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This is such a great piece that I thought some here may want to use it...
in interactions and discussions. 
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.
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
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
and it has had me bawling all day in despair.
As a white person.
I simply cannot even imagine how people of color feel, in the United States in 2015. The explosion of denial and viciousness is beyond words. And I'm someone who has been intimately aware of racism my entire life, always realizing it's much more prevalent than most people felt.
