Since anti-racist protests swept the globe, I have been doing a lot of my own soul-searching and action-taking, but also leading quite a few group conversations with white people about this moment of racial reckoning. To be clear, I don’t have any particular training in this kind of thing (which, one might argue, should preclude me from doing it), but I’ve been attracted to learning about anti-racism and taking action for awhile now, and started doing group work with other white people after the
Love, love, love what you pulled out here, Courtney. This is such a crucial contribution and one that we need so much more of-- noticing and naming and honoring what's happening in this moment not just on an individual level but a group level. Thanks for doing it so artfully and lovingly.
Here's one more thing I'm seeing: So many white people I love and respect right now feel like they woke up suddenly in a dark room and have to navigate their way to the door. We are desperate to find a light switch that will illuminate everything all at once, a desk or wall that we can use as a guardrail. And so we cling to right answers and get ourselves in a tizzy "Wait.. so is reading White Fragility bad or good? Should I be talking to other white people or should I be shutting up and listening to BIPOC voices? Wait, what's police abolition? Do I have to believe in that?" It is so scary to realize "oh, there's actually no guard rail... and the room is much bigger than I expected.. and it's not actually clear where the exit is... but I can still put one foot in front of the other... and to grab ahold of an unfamiliar hand as I do so." Thank you for making it a bit easier to walk forward in the darkness together.
This encapsulates so much of what has been on my mind, Courtney, thank you for writing as clearly as you do. For many white folks waking up to racialized trauma, I'm the friend who is afraid of being "too much" and overloading my friends and family who are new to the conversation (I work in immigrant rights, and as we know, things are only getting worse by the minute). How do we help our friends/partners/family/colleagues build the muscle for racial literacy & self-examination without exhausting them & ourselves? At what point can I pause reading 6 articles about police brutality a day, and how do I find accountability partners/groups (alternate term for affinity space) who are in the same headspace as us?
In reflection on this article, linked below, here's some of what I wrote this week: I’ve been moving, feeling, and observing how I am breathing differently this summer. With more anxiety comes shorter breaths, more reactivity and jitters, less presence. With more attentiveness to noting pain and feelings comes more capacity to listen to others, to feel pain without being overwhelmed by it, to examine my body’s patterns. A fundamental shift in awareness is making visceral how whiteness and racial performance and the memory that courses and pulses and agitates my cellular veins and skeletal muscles. Whiteness has contorted my body to play small, to enact violence toward myself. The performance act is subtle and violent and memorialized; it’s new and anxious and ever present. Racialized trauma demands my attention to be exposed and transformed. It’s work of healing the multiple generations and voices that live inside me, who have all feared and coveted and exploited and killed Black joy, Black dignity, Black children and mothers and families. Performing whiteness is performing death. Unlearning whiteness is the work of life. I believe that we can unlearn this cult of death and move ourselves toward the “cultural wellsprings that are affirming, nourishing, and empowering.” This is brave work, and it is not optional. It is necessary to stop killing Black people with each breath I take.
Dearest Courtney, I sincerely appreciate your latest letter that evidences the deep soul searching and earnest thoughtfulness that I first witnessed when you were an undergraduate with me at Barnard in the early 2000's. As you well know, your effort is entirely in accord with the Socratic maxim that "the unexamined life is not worth living." (Plato's Apology). That was at the start of our classical political theory class. Then, as you'll also recall, we opened the modern theory course with the Autobiography of Malcolm X. He is a brilliant modern example of the Socratic quest, as evidenced in his statement coming near the end of his life that "I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such I'm for whomever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole." (ch.19, "1965", p.373). Some students of Malcolm's evolution of thought wrongly suppose that this autobiography is not an accurate statement of his thought, so as you'll recall from our class, we complemented it with the collection of his "Final Speeches. 1965" because the authenticity of this remarkable document can't be questioned. He declared in one speech at Rochester on 2/16/65 that "We don't judge a man because of the color of his skin. We don't judge you because you're white. We don't judge you because you're Black. We judge you because of what you do, what you practice."(p.149). Then, as you know (from the plaque on the Barnard gym), Malcolm gave his final public address only 3 days before his assassination, at Barnard College, where he said: "It is incorrect to classify the revolt of the Negro as simply a racial conflict of Black against white, or as a purely American problem. Rather we are today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter." (p.177)
Although Malcolm X is unfortunately not featured in our discussions or even protests, I view him as a prophet who pronounced many essential truths relevant to our racial conflict today. First, as a result of the transformation of his thought (noted eloquently by Ossie Davis, in his eulogy for Malcolm included at the end of the Autobiography), Malcolm welcomed white engagement in the horrendous systemic oppression that exists here and worldwide. I witnessed this myself when I had the opportunity to meet Malcolm and join in his early opposition to the Vietnam war in 1965.
