You will make mistakes. Don't give up.

June 15, 2020 9:52 AM

A Love Letter to All the Overwhelmed White People Who Are Trying (Medium starred article), from That White Lady who shared the video of two black men being arrested at Starbucks for doing nothing.
posted by sunset in snow country (19 comments total)

As a middle aged white (european) male, I've been silent in the recent discussiona on race here. I've been listening only, not speaking. This article describes why very nicely.

So my advice to you, having been where you are, is to sit back and listen. Don’t talk unless in white spaces to interrupt racism and to tell others you are on the path to antiracism

I've been learning a lot, and I will certainly learn more every day. Thank you all.
posted by DreamerFi at 10:56 AM on June 15, 2020 [28 favorites]

As another middle-aged, middle-class white European male, I couldn’t agree more. Ears open, mouth shut. I am also learning a lot, and thinking more about race than I ever have.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 2:11 PM on June 15, 2020 [5 favorites]

I hadn't thought about who filmed the video until just now, so ... isn't the author failing to take their own advice here?
posted by pwnguin at 2:19 PM on June 15, 2020

I hadn't thought about who filmed the video until just now, so ... isn't the author failing to take their own advice here?

She says: Don’t talk unless in white spaces to interrupt racism and to tell others you are on the path to antiracism

She is talking to white people here, so... no? Nice try at a gotcha though I guess

(edited to remove unnecessary quoted context from the article)
posted by sunset in snow country at 2:27 PM on June 15, 2020 [21 favorites]

If you engage, you're going to fuck up from time to time, and it's going to feel horrible. Believe me. But it's something you have to learn to cope with, rather than just hiding. Unless you're leading a KKK parade, your silence in situations where it's appropriate for you to speak is more harmful overall than your occasional fuckup will be. (And you can work on mitigating the harm you've caused in individual cases, which is important to do anyway.) The mortification of your ego will be quite unpleasant, but it's also not really relevant to the morality of your engagement.
posted by praemunire at 2:37 PM on June 15, 2020 [26 favorites]

Listening is, in my view, a necessary but not sufficient component to anti-racism.

Exactly this, MoonOrb. I couldn't agree more.

In my opinion, listening is the first step, and many people still need to take that step, but others are ready to act. There are so many great resources out there to help identify the best actions to take depending on your own abilities at this moment. We have a LOT to do, and it will be hard. We will make mistakes, but the biggest mistake would be not to take this opportunity to change the world while we have it.
posted by blurker at 3:51 PM on June 15, 2020 [6 favorites]

Mod note: One comment deleted. Sorry, reposting a big debating passage from another thread is likely to derail this one onto the specifics of that other discussion; please don't bring all those details or restart that debate in here. It's fine if you want to talk about challenges you face as a white person knowing when to speak up, without that.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 5:41 PM on June 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

It's a bit academic, but I (thinking about how to be as a white person right now) like this paper by Robin DiAngelo that argues that white people dominating the conversation and white silence in vulnerable interracial conversations are two sides of the same coin:

in the educational film, The Color of Fear (1994), in which a racially diverse group of men discuss racism, the white man who continually dominates the discussion and invalidates the men of color receives the greatest amount of attention in every discussion of the film I have attended. Yet there is another white man in the film who is at the other end of the participation spectrum, one who rarely speaks and has to be asked directly to join in. This participant receives little if any attention following the film, but his role in the discussion is no less racially salient. In this paper, I want to direct our attention to the often neglected end of the participation continuum—white silence—and provide an analysis of and challenge to that silence. Using whiteness theory as the frame, I will explicate the various ways that white silence functions in discussions of race to maintain white privilege

— Nothing to Add: A Challenge to White Silence in Racial Discussions

DiAngelo argues that silence is more comfortable exactly because it functions to preserve the status quo, one way or another: "When we remain silent we leave the weight of the dialogue on either people of color or other, more dominant whites. If these dominant whites are expressing hostility, we aren’t challenging them; if they are taking risks, we aren’t supporting them."

And she argues that the reason this feels like a dilemma, damned if you do and damned if you don't, is that antiracism has to be strategic:

While it is important not to dominate discussions in general and, as a white person, not to dominate an inter-racial discussion in particular, the problem with this strategy is that it is inflexible. Antiracist practice asks us to think strategically—to be racially attentive to who is talking, when, how much, and for how long. As a white person in the discussion, we need to ask ourselves when it is a constructive time to speak up and when is it most constructive to just listen. The more practiced we become in racial discussions, the more easily we will be able to make sound strategic judgments about where and when to enter.

Seems to me if you follow DePino's advice, "sit back and listen. Don’t talk unless in white spaces," you're not practicing how to act strategically in interracial conversations, in the sense of using an unfamiliar muscle and getting better at it — practicing to be able to step back as needed, and also to effectively share the load of people of color, challenge white people who are dominating, and support those who are taking risks.

