From White Racial Shame to Empathy for People of Color

Part I
1 Reply
Fifteen years ago I began researching how to shift the shame and denial that
prevents me and other people of European descent from challenging
institutionalized racism.
During my dissertation research (Towards a Psychology of Unlearning Racism: A
Case Study of a Buddhist Unlearning Racism Course for White People, available
at http://www.proquest.com/en-US/catalogs/databases/detail/pqdt.shtml ), I
discovered the relationship between shame and empathy, a relationship which is
key to transforming racism and other forms of oppression.
If you would like to communicate more effectively about racism with liberal white
audiences, read on.
Likewise, if you want to understand the role that shame plays in reinforcing
oppression in general, read on.

White People Lack of Empathy for People of Color

I was moved to write this after receiving articles asserting that white people
cannot empathize with people of Asian, Arab, Latino, African and Indigenous
descentpeople of color:
https://ose.utsc.utoronto.ca/ose/story.php?id=2135
http://restructure.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/white-people-lack-empathy-forbrown-people-brain-research-shows/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/15/new-orleans-shootingnot-national-news
This is not a surprise. With racism or any other form of oppression, the group on
the upside of inequity is positioned to be oblivious to the people on the downside
of inequity. In the case of racism, this positioning creates perception gaps
between white people and people of color.
Systemic socioeconomic inequalities cause white people and people of color to
live in different worlds, governed by social rules and economic conditions that
advantage white people and disadvantage people of color. People of color are
usually aware of this; white people are often not. This perception gap, which is
also an empathy gap, is difficult for white people to bridge.
Even seasoned white anti-racist activists can lack this empathy. Anti-racist white
peoples awareness of racism and privilege is often limited to an abstract, twodimensional acknowledgement. White people who lack an emotional and

embodied understanding of racism cannot feel into how people of color

experience their daily lives.
White anti-racist action that is not grounded in empathy for people of color can
be inappropriately passive or aggressive, can take space from people of color,
and often lacks a strategic approach.

Experiences That Promote Empathy

What does white peoples empathy for people of color look like? According to
Eileen OBrien,
Empathy means step[ping] across that perception gap, grasping the extent to
which racism still exists, and validating the experiences of people of color.
OBriens book, Whites Confront Racism: Antiracists and Their Paths to Action,
describes two common scenarios through which white people begin to empathize
with people of color:
1. developing close relationships with people of color and witnessing their
mistreatment;
2. translating personal experiences of oppression or abuse into empathy for
people of color.
In the first scenario, a white individual becomes friends or lovers with a person or
persons of color, and witnesses firsthand their differential treatment by officials,
institutions, and groups, such as this typical interaction, described by Joy Degruy:
In our highly segregated cities and towns, close interracial relationships are
relatively rare for white people, unless they long to be around those who are
different, and act on this longing. Close interracial relationships can awaken a
white persons awareness and empathy about racism.
OBrien suggests that a similar awakening may occur when white people are
exposed to creative expression by people of color. This was certainly true in my
case. Stevie Wonders Living For the City:
touched me profoundly as an adolescent, as did Fats Wallers Black and Blue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S35jB5CA7RY
In the second scenario, a white person who has experienced oppression (sexism,
homophobia, ableism, etc.) or abuse may empathize with the racism that people
of color experience. This is even likelier when that white person experiences
more than one kind of oppression, such as being targeted for being both Jewish
and lesbian, or being both disabled and a survivor of child sexual abuse.

Before we look further at how to awaken cross-racial empathy in white people,

there are deeper sources of this empathy-deficit to consider.

Participating in Racism Damages White Peoples

Humanity and Empathy
Racist institutions such as the global slave trade that abducted and enslaved
millions of Africans, are born from callousness. Once racist institutions are
established, they are maintained by conditioning each generation of white
people to close their hearts to people of color.
White children do not choose to live in a world of racial inequity or be a member
of the dominant racial group. White children inherit a social world that teaches
them to overvalue white people and undervalue people of color. Since white
children cannot risk losing the connection and safety of their community; they
are forced to fit in by tolerating unfairness and accepting racism.
This process of accepting this one up position at the expense of people of color
wounds white children. Participating in cruelty and unfairness towards the
other conflicts with a childs natural inclination to care and connect. So at a
young age, white children learn to betray their humanity.
As the white racial justice activist Mab Segrest points out in her book, Born To
Belonging:
the profound damage racism has done to us, as if we as a people could
participate in such an inhuman set of practices and beliefs over five centuries of
European hegemony and not be, in our own ways, devastated emotionally and
spirituallyI am not equating the damage done by racism to white people with
the damage done to people of colorthe pain of dominance is always
qualitatively different from the pain of insubordination. But there is a pain, a
psychic wound, to inhabiting and maintaining domination.
Oppressing others is dehumanizing; it shuts down the ability to connect with
ourselves, others and Spirit.
Shame is at the core of the psychic wound that Segrest describes. It is human to
be ashamed of harming others. So if white individuals are not able to stop
collective racist harm, they are doomed to live with shame.
What is Shame?
But what is shame?
First, shame is not guilt. Guilt is about doingwhat we did or did not do, and what
we can do to make amends. In contrast, shame is about beingwhat we are or
are not. Shame says, I am a bad person. I am unlovable, or, My people are
evil. There is nothing we can do about shame, except to stop existing.

Second, shame is a social emotion that is connected to our fear of losing

community. Shame tries to protect us from experiencing exposure, rejection, and
abandonment.
Finally, shame is an unbearable, intolerable emotion. Shame compels us to hide
to avoid being exposed as unlovable in other peoples eyes. The M.O. of shame is
to curl up and retractit is not conducive to connecting with others, much less
empathizing with them.
In fact, shame is so threatening to us that it triggers the amygdalas automatic
fight or flight reactions of defend, attack, deny, withdraw and freeze.
To sum up, white peoples participation in dehumanizing actions causes them to
feel shame. Thus, racism and shame co-arise.

The Vicious Cycle of White Racial Shame and

Disconnection from People of Color
White peoples shame about racism reinforces their disconnection from people of
color in a vicious cycle of shame and unconsciousness. This vicious cycle shows
up in several forms:

Numbing: White Peoples Primary Racial Shame Coping

Strategy
Shame is intolerable. We cannot live with it. So white children, white adults learn
to close our hearts and turn our eyes away from the suffering we inflict on people
of color. White people have numbed and deadened ourselves for generations.
Numbing is the primary shame coping strategy that I and other white people
have inherited from our ancestors. It is a coping strategy with a serious side
effectit destroys empathy, and prevents us from noticing and responding to
injustice.

Other Racial Shame Coping Strategies

Over centuries, my peoplewhite peoplehave developed and practiced many
other collective coping strategies to avoid feeling shame about participating in
the genocide and slavery that founded this nation, and shame about the more
recent forms of white supremacy, such as internment camps, economic
exploitation of inmates, and anti-Arab and anti-immigrant policies.
These shame coping strategies take the form of automatic individual and
collective practices.
As we have resorted to these practices over and over again, they have become
knee-jerk reactions in the dominant white culture. These coping strategies
include: defensiveness, withdrawal, under/over responsibility, projecting a false
self, self-absorption, absolution seeking, and paralysis.

Not only do these shame coping strategies reinforce racism, they are empathy
killers. For example, the shame coping strategy of self-absorption is highlighted
by Spaniermans and Heppners telling comment in their study on the
psychosocial costs of racism to whites:
Contrary to expectation, no relationship was found between white racial guilt
and ethnocultural empathywhite individuals who experience high levels of guilt
and shame may be too overwhelmed to empathize with people of other races.
Likewise, the shame coping strategy of projecting a false self undermines white
racial empathy.
As we have seen, white people can increase their empathy by forming close
relationships with people of color and witnessing their day to day lives.
Unfortunately, white racial shame causes many white people to project a false
self and conceal their thoughts and emotions from people of color. This behavior
obstructs authentic intimacy and relating.
I knew a woman who was so terrified of making mistakes around people of color
that she would fall silent in their company. This fear loosened up after she
acknowledged and released some of her racial shame.

Taking Shame Seriously

The white collective has inherited this multi-generational legacy of racial shame.
Shame is a serious obstacle to white peoples ability to empathize across racial
lines.
The vicious cycle of white racial shame and disconnection from people of color is
a dead end.
Those of us who are committed to awakening white peoples cross-racial
empathy cannot afford to reinforce white peoples shame.
In fact, those of us who are committed to social justice cannot afford to reinforce
anyones shame.
End of Part I

Next month: Part II: Cultivating Cycles of Compassion

will explore practical antidotes to white racial shame.
Much gratitude to my sources: Butler, R. S. (Producer/Director). (2003). Light in
the shadows; Featherston, J.E. personal communication; Karen, R. (1992,
February). Shame. Atlantic Monthly; Lee, M. W. (Producer/Director). (1983). The
color of fear; McKinney, K. D. (2000). Everyday whiteness: Discourse, story and
identity; OBrien, E. (2001). Whites confront racism: Antiracists and their paths to

action; OBrien, E. (2003). The political is personal: The influence of White

supremacy on White antiracists personal relationships; Paxton, D. (2003).
Facilitating transformation of White consciousness among European-American
people: A case study of a cooperative inquiry; Segrest, M. (2002). Of Soul and
White folks, in Born to Belonging; Spanierman, L. B., & Heppner, M. J. (2004).
Psychosocial costs of racism to Whites scale (pcrw): Construction and initial
validation. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 51 (2); Thandeka. (2000). Learning
to be White; Thompson, B. (2001). A promise and a way of life: White antiracist
activism; Willey, S. R. (2003). Expanding racial consciousness: A participatory
study exploring White college administrators understanding of whiteness and
racism.

https://beyoungandshutup.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/the-problem-isntblack-culture-the-problem-is-youre-a-racist/comment-page-2/

The Problem Isnt Black Culture, The Problem Is Youre

a Racist
Posted on September 19, 2013 by Solomon Wong 241 Comments
Now that its not cool anymore to explain the differences between groups based
on their ethnicity or race, and its not yet cool to think that institutionalized
racism might be a fucking thing, people are turning to culture to explain why
black people are still way poorer than whites, why theyre the most imprisoned,
why their academic performance lags behind. The argument goes, white people
arent responsible for problems in the black community, black people are.
Theyve built a culture that values criminality, material goods, sex, drugs, and
fun-having more than making grades or holding a decent job or staying out of
prison.
This neatly explains all the problems anti-racists claim are indicative of lingering
racism (or, very prevalent cloaked racism), and shifts responsibility from whites
to blacks. It also avoids the speaker revealing themselves to be racist. It trades
on the idea that everyone is equal, with equal ability and potential. But, like most
racists attempts to co-opt anti-racist rhetoric, it falls hard because of a cynical
lack of respect for the concepts.

Yes, white people enslaved black people for hundreds of years, and yes, there
are lingering effects of this in modern America. But culture is a major shaping
force. That is where black people live, not in the past where their ancestors were
enslaved.
At first blush, the culture argument has a pretty progressive attitude. As I said, it
uses anti-racist language and ideas to look well-meaning, right-minded, and
egalitarian. Blacks have the same capacity for success, the same brain
chemistry, and so on. It works on the assumption that classical racism (ie,
blacks are inferior) is factually wrong. The thing is, youll often see this
argument being used to discredit anti-racist efforts: By trying to be mindful and
kind to poor disadvantaged black people, youre not holding them to the same
standard you would whites. The phrase soft bigotry of low expectations
sometimes comes up in this culture argument, and does a good job of
encapsulating the basic sentiment.
Soft bigotry of low expectations was a buzz-phrase used by George W. Bush to
sell No Child Left Behind. To justify NCLBs rigorous standards, he said it was
racist to not apply them across the board, because, what, do you think black kids
cant do it? The phrase has been adopted as a format for snarky article titles and,
more pertinently, as a bolster for the black culture argument. What its saying
is that to be truly anti-racist, you have to treat everyone equally (in this case,
meaning no special programs, affirmative action, outreach, etc.) and have the
same expectations for everyone. Its like colorblind racism: shut up about race,
stop worrying about race, practice what you preach, and everything will be fine.
But both of these positions rely on the pie-in-the-sky notion that blacks and
whites are already on equal footing.
A recent study finds that poverty changes how your brain works. Being poor,
preoccupied with clawing your way out of poverty, worrying about how youre

going to pay the bills, pay for groceries, pay for things more well-off people take
for granted, imparts a 13-point IQ loss. This, say the authors, is equivalent to
losing a nights sleep or being a chronic alcoholic (add this to people who
actually are alcoholics, and despair). It leads to a tighter focus on basic needs,
impairs decision-making, and hampers the learning process. For people living in
low-income areas, it would be unfair to hold them to the same standard. This
isnt to say someone from these areas cant succeed or excel, but simply to point
out that its ridiculous to expect them to be as upwardly mobile and successful
as people in a better position.
People love to say Its about class, not race. But numbers show that thats
crap, too. Income levels between races are very imbalanced, and household
wealth levels are drastically more imbalanced than that. And while people can go
ahead and pull out the ambition and hard work argument as to why black
people have less money, it doesnt change the results of the study. Poverty is of
course only part of the problem. The lasting effects of violence, of broken
families, have a similarly devastating effect on the black community.
If whites were in this position, they would be exactly the same. To believe
otherwise is racist. And if you wanna do that, then fine, but stop fucking saying
youre not racist. This idea erases imbalances, unfairness, prejudice, and
oppression by co-opting anti-racist language. Its very sneaky racism. It asserts
that liberals care so much about caring so much that they end up being racist by
treating black people like they cant manage themselves. And this can be true.
But the phrase is meant to discredit attempts to solve the problems. The real
problem, they claim, is cultural, and as such, it falls on the black community to
fix it, not people who want to help blacks get into college, or into better jobs, or
reform the justice system that totally works. Its not the justice systems fault it
puts so many black men in prison for non-violent offenses, its all that God-dang
rap music and thug culture poisoning the youth.

The culture argument presumes that black people were never oppressed. Its
immediately unviable because its so often paired with a whining cry of slavery
ended almost 150 years ago! and then sometimes theyll be sufficiently foolish
to go so far as to acknowledge Jim Crow and segregation, which happened

recently enough that your parents remember it. How is this relevant to the
argument that black people are killing themselves with a toxic drug-money-sexcrazed culture? Because culture isnt just created out of nowhere. Its a long,
long, long reaction to what a group experiences. Race isnt real in the sense that
it has no concrete, objective basis, but African-Americans are a real group and
their culture is heavily based upon what they, as a race, have experienced.
So even if this argument about culture was true, if black culture really was the
only thing holding them back as a people, its still whiteys fault. Black culture
was shaped by history, by the white-run country they live in. By the white
governments War on Drugs, which has helped put 840,000 black men in prison
and destroyed nearly as many black families. I mean, I cant even talk about how
black culture was influenced without taking this argument apart.
White people often feel like theyre being judged for their ancestors sins, and
this persecution complex really speaks volumes to how much people understand
but wont consciously acknowledge. They know slavery and segregation left
scars, and they know the way blacks are treated in this country holds them back.
But they want to throw off the chains of responsibility and come up with some
explanation for black problems that dont involve whites. In doing so, they
demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what culture is and how it
works. They have no idea how culture comes about, what its purpose is. Or,
perhaps more likely, they never gave up on racism. They say black culture is the
problem because they arent allowed to say black people themselves are the
problem. People who make this argument have a choice: either theyre a racist,
or a total idiot (really, its both).
The black community has every right to demand more from itself. Every
community has this right and should exercise it. Whats REALLY NOT OKAY is for
white fuckers to scold blacks for not pulling themselves up fast enough. Its not
okay for outsiders to wring their hands over black kids liking shoes and gold and
whatever when theyve been brought up in a society that, above EVERYTHING
else, wants us to buy shit. Its wrong in every sense of the word to blame black
culture for the problems they face.

Fifty Years After the March, White People Are Still a

Disgrace
Tom Scocca
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The white guy was looking up at the TV in a rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike.
Onscreen, the news was showing John Lewis speaking at the anniversary of the
March on Washington. "I am not going to stand by and let the Supreme Court
take the right to vote away from us," Lewis said. The white guy in the rest stop
glared at the TV, then looked around the dining space. What's he TALKING

about? he asked his family or the air, the world around him. He was seething; he
wanted to be heard. He HAS the right to vote.
His kidsthree of them, dark blondkept eating their fast food. His female
companion said nothing. His angry, stupid, would-be-superior observation hung
in the air, useless.
Maybe it made the white guy feel better, talking back to the old black man on
the television set. Who knows what makes white people feel better, these days?
Laura Ingraham, the white radio host, cut off a clip of Lewis' remarks with a
gunshot sound effect, after spending the lead-in talking about the problem of
black criminality. "Did anyone talk about the horrific crime rate in the black
community?" the white radio host asked, celebrating the 50th anniversary of
Martin Luther King's call for an America in which black and white people could be
counted as one community.
White people have to make judgments. Their status as white people depends on
making judgments. This is why black criminality is a big topic with them these
days. It is how they have decided to resolve the problem of an unarmed teenager
having been shot to death while walking home. Statistically, white people say, it
makes sense to shoot a teenager if he's black. Or at least it makes sense to be
prepared to shoot the black teenager.
It is a perilous world, the world white people inhabit. Murder and rioting are
always just around the corner, lurking in the shadows. White people have been
killing trees and clearing farmland for decades to get away from that corner, to
build streets that don't even have corners. And still the white people are angry
and afraid. Still they feel threatened or cheated.
This is 90 years after H.L. Mencken diagnosed the "hereditary cowardice" of
Americans who identified as "Anglo-Saxon" and wrote:
The normal American of the "pure-blooded" majority goes to rest every night
with an uneasy feeling that there is a burglar under the bed, and he gets up
every morning with a sickening fear that his underwear has been stolen.
In the intervening years, the white American race has expanded its boundaries
beyond self-styled Anglo-Saxons and Nordics to include such formerly inferior or
untrustworthy strains as the Irish, the Italians, or even the Jews. But the
fundamentally defective character of white Americans has not changed; if
anything, it has gotten worse.
***
Because white people ruin everything, they have spent the past week
particularly focused on ruining the legacy of the March on Washington (with a
brief interlude to ruin twerking). The March, in white people's recounting, was
when Martin Luther King Jr. brought hundreds of thousands of people to
Washington D.C. and told them to stop making a big deal about race.

