Brief Report Back Sunday’s Radical Crone Combating White Supremacy Meeting Sunday August 15th

We began with the resources recommended in the previous month’s Sunday meeting: GirlTrek’s interview with Angela Davis and Jane Elliot, as well as the book “White Fragility”.

The two main concerns raised were Jane Elliot’s ‘attitude’ when breaking down racism & white people’s defenses. Her brusqueness, failure to ‘sugar coat’ or create a ‘safe’ space for white people to address racism led into a discussion of the points gleaned from “White Fragility”, or the ways in which white people focus on the ‘tone’ giving us an ‘out’ in order to avoid dealing with the message.

It is also a clear example of white privilege: we can demand racism be revealed to us under specific 'acceptable' circumstances where as no person of color gets to demand ‘kindness’ etc., when racism is 'revealed' against them.

In the same ‘tone’ policing discussion, we could relate as females, as womyn (including white womyn) get that same misogynist ‘tone’ control.

Another example was brought up of when adults of color warn youth at a party to ‘quiet down’ in order not to scare the white folks – which is said partially in jest, but mostly to warn those youth and arm them with a tool to combat very real racism: first of all, young people of color being ‘rowdy’ can/does scare white people; and secondly when white people are scared the police are called – which can & does end in murder.

The other concern was feminism: someone pointed out that Girltrek doesn’t consider themselves ‘feminist’ which led into a discussion of why feminism is seen as a white movement and how Black and brown feminists have been sidelined, disappeared, ignored – due to racism white womyn bring into feminism and because of racism at large. One of the womyn (me) went on to model “unintentional” racism, but racism all the same, confusing Angela Davis and Alice Walker by mis-attributing the concept of “womonism” to Angela Davis when it was Alice Walker’s concept.

We spent time then reaching back into our childhoods and how we were raised, sharing when and how we became aware of racism, the neighborhoods we lived in whether cities or towns or rural areas – all segregated racially, whether by building, block or entire town; even though we might not think of totally white environments as ‘segregated’ but are much more familiar with seeing totally Black or brown environments as ‘segregated’.

Another example of “unintentional” racism occurred when speaking of “Blacks” and then in the next sentence referring to “white people” as white people. We discussed how dehumanizing both the references as “Blacks and white people” is, plus even if we said “Blacks” and “whites”, there is still racism in choosing that terminology instead of Black people and white people because of the historic and present racist designation of “Blacks” as opposed to “whites”. 

We also spoke briefly of the trap of making "generalizations" - where generalizations are necessary, even critical in life - that is generalizations based in fact and truth - it is the generalizations based on lies, prejudice, bigotry, discrimination that make 'generalization' a negative concept.

This meeting of white womyn was productive if difficult at times, and I am looking forward to convening again next month, continuing this crucial dissecting of white supremacy.

Reportback Nextdoor August 18th

After sharing our particular challenges and successes from our recent personal lives' journey to anti-racism, we continued talking about free speech, asking "do we have free speech", how much, when do we fear speaking up, when is it comfortable, when is it dangerous?

We talked a little about the tool of fear those in power use to curtail our free speech and our willingness to speak. How real is that fear? Will we REALLY lose our jobs, our friends, our family if/when we 'speak up'?

And if the fear is real and well founded, what are we willing to risk in decided when/if to speak up?

We discussed the different levels of concern, guilt, blame for not taking enough risk or taking the risks that threaten our life styles, our comfort among family and friends. 

White privilege dominates this conversation, of course, as we recognize the safety, security we have as white womyn, getting to choose if/when/how we act as anti-racists. We recognize that we, as well as probably most white womyn, want to do the right thing, want to be the impetus that smashes racism once and for all - which conflicts greatly with our also wanting safety and security.

The bottom line, a line which is such a personal choice and one we want to examine weekly, if not daily is: what are we willing to risk??

We also spoke once again of honing our responses to be the most effective when someone makes a racist comment in our presence. For example we can ask: "do you think that what you just said is racist?" "why do you think that is or isn't?" Getting people to share the reasoning behind/under their beliefs. 

Being aware of language use - how do we use language to oppress/silence /hurt people (that's gay / you're retarded)

And finally, witnessing opportunities to engage and NOT saying anything is part of our white privilege: we believe we don't have any NEED to say something - unless our goal is to be anti-racist.

For next week, we will be thinking and practicing some aspect of our anti-racism goals that has been/is very difficult.

See you next Tuesday, August 25th 6pm! Same zoom info