Posted on 12/09/2014 3:07:53 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
With the national uproar surrounding the unpunished police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, some white Americans say they are rethinking the lack of diversity in their livesand the work they need to do to help create social change that lasts.
Take Philadelphia artist Katherine Fritz. In her attempt to understand events in Ferguson, she stumbled upon a 2013 national survey finding that white American social circles tend to be 91 percent white. Intrigued, she tested this finding in her own life. A self-described liberal who uses the term micro-aggressions, she was surprised to find that her social circle is 91.5 percent white.
Whites can live, love, study, work, play and die in segregation, says Whiteness Studies scholar Robin DiAngelo, and still profess that race has no meaning in their lives.
But something appears to be shifting in that in the weeks since news broke that thered be no indictment in Officer Darren Wilsons case. Dara Silverman of Showing Up Racial Justice {SURJ}, a six-year-old national network organizing whites for racial justice, is now managing conference calls with up to 500 new callers from around the country. In coming weeks, theyre planning more than 50 white-led demonstrations thatll take place in largely white communities. This is unprecedented, Silverman says of the upsurge of interest.
Intentional conversations about racismby whites, for whites and not of the KKK varietyare happening across the country. I spoke with a few community leaders about why its important that whites talk race and racism with one another and how those intra-group conversations could be better. Everyone has a different approach; what follows isnt exhaustive or one-size-fits-all. And, no, un-friending people on Facebook didnt make the Do list.
Deal With the Upset
For white people whore trying to understand why their reactions to race conversations are so fraught, DiAngelos concept of white fragility, is one way to get there. Although coined in a 2011 journal article, the term came into popular use this July in Seattle to describe whites inability to bear even civil criticism of a production featuring Japanese characters played by an all-white cast.
DiAngelo says thats because white Americans live in spaces that protect them from race-based stress, so we just fall apart around [the slightest] challenge to our racial reality. She continues, The average white person who notices some racism [from another white person] wont say anything and thats because we dont want to deal with the upset.
Amy Hunter is an African-American woman who four years ago founded a whites-only Witnessing Whiteness discussion group at her St. Louis YWCA. She says shes busier than ever now. But she operates from the premise that white people have conversations all the time that are racistand her groups are grounded in the same idea. Led for nine weeks by white facilitators, the groups examine how racism works in each participants life and then they work on unlearning it with their families and in their churches, neighborhoods and workplaces.
The real goal of the groups is that they go back out into the white community and work with people who look like them. That is the intent, Hunter says. We have people whore now holding race conversations in their churches. Weve seen the impact be pretty positive.
Its Your Problem, Not Theirs
SURJ members often engage in direct action around issues affecting communities of color in their home cities. Weve been hearing from people of color in Ferguson that its exhausting to constantly be educating white people, Silverman says. So with the recent surge in new members, Silverman says that its important to pair white people whove been working on and thinking about race with those who havent been. They help prepare them.
Also, Silverman adds, I have racism within me. I have thoughts that are racist. Forgive the metaphor but sometimes racism is like vomit. You cant hold it backand its so much better to do that with another white person than with a person of color and having them clean it up.
One of Katherine Fritzs close friends is Mormon and she lives in a small, very white community in Illinois. I think her definition of racist was confined to the history bookslike, A racist is someone who wears a white hood and is overt in their hatred, she says via e-mail. I shared Kiese Laymons recent [Vassar College] piece with her and I think it was a really eye-opening experience. She posted it on her Facebook page and it made me feel like, Wow, Okay. She heard [his] voice, she learned something. I think, this was partly a result of the discussion weve been having, says Fritz, who had been educating her friend about systemic racism.
Bad White People Wont Just Disappear
For whites, DiAngelo says, A racist is a bad person. Racism becomes about individual acts by individual people whore bad. So good whites tend to self-segregate from bad whites.
But dividing yourself between good and bad whites isnt progress, says Hunter. Echoing a recent Huffington Post plea, she strongly discourages un-friending on Facebook because of the Michael Brown/Darren Wilson case. I have no doubt Darren Wilsons a good guy, Hunter says she recently told a group of high-school students. What Im trying to change is the system where hes been trained to unload his clip. What Im trying to change is a system that says big black people are scary and you need to handle them a certain way. Darren Wilson did exactly what he was trained to do. Hunters focus is on helping whites to change each others beliefs and patternsnot in perpetuating more separation in an already segregated country.
Silverman says whites need to step it up: We want to move towards white people whore trying to figure things outeven if that means we get a bit of their vomit on us, Silverman says. People of color get vomited on with this shit all the time. Its our responsibility to step it up and show up even in those spaces where its hard and uncomfortable. Thats the work.
i put in simplistic, unqualified’terms.
i doubt you walk around with an angry face, looking at people seeing if they are disrespecting you. just being big and black aren’t enough. it’s acting the way brown did, using the bigness and stern pissed-off looks to intimidate.
in other words, i doubt you give off the same vibe.
My children are socialized white and have done this. Whites sometime pigeon hole them, but for the most part they can get around it.
OK. So?
Blacks compose 13% of the population, so at the least, white social circles would be 87% white, a 4 point difference.
But most whites live in places where they do not have many black neighbors, or black co-workers. If you separate out the enclaves of black underclass, it accounts for the 4% difference.
Understand that “hatin’ YT” is just a proxy for their anti-Western (anti-Judeo-Christian) agenda.
They hate God and His law, and the way He has created reality such that their way of doing things ALWAYS fails.
“socialized white”
Oh, please, PLEASE don’t adopt the language of the left.
Call it what it is - you’ve raised them in the proven successful and prosperous Judeo-Christian/Western culture.
They will prosper if they hold to those values.
They will founder if they reject them in favor of “urban” values - a culture set up and promoted SPECIFICALLY as a foil to WJC culture.
socialized white
Oh, please, PLEASE dont adopt the language of the left.
Call it what it is - youve raised them in the proven successful and prosperous Judeo-Christian/Western culture.
They will prosper if they hold to those values.
They will founder if they reject them in favor of urban values - a culture set up and promoted SPECIFICALLY as a foil to WJC culture.
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I buy that, there really isn’t a shorthand way to say it.
Basically we focused on our faith as being the most important issue and they were socialized Christian if I were using shorthand.
Oh, I certainly commend you on your choices.
I just hate the idea of using the left’s racist language.
But, you did run smack into what is meant by “white culture” and “black culture” -
that culture which is conformant to Judeo-Christian values,
and that anti-culture whose purpose is to oppose it.
I’m sorry to be one of those they have to “get around.” I’ll have to be more careful in the future. It’s getting too easy to lump the good in with the bad.
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