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Pulitzer Prize winner Kathleen Parker, of the Washington Post, offered the
standard white take on history last week, in her column about how black people
are prone to rioting and how President Obama was irresponsible to rile them up
about the Trayvon Martin case:

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How sad, as we approach the 50th anniversary of the march Martin Luther King
Jr. led on Washington, that even the president resorts to judging not by the
content of one's character but by the color of his skinthe antithesis of the great
dream King articulated.
How sad. White people, like Kathleen Parker, are sad that the president should
mention skin color. Laura Ingraham likewise invoked King's mention of
"character," to launch into her discussion of the crime rates assigned to groups
of people classified by their skin color. White people hammer at this over and
over, King's "great dream" of a color-blind America, a dream that is only being
thwarted now by the people who insist on talking about racial issues.
Here is what King actually said, in this one quote of his that today's white people
take as proof he was on their side:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where
they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their
character.
When white people cite this passage, they tend to replace "my four little
children" with something generic"people," for instance. The specific facts of
1963, of a caste of children born in a society that intentionally excluded them
from opportunity, give way to an ahistoric (and therefore pointless) idealism.
America is about how everybody is treated the same. Equality is replaced with
equivalence.
So we arrive at a color-blind society, one in which if you did look at the people
who are poorer, or less educated, or sicker, or more likely to be imprisoned, or
more likely to be turned aside from the polls under voting laws passed this very
year, you would see that they just happen to be disproportionately nonwhite. But
it is wrong to look. Dr. Kingthe white people's version of Dr. Kingtold us so.

***
The genuine Martin Luther King Jr., 50 years ago, said this:
When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the
Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a
promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a
promise that all menyes, black men as well as white menwould be
guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It
is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as
her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation,
America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back
marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to
believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this
nation. So we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand
the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
Here is where white Americans failed themselves and their country. That image
of the promissory note was too much for white people's greed and selfishness to
accept. White people had defined themselves, as a race, by having the things
that other people could not have. So the vaults of opportunity would not be
opened, not without white people staging a run on the bank first. If the public
schools had to educate black children and white children together, the white
people would get out of the schools, declare war on the whole idea of public
school. If black people could participate in civic life, white people would clear out
of the cities. White people would revolt against paying taxes, against poverty
relief, against food stamps, even.
And then, after decades of this, white people would look back at the things white
America had abandoned or refused to build, and they would blame black people
for living in the ruins. Their character. Their culture. Their music. Their pants.
Yet white people are still afraid: of young men in hoodies; of being blamed for
their fear of young men in hoodies. Of reverse racism. Of armies of fake voters,
bent on electing white-hating militants. Of sharia law. Of mild ethnic putdowns.
Of the New Black Panther Party. Of one tiny and absurd thing after the next.

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What white people fear, at bottom, is retribution. This is why discussion of actual
injustice is supposed to be off-limits. Despite the glorious principles spelled out
50 years ago on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, they lack a functioning
concept of justice. To admit the harms of the past is to invite payback. When
Andrew Breitbart raised a race panic over Shirley Sherrod, the real issue was that
he and his followers were incapable of understanding Sherrod's story of
transcending racial resentment. They were too trapped by rage and paranoia to
get the point.
Who wants to be part of this degraded and ignorant culture? Whiteness is a dead
end. It's trashing the apartment after receiving the eviction notice. White people
are so confused and terrified by regular America and American values, they now
openly argue against letting more people vote. They write incoherent passages
like this, from the National Review, reflecting on its original opposition to the
March on Washington:
Too many conservatives and libertarians, including the editors of this magazine,
missed all of this at the time. They worried about the effects of the civil-rights
movement on federalism and limited government. Those principles werent
wrong, exactly; they were tragically misapplied, given the moral and historical
context.
Who could put it better that that? White people weren't wrong, exactly, unless
you mean that they were wrong in the light of history and moralityin which
case, yes, white people were wrong, and remain wrong, and seem bent on
staying that way.
Why do so many white people have to be like this? Watch the video of King's
speech. Fifty years ago, white people were in the March. But the pathologies of
whiteness persisted.
When you say this, if you're white, white people like to call it "white guilt." The
implication is that there is something hypocritical and shameful about pointing
out the failings of white America, after having profited from its advantages. I step
to the curb and raise my arm, and three taxis pull over at once. So I should share
in the anger of the white guy at the rest stop.
But the white guy at the rest stop is an asshole. This isn't white guilt; it's white
blame. It's infuriating that he expects anyone to agree with him, in his willful
ignorance, his disingenuousness amped up to rage. As a white person, I want
him to shut up.
[Image by Jim Cooke, source photos via Getty/Shutterstock]

From White Racial Shame to Empathy for People of Color Part II

Leave a reply

Part II: The Virtuous Cycle of White Self-Compassion and Empathy

for People of Color
In Part I we looked at the Vicious Cycle of White Racial Shame and Disconnection
from People of Color. http://www.vanissar.com/blog/from-white-racial-shame-toempathy-for-people-of-color-part-i/
Happily, white people can cultivate a virtuous cycle of compassion and empathy
instead.

What is Compassion?
Compassion is all at once a practice, a state of being and a bodily experience. In
practice, compassion is an attempt to be intimately present with oneself or
others. Compassion is also a spacious, non-judgmental state of awareness. On a
body level, compassion can feel like an expansive feeling of tenderness
(sometimes emanating from the chest) that envelopes self and others in a
palpable sense of connection.

How Does Self-compassion Lead to Empathy?

The seeds of empathy are always within us; given the right conditions, they will
root and grow. If shame is like a drought; compassion is like sunlight, soil and
moisture. Compassion supports empathy in several ways:
Compassion melts shame, softens denial and reawakens our childlike qualities of
trust, curiosity, and our sense of justice and fairness. It allows our hearts to
remember our connection with all beings. Receiving compassion from others
helps us to forgive ourselves and start fresh. As we steadily practice receiving
compassion from ourselves and others, our empathy for others grows robust,
giving us the courage to listen non-defensively to others and look directly at
suffering and injustice. This is a cycle we want to encourage!

Practices That Support the Virtuous Cycle

This virtuous cycle that shifts white peoples disconnection into empathy for
people of color has some difficult aspects. Re-awakening empathy means
thawing out from numbness about racism and white privilege. Just like when your
foot has fallen asleep and the return of circulation feels like pins and needles,
at times the empathy awakening process can be very uncomfortable. White
people need all the help we can get.
Here are 8 practices that support the virtuous cycle of white self-compassion and
empathy for people of color:
*Creating supportive white racial justice community
*Compassion and forgiveness practices and reflections
*Mindfulness practices
*Reflecting on how socialization into the oppressor role is systemic and
involuntary
*Body-based and expressive arts practices to release shame
*Healing trauma in your body (personal trauma, social trauma/oppression)
*Racial justice action
*Developing a positive white identity
Creating Supportive White Racial Justice Community
When white people begin to thaw out from numbness about racism and white
privilege, it is uncomfortable, to say the least! To thaw out and reclaim empathy
for people of color, white people need the ongoing support and encouragement
of community.
It is easier to heal the social emotion of shame in communitya compassionate
community where white people can give voice to their personal or collective
shame, and to any underlying feelings of despair and powerlessness. Speaking
the unspeakable in a loving context is redemptive, especially if everyone present
is in the same boat.
The best community for this purpose is a group of white people who are
committed to ending racism, and who are willing to welcome each others
wholeness, and all the complex emotions of the thawing out journey. Such a

community can lovingly hold members accountable, and support everyone to

keep engaging in racial justice work through mistakes and setbacks.

Compassion and Forgiveness Practices

The more you practice compassion and forgiveness, the easier it is to access
these states. Also, as James Baraz notes in Awakening Joy, when we meditate on
compassion, it stimulates our action-planning brain; this compassion-action
connection sounds promising for anti-racist activism. Here are two Buddhist
practices that help us to cultivate compassion and forgiveness for ourselves and
others:
Metta Practice:
http://info.med.yale.edu/psych/3s/metta.html
Tonglen (Sending and Taking):
http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/tonglen1.php
It is important to note that practicing compassion while staying insulated from
communities of color does not necessarily increase white peoples empathy for
people of color. These practices need to be combined with exposure to
information about systemic racism.

Mindfulness Practices
Meditation enhances awareness of self and others, minimizes the amygdalas
automatic fight or flight reactions, and opens up space for our mammal brains to
generate compassion and empathy. However, white mindfulness practitioners
who are disconnected from communities of color are not likely to have much
empathy for people of color. Mindfulness practices need to be combined with
racial justice education. When mindfulness practices are combined with racial
awareness, white people become more present to the daily realities faced by
people of color.

Reflecting on How Socialization into the Oppressor Role is

Systemic and Involuntary
Racism is a centuries-old, inherited, systemic worldview and way of life. As
children, white people involuntarily absorb a racist worldview through social
conditioning, and passively benefit from racist institutions. Remembering the
pervasive and involuntary socialization process can reduce individual blame and
shame and increase a white persons compassion and forgiveness for all white
people, including themselves.

Body-based and Expressive Arts Practices to Release Shame

Shame cannot be healed by words or concepts alone; it is linked up with the
amygdalas fight or flight system, which speaks the language of sensation. This
language can be accessed through Somatic healing modalities such as
Generative Somatics, Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and
EMDR, which provide strong containers for healing shame.
Bodywork can also shift shame when the practitioner embodies compassion for
the client. Expressive Arts practices that engage the senses can transform
shame into compassion. Authentic Movement, dance, journaling (with sensation
awareness), making or listening to music, drumming, storytelling, painting,
drawing, etc. can all be effective.

Healing Trauma in Your Body (Personal Trauma and Oppression

Trauma)
Shame of any kind amplifies all shame. If a white person does their work to heal
and release shame related to trauma, abuse and oppression, they will be less
susceptible to shame in general, including racial shame. Since the journey of
healing from personal and ancestral shame unfolds in the body; the modalities
mentioned above can facilitate this journey.
Personal healing sometimes directly overlaps with racial shame healing. For
example, when a white individual brings compassionate awareness to the racial
shame coping strategies passed inherited from their family members (see Part I),
they can simultaneously work with the personal hurts inflicted on them by these
coping strategies, and begin to forgive their ancestors for their collusion with
white supremacy. When personal and racial shame are brought together into an
unflinching, kind light, both can melt and make space for empathy.

Racial Justice Action

Anti-racist action can play a part in addressing racial shame for white people.
Some racial justice thinkers view anti-racist action as a way to ask for
forgiveness or make amends, thereby reducing the sense of powerlessness
associated with racial shame.
Using anti-racist action to heal white racial shame should be approached with
caution, since action can be misused to cover over difficult feelings such as guilt
and shame about racism. Intention is criticalif the action is motivated by an
unconscious desire for absolution from people of color, then it may cause more
harm than good. For this reason, it is critical to combine action with selfcompassion practices.

Developing a Positive White Identity

All people need to feel good about themselves. Lack of self-esteem is not a
viable way for anyone to be in the world, and it profoundly undermines a white
persons ability to challenge racism. Despite the many negative historical and
current associations with whiteness, white people can redefine what being white
means for them in ways that support racial justice.
This can be done by uncovering or re-connecting with ones original ethnic and
cultural roots, and finding inspiration there. What is wonderful about being
Scottish, Greek, or Russian?
White individuals can also embrace the life affirming practices of their families.
Most families have something to offer: maybe your lineage creates beautiful
bluegrass music. Maybe your grandparents were always kind to animals; maybe
the women in your family share homemade jam with their neighbors.
White people who do not know their parentage, who cannot find anything
redeeming in their lineage, or whose cultural roots are long lost (one of racisms
costs to people of European descent) can still reclaim a positive white identity.
Many white anti-racist writers, activists and artists, both past and present are
waiting to be discovered.
If you are a white anti-racist lesbian, union organizer or musician, or an antiracist Ashkenazic Jew, you are in good company. Why not adopt one or more of
these proud lineages as your honorary ancestors?
In my case, I feel a personal connection to white anti-racist singer-songwriters.
Here is a partial list of anti-racist songs sung by white singers:
Ani Difranco
My Country tis of Thee; IQ; and
Fuel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55AZRDkMZJs
Steve Earl
City of Immigrants (Although Mr. Earl forgets here that First Peoples are not
immigrants): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWnGctWs4JM
Iris DeMent
Wasteland of the Free: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak6E6IL4PT4
Sinead OConnor
Black Boys on Mopeds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqHvAC-mDQg

Indigo Girls
Shame On You; Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (by Buffy St. Marie)
Bruce Cockburn
Nicaragua; Stolen Land; and
They Call It Democracy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68zccrskOqQ
The 8 virtuous cycle practices described above are designed to heal white racial
shame and awaken compassion, clearing space for white peoples empathy to
bloom for self, other white people, and people of color.
Practical Applications of the Virtuous Cycle
If you are a racial justice educator, organizer, writer or activist who works with
white people, you might want to incorporate some of the above practices into
your strategies, messages, and trainings. Here are some specific applications of
the virtuous cycle to: anti-racist education, anti-racist workshop design, and
working strategically with white people.

Anti-racist Education
When you want to educate a white audience about systemic racism, it is ideal to
integrate as many of these practices as possible into your communication.
People have different learning styles, so the more of these practices that you can
include, the easier it will be for white people to digest the new learning and act
on it.

Anti-racist Workshop Design

Racial justice workshops that include a mix of people of color and white people
should ideally provide opportunities for these two groups to meet separately to
build compassionate community, and heal from internalized oppression and
dominance. Meeting separately is especially important to ensure that everyones
learning and healing needs are addressed:
There are times when the needs of white trainees are in direct opposition to the
needs of trainees of color. Initially, white people need to acknowledge their racist
conditioning, behaviors and privilege in a compassionate, non-judgmental
context. At the same time, people of color need to find their voices and express
their anger and hurt about racism while having their experiences validate and
respected. This delicate process of healing from internalized racism requires a
sacred space set apart from the distraction of white peoples shame reactions.
It is often the case that just when people of color need to stop caretaking white
people and focus on themselves, white people need to express racial shame and

be met by forgiveness. At such times these two groups needs are completely
incompatible. For these reasons, I believe that some separate unlearning racism
work is essential, especially in the early stages, to ensure that the learning and
healing needs of everyone involvedpeople of color and white people are taken
care of.

Working Strategically with White People

Racial justice educators and organizers may want to proactively add some of the
virtuous cycle practices to their toolkits so that they can prevent and respond to
white racial shame.
In addition, articles, blog postings and workshops that are designed to reach
white people can minimize white racial shame by avoiding judgmental or
condescending statements, or activities that keep participants in their heads.
White people do not need any extra help to default to shame and denial!
On the other hand, expressing fierceness and anger about racism to white
people can be cleansing and healing for everyone involved, as long as the
overarching atmosphere is fiercely compassionate.

Final Thoughts: Recognizing the Signs and Symptoms of White

Racial Shame
Racial justice educators and activists who can recognize the signs and symptoms
of racial shame will be able to tell when its time to cultivate the virtuous cycle.
In addition, they will also be able to work more strategically with white people.
People of color who regularly interact with white people may wish to be able to
identify the signs and symptoms of white racial shame in action. One of my
colleagues of color finds it helpful to know when racial shame is motivating a
white persons behavior, because, Knowing where their behavior is coming from
gives me a choice to not react to them; I do not need to take it on or try to take
care of that person.
Finally, given the hidden nature of racial shame, it is easy to overlook or reinforce
it. So it is worthwhile to learn about the typical behaviors that mask white
peoples racial shame (and protect white people from feeling it). You can find a
list of typical white racial shame symptoms here:
http://www.vanissar.com/blog/signs-and-symptoms-of-white-racial-shameotherwise-known-as-shame-survival-strategies/
Thank you to all racial justice activists, organizers, educators and artists
everywhere. You inspire me.

Much gratitude to my sources: Arminio, J. (2001). Exploring the nature of racerelated guilt. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development; Baraz, J., &
Alexander, S.; Butler, R. S. (Producer/Director). (2003). Light in the shadows; C.
Clark, & J. ODonnell (Eds.), Becoming and unbecoming White: Owning and
disowning a racial identity; Featherston, J.E., personal communication; Howard,
G. R. (1999). White man dancing: A story of personal transformation; Karen, R.
(1992, February). Shame. Atlantic Monthly; Lee, M. W. (Producer/Director).
(1983). The color of fear; McKinney, K. D. (2000). Everyday whiteness: Discourse,
story and identity; OBrien, E. (2001). Whites confront racism: Antiracists and
their paths to action; OBrien, E. (2003). The political is personal: The influence
of White supremacy on White antiracists personal relationships; Paxton, D.
(2003). Facilitating transformation of White consciousness among EuropeanAmerican people: A case study of a cooperative inquiry; Pritchy Smith, G. (1999).
If youre not standing in this line, you are standing in the wrong line; Rodriguez,
N. M. (2000). What does a pedagogy of whiteness promise?; Rose, L. R. (1996).
White identity and counseling White allies about racism; Segrest, M. (2002). Of
Soul and White folks, in Born to Belonging; Spanierman, L. B., & Heppner, M. J.
(2004). Psychosocial costs of racism to Whites scale (pcrw): Construction and
initial validation. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 51 (2); Thandeka. (2000).
Learning to be White; Thompson, B. (2001). A promise and a way of life: White
antiracist activism; Willey, S. R. (2003). Expanding racial consciousness: A
participatory study exploring White college administrators understanding of
whiteness and racism.
This entry was posted in Vanissar blog on July 5, 2013 by Vanissar.
Signs and Symptoms of White Racial Shame (Otherwise Known as Shame
Survival Strategies)
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Over centuries, white people have developed and practiced collective coping
strategies to avoid feeling our shame about participating in and benefiting from
genocide, slavery, internment camps, economic exploitation of prison inmates,
and other historical and current forms of white supremacy and racism.
These shame coping strategies take the form of automatic individual and
collective practices: as we have resorted to these practices over and over again,
they have become default practices in the dominant white culture. When we see
evidence of white racial shame, we are actually seeing these shame survival
practices in action:
* Denial: mental or emotional dissociation from the realities of racism and white
privilege)
Example: Racism is in the past, we have a black president now. Emotional
denial can look like talking about racism in an abstract, heady or detached way.
Or silence. Fuzzy brain (dissociation)

* Isolation: isolating ourselves, emotionally or physically from other white

people; lacking and devaluing white anti-racist support. This can take the form of
judgment (competition; comparison; shunning) and/or detachment
(disconnecting from white and/or white ethnic community and white identity;
having an individuality-based identity; failing to reach out to white people.)
* Anger/defensiveness
Examples: getting angry at people of color when they point out racism; getting
defensive; not listening
* Over-responsibility
Examples: feeling responsible to correct everyones racism; harsh responses to
white peoples racism; over-work/burnout; accepting mistreatment from people
of color
* Under-responsibilitysimilar to denial: not being accountable for racism;
Example: I didnt cause this, its not my problem
* Self absorption
Example: when in conversations about racism, changing the focus to themselves
and their feelings
* Absolution-seeking
Examples: engaging in anti racist action so people will forgive us; confessing
wrongdoings to people of color and expecting empathy and understanding
* Paralysis: freezing up
Examples: getting frozen or stuck when it is time to respond; unable to speak up
or respond to racism
* Image management: Working hard to present/prove self as enlightened
white person;
Examples: not being authentic around people of color; being silent around people
of color; terrified to make mistakes
This entry was posted in Vanissar blog on July 1, 2013 by Vanissar.
Flashback: My 2007 Interview with Urusa Fahim, Ph.D., Diversity coordinator at
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
Leave a reply
From Turning Wheel: The Journal of Socially Engaged Buddhism
Spring 2007 Issue: Building Alliances to Address Racism
<stron
Urusa Fahim: I met with Vanissar Tarakali who recently completed her

dissertation in East West Psychology at CIIS. I decided to have a conversation

with Vanissar about her work as it is not only timely but very relevant. In 2000,
Vanissar created and cofacilitated Compassionate Transformation: a Buddhist
Way to Unlearn Racism (CT), a 54 hour course for white people sponsored by
the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. CT incorporated community building, education,
compassion, and spiritual practices. Vanissars doctoral dissertation is a case
study of CT which looks at how to address three obstacles to white antiracist
action: racial shame, denial and isolation.</stron
UF: I am very intrigued by your research on Unlearning Racism using Buddhism.
What brought you to this work?
VT: A few streams brought me to the work:
I experienced child sexual abuse when I was a kid. It was an experience of
having my
options and choices limited for a long time by someone with power over me.
Ever since I
have hated injustice, particularly secret injustices and power differences that are
covered
over while people pretend that everything is fine. A key piece to me is that I
know in
my body what its like to be oppressed in that specific way and I dont want to
inflict
oppression on any group of people. Its very important to me as a white person
that I do
whatever I can to dismantle racism because I dont want to be a perpetrator of
oppression
in any way.
Another stream is that Ive lost some significant relationships with people of
color in my
life because of my lack of awareness of white privilege. There was a big gulf of
understanding about what reality was like between me and some of my friends
and
lovers. Theres a lot of loss there that I regret. I dont want ignorance of white
privilege
to control whether or not I get to have close relationships with people of color.
Yet another stream of how I came to this work was trying to understand racism
and to
understand how and why I keep falling asleep about racism, forgetting that
racism is all
around me, benefiting me. Trying to understand racism, I exposed myself to
concepts and
political analysis and yet I found that my behavior wasnt changing very much.

