?” At the time, I thought she was just being nice but as I grew older and more aware that I did not look like I belonged to my grandfather, I realized she was concerned for my well-being. What was this lily-white, freckled child doing with this brown man? Just recently my grandfather, a former merchant marine, told me that when he was stationed in South Africa, he was forced to use the black bathrooms and could only see the black doctor. When he was in New Orleans, he had to get off the sidewalk if a white person walked by. I grew up knowing that when he was a little boy he was called “little n-boy” and spear thrower.
I grew up with these stories within the context of a family who did not consider themselves biracial or admit out loud that their father was not white. My grandmother told me that when she got married to my grandfather she was scared her parents would not allow it, so she convinced them he was a dark-skinned Italian. Through these stories I understood that a dark-skinned Italian must have meant better than a black man. Through their refusal to name him as a man of color, aka, not white, I learned that passing was essential to their understanding of who they are. Passing was a part of my life always and I don’t know what defines racism better than the desire to pass as white.
I went to schools in Charlotte, North Carolina, during the integration movement of busing. Often, I was one of a handful of white kids on the majority black buses. I remember once that this kid on the bus, Tony, took my Billy Dee Williams Star Wars toy and he told me that he should have it because he was black. We got into it and he called me a cracker. I knew that language and it stung. I called him a chocolate bar and that was that. The relationships that existed in spaces like the bus or the classroom, or the cafeteria or the orchestra taught me that race always mattered, NO MATTER WHAT, and in order to establish friendships that understanding had to be present! Notice I said had to be present, not had to be spoken. So much of growing up in multiracial spaces entailed unspoken communication skills. A nod, a look, a look away, eye contact.
Many of my teachers and school administrators were black men and women, and this impacted me greatly. Growing up in predominantly black spaces gave me an insight into my own whiteness and the dynamics within my family. I played in a chamber orchestra that also was majority black and I remember how that was at times tokenized; we were the “inner city” chamber orchestra who had much talent—and look what school they came from!
My high school, West Charlotte, was a historically black high school and just down the road was Johnson C. Smith, a Historically Black College (HBCU). So many of my teachers were graduates from HBCUs in North Carolina and I grew up with an understanding of the importance of HBCUs. Probably one of the most influential teachers in my life was Mr. Davenport, an older Black man who always wore cowboy boots and a bolo tie. He taught orchestra, jazz band, and the infamous West Charlotte Marching Lions. He was a proud graduate of NC Central (an HBCU). He spoke of segregation in music and his experiences of racism growing up a black man in the south. He also spoke of his pride in being a black man in the south, a country boy, a child of farmers, a college graduate, and a man of great faith.
So many of the stories from my black friends and teachers detailed experiences of racism but simultaneously detailed black pride, black power, black love. I knew from a very young age that RACE MATTERED and mattered violently, tragically, and I knew from a very young age that as a white girl, in a multiracial family, I was implicated in racism. I also knew that black people and their stories were not always about racism and I think this has been key for a white girl from the south to understand. I don’t think people can quite understand unless exposed to black culture and even then the keyword is “exposed” never fully a part of these communities in the same way. Not IN THE SAME WAY, but part of these communities in very particular ways, where whiteness is an understanding, as much as it is a threat of injustice, of violence. There are different types of whiteness, which is another thing I learned growing up in and around black communities. There are white people who are allowed into these spaces as long as they understand that they are white and recognize the boundaries that exist due to whiteness. I could go on about this but the important thing here is again to point out that I was always aware of my whiteness and I think that has been crucial to me becoming and being an antiracist white girl. (Though some like Tamara Nopper claim white antiracists are an oxymoron, which I do agree with, I have attached that article if you are interested in reading)
What in your life experience not only made you recognize it — but decide to do something about it (become an anti-racist)?
The life experiences that I outlined above made me hyper aware of the injustice of racism and it is that injustice that has forged in me the desire to fight, to not settle for it, to do my best to educate others, and live a life where I am able to put into practice my understanding of race and my resistance to systemic whiteness. When I was younger I learned to speak back to racists, including members of my own family. I would not settle for racist talk or action in my presence and I made a commitment as a child (probably around the age of 12) that I would die for justice. I have to say that so much of me wanting to “do something about it” happened because I grew up in the south, in the Bible belt, and because I was a Catholic in the south (hence the KKK spray painting shit on my priest’s house) religious intolerance and racism always went hand in hand. So, talking back to racists happened at the same time I was talking back to Christians who told me I was going to hell for being Catholic. I started talking back to the priests at my church who claimed that homosexuality was a sin and I did this during a time that I was losing people in my life to the AIDS epidemic and I watched their humanity stripped from them so cruelly. Recognizing contradiction in everything filled me with rage. How could a church that preached love encourage hate? How could a white mother who loved her children wish for violence upon a black mother’s children? How could seemingly “good-hearted” people use the N-word in a sentence and then volunteer at a soup kitchen or teach in the school system? The awareness of contradiction influences everything that I do because I honestly believe that it is important to know how to handle the contradictory nature of racists and racism or anyone who is a dehumanizer. I had to grapple with contradiction because I embodied the biggest contradiction of it all: a white girl who was anti-racist. So for me, I could only move forward in action by understanding the contradiction of myself and the world.
