Brief Report back: White Womyn Divest of White Supremacy, a Zoom Gathering “What Will White Womyn Do To End Racism”

We welcomed three new white womyn to this zoom gathering and one womon shared that she was part of a DEI group at work, which stands for “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion”. We discussed “diversity” as a white-washing of racism, given how can a white person value diversity when we’re shrouded, at best, in racism.

We mentioned how Black and brown womyn were absent from this DEI group, and how that impacts/doesn’t impact “diversity”.A fact our group addressed: why would Black or brown womyn want to come and be exposed to white co-workers racism unless they were getting paid a lot of money; that it is not enough to simply pay the hourly rate the white people were getting to attend during work hours.

Briefly, we touched on addressing the white person who claims that their Black friend or co-worker says there's no racism on the job or with their behavior. To be continued.

We discussed “equity” briefly, including the recent graphic that made the rounds of the three figures attempting to look over the fence, the inequality obvious from their different heights: equality is giving each person the same box to stand on; equity is giving each person several boxes to stand on until their heights are the same.

Equity vs Equality link https://ces101fall2018.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/equity-versus-equality-triple-participation/

We talked about the image of folks behind a fence and the symbolism of the fence dividing people. The tree graphic is better, with no fence dividing people.

The link to this graphic: https://medium.com/@CRA1G/the-evolution-of-an-accidental-meme-ddc4e139e0e4

and: https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=QPfqg37s&id=F4CB47E4582A6C959578452A07BA7FE0D38F82D9&thid=OIP.QPfqg37sDJzcSH6nAy_DEQAAAA&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.healthvermont.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2F2019%2F05%2FPLN_HealthEquityTrees.png&cdnurl=https%3A%2F%2Fth.bing.com%2Fth%2Fid%2FR.40f7ea837eec0c9cdc487ea7032fc311%3Frik%3D2YKP0%252bB%252fugcqRQ%26pid%3DImgRaw%26r%3D0&exph=188&expw=400&q=equity+image+fruit+picking&simid=608031068541360455&form=IRPRST&ck=9390EE972263B8F92AA68604A50C1648&selectedindex=0&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0&vt=0&sim=11

We again discussion how white people not just get to choose if and when we will confront racism, but also when we “give up” confronting racism, as it is too hard, too useless, too beyond our skills – our reasons for retreating into white supremacy.

All radical feminists are invited to this facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/347616022329300

The fact that white people most often grow up in segregated neighborhoods, schools, communities, institutions therefore not knowing Black and/or brown people – yet white people are carefully taught and know racism, including stereotypes, myths, fears and supremacy. Part of which is the fact that “white” is understood, is the default for so much and how we are working to flip that by making sure “white” is spelled out.

We moved on to talk a little about the sharing of resources as a form reparations and a way for white womyn to acknowledge our privilege and compensate for that privilege built on the depriving or excluding of Black and brown womyn. Even though reparations are the bottom line to righting wrongful unjust privilege, it is very painful for some white womyn, especially those of us who see ourselves as “poor” or “deprived” when comparing our lives to the wealthy of this country, and not the poorest of this country.

More on reparations next time.

We acknowledge Black History Month and the Chinese New Year, sharing many resources. We continued our discussion of taking action as a vital component of our anti-racism work: resources we shared included: the AntiRacism Daily www.antiracismdaily.com who are also doing a special “28 Days of Black History” for this Black History month; Layla F. Saad “Me and White Supremacy”; “PushBlack”, and Kendi’s “Be AntiRacist”.

Police brutality, specifically in the small predominantly white town of Rockford IL and the occupation of city hall by the May 30th Alliance and the continued killings of and brutality against Black and brown people in that town by police concluded our zoom. Once again, we discussed the “good” police concept that white people want to hang onto and how difficult it is for many to challenge ourselves and each other in order to see the police for exactly who they are, why they are, and always have been.

If you’ve been to jail for justice: https://annefeeney.bandcamp.com/track/have-you-been-to-jail-for-justice

Our next zoom will be Sunday, Feb 20th at 4pm pacific, 5pm mountain, 6pm central, 7pm east coast. Watch the Facebook page “But What Can I Do” for further details www.facebook.com/ButWhatCanIDo2018