18 Resolutions for an Anti-Racist Witness

EALA Members and Friends,

 

The following is part of a HuffPost Blog done by Jaime Grant, Director, Global Transgender Research and Advocacy Project.  Included in the blog is a reference to an article by Peggy Macintosh “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” which dealt with white privilege.  The complete blog can be seen at http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6382612

 

For the Communication Team,

Paul Bauman

 

18 Daily Resolutions for White People to Fight Racism

(1) Stop being the first person to talk at every meeting; stop being the person we hear from the most. Listen. Listen more. Listen when you are uncomfortable.

(2) Support or be of use to projects that are established and led by people of color.

(3) Stop segregating around race and class so that the only people of color in your life are either service providers or service recipients. Put yourself in a position to have your thinking and your practices challenged by leaders and peers of color and low-income peers.

(4) Stop saying — and especially stop telling your children — that “race doesn’t matter.” Open your eyes to the impacts of racism all around you; point out the ways racism is playing out in your path and help other white people understand their unearned privileges and their attendant responsibility to dismantle racism.

(5) Advocate for hiring in your workplace or community to address the systemic racism that maintains a supermajority of white people in positions of power (board, executive staff, tenured positions, management). Insist that your workforce (especially leadership) mirror the racial distribution in your community or your constituency.

(6) Do conscious succession planning for your leadership position or high paying job so that people of color and lower income people are prepared to assume your position when you leave.

(7) Help create economically accessible, people of color-driven cooperatives in your neighborhood — child care, food, coaching, farmers’ markets, clothing swaps, etc.

(8) Challenge racial profiling and police brutality in your neighborhood, school, township, or city. Interrupt practices you observe. Push for citizen oversight. Speak out. Organize.

(9) Support and frequent businesses that are people of color owned.

(10) Challenge racist lending practices in your community. What is your bank’s history of lending in communities of color?

(11) Advocate for accessible, high quality health care. Insist that the race of the doctors and health care leadership in your community mirrors the race of the people they are serving. What is your doctor doing about this? Does s/he know your concerns?

(12) Stop celebrating holidays that glorify racist history; reframe “Thanksgiving” and “Independence Day” so that white children begin to develop critical skills around the way our nation addresses (or fails to address) its history of colonialism, slavery and white supremacy.

(13) If you buy your home or rent your apartment in a people of color majority neighborhood, instead of advocating for increased policing, advocate for:

a. free or affordable child care and afterschool programs
b. citizens review boards for local police practices
c. youth sports leagues 
d. visual, performing arts, music and other creative projects
e. community gardening and access to affordable fresh food
f. tax abatement for long-term residents of the neighborhood so that they are not pushed out if more whites move in, and property values rise due to racist gentrification.

(14) Send your children to public school and instead of advocating for “zero tolerance” or “bullying” programs that target children of color for suspension and expulsion, advocate for programs that: 

a. hire more people of color in leadership positions at school
b. restructure “gifted” programs that shut out students of color via “objective” criteria
c. bring creativity and student voice to the fore in the school culture
d. address trauma driven by racism, sexism and poverty
e. reclaim storytelling
f. teach the history of racism and its impacts
g. provide respite for low-income parents

(15) Don’t expect people of color to be glad you are in their neighborhood, stores, or schools. White people often come into people of color majority spaces and make things worse by:

a. Increasing policing and incarceration, especially of men and boys
b. Drawing the attention and intervention of the state to families of color
c. Driving up property values and driving out people of color  
d. Increasing investment in the neighborhood that “whitens” every existing institution and closes many long-term people of color led enterprises
e. Bringing in businesses that don’t reflect the existing culture or community priorities

(16) Don’t think of yourself as “doing good” or “giving back” by addressing racism; understand that you are making reparations but that you will never share the jeopardy that racism presents to your peers of color. You are benefitting from a daily racist “pass.” 

(17) Campaign for and fund candidates at the local and national level that address racism in local, national and foreign policy.

(18) Organize, teach and challenge other white people to address systemic racism, outlined above. 

a. Share anti-racist tools and articles on social media; 
b. bring friends to local actions; 
c. challenge racist frameworks and lies among your peers; 
d. collect and disseminate excellent research and literature; 
e. disseminate anti-racist art; 
f. organize an anti-racist study group or action; 
g. interrupt racism as you encounter it.