How can you communicate this—and engage other white people to join you?
So how can I communicate something that is so embedded in the fabric of who we are? Imperfectly and with the knowledge that it is a messy thing but one that is necessary: there is no choice in this matter for me. I see being anti-racist as necessary to survival and I see it for what it is, it is a matter of life and death. I am a teacher and my core belief as a teacher is to humanize, is to somehow get students to understand the “invisible threads” (Gloria Anzaldua) that we are all connected by and to RECOGNIZE that some of those threads connect us via legacies of hate, of violence, of horror. What do we do with this knowledge? It is my belief that understanding how who we are matters helps people start the process of recognizing the contradictions in their lives. How can they think of themselves as good people if they stand idly by while people are brutally treated? I had a teacher in college who was from South Korea and who taught a class on South Asian religion. He said “Jesus had dung sack” “Marilyn Monroe had dung sack” and “Elvis had dung sack.” He said that we all walk around with a dung sack so no matter how pure and clean you think you are, you are still carrying shit. I take this lesson and link it to whiteness. I shift it a bit to “everyone’s shit stinks” but some walk around and live their lives as though theirs does not.
White guilt is something I have no tolerance for because it is one of those strategies of claiming that they don’t have dung sack … of not taking accountability for their actions and for the actions of their ancestors. Well we have to get beyond the whole guilt shit and the attempts at not being accountable. So much of my work deals with claiming and owning accountability within the context of complicity. There is no magic cure, there is no pill that one will swallow and make whiteness go away. So I believe we need to reframe the way we think about racism and our strategies to resist it and that starts with the recognition that who you are will impact how you ought to resist. White people must be aware of their legacies and must think about their whiteness in their interactions in their attempts to work in solidarity against racism. Another thing we must reframe: the way we think about working together and solidarity. The other day I was at a conference and a professor, Dr. Jasmin Syedullah, said that solidarity is temporary, it is not a permanent state, and I feel this is such a crucial point in learning about how to work against racism. Bernice Johnson Reagon also wrote and spoke about this in her work on coalition building. The goal is not to be some kind of utopian family, instead it is to work together to ensure that people are able to live to their full potential as human beings, sometimes alongside of people and other times independently. I know it is complicated but part of this work is accepting the complications and knowing that they will always be there.
What tools—or things you have read might be useful in engaging others?
I believe that listening to people, listening to their ideas, and trusting in their understanding of their own lives, is a tool that will carry you far. Another tool is to understand the politics of your location, of who you are. If you are a white person and walk into a space that is centering the lives of people of color, then recognize what you carry with you, your legacy, your “politics” of whiteness, and be clear that no one is going to immediately think “I want to get to know that person.” Always be clear that people have no time to see what kind of white person you are—instead you must show it through your actions, and listening should be an action you learn to do well! In teaching, I try to make connections with people through being honest and vulnerable and I try to mark my own complicities in systemic oppression as a means to let people know that I am not one to point fingers and claim that I have the answers. Instead, by marking the ways in which I benefit from privilege, or the ways that I have had to change my way of thinking because I realized I was not consciously aware of how I impacted things, I try to share that we are all in process and trying to be better, but that does not mean that actions of racism or any ism are excusable. We must move beyond the idea that if you say “Hey I am white and I am aware of my privilege” that that somehow excuses your implications in racism. NO—you get no excuse slip and you never will. If white people get that early on in their attempts to work toward being anti-racists it will help them a great deal in moving forward.
Read as much as you can, talk to people, and know which people to ask and which people to merely listen to. Look to your elders, those who have paved the pathways and at the same time look to the youth. Know your shit stinks and never try to deny that fact. Don’t get caught up in the attempts to get off the hook. Allan Johnson writes about this in the book “Privilege, Power, and Difference” and I think he provides a lot of examples that white people can really sit with. Robin DiAngelo is a white woman who writes about whiteness and I find her work helpful too.
Try not to get burdened by your legacy, and recognize that there have been people fighting on the behalf of others always. There are advocates and justice fighters of all races. You can think of them like super heroes: they knew what their powers were and used them accordingly.
I’d like to thank these women, who I see as my sisters, for sharing their stories and perspectives with us all here today. I also wanted to include two men who I look up to in this struggle to obliterate racism and injustice: Al McSurely and Bob Zellner.