So for
example, I could be sitting on the BART train and maybe an African American
man
would sit down beside me and my body would subtly flinch and shrink away. And
this,
after years of knowing that Ive been trained to think of black men as menacing
to me as
a white woman. I knew that, but my body was still flinching.
I also noticed that I wasnt doing much to change racism. I felt paralyzed. I didnt
know what to do. I didnt feel worthy to do anything.
UF: So what you are saying is that just knowing theories about what perpetuates
racism is not enough and one must actively do something about. Is that the
understanding that led you to this topic?
VT: After I became a Buddhist I started using Buddhist practices and meditations
to help
me stay awake about racism, and also to relax any guilt or shame I might be
feeling about
white privilege. I noticed that the more I focused my Buddhist practices on
racism and
privilege, the more I could stay awake, and listen to people of color with less
defensiveness. I could act more spontaneously. That was a breakthrough for me.
So those are some of the things that brought me to my research. I wanted to find
out if a
group of white people used Buddhist practices to unlearn racism if it would help
them the
same way it helped me.
In my research about what I call the psychology of unlearning racism, I looked
at three
obstacles: shame, denial and isolation. I picked these because they were really
up for me.
I looked at racial shame more than at racial guilt. Guilt and shame are often
confused.
Guilt is about actions, whereas shame is about who one is. Racial guilt may come
up if I
realize I said something racist. With guilt, I can apologize and change my
behavior. But
racial shame is more complex. Shame is feeling as if there is something
inherently flawed
about me that I cannot change. Racial shame can mean that I deeply believe
that my

people are, or that I am, inherently oppressive and exploitative to people of

color.
Denial is the second obstacle. I kept noticing I was falling asleep, and not
noticing how
people of color were treated. Denial among white people is well documented.
Denial of racism obviously stops white people from acknowledging, taking
responsibility for
racism.
And then theres isolation. I noticed in myself and in other people this sense of
not
wanting to have anything to do with white people who arent actively fighting
racism. I
wanted to get away from them. Underneath it all, I was really afraid of my own
inertia.
UF: There are many different theories and practices out there about unlearning
racism. Why did you choose Buddhism?
VT: Well, as I said, Buddhism works for me. And practice versus arrival is very
Buddhist.
I see practice as a place where Buddhism and unlearning racism intersect. I
need to see unlearning racism as practice so that I can be ok with making
mistakes. I need
to practice staying kind to myself when I think a racist thought. To me its all
about
practice. Practicing listening to people of color. Practicing talking about racism
and
interrupting racism. Its about practicing these things so much that they become
embodied. Then I can behave in a spontaneous way. Its also about the humility
of
knowing Im not going to arrive. I will always carry privilege, and I need to
keep practicing.
Another connection with Buddhism is interconnectedness. If I practice Buddhism,
and
come to an experiential understanding of interconnectedness, I realize Im
getting harmed
when I benefit from harming people of color being harmed. Out of that sense of
interconnectedness if I see injustice happening in the world that I contribute to,
then I
realize that that person who is sufferingtheyre me. I may not always feel that
or
remember or understand that, but theyre me.

With white people the focus on the individual makes it difficult for us to see
institutionalized racism because we keep looking at me what am I doing?
What am I
not doing? Theres such a focus on the individual me that the ability to see the
larger
picture of institution and the collective is impaired. So its difficult for white
people to
see the institutional racism. Buddhism is a powerful antidote to that tunnel
vision.
UF: Are there specific Buddhist practices that relate more directly with your
work?
VT: Yes.. Awareness practices are useful, being present with yourself. The more
white
people can be alive and present with their thoughts and their emotions and body
sensations, the more we can notice when racist assumptions inform our behavior
and the
more I can choose how I want to act. So awareness practices are really key. At
the same
time I think its really important to infuse those awareness practices with
compassion and
kindness towards yourself so that that censor doesnt come up.
The idea is to be conscious of what kind of racist stereotypes and assumptions
am I
operating from. If I become aware of those stereotypes and immediately chastise
myself,
I will probably stuff down that awareness because I want to see myself as a good
person.
So the awareness must be a kind and compassionate awareness so that I can
say, Oh this
is whats here, and Im going to treat myself with kindness and with gentleness.
The
more I can incorporate that kind of compassionate attitude towards myself and
towards
other white people the more I can notice racism in me, and I can keep
questioning those
assumptions and breaking down those automatic racist behaviors.
UF: Directing the compassion outward is not enough, some of it has to be
directed
inward?
VT: I would say thats where it has to start. I also I think it is essential for white
people to

practice speaking up about racism. Theres not a lot of environments where its
ok for
white people to talk about racism. So we dont get a lot of practice talking about
it. So
you dont have the vocabulary and its not a comfortable thing to do. How can
white
people educate each other about racism if we cant talk about it? So practicing
talking
about racism, naming it, making it visible, those are really important, and thats
a
practice. It also prepares white people to not freak out every time a person of
color talks
about racism.
At first, this is about practicing being in community with other white people in
the
service of talking about racism. A community practice of dialoguing and talking
about it.
The sangha is really important. So its not only that each individual is practicing
kind
awareness of whats going on with them, but also extending that kindness to
each other.
So that you are not sitting in judgment of each other because thats going to
shut each
other down. Instead, youre actually cultivating this sense of kind awareness for
whatevers coming up so it can come up, it can air out. I think its responsible to
create a
space where there is this mutual respect to talk about this. And space for people
to have
their mistakes. It doesnt mean not challenging people, it means doing it from a
space of
compassion.
When individual white people start becoming more aware of racism and wanting
to do
something about it, its really a common dualistic thing of Im the good white
person,
Im trying to do something about racism, and you over there, youre the bad
white
person, you just said something racist, and I want to get really far away from
you. So its
important to realize that all white people have been conditioned together, and
were going
to get out of this together. Because racism is a collective oppressive system and
its
going to take a lot of white people together to own up to it and dismantle it.
If I recognize that all white people have this conditioning inside us, then who am

I to
judge other white people?
Isolation is an antiracist obstacle. Ive been researching a specific kind of
isolation that happens when a white person who cares about racism feels
rejected by or avoids other white people. A divide is created between the
informed and uninformed white people, and people get competitive about who is
the most enlightened white person. And its a profound obstacle to coming
together as a collective and teaching and healing each other, and working
through all this inaccurate conditioning. How can we get together and do that
with each other when were busy saying get away from, me Im not like you?
So I just think isolation is a profound obstacle to white people taking collective
antiracist action.
The three obstacles I studied are isolation, denial, and shame. What I found in
my research is that the thing that unites these three obstacles to white antiracist
action is shame. Shame fuels denial and shame fuels isolation.
UF: How would you define racial shame?
VT: Racial shame, for those of us who deal with it, is this sense that Im bad
because Im
white, or my people are bad because weve done these horrible things like
genocide,
slavery, internment camps, etc. I can say that my people did that, I come from
these
people, so Im bad, Im evil, were the oppressors, and a lot of shame can come
up with
that. And that racial shame can resonate with and amplify any other shame I
might have.
For example, I might have shame from a past trauma. Shame is a natural
reaction to
trauma, so any trauma I might have in my history, such as family violence,
leaves a
residue of shame in the body. So any white person who has experienced trauma
probably
has some unprocessed shame. And social trauma, like sexism or antisemitism or
homophobia (or racism!), also causes shame.
There can be many streams of shame percolating inside us. Racial shame is yet
another
layer. All these sources of shame bleed into each other. Amplify each other. I
may
already have internalized shame from sexism so if I add a layer of racial shame
on top of

thatmaybe I notice that some of my unconscious behaviors are oppressive to

people of
color, or I notice that I am benefiting from white privilege because my ancestors
had a
chance to gather wealth by financially exploiting people of color. And I feel not
just guilt,
but shame. And there is plenty to fuel that shame: as a white person I benefit
from racism
everyday. If I face that and I already have shame from other sources, it can be
overwhelming and paralyzing.
UF: How do people cope with shame?
VT: The interesting thing about racial shame or any kind of shame is the things
we do to
avoid feeling it. Something Ive learned in my research is that shame is
unbearable; it is
difficult to hold in conscious awareness. Because of this, people have a lot of
strategies to
cope with or avoid shame, such as going into denial, getting angry or defensive,
blaming
others, self-isolating, becoming self absorbed, or looking for absolution. And all
of these
coping strategies get activated by racial shame. As I said, shame fuels denial
and
isolation. And all three are profound obstacles to white people taking antiracist
action.
Another response to avoid shame is defensiveness. So when a person of color
tells me
what you just said excludes me or erases my experience I might become
defensive
and rebuke them, Buddhist-styletell them they need to transcend their
reaction.
UF: I find myself being embarrassed by that shame and often try to make it ok
for
the white person. I pick up on it and even though I know its not my place to
make
things ok, I find myself trying to do so.
VT: How do you pick up on that, what do you pick up on?
UF: I think it comes from living in the margins and not in the center. I pay a lot of
attention to dominant groups so I can adjust myself accordingly. I pick up on the
shame and the blame that way and feel as if I need to do something about it, as

if it
is my responsibility.
VT: That fits right into another coping strategy for white racial shame: seeking
absolution from people of color. I might go up to a person of color and confess
something, and hope they will absolve me. You can get absolved all you want but
it doesnt mean you arent white and arent participating in racism. That
absolved white person is living in a delusion. And since racial oppression is
something you and other people of color have to survive every
day, when I approach you and say, I want you to absolve me, thats like
someone battering their partner and feeling remorse later and saying Honey,
remember all the things you love about me? instead of making amends or
taking responsibility. To batter someone and make them forgive you is very
oppressive.
Another coping mechanism of shame, or a way of avoiding shame is self
absorption.
Everything leads back to me. The conversation about racism gets turned back
to white
people: what about my pain?
UF: Recently, I heard someone saying People of color keep talking about their
pain
but what about my pain? What about the abuse Ive suffered? No one cares
about
that.
VT: Yeah, that kind of self absorption will continue until shame is dealt with. And
the
appropriate context to do that is with other white people.
UF: Ive heard you and a few other people say that the way for white people to
erase
racism is to work with their own kind. Why is that?
VT: Well where I see this going, my own vision of it, is that in order to build
alliances among white people and people of colorits white peoples
responsibility that racism exists, but it will take a collaboration between white
people and people of color to dismantle it.
For white people to get to the place to work with people of color authentically,
we need to work through that shame, to a deep extent. Work through the
shame, the denial. Part of working through that and talking about it honestly
involves white people saying a lot of stuff that people of color dont want to hear.
It can be very wearying for people of color to sit in a room listening to white
people share their misconceptions about people of color. But those things need

to be brought to light if they are going to be addressed. Theres stuff that white
people need to say, but it could be re-traumatizing for people of color to have to
listen to and hold space for that.
I do think that has to happen in an atmosphere that is compassionate and
challenging. And I dont
think its fair for people of color to have to sustain a feeling of compassion while
listening to white people talk about stereotypes and harmful things theyve said
or done.
Thats asking the victim to take care of the perpetrator. I think its often
inappropriate for
people of color to be in the same room while white people are doing that.
UF: Whats your take on white allies in this work?
VT: The ultimate goal is collaboration between people of color and white people.
But it
has to be genuine and authentic collaboration, not a quick were all
interconnected,
everythings fine, lets collaborate. We are all connected, but most white people
arent
ready to dialogue with people of color.
The ultimate goal is multiracial collaboration and alliance-building to dismantle
racism.
But the initial paths to that goal of collaboration are different for white people
and people of color. For people of color, healing from internalized oppression is
critical. This is not my area of expertise, but I have heard that it is rare for
people of color to feel safe enought to do deep racial healing in the presence of
white people. But I see the process of people of color healing from internalized
oppression as a parallel and complementary to the process that needs to happen
with white people.
One of the things I understand about healing from internalized oppression is the
need to express anger and rage and tell it like it is without censoring. People of
color need that to heal from internalized racism. But if that expression happens
in the presence of white people who are just starting to deal with their racial
shame, the white people take it personally. They get upset, and want to be
soothed. That doesnt work for anybody.
I believe it is important to create compassionate, all-white spaces to get white
people to a
point where they are healed enough that they are resilient, and robust enough
that they can hear
people of colors anger. So instead of going into denial or getting defensive, they

are
really open, they are expansive, they can listen and dialog and take action.
And it is possible; I have found myself increasingly able to stay present with
whatever
people of color need to say to me about racism. I am less and less defensive,
and it is
directly related to working through my own shame, racial and otherwise.
VT: My goal is that eventually many white people will be in a place to take
responsibility for racism. When we are collectively healthy enough that people of
color will not need to teach us about racism. People of color shouldnt have to
work so hard. White people should be doing their work together to heal shame
and unlearn racism so that we can listen to people of color. We can be spacious.
What if a lot of white people, white Buddhists, were so spacious about issues of
race and
racism and privilege that we could simply say, ok, I hear you.?
I feel passionate about making space for white people to do that work, but I want
to be
very clear about what the end goal is. Its not about making white people feel
better or
letting them off the hook about racism. Its about building this robustness to be
able to
stay conscious and responsive when people of color point out things that are
racist. And
to be proactive without having to be told.
UF: And challenging each other?
VT: Yes. And to welcome challenges from people of color. Yes. The last thing I
want to
say is that there are interventions for racial shame. Shame is a key obstacle to
white antiracist
action, and if you deal with that you are dealing with a lot of the other obstacles.
UF: How do you intervene with shame?
VT: First, you need to respect that it is profound. And well hidden. Accessing
shame is
difficult because if you access it, it calls up other deeply buried emotions, such
as
powerlessness or abandonment or despair. Not fun. So to address racial shame,
you have
to use sophisticated tools.

You can tell people that racism is not their fault. But thats just talking. And
shame isnt
on the verbal level. It is deeply embodied. If someone has a personal trauma
going on in
their current life or in their history, its important to get help with that. Therapy,
especially somatic therapy is good for that. And doing that healing work will help
you
become resilient and elastic enough to face racial shame. But you dont want to
only do
your own personal healing work. You want to look at racism simultaneously as a
system.
You need to work with that, too.
UF: Its important for white people to do their own work because racism happens
on
a systemic level; people in privileged positions sustain racism so when they
become
aware they can dismantle the system.
VT: Absolutely. Other things that really help with racial shame are developing a
strong
white anti-racist community that holds you in compassion, and holds you
accountable,
practicing mindful compassion for yourself, educating yourself about how racism
is not
chosen, but conditioned. That makes some room for forgiveness. And working on
racial
shame through the body, through expressive arts and other embodied practices
helps heal racial
shame. Learning and identifying with some positive aspects of being white also
helps,
such as learning positive things about your ethnic identity or about your family,
or if that
doesnt work for you, learning about anti-racist white people in history who you
admire,
and re-claiming them as your spiritual ancestors. Finally, engaging in anti-racist
action
helps undo racial shame.
UF: What does it mean to be an ally?
VT: To me, being an antiracist ally means listening to people of color, believing
them,
respecting their experience. It means educating myself about institutional,
individual,
cultural racism and white privilege. It means being able to notice white privilege

and
racism in my daily life, in the world around me, and to speak up about racism
when I see
it. Being an ally also means supporting the leadership of people of color. In the
long run,
being a white antiracist ally means engaging in white collective antiracist
action, and participating in authentic, multiracial alliance building and
collaboration.
Much gratitude to Turning Wheel, to Urusa Fahim for her extraordinary
work in the world, and to Staci Haines for her profound influence on my
perspective on white racial shame and embodiment in 2007.
This entry was posted in Vanissar blog on June 29, 2013 by Vanissar.