I'm particularly interested in DiAngelo's response to the common sentiment that “I don’t know much about race, so I will just listen”:

racial innocence ... functions as a kind of blindness; an inability to think about whiteness as an identity or as a “state” of being that would or could have an impact on one’s life, and thus be a source of meaning. Because whites are socially positioned as individuals, or “just people” (the writer, the man, the friend) while people of color are always positioned as members of a racial group (the Latino writer, the Asian man, the black friend) we have the privilege of seeing ourselves as outside of race and thus unfamiliar with it. The white claim that one does not know much about race is particularly problematic because, while it positions whiteness as “innocence,” it simultaneously reinforces the projection of race onto people of color— they have race, not us, and thus are the holders of racial knowledge.

(The Trevor Noah video in that other thread made a similar point, that the Amy Cooper episode showed just how much white people do know about race when it comes down to it.)

How do we apply that critique of “I don’t know much about race, so I will just listen” somewhere like Metafilter, where it's easy for articles about race and racism to either get crickets, or to spin off into unrelated things that are easier for white people to talk about? I feel like there's a strategic middle ground there ... like, I can use my experiences as a person in general and a person with white race in order to be here with a thread's actual topic, and then read the room about whether being here out loud is going to help along those three different axes of sharing/challenging/supporting, and then learn from how my decision went ...
posted by john hadron collider at 7:59 PM on June 15, 2020 [13 favorites]

Yeah, that "moment you found out that you were white" has bothered me for a couple of years. I was a manager in a NOC, and had decided to hire a POC for a position, only to discover that when he showed up for his first day he had been hired for a lower position (technician rather than engineer) than I had submitted the paperwork for. Despite my protests and attempts to get him into the position he was hired for, he ultimately left after a couple of days because of the insult. I left myself shortly thereafter.
posted by Blackanvil at 10:10 PM on June 15, 2020 [3 favorites]

I wish there were a list of positive examples to look at.
posted by amtho at 11:58 PM on June 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

In a recent discussion I had with union siblings about what our union can do right now to be actively anti-racist, somebody brought up how different actions or inactions manifest as whiteness. This was about the long tradition of white people making statements against racism and then nothing really changing - and I think that's along the lines of "only listen". Moon Orb really makes it clear above why listening by itself isn't enough. john hadron collider makes a good point about anti-racism can be strategic. I'd add, as Dr. Ibram X. Kendi wrote in his book about anti-racism, it's also deliberate actions. Consciously being anti-racist in the moment. Listening alone won't work.

Listening is important and should be the floor, but us white people need to also take steps that are uncomfortable, force us to understand and recognize our whiteness, and then also act to change the status quo. Not only will this be uncomfortable, and we will mess up and make mistakes, but it's also kinda overwhelming how pervasive it is.

I think there's often that struggle of where to start, so just listening is easy but it can't end there. You can start here - MetaFilter is a white space for sure - and get used to listen and talking. Hopefully that will help you then move to taking IRL.
posted by kendrak at 6:12 AM on June 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

The speaking up in white spaces thing is important, not just to interrupt racism, but also to help normalize anti-racism.

My family is from a smallish town in the Mid-South where one of the key impediments to progress of all types is that people assume that the cross-section of people they know and ideas they hear about represents a broad range of ideas... and, in news that will shock none of you, it is not. The plainspoken, thoughtful repetition of anti-racist ideas in spaces like this, to the point of making them a regular part of the hyperlocalized ideological landscape, has real power. This is particularly true if you can contextualize them as part of values they already understand and hold dear.

So yeah, it's important when racist Aunt Barb starts in on racist talking points to call that stuff out. Of course it is. But it's also important to go ahead and let her daughter, your cousin Carla, see you bringing up relatable points about valuing black lives in a way that will help her reconsider the way she was brought up. When she sees you do that, and her other cousin, and her classmates, and her neighbor, she's going to be forced to acknowledge anti-racism as a non-fringe viewpoint. She's going to be forced to consider that professing herself "color blind," hating the Klan, and not using the N-word isn't enough, not by a longshot.

White people in rural communities are often described as having the ability to ignore racism. One thing white people can do is to try hard to make that impossible.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:18 AM on June 16, 2020 [22 favorites]

I wish there were a list of positive examples to look at.

Though it's not really only of examples to look at, this seems like a solid list of things to do other than just listening/joining book clubs for anyone requiring an antiracist agenda: Kehinde Andrews Want to make the UK less racist? 20 positive ways to bring about lasting change.

All contexts will require some adaptation of those items for local, culturally relevant antiracism efforts - here in Italy there's kind of a double-barrel of untackled colonial mindset/heritage and systemic xenophobia to stare down, plus a growing side order of specifically contemporary antiblack afrophobia. Even just some of the language to frame this in is missing: decolonising sounds like some alien procedure to most people here...
posted by progosk at 8:08 AM on June 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

A couple weeks ago, police officer of my acquaintance posted in a group dedicated to an organization that we both volunteer for that she believed George Floyd had been murdered, and that she now understood that saying blue lives matter was racist, but she didn't know where to go from there.

