Brief Report Back Saturday, 2/14 “What Will White Wombn Do To End Racism?”

After we shared our recent challenges and successes addressing racism and increasing our effectiveness in sharpening our anti-racism skills, we identified three areas we wanted to put on the screen:

 

1)    The classroom ‘incident’ where the white teacher had the class playing “Hangman” on Feb 1^st, the beginning of Black History Month, and assigned one of the only children of color the letters “BLM”

 

2)   Addressing white people who refuse to claim “white” but deny whiteness behind Italian, Jew, ‘poor’, other targets of discrimination

 

3)   Getting banned from white lesbian groups for pointing out or bringing up racism

 

1) …The incident: we talked first about the egregiousness of the overt racism exemplified here. The white teacher may or may not have been ‘aware’ of how fuckin racist she was being – the ‘innocent’: we’re ‘just’ playing a game, it’s Black History month so BLM is part, of course no white child would/should have those letters but the Black/brown child.

We talked about ‘shock’ – how shocking it is that this happened and when it happened – and yet how not shocking it is. Is it part of white privilege/racism to respond with shock, as if we’re not expecting racism to happen every day, every moment? And if we’re not shocked, is that also part of racism and white privilege?

The intentional: the history of lynching reflected/perpetuated in the hangman; the re-enforcing and teaching white supremacy while targeting and discounting both BLM and Black History month.

The suggestions: firing of white teacher, especially if she doesn’t assume accountability for her racism and the harm done especially to the Black and brown children; mandatory anti-racism workshops monthly if not weekly for all white teachers (parents and students also); going/emailing/calling school board members to demand action and accountability; implementing curriculum year-round at the school “Teaching Tolerance” by the Southern Poverty Law Center; 1619 Project, etc.; taking white children out of classroom and talking/teaching them about the racism that went down; inviting BLM into the classroom to talk about the movement; support for the targeted children and their families; contacting the parent/teacher association(s), community groups.

We talked about the red flag in “tolerance” – the white bias in that position, plus who wants to be merely ‘tolerated’? How about valued and honored and important? Even the SPLC makes mistakes, needs ‘reframing’ from an anti-racist/anti-dominant culture perspective.

2)… It is especially hard for Jews, who have been legally discriminated against, faced genocide, murdered – and in some of our or our parents’ lifetimes – to be able to claim “white” as part of who we are.

“Not white” as in “not wasp” – where there are whites who are not wasps but where white skin privilege has been “extended” due to our ability to assimilate. Those who’ve been brought up as “Jew” or “Italian” not overtly told we are also white.

Talking about white skin privilege, regardless of our ethnicity or Jewish-ness. Yes we’ve all faced certain forms of discrimination so we ‘should’ be able to take that experience, knowing what it’s like to be the targets of prejudice and bigotry, and use that experience to then increase our empathy for others who are targets as well as increase our urgency to ensure that we are not actively part of that targeting but part of being accountable for smashing/ending that targeting.

Asking non-wasp whites how have they become white? The cost of becoming white which every white/light skinned peoples have ‘embraced’, paid the price of assimilation to benefit from white privilege. Even Jews, who are probably the closest to a white racial/religious group have managed to retain a lot of their culture or maybe unable to ‘give’ it up in order to assimilate, but have still benefitted from white privilege.

We will continue this conversation next week.

 

3)…we again spoke of Isabel Wilkerson’s quote in Caste about what we need to be willing to do in order to speak truth to power, to challenge the injustices in the status quo/power structure. Being banned is actually nothing compared to being killed, imprisoned, tortured or losing job, home, things.

We are “doing our job” when we are ostracized or removed from fb pages, organizations, even friends that are operating under and in a racist/sexist/misogynist war-mongering patriarchy. At least we are in good company.

How to address white wombn who claim that race is “assigned” therefore not real, therefore we don’t need to talk about racism. Race is as much ‘assigned’ as sex, meaning it is not. Yes, we’re all part of the ‘human race’ and there are biological and physical similarities among racial categories and differences between racial designations as in skin color, hair texture, etc.

As in sex, it is NOT the designation of race nor sex that is ‘assigned’ and the problem, but it is what is attributed to those designations – ‘gender’ and racial identities that enable racism, sexism, misogyny to flourish and rape/control/dominate/imprison/kill those targeted while granting status/privilege/safety/security/advantage etc. to those doing/reaping the benefits of the targeting.

This is an on-going conversation also.

Recommended resources:

Vandana Shiva – anything and everything written/produced by her

Isabel Wilkerson “Caste” and “The Warmth of Other Sons”

Cori Bush https://youtu.be/MVtG3VgT6nE

LaTosha Brown – Bus Boys and Poets

“So You Want to Talk About Race” book by Ijeoma Oluo