Brief Report Back "Feminism and the Anti-racist lens" Zoom gathering Sunday Sept 5th

We had a lively, sometimes contentious, and often uncomfortable discussion, especially when examining our personal tool box for confronting racism within ourselves but mostly within the "fragile", "normal" white person: i.e. not the overt, violent racist but the protesting "I'm not a racist" racist.

We discussed being the “race traitor”, from the overt violent klan’s attack on white people who step outside our white boundaries, to the more subtle but just as virulent silencing of mentioning “white” and/or “racism” as betraying white condolence of white silence.

We talked about academia's contribution to and responsibility for both racism and providing opportunity for anti-racism to develop and flourish. For afterall, CRT began in academia and although relatively non-threatening to white dominance, now that the 1619 project is promoting truth and real historical facts, the backlash has been stoked by tRump. We discussed then did the 1619 project come from academia or from the life and experiences of Nikole Hannah-Jones, who quite fiercely put white academia into its place.

Facing the fact that our educational institutions' primary responsibility - including all levels of education - is to be a major perpetuator of racism, ensuring white privilege and supremacy, is an extremely difficult recognition, especially for those of us (still) connected to these institutions.

The myth and often lie that education is promoting and honing “critical thinking” is one that keeps us committed to the institution. Although the opportunity for critical thinking is and has been present when not co-opted or destroyed by systemic and individual racism.

We defined "internalized" racism as internalizing the systemic oppression aimed at the targets of racism. As white people are the sole beneficiaries and not the targets of racism and although racism is “embraced” internally and externally by whites, we do not suffer from the internalizing oppression but internalizing supremacy.

We touched briefly on science and that institutions’ historic and present day role in perpetuating racism as well as the faith white people have – or don’t have – in “science”. Again, science can be used as an avenue for researching and presenting truth or for justifying, continuing and implementing racism.

We concluded with a brief acknowledgement of the u.s.ofa.’s role in creating and developing religious fundamentalism began in Afghanistan several decades ago and in the u.s.ofa. several centuries ago.

Resources:

“Memoirs of a Race Traitor” by Mab Segrest “Radical Vision: A biography of Lorraine Hansberry” by Soyica Diggs Colbert “Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and america’s Prison Nation” by Beth Richie