So we formed a separate group, and basically started antiracism 101 for white people, and specifically for cops. I'm white, and I'm no expert, but I've been chipping away at my own racism for quite some time, and because I'm poor and visibly queer I've had plenty of my own violent encounters with police officers. I'm not trying to speak for black people in the group, but I am sharing with them the the articles and podcasts and books that I've been using to work on myself, and using my own experiences to illustrate why people they've never met and never harmed personally have good reason to be terrified of them.

The group has expanded now. There are police officers from four states participating actively now, including two who are supervisors in their departments, and one leader of a police union. There are two other white non-cop people who've also been working on their own racism who are bringing their own resources and perspectives to the conversation.

There's a lot of arguing, a lot of defensiveness, a lot of picking apart the difference between something that is legal and something that is right.

I'll admit that I was surprised to hear so many of them speak about how unprepared they feel for many of the things they are called to do. I was also surprised to hear them speak about how much they wish they were offered more than three mental health counseling sessions per year through their jobs.

I had expected the conversations about how afraid they are when they go on duty everyday. Many of the conversations have been sorting through why they fear so much, and the reactions that that fear may drive.

The cops in the group have taken the things we've talked about into the conversations they have with the officers they work with. And they've brought back the results of those discussions into the group.

Between my disability and covid-19, I can't be out in the street protesting. I'm poor, so I can't donate money. I can write letters and make phone calls to all of my representatives and I have. And I can do this. I can have the basic 101 conversations with these police officers, and I can teach them the history that no white southerners of my generation learned in school, the history that I've learned by listening to black voices, reading the work of black historians.

I keep feeling like it's problematic to have no black voices in the room. But at the same time I am not about to task any black person with having these arguments, especially in this moment. And I have the sneaking suspicion that these white cops are more honest with me and the other white progressives in the room than they would be with black people in the room.

I'm not saying any of this by the way, for cookies or likes or anything else. Just illustrate that this is my understanding of what black people are asking white people to do when they say listen and call in your own. If I've mistaken that, I'm glad to hear criticism, and incorporate that into this as well.
posted by Vigilant at 9:26 AM on June 16, 2020 [40 favorites]

Am I the only one who feels like the intended message kind of gets lost in the pablum?

A decade in therapy has taught me that the parts of yourself that you can’t or won’t see or acknowledge always find their way out in damaging, hurtful or dangerous ways, both for yourself and for the people around you. Examining that part of myself has led me to intentionally work to cleanse the clouded lens I was born and raised with so that I can actually do better, see better, and be better as a human being, and yes, more free, more comfortable in my (white) skin, and more fully and authentically myself in all of my relationships.be better as a human being, and yes, more free, more comfortable in my (white) skin, and more fully and authentically myself in all of my relationships.

I dunno...it feels.....Goopy?
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:11 AM on June 16, 2020

Related note: if you notice your friends who live in the city but came from "The Heartland" on FB posting real, real basic anti-racism 101 stuff or stories you read in Twitter ten times already, keep in mind we're probably trying to slide that into the timelines of some of our own aunts, uncles, childhood friends, etc. who may still need shoves in the right direction.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:29 PM on June 16, 2020 [11 favorites]

This blogpost is authored by Dr. Porchia Moore, and is specifically aimed at museums, but I think it has broader applicability and appeal. Cartography: A Black Woman's Response To Museums In The Time Of Racial Uprising.
posted by gudrun at 3:28 PM on June 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Am I the only one who feels like the intended message kind of gets lost in the pablum?

No, I'm with you. What do you say to people who write love letters to "overwhelmed white people" and present their budding racial awareness in terms of the opportunities it provides for personal growth? I have no idea. It's hard for me to accept that my blackness is viewed as providing a spiritual service of sorts, free of charge no less. The silent reverie of allies is eerie when its object is my blackness rather than my person.

Where did I become so angry
posted by dmh at 7:05 AM on June 17, 2020 [6 favorites]

Listening is important and should be the floor, but us white people need to also take steps that are uncomfortable, force us to understand and recognize our whiteness, and then also act to change the status quo. Not only will this be uncomfortable, and we will mess up and make mistakes, but it's also kinda overwhelming how pervasive it is.

Some white people who don't know what to do right will say, out of frustration, "we can't win." And this is true. We can't win, because this is not a game. We are not the heroes; we are supporting characters at best -- but then, this is not a story either. Anti-racist is a state of doing, not being. Like dmh says, black people are not here to give us a test for the Good Person Award.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:51 AM on June 17, 2020 [7 favorites]