Brief Report back: "NOW What Will White Womyn Do To End Racism?" Zoom Gathering Sunday August 15th

We have often talked about how to decide if we can actually have an anti-racist impact on the most overtly racist white person, as a KKK member, a tRumpite, and evangelists – citing how this is probably a waste of our time and energy, how these people will never change. We give ourselves all kind of permission to allow these folks to slip by, decide not to try communicating, writing them off.

And then along comes Daryl Davis who has spent years of his life seeking out, dialoguing with, and even befriending these dangerous, overt, violent racists. And successfully changing their minds and hearts, asking “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?”

One womon shared her challenge story that grew into a success: she was tabling for the Urban League, recruiting members for the book group which was to read “White Fragility”. An old angry white man approached her stating “my people came to this country, no body helped us, we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps.”

She said she didn’t know exactly what to say – it’s a mantra that lots of white immigrants claim – so she just listened and tried to ask questions. He kept coming back and in the end, he signed up for the book club – but she worried that maybe she should warn the organizers about him.

When a white person says they came to this country…with nothing or little – our question can be “Oh did you come in chains?” “Were you laid head-to-toe in the belly of a ship chained together?” “Was your language ripped from your throat?” “Were you enslaved for several hundred years?”

MLK pointed out “how can a man pull himself up by is bootstraps if he doesn’t have a pair of boots?”

We talked about white skin currency: how white people never come here with nothing as long as they have white skin. They might not have all the other trappings of capitalism – yet – but they also know that there is a formula in this country and if they follow that formula – work hard, get an education, keep your nose clean – they will make it. By design.

And others will not make it, no matter how they followed the ‘formula’ – because slavery was never outlawed, just the form changed and the institution responsible for perpetuating slavery morphed into prisons.

We started talking a little bit about Haiti but were distracted. We talked about remaining vigilant for those “superiority/inferiority” moments upon which all the isms are built upon.

We talked about how white people are very “uncomfortable” at best, when “white” is stated and not just assumed. On the same side of that coin, how “uncomfortable” white people are when “Black” is stated: “African American” makes them feel so much more comfortable.

And we spend time again rehashing the “best” approaches: vinegar? honey? Tread softly, smash the plexiglas barriers protecting white racism? As we role model each method, we want to have a well-rounded tool box with all these choices but the bottom line is do we tip toe around white fagility or do we confront it? If we see racism as a violent, terrible weapon that is hurting if not killing people, what choice to we really have?

More next week

Resources: Toni Morrison “The Bluest Eye”, “Sula” Isabel Wilkerson: “Caste” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: ”Americanah” Daryl Davis: “Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man's Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan” 2016 Documentary: “Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America”