"That conversation" is the conversation about race.
Which Big Boss wants to hold at work today...
Lord, give me WOOSAH.
BB told me and my white coworkers he wants help because Concerned White People (CWPs) keep asking him,
"What can I do?"
(I told him he could say, "Let me google that for you.")
Yesterday he asked us to think of responses and come back tomorrow for a conversation.
Lucky me, eh? to sit down again with a coworker who told me that "being nice" was key to racial harmony.
Guess they never read Martin Luther King Jr saying nice white people were more of a hindrance than the KKK...*
I want to be helpful though, so I went home and compiled a beginner's list for Big Boss to hand to CWPs.
(I figure anyone who asks a black man for help with race--especially at this time--has not really considered their own place in the topic.)
I started with the most basic, nonthreatening list--from USA Today. It starts with "write a letter, make a donation" and works up to "educate yourself."
I put together a reading list that includes links to online articles that people can read right away.
How many people are really going to read a lot of books? Also, books such as White Fragility––which helped me better see my white world--are on back order!
ARTICLE: "Who Gets to Be Afraid in America? May 12, 2020, by Ibram X. Kendi: "Americans don’t see me, or Ahmaud Arbery, running down the road—they see their fear."
Which Big Boss wants to hold at work today...
Lord, give me WOOSAH.
BB told me and my white coworkers he wants help because Concerned White People (CWPs) keep asking him,
"What can I do?"
(I told him he could say, "Let me google that for you.")
Yesterday he asked us to think of responses and come back tomorrow for a conversation.
Lucky me, eh? to sit down again with a coworker who told me that "being nice" was key to racial harmony.
Guess they never read Martin Luther King Jr saying nice white people were more of a hindrance than the KKK...*
I want to be helpful though, so I went home and compiled a beginner's list for Big Boss to hand to CWPs.
(I figure anyone who asks a black man for help with race--especially at this time--has not really considered their own place in the topic.)
I started with the most basic, nonthreatening list--from USA Today. It starts with "write a letter, make a donation" and works up to "educate yourself."
I put together a reading list that includes links to online articles that people can read right away.
How many people are really going to read a lot of books? Also, books such as White Fragility––which helped me better see my white world--are on back order!
1. USA Today newspaper published this list on June 4, 2020,
"100 Ways You Can Take Action Against Racism"
"100 Ways You Can Take Action Against Racism"
It doesn't say it's for white people, but it's pretty basic and non-threatening, kind of like a Starter Kit.
2. Other lists are more challenging, like:
"White People, You Gotta Get to Work NOW:
"White People, You Gotta Get to Work NOW:
9 Things White People Can Do to Fight Racism Now",
from Luvvie Ajayi, a black writer (she's a Christian too):
I also liked her 17-minute TED Talk--about speaking up, speaking the truth--how it's like skydiving, terrifying, but worthwhile: "Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable"
https://www.ted.com/talks/
https://www.ted.com/talks/
3. Reading List for White People
(Includes newspaper articles)
BOOK: White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism (2018), by Robin diAngelo
***Newspaper ARTICLE also by this author: "White people assume niceness is the answer to racial inequality. It's not."
Article: "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"
by Peggy MacIntosh. She says, "I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege inmy life."
by Peggy MacIntosh. She says, "I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege inmy life."
The whole article is here:
ARTICLE: "Who Gets to Be Afraid in America? May 12, 2020, by Ibram X. Kendi: "Americans don’t see me, or Ahmaud Arbery, running down the road—they see their fear."
Here is an excerpt from the book:
BOOK: So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo:
"Oluo gives us--both white people and people of color--that language to engage in clear, constructive, and confident dialogue with each other about how to deal with racial prejudices and biases."
"Oluo gives us--both white people and people of color--that language to engage in clear, constructive, and confident dialogue with each other about how to deal with racial prejudices and biases."
BOOK: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
ARTICLE "The New Jim Crow: How the war on drugs gave birth to a permanent American undercaste."
❧ ❧ ❧
* From MLK's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail":
__Via "The Part About MLK White People Don’t Like to Talk About", www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2019/01/22/the-part-about-mlk-white-people-don2019t-like-to-talk-about“First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate.
"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice;
who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’;
who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom;
who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’
"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
Looks like a you put together a good list to start as a jumping off point for all us well-meaning white people. Maybe Wayne can just photocopy it and pass it out to those who ask, telling them "get back to me after you've worked your way through this list."
ReplyDeleteThanks for these links, Fresca.
ReplyDelete“Being nice” — that’s something like the refrain of many people where I am (where there’s racism a-plenty): “I’m not prejudiced. I treat everyone the same.” If anyone tells me that, I have an answer now: “Maybe you do, but our institutions don‘t.”
Jane Elliott (creator of the blue eyes/brown eyes classroom experiment) has a useful question for white adult audiences: it’s here. Not sure of the source.