The Retreat from Race and Class

Monthly Review, 2006, Volume 58, Issue 03 (July-August)
By David Roediger
As the twentieth century started, indeed at almost exactly the same moment
that W. E. B. Du Bois predicted that the color line would be its great divide,
Eugene Victor Debs announced that the socialist movement that he led in the
United States could and should offer nothing special to African Americans. The
class struggle, Debs added, is colorless. As the century unfolded, the white
Marxist left, schooled by struggles for colonial freedom and by the self-activity of
people of color in the centers of empire, increasingly saw the wisdom of Du
Boiss insight and tried hard to consider how knowledge of the color line could
illuminate, energize, and express class struggles. We would increasingly turn to
other passages from Debs, including one expressing a historical insight that he
could already articulate in the early twentieth century but that his colorblindness
kept him from acting upon: That the white heel is still on the black neck is
simply proof that the world is not yet civilized. The history of the Negro in the
United States is a history of crime without a parallel.
As the twenty-first century starts, the idea of a colorless struggle for human
progress is unfortunately back with a vengeance. Such is of course the case on
the right in the United States, where what the legal scholar Neil Gotanda and
others have called colorblind racism has underpinned attacks on affirmative
action and even on the collection of the race-based statistics necessary to show

patterns of discrimination. The high-sounding, ostensibly freedom-loving names

given to such well-funded campaignscivil rights initiatives to undermine
affirmative action and racial privacy acts to do in the amassing of basic
knowledge regarding the impact of racehave contributed mightily to attempts
to recapture the moral high ground by those contending that a society in which
white family wealth is about ten times that of black family wealth is nonetheless
a colorblind one.
Nor are such instances confined to the United States. With the blood scarcely dry
from white Australian riots against Arab beachgoers, that countrys neoliberal
leader John Howard reacted to press headlines screaming Race Hate and Race
War by loudly proclaiming that he heads a colorblind society. When the French
interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of the ruling party there and leading
candidate to replace Jacques Chirac as president, recently suffered criticism on
race issues, he quickly planned a trip to Martinique to emphasize how little race
allegedly matters in the French colonial world. Sarkozy stood out as especially
harsh in his response to the rebellions of Islamic youth in France against police
violence. He failed to join the president and prime minister in belatedly
distancing themselves from a recently passed law requiring that French
textbooks recognize in particular the positive role of the French presence
overseas, notably in North Africa. But an escape to colorblindness still seemed
possible.
Yet, Sarkozy was so thoroughly not welcomed by Martiniques great politician,
poet, and theorist of liberation, Aim Csaire, and others that the publicity stunt
had to be canceled. Nonetheless, within France the pernicious role of longestablished colorblindness operates so strongly that Sarkozy can remain a top
presidential contender. The legislative left did not originally raise any serious
protest against passage of the pro-colonialist textbook legislation, and the nation
adheres to the same basic no-counting-by-race policies that racial privacy acts
seek to establish in the United States. Ironically, Sarkozy himself has recently
called for limited discrimination positive, (affirmative action), as a carrot
operating in tandem with deportations and immigration restriction to quell
rebellions in France. But to put any positive measures into practice remains a
problem. As The Economist recently put it, the French minister for equality
remains practically alone at the top of the government in advocating finding a
way even to measure the presence of the children of immigration in political
structures, the bureaucracy, and the labor force.

Against Race But Not for Class: Raceless Liberalism & Social
Theory
What is distressingly new is the extent to which indictments of antiracism, and
even attacks on the use of race as a concept, come now from liberalism and from
the left. Electorally, of course, one hallmark of efforts by the Democratic

Leadership Council to move the Democratic Party still further to the right has
been an attempt to distance the party from concrete appeals to, and
identification with, people of color. Thus the constituencies most aware of both
race and class inequities are marginalized in the name of appeals for universal
programs. Meanwhile actually existing universal social programs, such as
welfare-as-we-know-it, have been subjected to withering (and anything but
colorblind) bipartisan attacks. The left was capable a decade ago of dissecting
such a shell game, most trenchantly in Stephen Steinbergs 1994 New Politics
article on the liberal retreat from race, and in what will presumably be
Christopher Hitchenss last serious book, his 1999 dismantling of Clintonism, No
One Left to Lie To.
At a time when no real political alternatives are offered by Democratic
candidates who confine their tepid appeals for racial justice to the King holiday
and to talks in black churches, the intellecutual left also seems to be abandoning
race. Thus the brilliance of Paul Gilroy is turned to writing Against Race, and
Antonia Darder joins Rodolfo D. Torres in producing the triumphal After Race.
Orlando Patterson holds forth under the title Race Over, while Loc Wacquant
and the late activist/sociologist Pierre Bourdieu brand analysis of race as an axis
of inequality in Brazil as a pernicious export from a United States social science
establishment that is as cunning as it is imperialist.
These works are much more, and in some ways much less, than a return to
Debss colorless ideas. They lack the same focus on, and confidence in,
socialist transformation and are often in dialogue less with class struggle than
with cultural studies ideas about the importance of hybridity and the pitfalls of
essentialism. In the best known cases they do not specifically try to recenter
class by removing a fixation on race. When they do make such an attempt at
class analysis, as in the work of Adolph Reed Jr., they cannot yet deliver results.
On the whole they reflect the ways that increases in immigration, intermarriage,
and cross-racial adoptions have destabilized discussions of race-as-usual.
Ironically the very success, largely under United Nations and nongovernmental
organization auspices, of organizing around race globally has also laid bare the
stark differences in national patterns of racialized inequality and the blurred
borders between racial, religious, language, and national oppressions.
But while retreats from race are at least understandable in part in view of the
difficult and changing political tasks that we face, they are in their most
sweeping forms no more an answer when they come from the left than when
they come from the right and center. The context in which they emerge, the
stature of voices contributing to them, and the ways that they fit into various
tempting electoral shortcuts informing left strategies, nonetheless demand that
they be taken seriously. To do so requires us to look at the varieties of left
critiques of race thinking, with the goal being not so much to show their

incompatibility with each other than to identify various changes and threats to
which they inadequately respond. The most celebrated advocates of race is
over and against race positionsGilroy, Patterson, and Bourdieu and
Wacquantdo not directly raise the issues of race and class central to this
article, but their influence and arguments must be at least briefly discussed if we
are to situate and critique the more explicitly class conscious writings of Darder,
Torres and Reed.
Gilroys Against Race begins with an extraordinarily dense and challenging
discussion of the connections between the very idea of race and what Gilroy
terms raciology, the nexus of murderous practice, policy, and science born out
of seeing race. Race, Gilroy holds, is a relatively recent and absolutely modern
invention and its scientific credentialing cannot be considered apart from its
bloody implication in evil, brutality and terror. In a new world ostensibly
beyond white supremacist science, and one in which black bodies are marketed
as desirable and even superhuman rather than only as degraded, Gilroy sees
both new dangers and the possibility for a novel and ambitious abolitionist
project, this time doing away with race itself. Renouncing race becomes not
only the key to bring[ing] political culture back to life but also the only proper
ethical response for confronting the wrongs done under the banners of
raciology. Acknowledging that for many racialized populations, race and the
hard-won, oppositional identities it supports are not to be lightly or prematurely
given up, Gilroy proposes a long campaign designed to show that action
against racial hierarchies can proceed more effectively when it has been purged
of any lingering respect for the idea of race. In the books early stages, a
critique of racist science and a recognition of the need to add up the costs of
ignoring gender and class divisions by some black nationalist movements seem
to have Gilroy rejecting race but endorsing a more mature antiracism.
But by the books end, despite asides suggesting that he will not too harshly
judge those who hesitate to abandon the politics of antiracist solidarity in favor
of a heterocultural, postanthropological, and cosmopolitan yet-to-come, Gilroy
has undercut much of the grounds of antiracism. Declaring the very mood of
projects attacking white supremacy to be hopelessly pass as we leave Du Boiss
century of the color line behind, he also strongly dissents from any firm
connection of racism to power or to white supremacy. Against Race poses the
choice in approaches as one between an outmoded concern for Africas
antiquity and an appropriate commitment to our planets future. Gilroy writes,
To be against racism, against white supremacism, was once to be bonded to the
future. This no longer seems to be the case. The monumental but incomplete
and fragile achievements of black internationalism, so searchingly explored in
their contradictions in Gerald Hornes recent Race War, are reduced to scattered
instances of precocious appreciation for the planetary. The utopian dimensions
that Robin D. G. Kelley shows to be essential to struggles against white

supremacy and capitalism become for Gilroy moments to be captured by reading

history against the grain, and through a lens that can reduce Frantz Fanon to
that prototypical black-European noteworthy in large measure for his
indiscreetly anti-Marxist spirit.
Like Gilroy, the sometimes-on-the-left Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson
explicitly pronounces Du Boiss remarks on the color line to be well past their
sell-by date. Race Over, was the headline for Pattersons projections in The
New Republic in 2000. The article begins from the premise that Du Bois may
have been half-right regarding the color line in the twentieth century, but
Patterson insists that any attempt to continue to apply Du Boiss formulation
would be altogether wrong. For Patterson the problems with twenty-firstcentury race thinking are less political and ethical than they are simply
demographic, a view scarcely different from the endless accounts in the
mainstream press predicting that the United States will become a white-minority
nation in the not-too-distant future. By 2050, the United States will have
problems aplenty [but] no racial problem whatsoever, Patterson tells his
readers. By then, the social virus of race will have gone the way of smallpox.
This retreat from race will allegedly fall into regional patterns, the details of
which call the predictions of racelessness somewhat into question. On the West
Coast, cultural and somatic mixing will produce a population mainly Eurasian
but with a growing Latin element. In the Northeast and Midwest,
deindustrialized zones of misery will contain the white, African American, and
Latino poor, bound together by social resentment and a lumpen-proletarian
hip-hop culture, and isolated from the gated communities of the prosperous. In
the Southeast, the Old Confederacy race divisions will continuerace over
does not in fact apply therebut somehow this will make no difference in the
national picture.
At almost every turn the raceless predictions coexist for Patterson with appeals
to old-style raciology. Murderous racial gang fights remain a fact of 2050 life,
and new technologies to change race are deployed. But an even more glaring
contradiction obtrudes when Patterson adds other set of prognostications in a
New York Times article, now distancing himself from the view of demographers
that whites will become a minority in the United States in the twenty-first
century. Arguing that nearly half of the Hispanic population is white in every
social sense, Patterson forecasts that the non-Hispanic white population will
possibly even grow as a portion of the population. Patterson may be right that
children of marriages between a non-Hispanic white and a Hispanic will identify
as (and be identified as) white, but the jarring contrast between the two
articles suggests just how slapdash the race-is-over position remains. Race
disappears and whiteness reigns.

Wacquant and Bourdieus On the Cunning of Imperialist Reason, published in

Theory, Culture and Society in 1999, best shows how appreciation for the ways in
which racial oppression differs across national boundaries can fuel an argument
for jettisoning, or at least quarantining, the use of race in social theory and
political strategy. The article foregrounds with surprising stridency Karl Marxs
argument that the ruling ideas of an age are produced by those who dominate.
However, the authors put Marxs insight into the service of an attack on the
discussions of racial inequality that have recently led to adoption of forms of
affirmative action in Brazil. They argue that new attention to race in that country
is a result of elite ideas shipped south from the United States. Wacquant and
Bourdieu pinpoint the cultural imperialism of U.S. scholars as the source of
attempts to flatten varied regimes of race and class oppression, flattening they
see as producing a misreading both of history and of current political
possibilities. Focusing on the case of Brazil, Bourdieu and Wacquant contend that
U.S.-inspired, U.S.-funded, and U.S.-produced research works to impose a rigid
black/white social division, offering the rest of the world a poisonous export.
Such imperialism insinuates itself, in Bourdieu and Wacquants view, despite the
fact that its arguments are contrary to the image Brazilians have of their own
nation. It does so by trading on a perverse and unspecified combination of
antiracist rhetoric and neoliberal financing for scholarship.
However, a number of acute responses, especially from the Brazilianists Michael
Hanchard and John French, have criticized Bourdieu and Wacquants contention
that race is somehow a peculiarly U.S. concept, one that would have to be
exported because it could not be home-grown in Brazil. The critical responses
show that in neither the United States nor Brazil is race regularly deployed, as
Bourdieu and Wacquant charge, for purposes of accusation rather than analysis,
and that what they call the neutralization of historical context is a charge that
might be turned back on their own reductive understanding of Brazil. Most
importantly, the critics show that the scholars accused of spreading imperialist
reason and rigid caricatures of the Brazilian social system actually continue a
long line of argument within Brazil which recognizes that the historical context of
displacement of indigenous people, empires, slave-trading, and slavery produced
very different, but not incomparable, racial systems in Brazil and in the United
States. When Hanchard draws on the work of cultural theorists Robert Stam and
Ella Shohat to show that the analysis produced by Wacquant and Bourdieu is not
without its own universalistic views of race (and presumed colorblindness),
founded in French imperialism, the argument that we need a fuller and more
complex discussion of race and empire rather than an end to debate is squarely
put on the table.

Does Moving Away from Race Move Us Toward Class?

The very first words in Darder and Torress After Race attempt to improve on Du
Boiss dictum regarding the color line: We echo his statement but with a

radical twist. The problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of racean
ideology that has served well to obscure and disguise class interests behind the
smokescreens of multiculturalism, diversity, difference, and more recently,
whiteness. After Race centrally holds that race is a biological myth at long last
invalidated by science, but now dangerously recreated because scholars persist
in using the term. Such scholars thereby decisively aid the rise of culturallybased neoracisms and even the recrudescence of biological racism. On this view,
the idea of race itself, not capitalism, is somehow the lynchpin of racism.
Like the early sections of Gilroys Against Race, the work of Darder and Torres
holds out the hope that retreating from the invocation of race will actually
empower a more effective struggle against racialized hierarchies. Indeed they
approve of Barbara Fieldss uncharitable contention that liberal, leftist, or
progressive writers dwell on the homier and more tractable notion of race to
avoid being unsettled by talking about racism. However, as in Gilroys case,
the emphasis on racism is not sustained, and neither race nor racism function as
what he calls categories of analysisthat is, they cannot be the reasons for
people acting as they do, but must themselves be explained.
Insofar as Fields, Darder, Torres, and others contend that inattention to class
distorts inquiry into all inequalities in the United States, they are exactly right.
However, the strategy of banking on the retreat from race to solve that problem
is a highly dubious one. It leads to an extremely embattled tone and to ignoring
the most exciting work building on materialist insights. From Cheryl Harriss
brilliant studies of whiteness as property, to Eduardo Bonilla-Silvas research on
racial systems, to somewhat older South African scholarship on racial capitalism,
to Lisa Lowes important observations on race, universality, and labor at the start
of Immigrant Acts, much work seeks to revive the class question by bringing
racism and class together more systematically. But you would not know it from
After Race.
Indeed at critical junctures, the book is so eager to be against race that it
departs dramatically from historical materialism and thus cannot be effective for
understanding class. Darder and Torres praise the liberal sociologist William Julius
Wilson, for example, for supposedly demonstrating that the significance of class
has increased and is now far more salient than race in determining the life
chances of African Americans. This either/or, class-not-race, position leads After
Race to ignore the devastating counterarguments that Melvin Oliver, Thomas
Shapiro, and others have made to Wilsons work and to subordinate to an
endnote their own appreciation of the fact that Wilsons work is about as distant
from Marxism as is possible. That endnote promises a different approach,
focusing with specificity [on] the dialectic between the means of production and
the process of racialization, but so far Darder and Torres have not produced
anything like such an analysis. Indeed After Race emphasizes theological

matters, not slavery, settler colonialism, and the primitive accumulation of

capital, in accounting for the origins of racialized groups. Such a view is very
much consonant with the books emphasis on plural racismsincluding the
tendency to inferiorize whitesand its marginalization of any systematic
discussion of white supremacy.
This same inattention to white supremacy makes it almost impossible for After
Race to contribute to pressing discussions of how to build Latino-black workingclass unity. The books puzzling titleclearly race was no more real in 1670
than in 2004makes sense in terms of the books structure, one that culminates
in chapters on Asian American and Latino experiences and emphasizes that the
browning of America will shake old certainties regarding racism. The danger
here lies in making the possibility of abandoning race contingent on the fact that
the Latino population has exceeded that of African Americans. This would leave
us passing out of a period of a relatively unproductive period of political
mobilization based on race, during which blacks predominated, and into a
promising raceless one in which Latinos do. But there is then no sustained
analysis of African Americans, of African American studies, or of the tradition of
black Marxism, as would seem to be necessary to calibrate such an argument.
Moreover, that African Americans can practice racism is a consistent refrain of
the study, which persistently lays all manner of mischief at the door of the civil
rights and the Black Power movements. The former movement, we learn,
emphasized a liberal, rights-centered political agenda [that] undermined the
development of a coherent working class movement in the United States. Here
the reflexive move away from seeing racism as having critical explanatory
weight lets white supremacist trade unionism off the hook and leads to the
missing of the centrality of jobs, union organizing, welfare rights, poor peoples
campaigns, and point-of-production organizingof classto the civil rights and
Black Power movements. Missing class, it becomes possible to charge that Black
Power narrowly seiz[ed] the moment in the name of antiracism and black
autonomy, and that it somehow shut off debate over the consequences of
using the language of race to do battle with racism. At its worst this line of
argument allows Darder and Torres to loosely link a Black Power movement
animated by anticolonialism and anticapitalism to the Nation of Islams
extravagant pronouncements on white devils.
While Darder and Torres allow that racism is still a problem worth addressing,
the recent writings of the radical political scientist Adolph Reed Jr. are done even
with that. Sounding more like the colorless Debs than any major left
commentator on race and class in recent memory, he argues, Exposing racism
[is] the political equivalent of an appendix: a useless vestige of an earlier
evolutionary moment thats usually innocuous but can flare up and become
harmful. Reeds two late-2005 articles, Class-ifying the Hurricane and The
Real Divide, are the signature pieces of the left retreat from race. They appear

in relatively popular left/liberal venues, The Nation and The Progressive

respectively, and represent attempts by a prominent activist in the movement to
build a labor party in the United States to speak broadly and frankly. Moreover,
Reeds scholarship had offered significant opposition to liberalisms retreat from
race during the Clinton era, especially in his collection Without Justice for All.
Class-ifying the Hurricane appeared while the horrific impact of Katrina in
Reeds former hometown of New Orleans was fresh in readers minds, just after
many had noted the racist reporting that contrasted black looters with white
survivors shown doing precisely the same foraging. It noted manifest racial
disparities in vulnerability, treatment, and outcome of the experience of natural
disaster. And then it turned on a dime to excoriate the abstract, moralizing
patter about how and whether race matters. Even so, in this first of his two
paired essays Reeds retreat from race could be read as simply a strategic one.
For roughly a generation it seemed responsible to expect that defining
inequalities in racial terms would provide some remedial response from the
federal government, he wrote. But for some time races force in national
politics has been as a vehicle for reassuring whites that that public equals some
combination of black, poor, and loser. Katrina lay bare both race and class
injustices, but in part because of the growing strength of racism, an effective
response to it would have to be strictly class-ified, according to Reed.
The Real Divide repeated, expanded, and made more bitter the arguments in
The Nation article. Reed did continue to mention, in a labored construction, that
he was not claiming that systemic inequalities in the United States are not
significantly racialized. Indeed any sane or honest person would have to
acknowledge the overwhelming evidence of racial disparities [that] largely
emerge from a history of discrimination and racial injustice. Nonetheless, Reed
followed up these generalizations by categorically declaring that as a political
strategy exposing racism is wrongheaded and at best an utter waste of time.
The focus on racism is for Reed a dodge designed to make upper status liberals
feel morally superior as they vote for the deeply compromised Democratic Party
and ignore the real divide of class. In one of the few bits of the article offering
ostensible, if incredibly narrow and misguided, class analysis, exposing racism is
said to serve the material interests of those who would be race relations
technicians. As in Classi-fying the Hurricane the arguments are partly that
racism, being too imprecise and too abstract, lacks power as an analytical tool.
However, the point Reed develops more is that among whites the very
discussion of race reinforces the idea that cutting public spending is justifiably
aimed at weaning a lazy black underclass off the dole. The racism charge, on
this view, is easily defeated by Republican appeals to scurrilous racial
stereotypes and therefore should be jettisoned.

