Even the most well meaning white people have racist beliefs. Despite our efforts, racism is ingrained in us from birth and enforced in our thinking and behavior throughout our lives. If you are ready to try some new ideas and strategies to uncover and uproot the racism in your thinking and behavior, check out some free resources at https://www.kalissascopes.com
How often do we think that we have done enough work on our racism? That among the whole of white people we are probably at least in the upper 25% of “good white people”? Because we don’t issue anonymous surveys to every POC we encounter every day and because we are cocooned in whiteness, colonialism, white supremacy we remain unaware of our impact on the people of color around us. A solution is to listen to and read what POC tell and have told us for many, many years and honestly apply it to ourselves.
Paul C Gorski and Noura Erakat’s Research on burnout in activists of color caused by white activist behavior is a treasure trove of reality check for all white people. Whenever we are tempted to think we have done enough work on our racism it helps to keep quotes like this from a burned-out activist of color: “…my white allies aren’t really the allies I thought they were…”
This list of behaviors that contributed to the burnout of POC activists is a list we can use to understand our own beliefs and behaviors that are negatively impacting the POC in our everyday lives. Commitment to unlearning this everyday racism means commitment to education, awareness and action. (Thanks to the authors for sending me an email pointing out that my lack of appropriate attribution in a previous version of this post could lead others to believe that the authors’ work is my own, demonstrating another example of their findings and another example of many of the behaviors listed below). In the article, p://www.edchange.org/publications/White-Activists-Causing-Burnout-Racial-Justice-Activists-Gorski-Erakat.pdf, Paul C Gorski and Noura Erakat write:
Check out Ibram X Kendi’s book Stamped From the Beginning, and the article “Racism, whiteness and burnout in antiracism movements” for more about all of these issues. http://www.edchange.org/publications/White-Activists-Causing-Burnout-Racial-Justice-Activists-Gorski-Erakat.pdf
Thank you for bringing your best self and most honest efforts to all of your anti-racism work!
Kalissa
unlearningeverydayracism.com
kalissascopes.com
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This week I got a question from a podcast listener: “Can you talk about how to manage interactions with racist family members over the holidays? What I really need are some go-to phrases and scripts. Both responding to racist comments, and how to get myself out of the situation if it gets bad. Soooooo all of my in-laws are some degree of racist. My father in law and brother in law say the most racist things most often. I have literally learned new racist terms from them – like I heard a word said in a derogatory fashion and looked it up later and was like OMG. I married into the family recently, and clearly no one has ever been called out on a racist comment ever. There is an in-law tradition of Christmas in another country and this is my first ever time attending! As a new family member I definitely have shaken up the dynamic a little bit just by, like, existing. For past trips with these folks when I have heard racist comments I kept my mouth shut – especially because my father in law pays for the trips. I am worried that my kids someday will literally have the worst ever racist uncle. So I want to start setting boundaries. But how? What do I say?”
