Does White Anti-Racist Facilitation Reinforce Segregation?
The You Know You're White, Now What? workshop that my fabulous co-creator james and I have run 7 times in the past year was chosen as a featured workshop at the Decolonizing Education Conference on Nov 7-9, 2022 in Tacoma. A decolonizing practice the conference asks of all participants is to allow the minoritized folks (Black, Indigenous and People of Color, "BIPOC") to take up space with their interests, concerns and participation. Our workshop will be just for the white participants, to help them figure out exactly how to do this - it's something that seems obvious, but is actually quite complex.
Along these lines, recently a Black woman, a white man and a white woman each asked if my work as a white antiracist facilitator with groups of white people reinforced segregation. It's an important question. I find the answers important, too:
We already live segregated lives. Our entire country was founded on separating those who have (land, power, access, etc.) from those who don't, and that infrastructure is alive and well today. When we gather as white folks to understand that infrastructure and everything else about systemic racism, we can make choices that challenge segregation, instead of unwittingly reinforcing it.
White people are well-equipped to support other white people on the same path. It takes extra effort to become aware of all the ways our culture elevates white people and devalues people of color. It's even harder to recognize how us white individuals do this. As white people all on this path, we can offer each other support, prodding, patience and insight—because we're doing the same work.
White people as a whole are pretty clueless about how to talk about race. Our culture doesn't teach us how. So while our intentions are good when we reach across racial difference, we often end up offending the very people we want to connect with. It makes sense for us interested whites to educate ourselves among ourselves to cultivate the basic skills, knowledge and understanding we lack before (or while) stepping into cross-racial relationships.
BIPOC don't have to be in the room for white people to learn about racism. It's so powerful when gatherings of white people help each other figure out how their leisure activities, choice of housing, spending habits, even their activism helps to elevate white people and devalue people of color.
Being relational is a hallmark of antiracism. While it is important for white people to establish appropriate relationships with people of color, it's also important (if not more in certain stages of whiteness awareness) to create relationships among whites. This fortifies anti-racism efforts, normalizes conversations about race among whites, and gives you practice talking with other white people who see things differently.
I am not advocating for white people staying comfortably among themselves, without stepping into conversations about race with other whites, cultivating relationships with BIPOC, or fighting racism in small and big ways. That definitely would be reinforcing segregation :).
Sept. 2022 Back to Blog Home
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