Gilroys Against Race at least acknowledges that a call for giving up on racebased traditions of struggle asks a lot of social movements rooted in
communities of color. In law, for example, exposing racism is often the sole
strategy available to protect, after a fashion, the rights of many of the poorest
workers in the United States. Reeds view that elite liberalism is the source of
movements to expose and combat racisma view much facilitated by his
outspoken dismissal of the reparations movementforestalls consideration of
the dynamics of concrete struggles around race and class, leaving the call for a
retreat from race itself as something of an abstraction.
Fortunately there is no reason to decide whether to organize and to analyze
around either racism or class oppression, one to the exclusion of the other. The
case of New Orleans, which moved Reed to present us with such a choice, offers
good examples of why we should reject it. Compare, for example, Reeds thumbs
up/thumbs down approach to race and class with the left activist and writer Mike
Daviss accounts of post-Katrina New Orleans. Davis raised a series of questions
three months into the rebuilding process in New Orleans and perfectly captured
the continuing color line and more:
Why is there so much high-level talk about abandoning the Ninth Ward as
uninhabitable when no one is proposing to turn equally inundated Lakeview back
into a swamp? Is it because Lakeview is a wealthy white community? And/or is it
because the 30,000 reliably Democratic Black votes in the Ninth Ward hold the
balance of power in Louisiana politics?
To what extent, Davis wondered, did ethnic cleansing and rebuilding coincide?
Daviss accounts have also been especially acute on the ways in which elites,
including the black political elite in New Orleans, have played on, and indeed
created, black-Latino tensions during the rebuilding process. How are we to
conceptualize these tensions, and to struggle to overcome them, without
discussing both race and class, as well as white supremacy?
In recent antiwar demonstrations the most fascinating sign has read: No Iraqi
has ever left me to die on a roof. Its words recall haunting post-Katrina images
and also bring to mind the celebrated antiwar dictum attributed to Muhammad
Ali: No Vietnamese ever called me nigger. The latter line was perhaps the
quintessential late twentieth-century example of Du Boiss insight, ignored by
U.S.-centered readings of his words in The Souls of Black Folk, regarding how the
color line in the United States existed in systems of racialized global inequality.
We should allow that the twenty-first-century No Iraqi signs variant of the
earlier slogan is considerably more complex and expansive. Poor whites, and
indeed the large numbers of Vietnamese resettled in the gulf region and
abandoned in Katrinas considerable wake, could conceivably march under the

No Iraqi sign. In that sense the sign, and the reality of New Orleans, speak
powerfully to the most profound insight in Reeds recent work, namely that poor,
mostly black, New Orleanians suffer from a plight that is a more extreme
version of the precarious position of millions of Americans today, as more and
more lose health care, bankruptcy protection, secure employment, affordable
housing, civil liberties, and access to education. To combat such misery will
require race and class analysis, as well as antiracist and anticapitalist
organization.
As Reeds articles appeared, the New York Times ran an article titled For Blacks,
A Dream in Decline. It revealed that after a 1980s peak in which one black
worker in four was a union member, the figure today approaches one is seven. In
the last year, African American workers accounted for a whopping 55 percent of
the drop in union membership by 304,000 nationally, although they represent
just one unionized worker in six. The Times article quoted William Julius Wilson
himself as urgently calling on the unions to address the issue. They havent
done so yet, he lamented. Union leaders, according to the article, resist
viewing what is happening in racial terms. One prominent labor leader quoted
on the decline of black membership sounded for all of the world like Eugene V.
Debs: We see it as a class issue rather than a race issue. It is both, and the
retreat from race and class will get us closer to addressing neither.

White skin privilege

A new arrival (painting by Giuilo Rosati - source). The privilege of white skin

Earlier this year, fashion model Cameron Russell condemned the unbearable
whiteness of her industry:
[] I won a genetic lottery, and I am a recipient of a legacy. For the past few
centuries, we have defined beauty not just as health and youth and symmetry
that were biologically programmed to admire, but also as tall, slender figures
with femininity and white skin. This is a legacy that was built for me, and that
Ive been cashing in on. (Russell, 2013)

Yes, Ms. Russell did win a genetic lottery, being certainly more attractive than
average. But she also mentioned a second unearned windfall: a beauty privilege
due to the legacy of the past few centuries, when Europeans lorded over the
world. Without that legacy, she would presumably be a very ordinary woman,
perhaps even ugly.

This presumption can be tested. There was a time, not so long ago, when
Europeans were weaklings on the world scene, when large parts of their
continent were ruled by other peoples, and when the center of geopolitical power

lay in the Middle East. In such a context, women like Cameron Russell would
have had much less beauty privilege to cash in on.

In reality, they had plenty, and not just in Europe. White slavery today means
the international trafficking of women for prostitution. Back then, it meant the
provisioning of the Muslim world with European concubines, who were valued for
their white skin (Lewis, 1990, pp. 11-13, 56, 72). This trade was considerable in
Muslim Spain:

The same convoys of booty also included women, these Frankish women who
were all the more sought after in Cordova because they were blond and fairskinned. It was among them, as among the captive women from Gascony, that
the Umayyad princes chose their most pampered concubines and who, once they
became mothers, were themselves raised to the rank of veritable princesses, of
proven sultanesses (umm walad) who were influential and quick to enter, with
the assistance of Slav eunuchs, into secret and complicated palace intrigues. But
the Frankish women did not populate only the caliph's harems; the dignitaries of
the khassa and the rich burghers of the cities also procured them at lavish
prices, like, in the modern period, the Circassian women who have so curiously
tinted the upper classes of oriental Muslim society. (Lvi-Provenal, 1953, p. 179)

Such women came from places that were poorer and less advanced than the
Muslim world. Neither they nor their future masters knew what white skin would
signify over a half-millennium later. Indeed, no one foresaw the rise of Europe to
geopolitical preeminence, certainly not this 11th-century Muslim author:

For those who live furthest to the north between the last of the seven climates
and the limits of the inhabited world, the excessive distance of the sun in relation
to the zenith line makes the air cold and the atmosphere thick. Their
temperaments are therefore frigid, their humors raw, their bellies gross, their
color pale, their hair long and lank. Thus they lack keenness of understanding
and clarity of intelligence, and are overcome by ignorance and dullness, lack of
discernment, and stupidity. Such are the Slavs, the Bulgars, and their neighbors.
(Lewis, 1990, p. 47)

Nonetheless, their women were considered strikingly attractive, even to the point
of being simply called beautiful girls. An 8th-century Arab musician wrote:
They used not to train beautiful slave girls to sing, but they used only to train
yellow and black girls. The first to teach valuable girls to sing was my father
(Lewis, 1990, p. 56).

What gave rise to this desire for light-skinned foreign women? It seems that fair
skin has long been key to Arab notions of female beauty:

Praise of a girl's looks is traditionally couched in such terms as: Her face is like
the full moon, her mouth is an almond, her nose a cardamon, she is plump, and
dimpled etc. [...] The highest praise is perhaps that she is as white as snow
strange praise indeed to come from a people very few of whom had ever seen
snow. (Haim 1978, p. 88)

[The moon] is the most common image used to represent female beauty. When
attempting to draw the attention of a beautiful girl on the street, a young man
may call out, Es ya qamar? (roughly, Whats happening, O moon?). Two
important components of the image, brightness (fairness of skin) and roundness
(of face), convey the popular conception of beauty in Palestinian and Arab
culture. (Muhawi and Kanaana 1989, p. 60, cf. also 122, 181)

Not just in Arab societies

In general, traditional human societies share a belief that women should be

fairer-skinned than men (van den Berghe and Frost, 1986). This cultural norm
runs parallel to a physical norm, i.e., in all human populations, women are less
pigmented than men from puberty onward. Both melanin and cutaneous blood
are involved, with the result that women look paler and men browner and
ruddier. Women also display a sharper contrast between facial skin color and
eye/lip color. These visual cues are subconsciously used by the human mind to
determine whether an individual is a man or a women (Dupuis-Roy et al., 2009;
Frost, 2011; Russell, 2010; Russell, 2003; Russell and Sinha, 2007; Tarr et al.,
2001).

In addition to aiding sex recognition, these visual cues may also trigger feelings
that in one way or another depend on the sex of the person being observed.
Since lighter skin is specific not only to women but also to infants, some authors
view it as one of several features (smooth, pliable skin, high-pitched voice, small
nose and chin, etc.) that the adult female body has borrowed for the purpose of
calming aggressive impulses in the adult male and inducing feelings of care
(Frost, 2010, pp. 134-135). Such feelings may feed into male eroticism but are
not erotic per se. Desire for darker female skin is attested as an alternate,
though secondary mode of sexual arousal, even in contexts where exotic
otherness seems to play no role, such as premodern European peasant societies,

specifically within a context of passionate but short-lived relationships (Frost,

2010, pp. 90-91). This alternate eroticism, previously repressed, has become
popular in the Western world since the 1920s with the growing acceptance of
tanned skin as a female fashion accessory (Frost, 2010, pp. 91-103).

Men thus seem to be innately oriented toward paler female skin, if only as part of
a mechanism for sex recognition. This orientation can, but does not always,
translate into erotic attraction and mate choice. One notable exception is the
modern Western world, where tanned female skin has become increasingly
popular. Another seems to be the high-polygyny region of sub-Saharan Africa and
Papua-New Guinea, where attitudes toward female skin color tend to be
ambivalent (Frost, 2010, pp. 83-97). First, the relative scarcity of female mates
ensures that all available women have takers. Second, due to the higher
polygyny rate, fathers invest less in their offspring and mothers invest more.
Darker women may thus benefit from a perception that they are better at hoe
farming and providing for their children. Ardener (1954) makes this point with
regard to the Ibo of Nigeria:

In the choice of a wife, yellow-skinned girls are regarded as beauties, and, other
things being equal, they command higher bride prices. On the other hand it is
generally held, especially by dark-complexioned persons, that yellow-skinned
people are not as strong as the dark and do not live as long. A 'black' girl is said
to be a harder worker. [] A Mission headmaster was of the opinion that the
preference for yellow girls was greater nowadays than in his youth. He thought
that the reason for this was that people formerly looked for strength rather than
beauty and tended to marry black girls.

Conclusion

There is a widespread belief, particularly among proponents of whiteness

studies, that notions of beauty are determined by power relationships. The
strong and mighty are inevitably beautiful. This belief is so entrenched that
little concern is shown for counterfactual evidence, such as the medieval trade in
fair-skinned women for clients in North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.

This trade existed for two reasons. On the one hand, European states were too
weak to stop it. On the other, European women were considered beautiful by
people in geopolitically stronger states to the south and east. Again, this pattern
is inconsistent with the belief that power relationships determine notions of
beauty.

The White Mans Fears

Lets be real here, folks. Some people may think that my blog page is anti-white,
and most of them are those suffering from the white racial mindset. However, in
a society thats obsessed with telling people of color how to live according to
White American/European standards while criticizing and even criminalizing them
at every turn, then it should be expected that some people of color reject them,
tell them why and how they are wrong. Yet, having white privilege can seem to
sheltered a white person so much that anything trivial can cause dread,
including the thought of harsh, but needed, criticism. As such Ive learned
that a lot of white folks have a lot of fears.
White people have an unusual and even violent fear of the unknown,
especially at first sight. This phobia has been in existence for centuries,
probably longer. One of the most notable that still exists is the fear of melanin
(dark skin). For years, many White Europeans and Americans have regarded
darker skin tones as a sign of some inferiority trait i.e. ugliness, savagery,
impurity, etc. The opposite was made clear during their prejudices and the myth
of white supremacy was born.
This fear of the dark has been stagnant up to this very day and has been
influenced heavily and without permission to other groups including those of
dark-skinned members. This version of white supremacy continues to make dark
skin tones into a curse so powerful that leads to self-destruction.
Other known fears of the unknown have been recorded. The fear of women being
equal or more powerful than men has been and still is evident. The fear of
religions they do not understand is known. And the fear of sexuality they deem is
unnatural and inhuman has been in a number of conversations loaded with
hatred and ignorance.
Another fear many white people have is the thought of extinction. Due to the
campaign of white superiority, white people fear of losing their culture, physical
features and genetic make-up. This fear is pronounced greatly with that of poor
whites. However, the racial paranoia is across the socioeconomic spectrum. For
reasons based purely on racial supremacy, the white gene must be preserved
and reproduced so that the race must live on.
This probably explains why history, the media, politics and even religion have
been whitened. The objective is that white skin and European features must not
only survive, but shine at all costs.
White people are scared of losing their power and privileges. It must be
known that some whites, especially lower-class whites, do not believe they have
any privileges due to the (often) mistaken notion that white privilege is the same
as wealth privilege. I digress.
Even though history shows that the United States origins of financial power is
tied with Slavery and almost all of the wealth was distributed to whites, most

white people did not, nor would their future generations, ever consider(ed)
paying back African Americans for their role in involuntarily building the nation
under brutal and violent conditions. They fear they would lose their dominion
over other groups, and nations in particular. So, their course of action is to
conquer and control.
Lastly, and most prominent is the fear many whites in this nation have, the fear
of payback.
How many times have we heard the worlds black-on-white in the same
sentence as crime and violence? How many films have we seen of Native
Americans attacking white settlers only to be killed by white cowboys who turn
out to be heroes? How many war films have you seen where American soldiers
fight Asian soldiers? There are more questions to be asked, but they all seem to
point to the paranoia of a racial backlash against white people by people of color.
Why does such a fear exist you might ask? All fears previously mentioned serve
as components to this phobia. The fears of differences in mindset and
appearance, extinction and lost of privileges is what galvanizes the white racial
mindset. It is this fear that shelters many whites from the rest of the world and
provokes them to scapegoat others. It is the shackles that hold them back from
realizing their humanity, the humanity they traded in for becoming white.

Hey, Smug White People: You (Yes, You) Are a

Racist, Too
Dont imagine that being a racist is something that only happens to other
people.
By Kali Holloway | Originally Published at AlterNet. March 2, 2015 } Photographic
Credit; Integration Crisis; Black and white children at a party to introduce mixed
schools during the civil rights movement, Virginia, 1958 | Eve Arnold, the
American photographer
If theres anything our fraught national dialogue on race has taught us, its that
there are no racists in this country. (In fact, not only do multiple studies confirm
that most white Americans generally believe racism is over just 16 percent say
theres a lot of racial discrimination it turns out that many actually believe
white people experience more discrimination than black people.) Its a silly idea,
of course, but its easy to delude ourselves into thinking that inequality is a result
of cultural failures, racial pathology and a convoluted narrative involving blackon-black crime, hoodies, rap music and people wearing their pants too low. To
admit that racism is fundamental to who we are, that it imbues our thinking in
ways we wouldnt and couldnt believe without the application of the scientific
method, is infinitely harder. And yet, theres endless evidence to prove it.

For those who recognize racism is real and pervasive, its also comforting to
believe that discrimination is something perpetuated by other people,
overlooking the ways we are personally complicit in its perpetuation. But fruitful
conversations about race require acknowledging that racism sits at the very core
of our thinking. By something akin to osmosis, culturally held notions around
race mold and shape the prejudices of everyone within the dominant culture.
People of color unwittingly internalize these notions as well, despite the fact that
doing so contributes to our own marginalization. Most of us know the destructive
outcomes systemic racism produces (higher rates of poverty, incarceration,
infant mortality, etc.). Accepting that implicit bias is happening at every level
makes it awful hard to chalk those issues up to black and brown failure.
Heres a look at just some of the ways our internalized biases add up to
devastating consequences for lives, communities and society.
1. College professors, across race/ethnicity and gender, are more likely to
respond to queries from students they believe are white males.
Despite universities frequently being described as bastions of progressivism and
liberal indoctrination centers, a recent study found that faculty of colleges and
universities are more likely to ignore requests for mentorship from minority
and/or female students. Researchers sent more than 6,500 professors at 259
schools in 89 disciplines identical letters that differed only in the name and
implied race/gender of the fictitious student sender (e.g., Mei Chen as an Asian
female; Keisha Thomas as a black female; Brad Anderson as a white male).
The study found that regardless of discipline (with the sole exception of fine
arts), faculty more consistently responded to perceived white males. Two notable
additional findings: 1) professors at public institutions were significantly more
likely than their private institution counterparts to respond to students of color,
and 2) the students most discriminated against were perceived East Asian
women, followed by South Asian men. You can look at the numbers up close
here.
2. White people, including white children, are less moved by the pain of people of
color, including children of color, than by the pain of fellow whites.
Three distinct studies support this finding. The first found that around age 7,
white children began to believe black children are less susceptible to pain than
white children. Another study found that emergency room personnel are less
likely to give African American and Latino/Hispanic children pain medication,
even when they are experiencing severe abdominal pain. The same study also
found that even when the same tests are ordered, black and Hispanic children
face significantly longer emergency room stays. A third study found that white
people feel less empathy toward black people in pain than they do for whites
experiencing pain.

