Brief Report Back Saturday 9am zoom “I’m not white, I’m Italian”

 After checking in and sharing our challenges confronting racism this past week and our successes, we placed two things on the table: 1) how to talk with white wombn who deny they’re white; and 2) when a white wombn learns something from a brown person and then tries to ‘teach’ another brown person what she said and is called racist.

We focused on talking about those white wombn who want to deny they are white or have white skin privilege, whether they consider themselves “poor”, or Jewish, or Italian, or disabled, or facing various forms of discrimination and hatred themselves therefore, can not be racist.

The latter was the ‘easiest’ to address: yes, we are all female, some of us are lesbian, disabled, ‘poor’ but none of us were also discriminated against because of our darker skin color. We all know what it is like to be discriminated against or targeted because of sexism but none of us know what it’s like to be discriminated against because of both sexism and racism.

We know that the “I’ve been discriminated against also” is a common tactic white people embrace to avoid talking about racism, let alone being accountable for ending racism.

Some would talk about the history of whiteness in this country and our present day wealth, status, privileges.

We role played different ways to embrace anti-racism and eliminate racism through facing whiteness and not denying privilege. Responses varied from: “You look white to me. Are you telling me that people at your job think you are not white? How about your neighbors or landlord?” to “Interesting. Were you born in Italy? Your mom? Who in your family was born in Italy?” “What did you great-grandparents have to relinquish of their Italian heritage to become a white amerikkkan?” “What did they hold onto? What is Italian about you?”

Going from figuring out how closely a white person has held on to their ‘non-white’ culture and what have they been willing to or forced to ‘give up’. In other words, “What is white about you?” Or “What is not white about you?”

And then pointing out that part of our white skin privilege is being in a position to “give up” or better yet, “assimilate” so we can gain white skin privilege.

One white wombn was willing to not confront racism she witnessed at all but thought befriending the white person in denial of whiteness would eventually lead to something where at some point in their relationship something other would happen – back to square racism 101, unfortunately.

We talked about the “fear of triggering” as yet another tactic white people use to silence the discussion of racism. We need to be “triggered” if that’s where we’re at and not allow triggering to be an excuse: the talking about racism is NOTHING compared to being the target of that person’s racism.

We did do that ‘white’ thang leaving racism behind and getting sidetracked into talking about anti-semitism and comparing the systemic, structural, and personal differences historically and present day between anti-Jewish hatred and anti-Black hatred. A discussion that is important and has huge value but also distracts from focusing on racism.

As we know racism is transmitted and continued through language, the “back lash” term was challenged as a horrific racist term of whipping the backs of enslaved wombn and men and children. And of course the “enslaved people” – slaves were NOT brought from Africa but people were: mothers, fathers, people were stolen from Africa and enslaved.

We also confronted language use that does not mention “racism” but “whitewashes” i.e. refers to ‘incidents’ of racism as “sad” or “unfortunate” – the “softening” of horrific racist behavior, words, practices to make it more palatable for white people.

Once again, we talked about the need for white people to focus on identifying and eliminating barriers that keep neighborhoods, organizations, schools, etc. white – instead of attempting to “find” Black people to invite, instead of looking to what Black people can do for ourselves, organizations, etc., ask instead what do we have that Black people would want?

Suggested resources:

“The Sum of Us” by Heather McGhee

Africatown in Alabama https://www.facebook.com/FinleyForMayor2021/posts/135022718496241

Pillars and Bridges: a Tucson-based anti-police brutality network

“The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wilkerson

“How the Light Gets In” by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown