To Work Toward Racial Justice We Need White Wounding (HuffPo)

[OneGrassRoot]

A very thoughtful piece. Highly recommended read, with an open mind.

The primary question for white anti-racists then, should ask how we can accelerate the break up of white supremacy, rather than what type of whiteness should come next--or if we can rid ourselves of whiteness altogether.

Importantly, the effort to break up white supremacy posthaste requires a diversity of tactics, efforts, people, organizations, opinions, and so on. What's suggested here is hardly meant to encompass that range, and it is not meant to demean or necessarily render an opinion on most of the tactics other white people are using in this fight. It is to critique a misguided focus on creating a version of whiteness that seems more akin to escapism than a realistic possibility, and one that we believe diverts us from the real work at hand.

More than anything it's a thought. A notion. One that's being worked out on these pages as it's typed. As such, it will be missing key pieces. It will likely be wrongheaded in certain (hopefully not all) aspects.

At its core, our proposal is simple. White people need to open ourselves up to a particular type of wounding to genuinely understand and then work toward racial justice. Our comfort and privilege generally keeps us from incurring these wounds naturally, and thus they must be sought out, disseminated, and used to motivate action.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-benn/towards-a-concept-of-whit_b_7985986.html

[daybranch]

1. whites like blacks are victims of institutional racism

It is from understanding what whites have done when manipulated by the oligarchy throughout the centuries in this country and around the world that we can see who we are as white people and understand how we did and do such evil.
This country has for most of its history been under control of rich oligarchs who controlled our government and our elections. If racism was institutionalized as is stated so often, who did it and why? Only one answer fits. The rich have used racism to divide poor and working class families, black and white from rising up against them. Yes, institutional racism is everywhere and white privilege abounds. But just ask why not just what, and follow the money.
Jesse Jackson informs you it is a class struggle today, Jimmy carter tells you the country is run by the oligarchy, Martin Luther King Jr. wanted to unite workers, both black and white against their oppressors and the oligarchy killed him for it, even a rich billionaire whose name escapes me at the moment says it is a class war and his class is winning. But only one candidate seems willing to take on this battle for us and call them out, Bernie Sanders for us!
Wake up, the revolution is on, join us for yourselves and your children.