Day 1: You and White Privilege
"I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group." — Peggy McIntosh
Day 2: You and White Fragility
"It is white people's resposibility to be less fragile; People of Color don't need to twist themselves into knots trying to navigate us as painlessly as possible." — Robin DiAngelo
Day 3: You and Tone Policing
"I speak out of direct and particular anger at an academic conference, and a white woman says, 'Tell me how you feel but don't say it too harshly or I cannot hear you.' But is it my manner that keeps her from hearing, or the threat of a message that her life may change?" — Audre Lorde
Day 4: You and White Silence
"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people." — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Day 5: You and White Superiority
"When I got honest with myself, I had to own up to the fact that I'd bought into the myth of white superiority, silently and privately, explaining to myself the pattern of white dominance I observed as a natural outgrowth of biologically wired superior white intelligence and ability." — Debby Irving
Day 6: You and White Exceptionalism
"White people desperately want to believe than only the lonely, isolated 'whites only' club members are racist. This is why the word racist offends 'nice white people' so deeply. It challenges their self-identification as good people. Sadly, most white people are more worried about being called racist than about whether or not their actions are in fact racist or harmful." — Austin Channing Brown
Day 7: Week 1 Review
Step back and take stock of what you have learned so far.
Footnote — The overview blog post for this book is found at this link:
11 comments:
On Day 1 of our quest, I want to share an interview with Layla Saad, which includes her explanation of how she got into this work:
"I moved into the work of educating people about white supremacy when I saw the far-right Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. There was something about the images being shown on the news of those men marching. They had so much hate in their eyes....
"I quickly realised that I wasn’t writing a single Instagram post – I was writing about a journey that I wanted to facilitate. The entire 28-day process, with topics including white fragility, white exceptionalism, tone policing, and the prompts to these topics, came to me between 2am and 3am that night."
https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/opinion/layla-f-saad-problem-with-race-684765
This video was sent to me by a friend today, serendipitously. He has no idea I'm even contemplating white privilege right now. The video can help us visualize — actually SEE — the advantages of having privilege. Take a look:
https://www.facebook.com/mikey.wycoff/videos/10210529953382118/
Racial profiling, which is the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed an offense, is not this week's focus. But stories like this one in today's news about a black social worker accused of kidnapping a white toddler make me angry. I can understand why she's suing the airlines. How would you feel if YOU were in this woman's shoes?
https://www.businessinsider.com/american-airlines-black-social-worker-lawsuit-kidnapping-white-toddler-2020-7
The video you posted of Mikey.Wycoff and the race for $100 was a good representation of undeserved benefits and undeserved hindrances toward a goal in life.
Day 4 is about White silence. Here's a short video that shows so well how little it takes to make a difference, by using your white privilege to speak up.
https://www.upworthy.com/one-easy-thing-all-white-people-could-do-that-would-make-the-world-a-better-place-5
Here's another one for Day 4 about White Silence. We can speak up about people who have been unknown to us, even though they went through a lot for the cause. Here's are a couple of quotes about Sarah Keys Evans:
(1) The city of Roanoke Rapids, N.C., and Halifax County are declaring Saturday, Aug. 1. this year “Sarah Keys Evans Day,” 68 years after its police arrested Sarah Keys, a 23-year-old Black Women’s Army Corps private, for refusing to give up her seat on an interstate bus for a white Marine. Fined $25 (about $240 today) for disorderly conduct, she filed a complaint that—three years later—resulted in an Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) ruling prohibiting segregation on interstate buses.
(2) In 2001, author Amy Nathan had stumbled upon Evans’ name on a plaque at the Women’s Memorial in Arlington, Va., and thought her story would make a great book. But about two years of interviews later, in 2006, Nathan couldn’t find a publisher. “Several editors said to me, ‘We already have a book about Rosa Parks, so that sort of covers the topic,'” says Nathan. “So it’s a catch-22; she’s not heard of because nobody has written a book about her, but then they can’t write a book about her because nobody has ever heard of her.”
Now read the whole article from TIME magazine, and let's make her known, at least among our friends. Here's the link:
https://time.com/5871245/sarah-keys-evans/
White privilege is right at the beginning of our study. Here's an excellent article on white privilege that everyone should read:
My White Friend Asked Me on Facebook to Explain White Privilege. I Decided to Be Honest.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2017/09/08/my-white-friend-asked-me-on-facebook-to-explain-white-privilege-i-decided-to-be-honest/
I'm back to do it again and do it better this time. I got so excited about the article I'd found on Facebook that I posted it before reading the whole thing. At the end was a link to the ORIGINAL article, which they said had been "edited." So here's the original article from Good Black News, where they publish "The Good Things Black People Do, Give and Receive All Over The World."
http://goodblacknews.org/2016/07/14/editorial-what-i-said-when-my-white-friend-asked-for-my-black-opinion-on-white-privilege/
The idea of being an ally is in Day 3. Here's an article by a black man about a woman who was an ally.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/black-comedian-shares-important-lesson-180734604.html
The woman filming the episode was indeed an ally. It could have kept the police honest this time.
"My White Friend Asked Me on Facebook to Explain White Privilege. I Decided to Be Honest."
This link helped me realize what a non-white person goes through living in a systen created by white people. Thanks for posting this, Bonnie.
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