3. White people are more likely to have done illegal drugs than blacks or Latinos,
but are far less likely to go to jail for it.
A 2011 study from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive found
white people were more likely to use illegal and prescription opiates (heroin,
oxycontin), hallucinogens, and cocaine than blacks and Hispanics by significant
margins. Black people just edged out white people on marijuana and crack use
(which incurred disproportionate sentences for decades). Yet, a 2009 Human
Rights Watch study found that each year from 1980 to 2007, blacks were
arrested on drug charges at rates 2.8 to 5.5 times higher than whites.
4. Black men are sentenced to far lengthier prison sentences than white men for
the same crimes.
A 2012 study by the United States Sentencing Commission found black men
were sentenced to prison terms nearly 20 percent longer than white men for
similar crimes. To break those numbers down further, from January 2005 to
December 2007, sentences for black males were 15.2 percent longer than those
of their white counterparts. From December 2007 to September 2011, that
number actually increased, with differences in sentencing growing to 19.5
percent.
5. White people, including police, see black children as older and less innocent
than white children.
A UCLA psychological study surveyed mostly white, male police officers to
determine prejudice and unconscious dehumanization of black people.
Researchers found a correlation between officers who unconsciously
dehumanized blacks and those who had used force against black children in
custody. The study also found that white female college students saw black and
white children as equally innocent until age 9, after which they perceived black
boys as significantly older by about four and half years and less innocent
than their white peers. UCLA researcher Phillip Atiba Goff wrote, Our research
found that black boys can be seen as responsible for their actions at an age
when white boys still benefit from the assumption that children are essentially
innocent. Which leads right to our next stats.
6. Black children are more likely to be tried as adults and are given harsher
sentences than white children.
A Stanford University study uncovered this sobering information: [S]imply
bringing to mind a black (vs. white) juvenile offender led [white study]
participants to view juveniles in general as significantly more similar to adults in
their inherent culpability and to express more support for severe sentencing.
That is, when white respondents thought the child on trial was black, they were
more like to endorse sentencing all juveniles to life without parole when they

have committed serious violent crimes. That might explain why, of the roughly
2,500 juveniles in the U.S. who have been sentenced to life without parole,
nearly all (97 percent) were male and (60 percent) black. Interesting study note:
for black kids, killing a white person was a good way to end up behind bars for
their entire adult life. For white kids, killing a black person actually helped their
chances of ensuring their prison stay would be temporary. From the report:
[T]he proportion of African American [juveniles sentenced to life without parole]
for the killing of a white person (43.4 percent) is nearly twice the rate at which
African American juveniles overall have taken a white persons life (23.2
percent). Whats more, we find that the odds of a [juvenile life without probation]
sentence for a white offender who killed a black victim are only about half as
likely (3.6 percent) as the proportion of white juveniles arrested for killing blacks
(6.4 percent).
7. White people are more likely to support the criminal justice system, including
the death penalty, when they think its disproportionately punitive toward black
people.
Thats right: white people agree with criminal justice outcomes more when they
think race disproportionately targets black people for incarceration. According to
a 2012 Stanford study conducted in liberal San Francisco and New York City,
when white people were told that black people were unfairly impacted by
punitive criminal justice policies like three-strikes laws and stop-and-frisk, they
were less likely to advocate for criminal justice reform. In a similar vein,
researchers found in 2007 that telling whites about racist sentencing laws made
them favor harsher sentences. That is, racism made them like those sentences
more. The study authors write: [O]ur most startling finding is that many whites
actually become more supportive of the death penalty upon learning that it
discriminates against blacks.
8. The more stereotypically black a defendant looks in a murder case, the
higher the likelihood he will be sentenced to death.
This is perhaps one of the most horrifying findings in a list of horrifying findings.
To quote the study, the degree to which the defendant is perceived to have a
stereotypically black appearance (e.g., broad nose, thick lips, dark skin) could
mean the difference between a sentence of life or death, particularly if his victim
was white. Read the whole study; its fascinating.
9. Conversely, white people falsely recall black men they perceive as being
smart as being lighter-skinned.
Heres another incredible, though not entirely surprising study finding. When
white people encounter the faces of African American men they are primed to
believe are educated, they later recall those individuals as being lighterskinned than they actually were. The researchers developed a name for this

phenomenon: skin tone memory bias. This compulsion was chalked up to

stereotypical beliefs about dark skin and its correlation with negative traits. To
reckon with the cognitive dissonance created by perceiving a black man as
educated, white participants unconsciously realigned that intelligence with skin
that more closely approximated whiteness.
10. A number of studies find white people view lighter-skinned African Americans
(and Latinos) as more intelligent, competent, trustworthy and reliable than their
darker-skinned peers.
A 2006 study found that dark-skinned black men with MBAs were less likely to be
hired than lighter-skinned black men who only possessed bachelors degrees. A
2010 study in North Carolina found that light-skinned black women received
shorter prison terms than darker-skinned black women. And a 2012 Villanova
University study found that, African American and Latino respondents with the
lightest skin are several times more likely to be seen by whites as intelligent
compared with those with the darkest skin.
The implications of these findings are hugely significant, and lend credence to
the often expressed feeling of tokenization by black people who are deemed
smart, successful or intelligent by whites. That is, the feeling that white people
perceive certain African Americans as exceptional or not like the others. It also
adds an important layer to the conversation around colorism, which privileges
light skin above darker skin both within and outside of communities of color. (And
has helped skin lightening products become a booming global industry in places
like India, the Philippines and some parts of Africa.)
Unfortunately, I could go on and on. About how, for example, black students
even preschoolers are far more likely to be suspended from school than white
students. (That fact is even truer for dark-skinned black students.) The same
products, when displayed by black hands on the Internet, are less likely to sell
than when they are held by white hands. One study even found that white
people basically think black people are paranormal entities, an idea so ludicrous
it begs that you read an explanation, here.
Racism is comfortable and easy; it helps us make quick, baseless decisions
without the taxing act of thinking. The next time you catch yourself having a
racist thought or feeling, try not brushing it off. Ask yourself where it came from,
what it means and how you can unpack it. Because if the evidence above
suggests anything, its that critical self-examination is our only hope of moving
the needle at all on this thing. Stop imagining that being racist is something that
only other people do, and start looking closely at your own beliefs.
Especially the ones youve never admitted to yourselves that you hold.
Kali Holloway is the Associate Editor of Media and Culture at AlterNet.

This piece was reprinted by EmpathyEducates with permission or license. We

thank the Author, Kali Holloway for her kindness, observations, research and
what we believe is a vital reflection. We are also grateful to AlterNet for its
vibrant discussions.

Dealing with Difficult Emotions

Many white people experience difficult and upsetting emotions as we
confront the historical and contemporary impact of racism and face the
personal meaning of accountability for white privilege and institutional
racism.

Members of WARN have almost all experienced one or more of the following:
sadness, remorse, guilt, shame, grief, despair, anxiety, fear, anger, resentment
and depression. At times such emotions can be so strong and powerful that they
become overwhelming or paralyzing in intensity. A common response is
withdrawal, isolation, and avoidance. The difficulty of dealing with these
emotions turns many away from this work.
Moving through such emotions in a way that leads away from toxicity to
engagement and community requires patience, self-compassion, and support
from mentors and others who are also on the same journey.
Some suggestions about creatively and courageously working with
emotions:

Remember your deeper motivation for engaging in racial equity work

remind yourself of the rewards of engagement. The sense of reward varies
with different individuals but often includes an experience of greater integrity
and deep satisfaction in working to right a terrible wrong.

Accept that such feelings are a normal part of the process of moving
toward accountability for white privilege. Take time to take care of yourself.

Let yourself feel. As uncomfortable as emotions such as guilt and grief can
be, allowing the emotions to speak to you may lead to healing and courage.

Be intentional about building a support community of other white people

to help you when you need it. Be compassionate toward other white people
having an emotionally hard time with this work.

Whites may unconsciously look to people of color to help take care of

them as they process these difficult emotions, leading to awkward and

inappropriate situations that promote mistrust instead of healing. Dont put

people of color in a care-taking role.

Similarly, some may experience a powerful need for forgiveness or

exoneration. Dont look for this from people of color; rather, find meaning and
redemption in your work, your action and your support community.

Self-identity may be threatened as one takes ownership of the role of the

oppressor. Remember to be compassionate with yourself and focus on taking
small steps to recreate a more holistic sense of self.

Remember that we did not choose to be oppressors, but rather inherited a

system of oppression that we may now choose to support, intentionally or
unintentionally, or work to dismantle.

Trust that educating yourself about the history of oppression in the U.S. is
ultimately liberating: in addition to oppression, our history is full of antioppression activists.

Remember if feeling overwhelmed by the pervasiveness and magnitude of

racism and inadequate to make a difference, that small steps over time can
lead to larger changes, and that taking action with others increases your
impact.

Understanding the Racial Empathy Gap: The Power of Narratives (Part 1)

March 10, 2015Judy Wu Dominick

Todays post is Part 1 of a 5-part series exploring the black-white racial empathy gap in the
United States.
Narratives the specific ways that stories are told, retold, and infused with unique beliefs and
perspectives are invisible, yet their effects are not. They exert a powerful influence over our
understanding and interpretation of our selves and the world around us. They shape our
allegiances, sympathies, values, sensibilities, convictions, and passions, and therefore, the
unspoken social contracts that we maintain with one another. But as we know, there are
competing narratives. Some are predominant, some strive for predominance, and others
clamor for basic acknowledgement.
The trouble with competing narratives isnt that they exist; its what we do with them and the
people associated with them. Throughout human history, our most common response to
people groups we dont understand or agree with has been to dismiss, invalidate, or suppress
their narratives, often through a combination of rhetorical and physical violence. One of the
most obvious examples of this phenomenon in the United States is the vitriol that is passed
back and forth between blacks and whites whenever there is a racially charged incident that
makes it onto the national stage: the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2013 by a neighborhood

watchman who may or may not have profiled him, the shooting death of Michael Brown by a
white Ferguson PD police officer in 2014, the video that surfaced a couple of days ago of
SAE pledges/members at OU happily singing a song using the n-word and making references
to lynching. The inability of people in one ethnic group to understand the feelings of, identify
with the perspective of, or to perceive the pain of people in the other ethnic group becomes a
prominent characteristic in much of the public discourse. Blacks feel invalidated, hurt,
misunderstood, and dismissed. Whites feel hurt, misinterpreted, unjustly accused, and judged.
Im painting with a broad brush here, of course. Both groups are far from monolithic. Still,
there is without a doubt a serious racial empathy gap between blacks and whites in our
country. [1-3]
Its not that either of these groups inherently lacks empathy. Both blacks and whites have
tremendous capacity for empathy and compassion. They are, after all, human. What creates a
problem between them is that for each group, as with every group that has a distinct ethnic
and/or cultural identity, the empathy is highly contextualized to the framework that its unique
narratives create. In other words, people are conditioned to feel empathy in certain contexts
and under certain conditions but not others. Take a look at the following illustration, which
consists of 2 images, each one associated with a specific narrative. Try to assess how each
one affects you differently.
Narrative #1:

This is Marcus. Hes 23 years old. Because he is black, he is more likely to be perceived as
dangerous, to be arrested, to be convicted of a crime, to receive a harsh sentence if
convicted, and to be killed by a police officer than his white counterparts, even after
factoring in major variables. [4-8] He knows that if he ever has to interact with a police
officer, he needs to keep his hands in plain view, make no sudden movements, be polite and
cordial, never argue, never fight back, never run, and never answer questions if the answers
are potentially self-incriminating. And it goes beyond having respect for authority; its about
increasing his chances of survival. [5] Because he is black, he can also expect to have a
harder time finding employment and to be paid less than his white counterparts who do the
same types of jobs, even after taking key variables into consideration. [9]

Ok, now sniff the coffee beans, take a moment and go

Narrative #2:

Marcus Lattimore, beloved former running back for the University of South Carolina, is
pictured here being helped off the field after sustaining a devastating right knee injury on
October 27, 2012. He had just managed to recover from a serious left knee injury sustained
one year prior. The writer who reported on the 2012 injury in Fits News wrote, While a
catastrophic injury like this is terrible no matter who suffers it, Lattimores injury seems
especially unfair given what a class act hes been ever since arriving on campus three years
ago. Throughout his record-breaking career at USC Lattimore has been a soft-spoken leader
on the field and a humble, straight-laced student off of it. [11] He has been described as
both a consummate team player and a humble role model. [12] He rehabilitated sufficiently
in time to enter the 2013 NFL draft and was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in October
2013. Unfortunately, the physical demands of the NFL proved to be too much for his
damaged right knee. This past November, he announced his retirement from the NFL, as well
as plans to return to USC to finish his degree.
Did you feel a difference in your empathy meter between narratives? What do you think is
going on?
The first narrative is a societal-level narrative constructed from psychological and social
science research. The second narrative is an individual-level narrative constructed from
portions of Marcuss life story. The two narratives do not represent two different people. They
simply describe the same person in two different ways and through two different lenses. The
difference is that while the second narrative probably evokes empathy in blacks and whites
alike, the first is considerably less likely to evoke empathy among whites. In fact, it may
actually have the opposite effect in some, triggering irritation and even anger. Why is that?
This is where competing narratives come into play.
In general, whites have no problem feeling compassion for an individual of any ethnicity or
class if they are given a story to which they can personally relate. Thats why so many of
them love and follow Brandon Stantons Humans of New York photography blog. But when
they are asked or required to redirect their empathy from a single individual to an entire

demographic group, namely young black men, several challenges arise. One of them is that
doing so goes against a deeply held cultural belief that all merit, even empathy, is meant to be
deserved and delivered at the level of the individual. Most (not all) whites genuinely believe
that the United States operates as a meritocracy, which means that if you do the right things
(work hard, make good choices), you will be rewarded; and if you do the wrong things (slack
off, make poor choices), you will experience negative consequences. Since a significant
portion of their personal experiences support this belief, they have little vision for the
existence of factors beyond individual actions that may disprove it.
This partly explains why there is so much emphasis on personal responsibility from whites in
discussions about police shootings of black men. Within this paradigm, police officers only
shoot people who deserve to be shot, and it has nothing to do with ethnicity. Any attempt to
link a police officers use of deadly force to the race of the deceased or injured is labeled
race baiting because in their minds, the only plausible explanation for it is that the person
who was shot did something to provoke it. The personal responsibility narrative is held up as
the standard and is used to render the racial bias narrative invalid, even before the racial bias
narrative, which is layered and complex and requires time to unpack, has been fully explored
or given a proper hearing.
Lets go back to the Marcus Lattimore illustration now and walk through how these
competing narratives might continue to play out there. Those who reject the first narrative
will likely attempt to use the second narrative as a means to refute, qualify, or explain away
the realities that the first one is attempting to address. Hes a great guy. Hes soft-spoken and
has great character. He wouldnt have a problem with the police, and the police wouldnt
have a problem with him. The problem with that reasoning is that even though Marcus is
indeed a likable and respectable guy, both the African-American experience and a large body
of systematically collected data tell us that who he is as an individual makes very little
difference for him when he is driving around town or walking down the street without his
football jersey on, without his teammates around him, and without a holographic image of his
ESPN bio floating over his head (i.e., when he is unrecognized and is only seen as a black
man). The second narrative does not displace the first one. They coexist. A great example of
this is that many black NYPD officers have reported experiencing racial profiling by fellow
NYPD officers when off duty and out of uniform, resulting in unpleasant experiences like
getting pulled over for no reason, having their heads slammed against their cars, getting
stopped and frisked while shopping, getting thrown into prison vans, getting forced to the
ground and handcuffed, and having guns brandished in their faces. [10]
I hope some of you are at least wondering now, if you havent wondered before and even if
youre still feeling skeptical, that if the disparities in police treatment, in the criminal justice
system, employment, and wages that black men are experiencing cant be explained solely by
individual actions, character, or criminality, then whats really going on? The answer to that
question, as it turns out, is very complex and requires a walk down Americas memory lane.
It also calls for a close examination of the fate of a several-hundred-year-old narrative about
inherent black inferiority and criminality one that was once used to justify ownership of and

brutality toward black people in this country, even as late as the 1960s. I will address these
things in Part 2.

References:
[1] Trawalter, Leslie; Hoffman, Kelly M.; Waytz, Adam. Racial bias in perception of others
pain. Plos, November 14, 2012. Accessed at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?
id=10.1371/journal.pone.0048546 on March 5, 2015.
[2] Silverstein, Jason. I Dont Feel Your Pain: A failure of empathy perpetuates racial
disparities. Slate, June 2013. Accessed
at http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/06/
racial_empathy_gap_people_don_t_perceive_pain_in_other_races.1.html on March 5, 2015.
[3] Obeidallah, Dean. Our lack of racial empathy is appalling. CNN.com, July 16, 2013.
Accessed at http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/16/opinion/obeidallah-racial-sympathy/ on March
5, 2015.
[4] McKay, Tom. One Troubling Statistic Shows Just How Racist Americas Police Brutality
Problem Is. Mic, August 18, 2014. Accessed at http://mic.com/articles/96452/one-troublingstatistic-shows-just-how-racist-america-s-police-brutality-problem-is on March 2, 2015.
[5] Martinez, Michael; Elam, Stephanie; Henry, Erica. Within black families, hard truths
told to sons amid Ferguson unrest. CNN.com, August 21, 2014. Accessed at
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/15/living/parenting-black-sons-ferguson-missouri/ on March 3,
2015.
[6] American Psychological Association. Black Boys Viewed as Older, Less Innocent than
Whites, Research Finds. March 2014. Accessed
at http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/03/black-boys-older.aspx on March 3, 2015.
[7] Blake, John. The New Threat: Racism without Racists. CNN.com, November 27,
2014. Accessed at http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/26/us/ferguson-racism-or-racial-bias/ on
March 3, 2015.
[8] Mooney, Chris. The Science of Why Cops Shoot Young Black Men. And how to reform
our bigoted brains. Mother Jones, December 1, 2014. Accessed
at http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/science-of-racism-prejudice on March 3,
2015.
[9] Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel; Bradley, Jake; Tarasonis, Linas. Racial Discrimination in
the U.S. Labor Market: Employment and Wage Differentials by Skill. Aix-Marseille School
of Economics, Working Papers, April 2014. Accessed at http://www.amseaixmarseille.fr/sites/default/files/_dt/2012/wp_2014_-_nr_13.pdf#overlay-

context=fr/recherche/documents-de-travail/racial-discrimination-us-labor-marketemployment-and-wage on March 6, 2015.

[10] Conlin, Michelle. Off duty, black cops in New York feel threat from fellow police.
Reuters, December 23, 2014. Accessed at http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/23/us-usapolice-nypd-race-insight-idUSKBN0K11EV20141223 on March 3, 2015.
[11] Marcus Lattimore Suffers Gruesome Knee Injury. FitsNews.com. October 27, 2012.
Accessed at http://www.fitsnews.com/2012/10/27/marcus-lattimore-suffers-gruesome-kneeinjury/ on March 2, 2015.
[12] Marcus Lattimore Out for Season. FitsNews.com. October 16, 2011. Accessed at
http://www.fitsnews.com/2011/10/16/marcus-lattimore-out-for-season/ on March 2, 2015.