As you've rightly stressed in your extraordinary letter, if we are to change our racist society, then we must strike at the "system" of economic and social domination. In Malcolm's Barnard speech, he specifically targeted the economic foundation. The major task is to reduce the gross disparity of wealth between rich and poor in the U.S. and on our planet. It's noteworthy that both Democratic and Republican administrations since 1980 have enabled this income gap to increase.
At the end of their lives, both Malcolm and Martin Luther King, realized this basic truth, that radical action must be taken against the structure of capitalism in America. In a recent book entitled "The Sword and the Shield. The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.," by Peniel E. Joseph (2020), it's fully recognized that King moved significantly toward Malcolm by demanding economic justice as an indispensable complement to an attack on racism.
You've asked what can we do? First, without stating the obvious, engage with Courtney Martin who has the courage and intellect to challenge us with profound thoughts in a compelling and elegant style. Second, attend the BLM protests as I have, where I'm proud to say that in lily-white Portland, we lead the nation in our ongoing massive actions. I learned from my participation and conversation with the black leadership of these that they certainly want to involve whites because white youth here constitute 90% of the crowds, while not requiring roles of leadership. Naturally, the threat of COVID-19 is a dangerous threat, especially to those like me who at age 82 fears contracting this disease. Yet since the audiences are mostly under 30, I've learned to rely on them to sustain the action and obviously wear masks even though not social distancing. Third, read the recent literature that's abundantly available to inform ourselves, especially "How to be an Antiracist" by Ibram Kendi and Layla Saad, "Me and White Supremacy." These are so recent that they're among the top 10 books on the NY Times Best Sellers list of July 5th. In recommending them, I'm assuming that your readers are familiar with the classics by Malcolm, King, James Baldwin, and bell hooks. I'm certain that the young Courtney Martin mastered all of these and more in this genre because I read her exams for our political theory class and she always earned an "A". Since CM is presently a leading feminist writer, I'm sure that she's also well versed in Kimberle Cranshaw's key works and Ted talk on intersectionality.
As always, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my views. I've decided in my dotage that teaching public high school is preferable to being a professor in a private rich institution like Barnard/Columbia, but then I remind myself that if I had made this decision earlier, I would not have met my star students there, most notably YOU!
What a powerful sum-up. As much as I'm questioning the value of sum-ups these days (is "tidyness" yet another white supremacist behavior?), I'm a busy person (is "busyness" yet another white supremacist behavior?) scattered across so many conversations happening in different mediums all at once (is "distractedness" yet another white supremacist behavior??), so I really value the back-end info gathering and analysis you did to arrive at this level of cohesion.
Courtney, I appreciate your candor here. Conversations, hard as they may be, are way better for me than stuff I click around on and read. Both my kids are home, 26 & 22, both involved in social change. We've had discussions and arguments and are each provoked forward to read books and learn and commit to speaking up in white centered workplaces or social settings. The renovation we seek, that might bring some sense of social justice to black and brown people, that might honor and respect Indigenous people, that might find solutions we have not come up with around in the myriad ways white supremacy poisons social life in the US requires us all to soften our boundaried lives and question what we've built our learning upon. I appreciate the college professors that my kids both had who challenged them in the past 5 years. I want that kind of intellectual upheaval that gives me space to relearn. I took a course with the White Awake organization this winter, pre-Covid, that opened my eyes to history in a very important way. So, we are all reading these days. Learning from each other and pursuing more education and informed action. Lastly, one thing that White Awake taught me was to return to ritual and nature (both important parts of my life) but to engage with them in more intentional ways to support my nervous system to feel grounded, even though seismic shifts prevail. xoS
We are different generations, Courtney (I suspect I am just a bit younger than your parents), but I wonder if these realities were not indeed in front of us - in college and beyond. Even if we were taught systemic and structural analysis - what we weren't taught nor have taken seriously is the resilience this work requires over a lifetime (or as John Lewis says, many lifetimes). Structural change is hard work, and it is easy to get lost and confused when things don't change. It is easy and more comfortable to settle into tinkering at the edges, donating and reading without pushing for systemic change.
