Brief Report Back Nextdoor zoom gathering 9/1: "What Will White Womyn Do To End Racism?"

Tonight's gathering was slightly marred by technical difficulties: several womyn attempted to sign on but couldn't and I dropped off a few times, given my iffy connection.

We began our introductions by sharing our short term anti-racist goals and our long-term anti-racism goals which eventually led into a painful discussion about how faithfully and blindly white people cling to racism, despite having a good friend who is Black. The smashed hope that if only white people could mingle with Black and brown people, if only white people could get to know Black and brown people, they won't be so hateful or won't keep prejudices and stereotypes close to their bigoted hearts.

One womon spoke of a 40 year friendship with a white family where political discussions never were on the table until recently when the white man wrote an email expressing his support of tRump and claiming tRump is not a racist. How shocking and painful receiving this email was and is.

We spoke about how integration by itself cannot work unless and until white people are willing to examine and be responsible for racism. And white people's comfort in befriending a "token" Black person and how hurtful, enraging and deeply betraying of that friendship that that tokenism is.

This led to a discussion of gentrification, which is a huge issue in our Atlanta neighborhoods. And in neighborhoods across the country. How gentrification has taken the place of red-lining and is as devastating a practice to old Black neighborhoods as it's has always been. And when white people gentrify a neighborhood, what responsibility do they have to their Black neighbors? 

And of course we spoke of Tulsa and similar devastating destruction by furious white people of Black communities who did manage to build a thriving neighborhood - an overt racist practice that has morphed into a somewhat more 'gentle' practice of gentrification.

We talked about some of the stereotypes white people hold against Black homeowners, claiming Black people don't know how to take care of their property - thus bringing the value of the neighborhood down. And when white people really don't take care of their property, all white people are not blamed or held responsible.

An incident of unintentional racism arose when one white womon spoke of "women" and then "Blacks". So where does that leave Black womyn? The 'white' is understood in the term 'women', which is part of racism in this case and always; plus calling Black people "Blacks" is a demeaning term white people should avoid.

Historically, we know that "Blacks" did not get the right to vote, but Black men allegedly got the right to vote, but only on paper, not in practice, and still not in practice in too many places. Black womyn certainly did not get the right to vote when white womyn did, but not until the Voting Rights Act of 1964 did Black people legally get the right to vote - which has been undermined and suppressed in many creative ways ever since.

Why are white people so angry and so afraid of Black people???

Recently a friend asked for white people to answer this question and so of course, I did.

Here are my thoughts - please share yours as well.

THANK YOU for asking this painful formidable question and seeking answers.

I myself, an old white jewish anti-racist feminist lesbian, have been trying to sort through this deep ugly hatred and fear and anger of white people for a long time, attempting to find the source, to understand how this most incomprehensible, reprehensible (at best) way of white being can be understood – not to accept but in order to be able to impact and change it – if not the feeling, then to eliminate the behavior (and hope the feelings catch up).

What I have learned – from studying white people including digging into my self and upbringing – is that this fear and hatred and anger is and has been carefully taught, honed, rewarded through every single aspect of white life from the family, to the neighborhood, the education, the job, the religious institution, the values and mores, the community, the state, the country, the very foundation we build upon and maintain. We have it before we are born and we pass it on as we live and leave it as our legacy when we die.

I think the overriding fear of all white people stems from two things: white people are afraid Black people are going to gain power and treat them as they’ve treated Black people – and there is no doubt in my mind that every white person knows the horrific, inhumane torture we’ve inflicted upon and continue to inflict upon Black people and people of color; the other thing is that white people are afraid they will lose their status, their possessions, their riches illgained when they have to acknowledge whites have gained everything through the most anti-christian means of genocide, rape, enslavement and war, war, war.

I think the blatant overt bigot racist also feels deprived of the status and wealth his skin color demands and had promised him or at least his children or children’s children; and maybe because of the skill of divide and conquer of those in power, maybe because their own humanity has been destroyed by these centuries of racism, they turn their anger toward those they see ‘beneath’ them and not towards those that are actually on top of them.

I think the liberal white racist keeps fear and anger close because they do not want to challenge their deeply engrained belief that they are superior (denied belief), they have gained what they have through hard work, determination, pulling themselves up by their boot straps; that they somehow deserve what they have; that if only Black and brown people would follow the formula to success that white people follow, of course then Black people too would have the same things. Liberal whites do not want to face the fact that they have what they have because white people were willing to kill, enslave, destroy, loot other peoples and continue today to live off those riches and perpetuate that m.o. currently not just domestically but internationally as well.

Liberal white people know on some level that they will have to reexamine every belief, every little thing that brings them status, ‘security’, comfort including their understanding of christianity or all religious beliefs tainted by if not constructed upon both racism and misogyny, everything that defined their ‘meaningful existence’ will have to be taken apart and abandoned if not destroyed, including the fuckin amerikkkan nitemare. They will have to face all the lies, the myths, the propaganda that their wealth and life styles have been built upon and they think of this as terrifying instead of liberating.

But the most overriding reason of all is that we have destroyed and lost our humanity: white people are no longer human and haven’t been since the Discovery Doctrine of the mid-1400’s directed christians to go out and kill, enslave, and steal from non-christians around the world.

And this white person, I am angry, I am outraged – and I do fear white men with or without their hoods or robes but with guns and their hatred, and their allies. I am soooooo angry that this legacy of racism was hoisted upon my back, that this racism is so deeply ingrained I have to daily remind myself to open my eyes, to be aware, and to fight racism inside and outside. I am angry my family of origin taught me racism, not the overt bigot kind but the superior kind where my role as a white person is to help Black and brown people get up to the level of white people. I am outraged that white people choose to cling to this superiority so deeply and value their fuckin property so deeply they can justify killing another human being because white people do not see them as human but as criminals.

And most of all, I’m angry because racism interferes constantly with my relationships with Black and brown womyn.

I am angry white people do not see – and I most often fail in my attempts to hold up the mirror – that the only way to real liberation and to begin to regain our humanity is to be an overt, active, loud-mouthed anti-racist grabbing our privilege like a bat and swinging it at racism, at misogyny, at injustice.

In love and rage, Xan