I’ve written about Al McSurely in the past:
Many readers are familiar with anti-racist activist Tim Wise, who is white, and grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and went to college in Louisiana. Older than Wise, and less well-known, is civil-rights attorney, NAACP member, and Moral Mondays activist Al McSurely.
Al McSurely, civil rights attorney, activist, and member of of the North Carolina NAACP and Moral Mondays movement has been involved in anti-racism civil rights work for many decades.
Some of his story is told in this focus piece, "Al McSurely. Fighting racism—and winning—with real-life consequences"
McSurely saw his first glimpse of his life's work in 1957, the summer before his senior year at UNC-Chapel Hill. He hitchhiked from his home in northern Virginia to Texas, stopping at towns and cities along the way, including Little Rock, Ark., where he saw "this whole segregated system in a fairly large capital town." He hasn't been the same since.
After graduation, he worked as a juvenile court counselor in Virginia and then at a Washington, D.C.-area anti-poverty program. He joined the Northern Virginia Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, in 1962. "What really made me committed for life was getting to know as very close friends some poor, African-American people that were trying to make sense out of this situation that they had been born into," McSurely says. "If white people ever allow themselves to become real good friends with poor black people and identify with them as brothers and sisters, then it's hard not to become a member of the antiracist movement."
In 1967, McSurely moved with his then-wife and a handful of white organizers to eastern Kentucky to bring white working people into the movement. A few months after they arrived, the county sheriff arrested both of them and ransacked their home. The county prosecutor charged them with sedition, a federal crime that carries a 20-year prison sentence. The Center for Constitutional Rights took the case, arguing in federal court the prosecution would have a chilling effect on First Amendment rights. McSurely and his wife won, but later that year, Democratic Sen. John McClellan subpoenaed them to turn over the addresses and information of their friends in the movement. They refused and sued the senator and other committee members. They won in 1983 when a Washington, D.C., jury awarded them a $1.6 million judgment. McSurely used his portion of the money to pay his way through law school at N.C. Central University and support his family until he launched his civil rights law practice. He took his first case when he was 51.
A deeper view into McSurely's development can be heard in a North Carolina Public Radio program interview hosted by Frank Stasio and titled “Lawyer and Organizer Reflects On 50 Years Of Civil Rights Action”:
Al McSurely has spent more than five decades fighting racism, poverty and discrimination.
In the 1960s, he was arrested for sedition in Kentucky and then for Contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over documents to the McClellan Committee. His experience in the legal system led him to start law school at the age of 48. McSurely worked for many civil rights clients, including a landmark case on behalf of UNC housekeepers.
Back in September 2015 Daily Kos went to Asheville, North Carolina. I got a chance to talk with both Al and Bob on a panel.
You can read about Bob Zellner in this interview titled “50 Years of Poor People’s Organizing: An Interview with Bob Zellner”:
Bob is a veteran of the Civil Rights movement. He grew up in rural Alabama, the son and grandson of Ku Klux Klan members and ministers. While Bob was a kid, his father took the dangerous step of renouncing his Klan membership. The decision had a profound effect on Bob, who went on to be the first white field secretary for SNCC, in Mississippi. After SNCC became an all-black organization Bob joined the staff of SCEF, the Southern Conference Educational Fund. With Anne Braden, Dottie Zellner, and others, Bob founded the GROW Project (Grass Roots Organizing Work AKA Get Rid of Wallace).
Today, Bob plays an important role in North Carolina’s Forward Together Moral Movement, mentoring young leaders and drawing on decades of experience to help guide the effort. He’s also been a major force, along with Mayor Adam O’Neal of Belhaven, NC, behind The Walk from NC to DC to save rural hospitals, and brought the Kairos Center into that profoundly important endeavor.
He is the co-author of The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement.
Even forty years after the civil rights movement, the transition from son and grandson of Klansmen to field secretary of SNCC seems quite a journey. In the early 1960s, when Bob Zellner’s professors and classmates at a small church school in Alabama thought he was crazy for even wanting to do research on civil rights, it was nothing short of remarkable. Now, in his long-awaited memoir, Zellner tells how one white Alabamian joined ranks with the black students who were sitting-in, marching, fighting, and sometimes dying to challenge the Southern “way of life” he had been raised on but rejected. Decades later, he is still protesting on behalf of social change and equal rights. Fortunately, he took the time, with co-author Constance Curry, to write down his memories and reflections. He was in all the campaigns and was close to all the major figures. He was beaten, arrested, and reviled by some but admired and revered by others.
The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, winner of the 2009 Lillian Smith Book Award, is Bob Zellner’s larger-than-life story, and it was worth waiting for.
Many SNCC vets like Bob work with groups like the Southern Anti-Racism Network.
Getting rid of systemic racism in the United States requires individuals who are willing to actively fight it—politically, socially, and spiritually. This is not something people of color can do alone.
Join the struggle, to move us forward—together.
And join the discussion in the comments below.