I also live with a certain tension when I folks my age express appreciation that protests are filled with young people. Of course I love the energy, the perspective, the sense of urgency and the wisdom. However, without the structural sophistication and without a community to work the long view - today's younger generation will fizzle out on this work in the same way successive generations before them have. The enthusiasm of an older generation also seems a bit naive. Is it that we are just tired and hoping to let someone else bear the weight? I long for multi-aged communities that support one another and lift up the various gifts all are bringing to the table.
Thanks for your ongoing reflections on these issues. I really appreciate them.
I have been reading and have read a number of the books suggested for a few years now. I am currently reading My Grandmother's Hands. Fascinating information for all of us! What I am hearing is cont'd silence from my group of friends/family......though my spouse is starting to watch documentaries/commentaries and read articles ON HIS OWN around changing his subtle biases and working to become anti racist as a white privileged male. What I am challenged by is "do I keep sending articles that speak to me---such as yours here---to my email contacts/long time friends, when we don't really see to be having discussions about any of this............or do I keep posting publicly like on IG......I am not on FB any more............I have emailed in the past saying "comments/feedback welcome but not mandatory"..................nothing much happens. I seem to be finding the only discussions happening with people like me already involved in looking at ourselves and how we can change and stand up for the black community. This is good to have sounding boards and companions along the way BUT I feel like I"m singing to the choir vs. making any kind of difference????????
Courtney, I am just finding your work (Krista Tippett retweets will do that!) and this post resonates for me. This work of antiracism and allyship is serious and overdue—like you, although I have been doing it a while, I now feel I am just getting started—yet I also sense a need to for us white folks to take ourselves a little less seriously as we undertake it. So while I don’t have a ready alternative to “affinity circle,” I like a mission statement along the lines of “Bless this necessary mess, and let us sit with it.” Scott Woods uses the metaphor of needing to regularly bail out one’s boat. (“There is no anti-racist certification class ... it is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it.”) I like that, too. Thanks for your posts.
Love, love, love what you pulled out here, Courtney. This is such a crucial contribution and one that we need so much more of-- noticing and naming and honoring what's happening in this moment not just on an individual level but a group level. Thanks for doing it so artfully and lovingly.
Here's one more thing I'm seeing: So many white people I love and respect right now feel like they woke up suddenly in a dark room and have to navigate their way to the door. We are desperate to find a light switch that will illuminate everything all at once, a desk or wall that we can use as a guardrail. And so we cling to right answers and get ourselves in a tizzy "Wait.. so is reading White Fragility bad or good? Should I be talking to other white people or should I be shutting up and listening to BIPOC voices? Wait, what's police abolition? Do I have to believe in that?" It is so scary to realize "oh, there's actually no guard rail... and the room is much bigger than I expected.. and it's not actually clear where the exit is... but I can still put one foot in front of the other... and to grab ahold of an unfamiliar hand as I do so." Thank you for making it a bit easier to walk forward in the darkness together.
This encapsulates so much of what has been on my mind, Courtney, thank you for writing as clearly as you do. For many white folks waking up to racialized trauma, I'm the friend who is afraid of being "too much" and overloading my friends and family who are new to the conversation (I work in immigrant rights, and as we know, things are only getting worse by the minute). How do we help our friends/partners/family/colleagues build the muscle for racial literacy & self-examination without exhausting them & ourselves? At what point can I pause reading 6 articles about police brutality a day, and how do I find accountability partners/groups (alternate term for affinity space) who are in the same headspace as us?