Understanding the Racial Empathy Gap: The Power of Narratives (Part 2)

March 17, 2015Judy Wu Dominick

This is Part 2 of a 5-part series exploring the black-white racial empathy gap in the United
States. It continues looking at the role of narratives. If you havent read Part 1 yet, youll
want to do that first here.
My previous segment ended with the question, If the disparities in police treatment, the
criminal justice system, employment, and wages that black men (and women, really) are
experiencing cant be explained solely by individual actions, character, or criminality, then
whats really going on? It also alluded to the need to examine the fate of a centuries-old
narrative about inherent black inferiority and criminality. Lets take a focused tour through
some parts of our nations history that will hopefully help provide some answers.
History and Evolution of the Black Inferiority Narrative
Slavery
The myth/narrative of black inferiority was systematically created in the 18th century in order
to assuage consciences over and justify the already well-established systems of inequality. It
argued that God had made Africans particularly suitable for slavery. Its architects developed
belief systems about their natural inferiority based on their unique physical traits. Through
such belief systems, the social construct of race was born. Written descriptions of Africans as
mean, vile, and untamed savages were widely circulated, creating fear and loathing toward
them. In such a climate, slaves were subjected to a comprehensive system of control: harsh
labor, cruel discipline, division of their families, and creation of disunity among them by
separation into field slaves and more favored house slaves, often through skin tone and facial

feature differentiation. [1,2] By the mid-19th century, the idea that there were species-level
differences between blacks and whites was firmly ingrained in the public consciousness. And
although slavery was legally abolished in 1865, the ideology of difference persisted and was
codified into law in the 1890s with the passage of the Jim Crow laws, which officially
segregated black people from the white population.
The Era of Racial Terrorism
The period from the end of the post-Civil War Reconstruction until the end of the Jim Crow
era, 1877-1965, can be described as one characterized by racial terror. White people across
the country, particularly in the South/former slave states, violently lynched, or publicly
tortured and mutilated, nearly 4000 African American men, women, and children without any
legal repercussions. Lynchings were not limited acts committed by extremist groups like the
KKK, but were often public spectacle events attended by huge crowds that included elected
officials and pillars of the community, even clergy and law enforcement officers, and were
joyfully celebrated, picnic-like community social events (see photo, below). They functioned
almost as a separate criminal justice system for blacks, even though extensive and fastidious
research has revealed that in most cases, no actual crime had been committed and people
were lynched for minor social transgressions like knocking on the door of a white womans
house, referring to a white police officer without the title mister, or resisting abusive
treatment. To make things more terrifying, white mobs would often round up entire black
communities and force them to watch the lynchings that they performed, often in strategically
chosen prominent places inside African-American residential districts, and threaten them all
with the same fate. [3]

The lynching of teenager Jesse Washington in Waco, Texas on May 15, 1916, attended by
10,000 spectators, including city officials and police. Lynchers castrated him, cut off his
fingers, hung him over a bonfire, and repeatedly raised and lowered him for 2 hours. Photos
of the event were printed and sold as postcards. His charred remains were dragged through
town and parts of his body were sold as souvenirs.
What made such atrocities so easy for entire communities to commit openly, fearlessly, and
even gleefully? It was the dehumanizing narrative portraying black people as biologically
criminal and violent beasts that had an uncontrollable urge to do things like rape white
women beasts that had to be controlled with force and fear in order to protect the sanctity
and safety of civil society. This narrative firmly affixed a presumption not only of
inferiority, but also of guilt and criminality, to blackness.
The Civil Rights Movement and the Changing Ethos
Consider the fact that well into the 1960s, the countrys formal posture toward racism as a
social institution was one of militant justification, with only isolated pockets of people calling
for change on the margins. Racism had not only been legal but had been legally mandated
since the 1890s under Jim Crow in the South and similar laws in the North and West (in
California, they were referred to as James Crow). From 1890-1965, if white people did
anything to promote equality of the races or were caught violating the strict standards of
segregation, they could be fined or thrown in prison for up to 6 months. The society itself was
structured around obligatory racism. That is the context in which the Civil Rights Movement
arose. And if we think in terms of narratives, then we realize that one of its most amazing
accomplishments, achieved primarily through its commitment to nonviolent forms of protest
in the face of violent opposition, was that it disrupted the centuries-old myth/narrative of
biological black inferiority and criminality enough such that the American ethos toward
institutional racism began to shift from unconditional and legally mandated embrace toward
social and legally mandated rejection.
Today: Echoes of the Past
The narrative has not gone away, however. When lynchings fell out of widespread favor in
the 1930s due to activism against it, court-ordered executions through the formal criminal
justice system increased dramatically as a means to assuage angry white mobs. Two-thirds of
those executed in the 1930s were black. And although the population of African Americans
fell to 22% in the South between 1910 and 1950 due to the Great Migration of blacks to the
North and West, they constituted 75% of Southern state executions during that period. In
1975, after studying statistical data, the Supreme Court formally acknowledged that racial
bias in sentencing was an inevitable part of the criminal justice system (McKleskey vs.
Kemp). [3] All these years later, ethnicity continues to be a major factor in capital sentencing.
Capital punishment is in many respects a direct descendant of lynching. The statistics tell us
that there has been no significant transition in the justice system from the period of openly
racially motivated executions to the present. Not only that, but actual lynchings still occur,

only now they are done in secret and in ways that leave people to question whether victims
committed suicide.[4,5]
The old narrative about blacks being savages that need to be controlled is ultimately one of
blatant and unapologetic dehumanization. Once we realize this, we then have a framework
for recognizing the ways in which it is still alive and well today, even if the language around
it has changed. For example, many who reject the notion of biological inferiority as a means
of justification for slavery and racial terrorism would have no problem saying, He was just a
thug, as a casual justification for an unarmed black man being shot to death by a police
officer or a neighborhood watchman. And thats because if we could put words to the nonverbalized sentiment behind He was a thug, the sentence would finish with either, and
therefore his life had no inherent value, or so he deserved to die. It is an echo of the past,
only expressed in different language.
Similarly, we might not argue like our forefathers did that the physical features of blacks
their dark skin, broad noses, kinky hair, and full lips are biological signs that identify them
as an inferior species with a propensity for raping and committing violent acts; but we zero in
on the expressions of black culture and being that we least relate to, that best represent a
quality of otherness to us like hip-hop and rap, certain attire (baggy pants, backward
baseball caps, hoodies), dreadlocks, the way some of them articulate their words, and the way
they express pain and anger and we adopt them as dehumanizing stereotypes, attaching
inferiority and a presumption of guilt to them. The subconscious narrative is still, THAT is
what it means to be black, and THAT deserves to be put down. Again, they are echoes of a
not-so-distant past, dressed in different verbiage. This explains why police officers who might
go to great lengths to spare the life of an armed white male might not hesitate shooting a 12year-old black child (like Tamir Rice), playing with a toy gun, within seconds of arriving on
the scene, having immediately perceived him to be older and highly dangerous. [6,7]
No doubt that a line of questioning is arising in some of you right now: What about when
reality reinforces stereotypes? Arent there a lot of black men in prison for committing violent
crimes? What about the violent, anti-establishmentarian lyrics in a lot of popular rap
music? I will address these things in my next installment. For now, I will say that crime
statistics and social pathologies must be properly handled and understood in their full
sociological, historical, and even geographical context. Considering them any other way will
lead to overly simplistic and mistaken conclusions. Furthermore, they must be separated from
the deceptive, pervasive, and false narrative, or myth, of biological inferiority and criminality.
Shame: A Double-Edged Sword
What are some of the emotions youre feeling right now after reading the above? I ask this
question because I think its absolutely essential for us to be fully present to any toxic
emotions around this subject and to tackle them head-on. Do you feel anger, grief, confusion,
surprise, irritation, defensiveness, frustration shame? I actually see a lot of shame surface

in discussions about the African American experience, so Id like to spend some time
exploring the dynamics of shame and how it has affected our narratives.
Now I dont know about you, but my personal record of dealing with shame has been a mixed
bag. In moments when my shame has been successfully offset by the unconditional love and
acceptance of key people in my life, Ive been empowered to face it and to allow it to nudge
me in the direction of positive change and growth. But in moments when shame has made me
feel vulnerable, exposed, or defective, or has isolated me from those who normally help me
feel grounded and loved, I have fashioned all kinds of fig leaves to cover it up. Some of those
fig leaves include doubling down on my defenses, attacking the person(s) causing my shame,
and blaming someone Ive hurt for being too sensitive (because if theyre the problem, then I
most certainly am not). In the same way, collective shame about a brutally racist history has
produced mixed results over the last 50-60 years.
One of the things the Civil Rights Movement managed to do was inject a keen sense of
shame into white Americas collective conscience over its institutionalized abuse of African
Americans. It marked a significant turning point in the nations history. In the beginning,
when shame produced an appropriate acknowledgement of injustice and a desire to make
things right, it led to cultural shifts and new legislation that effectively released African
Americans from the stranglehold of the Jim Crow era.
The tricky thing about shame, though, is that its a toxic, identity- and value-threatening
emotion. and when its not processed in a thoroughly redemptive way, it can actually lead to a
recycling of our sins instead of a healthy and restorative repentance that moves us toward
wholeness, healing, and transformation.
Beginning with the generation that grew up on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement, a new
ethos of anti-racism began to replace the expiring ethos of racism. While this shift was a good
one, it was accompanied by a nagging sense of shame that threatened to indict white
Americans as historically bad, immoral people. People were freshly facing the horror that
their beloved country, which supposedly stood for freedom and democracy, had used ethnic
differences to justify and endorse terrible acts of violence and oppression against an entire
people group for hundreds of years. It made them want to rewrite history. So a new shamebased, reactive narrative set in: Forget the past. We are not racists. We are anti-racists. And
we are colorblind. This new narrative unwittingly undermined progress even as progress was
being made. First, it imposed a willful forgetfulness on one of the nations most traumatic and
formative experiences one which desperately required thoughtful, collective, and public
debriefing, not consignment to cold storage. Second, it injected taboo-like sensibilities into
both the very act of dialoguing about race and ethnicity, as well as into race consciousness
itself, which, instead of being helpful, has proven to be very damaging for blacks and other
non-whites who wish to have their distinctives recognized, validated, and celebrated
alongside those of whites, rather than denied and left unacknowledged.

Willful forgetfulness of this magnitude is harmful because it fractures the psyche of a nation,
just as it would an individual. Imagine three brothers: the first is a 5-year-old who is beaten to
death, the second is a 7-year-old who witnesses his brothers beating death, and the third is
the offending teenaged brother who has killed the youngest brother. Now imagine the
surviving brothers one a deeply traumatized witness and the other a guilt-ridden,
traumatized killer of his brother trying to become happier, healthier, and more whole by
insisting that the terrible event was behind them, that it never had to be revisited, and that it
had no bearing on the present. Only an incompetent therapist would let that slide. Yet that is
in essence what has been done in trying to dismiss all that racial history as irrelevant to
current events. Denial and compartmentalization dont heal. Insisting that we have moved
beyond racism without meaningfully wrestling with the actual legacy of our racist history
means that its just one big fig leaf trying to be sufficient enough to cover the shame of the
past. Its not a real solution, and it doesnt provide us with the tools that we need in order to
heal and move forward. Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel said, Without memory, our existence
would be barren and opaque, like a prison cell into which no light penetrates; like a tomb
which rejects the living
Moving Beyond White Guilt, White Blame, and White Shame
What we really need is the ability to identify and effectively deal with the racist narratives we
all inherited, which still exert a powerful, often underestimated influence on the state of
things. I say we, even though I am Taiwanese-American and my parents didnt arrive in the
United States until the late 1960s, because I am a part of the fabric of this country, and
because of that, I have been influenced by the racist narratives here as much as anyone else.
Narratives about inherent black inferiority and criminality, the narratives that were once used
to justify systems of slavery, racial segregation, and racial violence, are still among us. Just
because we now publicly denounce racism, it doesnt mean that the old narratives have
disappeared or that they no longer have profound influence. They have simply evolved, or
gone subterranean, and they now exert a subversive influence rather than an overt one.
The goal is not and cannot be for white people to take on the shame of yesterday, as if the
past could be undone or anything constructive could be accomplished through psychological
penance. It is actually far more noble that that. The goal is for whites to take up the courage
necessary to face down the shame of yesterday, in order to become a redemptive and truly
reconciling force for the future, alongside their black brothers and sisters. Likewise, the
ultimate desire is not even for white people to accept blame for the things that white people
of yesterday did, but for them to be willing to acknowledge their place along the continuum
of history, to see that their whiteness is historically connected to the whiteness of people
who did commit racial atrocities. Because only with appropriate historical memory will they
be empowered to write new narratives and respond appropriately in ways that will build a
more just society.

In part 3, I will discuss further the lingering social pathologies that the nations long history
of racism has produced, how they reinforce the racial empathy gap, and what may be done
about it.
References:
[1] Zinn, Howard. Chapter 2: Drawing the Color Line. A Peoples History of the United
States.
[2] Smedley, Audrey. Building the Myth of Black Inferiority. Encyclopedia Britannica.
August 18, 2014. Accessed at
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/488030/race/234668/Building-the-myth-ofblack-inferiority on March 6, 2015
[3] Equal Justice Initiatives. Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial
Terror. February 10, 2015. Summary accessed at http://www.eji.org/files/EJI%20Lynching
%20in%20America%20SUMMARY.pdf on March 9, 2015
[4] African American Man Found Hanging from a Tree in Mississippi, FBI Investigating.
The Times-Picayune, Greater New Orleans, March 19,
2015. http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2015/03/mississippi_hanging.html
[5] Eversley, Melanie. FBI to probe death of black N.C. teen found hanged.
USAToday.com, December 12, 2014.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/12/bladenboro-teen-handingdeath/20333271/
[6] Leon, Harmon. 8 White People Who Pointed Guns at Police Officers and Managed Not
to Get Killed. Alternet.com. January 12, 2015. Accessed at http://www.alternet.org/civilliberties/8-white-people-who-pointed-guns-police-officers-and-managed-not-get-killed on
March 17, 2015.
[7] American Psychological Association. Black Boys Viewed as Older, Less Innocent than
Whites, Research Finds. March 2014.
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/03/black-boys-older.aspx

George Zimmerman followed Trayvon Martin because he perceived him as dangerous. The
defense argues he was, the prosecution argues he wasnt. No one, of course, argues that
Zimmerman approached Martin with kindness, or stopped to consider the boy as anything other
than suspicious, an outsider. Ultimately Zimmerman shot and killed Martin. A lack of empathy
can produce national tragedies. But it also drives quieter, more routine forms of discrimination.

Lets do a quick experiment. You watch a needle pierce someones skin. Do you feel this persons
pain? Does it matter if the persons skin is white or black?
For many people, race does matter, even if they dont know it. They feel more empathy when
they see white skin pierced than black. This is known as the racial empathy gap. To study it,
researchers at the University of Milano-Bicocca showed participants (all of whom were white)
video clips of a needle or an eraser touching someones skin. They measured participants
reactions through skin conductance testsbasically whether their hands got sweatywhich
reflect activity in the pain matrix of the brain. If we see someone in pain, it triggers the same
network in our brains thats activated when we are hurt. But people do not respond to the pain of
others equally. In this experiment, when viewers saw white people receiving a painful stimulus,
they responded more dramatically than they did for black people.
The racial empathy gap helps explain disparities in everything from pain management to the
criminal justice system. But the problem isnt just that people disregard the pain of black people.
Its somehow even worse. The problem is that the pain isnt even felt.
Advertisement
A recent study shows that people, including medical personnel, assume black people feel less
pain than white people. The researchers asked participants to rate how much pain they would feel
in 18 common scenarios. The participants rated experiences such as stubbing a toe or getting
shampoo in their eyes on a four-point scale (where 1 is not painful and 4 is extremely
painful). Then they rated how another person (a randomly assigned photo of an experimental
target) would feel in the same situations. Sometimes the target was white, sometimes black. In
each experiment, the researchers found that white participants, black participants, and nurses and
nursing students assumed that blacks felt less pain than whites.
But the researchers did not believe racial prejudice was entirely to blame. After all, black
participants also displayed an empathy gap toward other blacks. What could possibly be the
explanation for why black peoples pain is underestimated?
It turns out assumptions about what it means to be blackin terms of social status and hardship
may be behind the bias. In additional experiments, the researchers studied participants
assumptions about adversity and privilege. The more privilege assumed of the target, the more
pain the participants perceived. Conversely, the more hardship assumed, the less pain perceived.
The researchers concluded that the present work finds that people assume that, relative to
whites, blacks feel less pain because they have faced more hardship.
This gives us some insight into how racial disparities are createdand how they are sustained.
First, there is an underlying belief that there is a single black experience of the world. Because
this belief assumes blacks are already hardened by racism, people believe black people are less
sensitive to pain. Because they are believed to be less sensitive to pain, black people are forced to
endure more pain.

Consider disparities in treatment for pain. Weve known for at least two decades that minorities,
primarily blacks and Hispanics, receive inadequate pain medication. Often this failure comes
when people need help the most. For example, an early study of this disparity revealed that
minorities with recurrent or metastatic cancer were less likely to have adequate analgesia. Racial
disparities in pain management have been recorded in the treatment of migraines and back pain,
cancer care in the elderly, and children with orthopedic fractures. A 2008 review of 13 years of
national survey data on emergency room visits found that for a pain-related visit, an opioid
prescription was more likely for white patients (31 percent) than black patients (23 percent).
Some of the problem is structural. Weve also known for some time that pharmacies in nonwhite
communities fail to adequately stock opioids. In a 2005 study, Michigan pharmacies in white
communities were 52 times more likely to sufficiently stock opioids than in nonwhite
communities. But this does not fully explain the problem. When pain medicine is available,
minorities receive less of it. Medical personnel may care deeply about treating the pain of
minorities. Even so, they might recognize less of itand this may explain why the pain is so
poorly treated.
The racial empathy gap is also a problem of our criminal justice system. Consider research on the
impact of race on jury decisions. A 2002 experiment showed the power of race, empathy, and
punishment. The researchers asked 90 white students to act as jurors and evaluate a larceny case.
The manipulation, as you might suspect, is whether the defendant was black or white. But before
jurors decided the defendants fate, they participated in an empathy induction task. Some jurors
were assigned to a high-empathy condition and asked to imagine themselves in the defendants
position. Other jurors were assigned to a low-empathy condition and asked to simply remain
objective. Ultimately, the jurors gave black defendants harsher sentences (4.17 years) than whites
(3.04 years)even in the high-empathy condition (3.26 years versus 2.20 years, respectively)
and felt less empathy for black defendants.
This helps explain harsh sentencing in juvenile justice. Nationwide, youth of color are treated
more harshly than their white peers. What is a prank for a white student is often treated as a zerotolerance offense by a minority student. Minority students are more likely to receive an out-ofschool suspension, even if they have a disability, more likely to be referred by their schools to law
enforcement, more likely to be arrested, more likely to be tried in adult court, and more likely to
receive a harsh sentence. Recall that participants assumed blacks felt less pain because of their
perceived hardened lives. Stanford University researchers found something similar in juvenile
sentences. In Stanfords study, people perceived black children as more like adults, who deserve
severe adult punishment, and not innocent kids, who deserve our empathy and compassion.
If we know part of the problem is a lack of empathy, is it possible to learn empathy and overcome
an implicit bias? In the study of jurors, we saw empathy induction did not eliminate the empathy
gap. But it did produce somewhat more lenient sentences. Perhaps this is a first step.
The perspective-taking approach seems to help. In a 2011 study, researchers tested whether
empathy induction reduced pain treatment disparities. Participants assigned to the perspectivetaking group were instructed to try to imagine how your patient feels about his or her pain and
how this pain is affecting his or her life. As other studies have found, many people exhibited an

empathy bias that drives their bias in pain treatment. But this study gives us some hope. It shows
that the perspective-taking intervention reduced treatment biasin this case by 55 percent.
But this approach misses something crucial. Perspective-taking must account forand eliminate
the assumptions about what it means to be black or a minority in the United States. After all,
imagining how pain affects a persons life will not completely extinguish bias. Part of the
problem is how we think about other peoples painand how when we stereotype their lives, we
dont.