In reflection on this article, linked below, here's some of what I wrote this week: I’ve been moving, feeling, and observing how I am breathing differently this summer. With more anxiety comes shorter breaths, more reactivity and jitters, less presence. With more attentiveness to noting pain and feelings comes more capacity to listen to others, to feel pain without being overwhelmed by it, to examine my body’s patterns. A fundamental shift in awareness is making visceral how whiteness and racial performance and the memory that courses and pulses and agitates my cellular veins and skeletal muscles. Whiteness has contorted my body to play small, to enact violence toward myself. The performance act is subtle and violent and memorialized; it’s new and anxious and ever present. Racialized trauma demands my attention to be exposed and transformed. It’s work of healing the multiple generations and voices that live inside me, who have all feared and coveted and exploited and killed Black joy, Black dignity, Black children and mothers and families. Performing whiteness is performing death. Unlearning whiteness is the work of life. I believe that we can unlearn this cult of death and move ourselves toward the “cultural wellsprings that are affirming, nourishing, and empowering.” This is brave work, and it is not optional. It is necessary to stop killing Black people with each breath I take.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/06/08/the-performance-of-white-bodies/?fbclid=IwAR1ghJd7dSSaRMvqC-v-jp1ajnobYcgAb6TVEmJIaj2CLEfOPKw50XoZN6U
Dearest Courtney, I sincerely appreciate your latest letter that evidences the deep soul searching and earnest thoughtfulness that I first witnessed when you were an undergraduate with me at Barnard in the early 2000's. As you well know, your effort is entirely in accord with the Socratic maxim that "the unexamined life is not worth living." (Plato's Apology). That was at the start of our classical political theory class. Then, as you'll also recall, we opened the modern theory course with the Autobiography of Malcolm X. He is a brilliant modern example of the Socratic quest, as evidenced in his statement coming near the end of his life that "I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such I'm for whomever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole." (ch.19, "1965", p.373). Some students of Malcolm's evolution of thought wrongly suppose that this autobiography is not an accurate statement of his thought, so as you'll recall from our class, we complemented it with the collection of his "Final Speeches. 1965" because the authenticity of this remarkable document can't be questioned. He declared in one speech at Rochester on 2/16/65 that "We don't judge a man because of the color of his skin. We don't judge you because you're white. We don't judge you because you're Black. We judge you because of what you do, what you practice."(p.149). Then, as you know (from the plaque on the Barnard gym), Malcolm gave his final public address only 3 days before his assassination, at Barnard College, where he said: "It is incorrect to classify the revolt of the Negro as simply a racial conflict of Black against white, or as a purely American problem. Rather we are today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter." (p.177)
Although Malcolm X is unfortunately not featured in our discussions or even protests, I view him as a prophet who pronounced many essential truths relevant to our racial conflict today. First, as a result of the transformation of his thought (noted eloquently by Ossie Davis, in his eulogy for Malcolm included at the end of the Autobiography), Malcolm welcomed white engagement in the horrendous systemic oppression that exists here and worldwide. I witnessed this myself when I had the opportunity to meet Malcolm and join in his early opposition to the Vietnam war in 1965.
As you've rightly stressed in your extraordinary letter, if we are to change our racist society, then we must strike at the "system" of economic and social domination. In Malcolm's Barnard speech, he specifically targeted the economic foundation. The major task is to reduce the gross disparity of wealth between rich and poor in the U.S. and on our planet. It's noteworthy that both Democratic and Republican administrations since 1980 have enabled this income gap to increase.
At the end of their lives, both Malcolm and Martin Luther King, realized this basic truth, that radical action must be taken against the structure of capitalism in America. In a recent book entitled "The Sword and the Shield. The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.," by Peniel E. Joseph (2020), it's fully recognized that King moved significantly toward Malcolm by demanding economic justice as an indispensable complement to an attack on racism.
You've asked what can we do? First, without stating the obvious, engage with Courtney Martin who has the courage and intellect to challenge us with profound thoughts in a compelling and elegant style. Second, attend the BLM protests as I have, where I'm proud to say that in lily-white Portland, we lead the nation in our ongoing massive actions. I learned from my participation and conversation with the black leadership of these that they certainly want to involve whites because white youth here constitute 90% of the crowds, while not requiring roles of leadership. Naturally, the threat of COVID-19 is a dangerous threat, especially to those like me who at age 82 fears contracting this disease. Yet since the audiences are mostly under 30, I've learned to rely on them to sustain the action and obviously wear masks even though not social distancing. Third, read the recent literature that's abundantly available to inform ourselves, especially "How to be an Antiracist" by Ibram Kendi and Layla Saad, "Me and White Supremacy." These are so recent that they're among the top 10 books on the NY Times Best Sellers list of July 5th. In recommending them, I'm assuming that your readers are familiar with the classics by Malcolm, King, James Baldwin, and bell hooks. I'm certain that the young Courtney Martin mastered all of these and more in this genre because I read her exams for our political theory class and she always earned an "A". Since CM is presently a leading feminist writer, I'm sure that she's also well versed in Kimberle Cranshaw's key works and Ted talk on intersectionality.