Race: What whiteness isnt

March 15 2015 at 06:59am
By Gillian Schutte Comment on this story

APThis image released by Fox Searchlight shows

Chiwetel Ejiofor, centre, in a scene from the film, 12 Years A Slave. The film, which addresses racism, was
nominated for a Directors Guild award. Picture: AP Photo/Fox Searchlight, Jaap Buitendijk

Science shows there are no races, only humanity, while history shows that 500 years ago
explorers created the myth of white supremacy that allowed the exploitation of others,
writes Gillian Schutte.
Johannesburg - Many white folk get very upset when reading anti-racism writing that refers to the
term whiteness. They take it personally and think it is a direct attack on their white skin. But
whiteness does not refer to skin colour or white people so much as it refers to a system of
discrimination based on an artificial ideology of race power and privilege. It is the system itself,
rather than the white individual, that is critiqued by anti-racism activists.
To refer to whiteness cannot be an attack on the white race because, according to contemporary
scientific evidence, the white race does not exist. Nor do any of the other races categorised in
relation to this mythical white race.
There is only humanity.
Humanity embraces all people of all phenotypes and it has been demonstrated scientifically that
diversity in physicality has nothing to do with biological difference in race, but is largely to do with

environmental factors. The online dictionary describes a phenotype as an individuals observable

traits, such as height, eye colour, skin tone and blood type.
Kenan Malik, in his book Strange Fruit (2008), says that while the genetics of population
differences are a biological reality, the interpretation of these differences is deeply shaped by
politics.
Race, then, is a social myth that was constructed about 500 years ago and was intricately bound
up in the politics of the time.
But why, in a modern world, do so many continue to hold on to the concept of different races
when it has been deemed as mythological as the creationist fable of Adam and Eve? And why do
modern human beings continue to practise racism although it has been scientifically proved that
race does not exist?
Robert Wald Sussman explores this topic in his book The Myth of Race (2014). He writes that
even though biological races do not exist, the concept of race obviously is still a reality, as is
racism. These are prevalent and persistent elements of our everyday lives and generally
accepted aspects of our culture. He argues that race is definitely a part of our culture as race
and racism are deeply ingrained in our history.
Race, it turns out, is nothing more than a socially constructed classification that attaches
powerful meaning to perceptions of skin colour. It is a 500-year-old construct designed to
privilege white people over others. European male expansionists, explorers and colonialists were
the people who constructed this system of racial hierarchy and placed those of European origin
and white skin at the top of the ladder declaring themselves the human race and all others a
sub-species. And so race was born, upon which a manufactured discourse of white superiority
was built that gave rise to exploitation based upon difference.
Whiteness writer Richard Dyer explains in his book White that Europeans constructed whiteness
through the framework of Christianity, racial discourse, and imperialism as an essence that is in
but not of the body. Thus colonisation was constructed as Gods work and the ideology of
whiteness framed as metaphysical and godly.
Christianity, the dominant ideology in Europe, merged the model of bodily transcendence with the
supremacy of whiteness itself. It elevated whiteness to the status of God over other categories of
race. This was the basis of the European discourse on race during the 18th and 19th centuries.
White people were consequently constructed as the moral race, contrary to amoral and bodybound, spiritless non-whites, who were considered no more than their bodies. Those not white
were deemed by whites to be base, animalistic and often endowed with demonic sexuality. They
became the victims of the collective white projection of Victorian morality and repressed sexuality
that resulted in the proliferation of many complex, unstable, and dangerous sexual desires and
abuses of the black body. Pervasive white negativity towards the black body was manufactured
in this whiteness discourse and this remains persistent in contemporary society, as witnessed in
the continuing phenomenon of racism.
Empathy for the black body has intentionally been bred out of whiteness as this serves to
maintain the status quo. Rather, whites are taught that the black body must be feared,
disciplined, reviled and kept at a safe distance from pristine whiteness. This is what
underpinned the white acceptance of apartheid in South Africa.
Frantz Fanon, in his groundbreaking book Black Faces, White Masks (1952) explains the
pervasiveness of the derogatory negro myth. European civilisation is characterised by the

presence, at the heart of what Jung calls the collective unconscious, of an archetype: an
expression of the bad instincts, of the darkness inherent in every ego, of the uncivilised savage,
the Negro who slumbers in every white man.
He argues that this becomes negrophobia an embedded fear in the European collective
imaginary that plays out in a way that defies all rational thinking and endows the object with
evil intentions and the attributes of a malefic power.
Fanon was of the view that whites do not project on to the black man the sexuality that they
themselves would like to have, but rather project on to others the faults they fear in themselves
and thereby purge themselves of those evils.
In Fanons words: In the remotest depth of the European unconscious an inordinately black
hollow has been made in which the most immoral impulses, the most shameful desires lie
dormant. And as every man climbs up toward whiteness and light, the European has tried to
repudiate this uncivilised self, which has attempted to defend itself. When European civilisation
came into contact with the black world, with those savage peoples, everyone agreed: Those
Negroes were the principle of evil.
It was this constructed anti-black belief system that gave white people the supposed God-given
right to enslave, brutalise and oppress whole nations of people whom they did not see as equally
human. They saw them instead as inferior and animalistic they needed to be tamed and set to
work as punishment for not being as godly and puritan as white folk. This, their ideology
asserted, was the natural order of things.
When deconstructed, whiteness is not white people in themselves, but about an expedient
supremacist and exploitative ideology that served the white aristocratic elite and allowed for
economic expansion that relied on a slave system and later a cheap labour force. In all the global
colonial exploits, indigenous people were brutalised, oppressed and turned into chattels to this
end. Working class white people were manipulated to buy into this ideology to bolster and ensure
the longevity of the elitists who relied on this obedience to enrich and entrench themselves.
White working class folk were pitted against blacks and given marginal socio-economic
ascendancy over them as a way to maintain this cleavage. In this way the working class was
fragmented and posed less of a threat to the super rich.
It was this history that entrenched white economic supremacy and gave rise to Western
domination of the world economy through the system of capitalism. In fact capitalism was largely
built upon the blood, sweat and tears, and often knowledge, of people with melanin for the
benefit of those who lack melanin.
Whiteness remains an occupying hierarchical economic system that mostly elevates those with
white skin over those with colour. It has become an entrenched organism that continuously shifts
to find new ways to hold on to a set of normative privileges granted to white-skinned individuals
and groups while maintaining the super-power of those few at the top of the economic ladder.
Whiteness as an ideology is normalised in its production and maintained through capitalism and
its machinery, including mainstream media, the judicial system, the education system, religion
and popular culture. This all culminates in the dominant discourse that upholds a system of
whiteness and ensures its authority. It is through these functions that white privilege becomes
invisible to those who benefit from it and blatantly palpable to those who are oppressed and
consistently disadvantaged by it.

In an anti-racism framework it is seldom that a white individual or group is being attacked. Rather
it is the system of whiteness that is deconstructed to reveal the historically skewed power
relations that continue to reinvent new strands of insidious dominance in contemporary times. It
is this system that needs to be dismantled to make place for a radical reimagining of humanness
and oneness, so that all people are able to access their full potential and live with the dignity that
is their human birthright.
* Schutte is an anti-racism educator, activist, social justice feminist and film-maker. She is cofounder of Media for Justice, author of the novel After Just Now and a published poet.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

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White Supremacy On My Mind: Learning To Undermine Racism
by Chris Crass

Growing up in California and coming of political age in the 90s, race has been a central
factor in my development as a person and as a radical. California elections have been the
battle ground upon which fights over immigrant rights, bilingual education, affirmative
action, criminal justice, labor rights and queer marriage have been fought. The explosion of
rage in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict clearing four white cops of all charges in

the internationally witnessed beating of King was to have a profound impact on my way of
seeing the world. I rarely ever thought about what it meant to be white, I was just a person.
The ability of whiteness to be so universalized, to be the norm, to be the standard and all
others just that, others. I grew up in the post-Civil Rights era, where racism has operated in a
way that rarely even speaks directly about race.
I remember as a small child listening to other children speak Spanish and I assumed that it
was because they were not smart enough to speak English or if they were bilingual, then I
assumed that Spanish was some sort of silly gibberish. This would have been a childish
mistake or misunderstanding on my part, but as a white person, I assumed that my language
was THE language and that it was the true form of speech and this thinking was not childish,
it was the institutionalized logic of white supremacy, which was reinforced all around me.
In 1986, California voters passed a proposition that declared English as the official language
of California. In 1998, voters in California passed a proposition that ended bilingual
education in California. Prop 227 was known as the English Only measure. California was
once part of Mexico. As white settlers moved westward, the idea of Manifest Destiny was
developed which simply stated that all of the land towards the West were for citizens of the
United States white people. The US war of aggression against Mexico resulted in a huge
land grab. However, in the Treaty of Guadeloupe signed in 1848, the rights of Mexicans
living inside the newly created US border were to be respected and language was one of
them. The Treaty of 1848 stated that the United States must respect the culture and language
of the people formerly of Mexico. The debate over language is truly about control, not
communication. In his amazing book, The Coming White Minority: California,
Multiculturalism and Americas Future, Dale Maharidge writes, The truth ignored in the
debate [over bilingual education] was this: only three out of ten of the 1.4 million California
students with limited English proficiency were enrolled in a bilingual education class. Due to
a shortfall of 20,000 qualified teachers, 70 percent of these students were already taking
English only classes. The failure of many of them had nothing to do with bilingual
education. Maharidge writes further that Prop 227 [English Only] is just one more way that
the third world work force will be kept in place, providing a pool of janitors and
dishwashers The struggle to make English the official language in California is about
delegitimizing another peoples language and culture and reinforcing inferiority.
Simultaneously, English and white culture is reinscibed as superior. This is why many who
opposed English Only used the slogan, English Only means White Only. My thoughts as a
small child that Spanish was a dirty language where drawn from society and reinforced. I use
this example because it demonstrates how white supremacy operates. As a small child I
learned that my language, my culture, my history was all central, all important. I didnt
need someone to tell me that white people were better or superior, it was indoctrinated in my
surroundings in a way that it need not be spoken.
It is important for white people to look at their experiences and deconstruct them, look into
events and find their meaning. One of the crucial ways that people of color resist white
supremacy is by confronting internalized racism, by coming to terms with a society that has

systematically devalued their humanity, covered up their history, brutalized their memory of
themselves as a people and then placed white standards as the mark by which they are judged
(in terms of beauty, in terms of culture, in terms of language, and in terms of intelligence).
Black feminist theorist, bell hooks, writes, oppressed people resist by identifying themselves
as subjects, by defining their reality, shaping their new identity, naming their history, telling
their story. Shaping history and defining a new reality is a strategy that must be embraced by
white folks who desperately want to see the end of racism. Racism will always exist so long
as whiteness exists, as white identity has been developed through the process of slavery,
genocide and cultural annihilation. White identity was fused together as a way of dealing with
massive injustice to be white is to be human and all others are subhuman, savages, beasts of
burden to be worked, raped, beaten and robbed they deserve what they get and little else
can be expected of them anyway. White identity has mutated and evolved over the years, but
its core belief in being better, of being above others is deeply intact. When white people
complain that Mexicans are taking their jobs; when white people complain that Asian
Americans are taking over their country; when white people complain that Blacks are ruining
their neighborhood this concept of ownership, of entitlement, is all based on the notion that
this is a white society that is supposed to benefit white people.
W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the great intellectuals of American society, wrote that white people
are rewarded for their support of a system that largely does not benefit them in terms of
how much power and wealth is concentrated into the hands of the few. He called this reward,
the psychological wages of whiteness. The ability of white people to think of themselves as
better than Black folks, regardless of how poor they are, how many hours they have to work,
how their labor makes someone else rich. I might be poor, but at least Im not a nigger is
how white identity helps shape a horribly disfigured humanity of hierarchy and punishment
in the service of power and wealth. If white people are to work for an end to racial injustice
then we must come to understand how the psychological wages of whiteness have
(mis)shaped our identity and (de)formed our consciousness. Until white people confront their
internalized superiority, the dynamics of racism will be reproduced unconsciously. Becoming
conscious of how race operates, one will still make many mistakes and reproduce racism, but
at least we can work to undo this and undermine this dynamic. Furthermore, when the
internalized impact of white supremacy of (un)consciously believing that white people are
simply better is confronted by white people, then as bell hooks suggests, new identities can
be shaped and we can work to define our own reality.
Audre Lorde, Black lesbian feminist superstar, said it is axiomatic that if we do not define
ourselves for ourselves, we will be defined by others for their use and to our detriment.
While whiteness does carry many privileges and benefits in a white supremacist system, it
also comes with a heavy price. James Baldwin, another superstar of radical thought,
compared whiteness to a factory and he encouraged white people to get out.
In his essay, On Being White and Other Lies, James Baldwin writes about the price of
being white, But this cowardice, this necessity of justifying a totally false identity and of
justifying what must be called a genocidal history, has placed everyone now living into the

hands of the most ignorant and powerful people the world has ever seen: and how did they
get that way? By deciding that they were white. By opting for safety instead of life. By
persuading themselves that a Black childs life meant nothing compared with a white childs
life. By abandoning their children to the things white men could buy. By informing their
children that Black women, Black men and Black children had no human integrity that those
who call themselves white were bound to respect. And in this debasement and definition of
Black people, they debased and defamed themselves.
Booker T. Washington once said, When you hold me down in this ditch, you too remain in
the same ditch. The ditch is a society based on race, class and gender hierarchies. A society
that devours the planet and threatens ecological disaster. A society so full of fear and hatred
that queer youth commit suicide. A society that demonizes and punishes whole segments of
the population because they are poor, regardless of how the economy creates and needs
poverty. This is a society where rape and countless other forms of more subtle sexualized
violence are regular occurrences. The list of damage is enormous, and so too is the daily
impact of our humanity cut off because of all of this damage this is how white people have
debased and defamed themselves, as Baldwin wrote.
Baldwin also wrote, as long as you think you are white, there is no hope for you. No hope
for you? No hope for what? I believe what Baldwin is saying, is that as long as you identify
with a system that is based on domination regardless of what privileges, concessions or
wages of whiteness you receive then your humanity will be horribly distorted and hope will
be lost. I also believe that the hope Baldwin speaks of is a hope for a new humanity that
works for equality and liberation. So what does this mean for us white folks what do we do
and how do we organize?
In her book, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of
Empowerment, Patricia Hill Collins writes, Suppressing the knowledge produced by any
oppressed group makes it easier for dominant groups to rule because the seeming absence of
an independent consciousness in the oppressed can be taken to mean that subordinate groups
willingly collaborate in their own victimization. White folks need to read and study the
knowledge produced by people of color. Furthermore, in fighting against a system of
domination the works of queers, women, working class whites, labor organizers and
radicals of all colors must be read and we must learn and develop an analysis that connects all
of this to an understanding of how power operates in ways that both oppress and liberate.
Collins quotes a student of hers, Patricia L. Dickenson, who writes, it is a fundamental
contention of mine that in a social context which denies and deforms a persons capacity to
realize herself, the problem of self-consciousness is not simply a problem of thought, but also
a problem of practice the demand to end a deficient consciousness must be joined to a
demand to eliminate the conditions which caused it. While we are developing an analysis of
race, class, gender, age and sexual identity we must also work to end inequalities based on
race, class and gender in the structures of our society. This means that we need to bring an
understanding of race, class and gender to the work that we do around environmentalism,

sweat shop labor, affordable housing, police brutality, child care, globalization, poverty and
militarism.
One way that we can do this is by shifting the center of our analysis. How does
environmentalism impact working class Latino/as? The environmental justice movement that
organizes against toxic waste dumps in poor communities (among many, many other things)
offers answers to this question. How does immigration impact Asian American women? The
group Asian Immigrant Women Advocates have been doing amazing work around this, and
books like Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire and State of Asian
America: activism and resistance in the 1990s, edited by Karin Aguilar-San Juan. How have
Black women organized and developed forms of resistance to race, class and gender
oppression? Check out books like Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter: the Impact of
Black Women on Race and Sex in America. Read Words of Fire: an anthology of African
American Feminist Thought edited by Beverly Guy-Sheftall. Check out the book, Women in
the Civil Rights Movement, that simply rocks as it contains essays on activism, resistance and
community building that offer so many important insights and lessons for our work today. We
need to read books like Reluctant Reformers by Robert Allen on racism and social reform
movements in the US, to understand how white supremacy has lead white activists to
undermine the activism of people of color and how those dynamics continue to get played
out. Additionally there are so many amazing activists and organizations out there that we can
learn from and work in solidarity with.
Chicana lesbian feminist writer and activist, Gloria Anzaldua, wrote in her book,
Borderlands: La Frontera, Nothing happens in the real world unless it first happens in the
images in our heads. This is why it is crucial that white people consciously, critically and
consistently work to undermine internalized white supremacy that prevents many of us from
seeing people of color as fully human. Additionally, white activists need to know about the
resistance and organizing of people of color so that we can image new ways of resisting and
organizing in a way that works for collective liberation.
Here are some more books that can help us develop the radical analysis that we need in order
to survive. David R. Roedigers Black on White: Black Writers on What it Means to Be White.
Elizabeth Betita Martinezs De Colores Means All Of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored
Century. Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Michael Omi and Howard
Winants Racial Formation in the United States: from the 1960s to the 1990s. Barbara
Smiths The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender and Freedom. William Upski
Wimsatts No More Prisons. State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization and
Resistance, edited by M. Annette Jaimes. Charles Paynes Ive Got the Light of Freedom: the
Mississippi Freedom Movement and the Organizing Tradition. There are many more
excellent books out there.
The analysis that we learn and the creative and thoughtful ways that we apply this analysis to
our work will lead to important developments in the struggle against white supremacy and the
entire monster of domination, which white supremacy is part of.