As always, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my views. I've decided in my dotage that teaching public high school is preferable to being a professor in a private rich institution like Barnard/Columbia, but then I remind myself that if I had made this decision earlier, I would not have met my star students there, most notably YOU!
Love as always, DD: Dennis Dalton, email: ddalton@barnard.edu
What a powerful sum-up. As much as I'm questioning the value of sum-ups these days (is "tidyness" yet another white supremacist behavior?), I'm a busy person (is "busyness" yet another white supremacist behavior?) scattered across so many conversations happening in different mediums all at once (is "distractedness" yet another white supremacist behavior??), so I really value the back-end info gathering and analysis you did to arrive at this level of cohesion.
Courtney, I appreciate your candor here. Conversations, hard as they may be, are way better for me than stuff I click around on and read. Both my kids are home, 26 & 22, both involved in social change. We've had discussions and arguments and are each provoked forward to read books and learn and commit to speaking up in white centered workplaces or social settings. The renovation we seek, that might bring some sense of social justice to black and brown people, that might honor and respect Indigenous people, that might find solutions we have not come up with around in the myriad ways white supremacy poisons social life in the US requires us all to soften our boundaried lives and question what we've built our learning upon. I appreciate the college professors that my kids both had who challenged them in the past 5 years. I want that kind of intellectual upheaval that gives me space to relearn. I took a course with the White Awake organization this winter, pre-Covid, that opened my eyes to history in a very important way. So, we are all reading these days. Learning from each other and pursuing more education and informed action. Lastly, one thing that White Awake taught me was to return to ritual and nature (both important parts of my life) but to engage with them in more intentional ways to support my nervous system to feel grounded, even though seismic shifts prevail. xoS
These are such helpful reflections. Thanks.
We are different generations, Courtney (I suspect I am just a bit younger than your parents), but I wonder if these realities were not indeed in front of us - in college and beyond. Even if we were taught systemic and structural analysis - what we weren't taught nor have taken seriously is the resilience this work requires over a lifetime (or as John Lewis says, many lifetimes). Structural change is hard work, and it is easy to get lost and confused when things don't change. It is easy and more comfortable to settle into tinkering at the edges, donating and reading without pushing for systemic change.
I also live with a certain tension when I folks my age express appreciation that protests are filled with young people. Of course I love the energy, the perspective, the sense of urgency and the wisdom. However, without the structural sophistication and without a community to work the long view - today's younger generation will fizzle out on this work in the same way successive generations before them have. The enthusiasm of an older generation also seems a bit naive. Is it that we are just tired and hoping to let someone else bear the weight? I long for multi-aged communities that support one another and lift up the various gifts all are bringing to the table.
Thanks for your ongoing reflections on these issues. I really appreciate them.
I have been reading and have read a number of the books suggested for a few years now. I am currently reading My Grandmother's Hands. Fascinating information for all of us! What I am hearing is cont'd silence from my group of friends/family......though my spouse is starting to watch documentaries/commentaries and read articles ON HIS OWN around changing his subtle biases and working to become anti racist as a white privileged male. What I am challenged by is "do I keep sending articles that speak to me---such as yours here---to my email contacts/long time friends, when we don't really see to be having discussions about any of this............or do I keep posting publicly like on IG......I am not on FB any more............I have emailed in the past saying "comments/feedback welcome but not mandatory"..................nothing much happens. I seem to be finding the only discussions happening with people like me already involved in looking at ourselves and how we can change and stand up for the black community. This is good to have sounding boards and companions along the way BUT I feel like I"m singing to the choir vs. making any kind of difference????????
Courtney, I am just finding your work (Krista Tippett retweets will do that!) and this post resonates for me. This work of antiracism and allyship is serious and overdue—like you, although I have been doing it a while, I now feel I am just getting started—yet I also sense a need to for us white folks to take ourselves a little less seriously as we undertake it. So while I don’t have a ready alternative to “affinity circle,” I like a mission statement along the lines of “Bless this necessary mess, and let us sit with it.” Scott Woods uses the metaphor of needing to regularly bail out one’s boat. (“There is no anti-racist certification class ... it is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it.”) I like that, too. Thanks for your posts.