I have mentioned in many posts and comments how disruptive the 2016 election results were for me. Not the vote/electoral college count as much as the conversations in my women’s Facebook groups. The white progressive response to Trump’s election, and Trump’s America, sent me on a difficult mission. First, I had to accept that I did not accurately understand white progressive culture, particularly as it manifests through white womanhood. Second, I had to decide how to engage with it, once I had a clearer understanding of what it really was. Third, I had to re-prioritize my actions and responsibilities as a WOC, based on this new understanding.
I specifically mention white progressive culture because family and life experience steeped me well in white right-wing culture and MLK summarized all I needed to understand about white liberalism in my tender years. But I had deeply misunderstood white progressivism until that election. And the journey to better understand it and determine how best to interact with it was an important part of my efficacy and continued wellness as a progressive of color.
I believe the single greatest threat to the world right now is the indulgence, protection, advancement or denial of white male primacy. It underlies all we fight against. We cannot fix what we cannot acknowledge...and these groups have taught me the deep cultural training that prevents us from acknowledging and addressing it.
So has my frequent experience on this site.
Many of you may have seen the many variations on White Progressive/White Liberal/White Feminist Bingo Cards floating across social media. They compile standard responses that many of us hear as we persist in participating in cross-cultural dialogue (we have to work together to get to the numbers we need to change all of this). Rather than make light of it, I thought I would post a checklist to see if any of these sentiments, that have been at the heart of many, many, many conversations since 2016, resonate with you. And if so, what tools are you using to course correct?
☐ I demand to be responded to or judged by my intention rather than my impact. (I bristle at the use of phrase “I demand.”)
☐ If you want me to care about or act on social injustice, you have to speak to me nicely/politely.
☐ In the current climate, I consider discussions of racism as less pressing than climate change, disproportionate wealth, global human rights, etc. I do not believe or accept that racism informs or fuels most if not all of the issues I am fighting for or against.
☐ I consider and frame the mention of racism and/or whiteness in our progressive community as divisive and/or racist itself.
☐ I am an individual. I resist the notion of “white culture” or “whiteness” because not all white people are alike
☐ I did not grow up in houses where uncomfortable conversations about race and racism were initiated or allowed and do not initiate or allow them in my own home.
☐ The mention of the word “white” in discussion of race immediately makes me uncomfortable or angry. I was raised to believe that any mention of race is, itself, racist.
☐ I am surprised by how frequently and frankly POC discuss race. I do not see my rarely discussing it as privilege on my part.
☐ I have not personally/academically studied American racism. I feel I have equal clarity on the issue as POC, including those with degrees and professional experience in the space. I feel my contributions to the conversation are important and should be valued.
☐ I expect to be regarded as a peer or impartial leader in discussions of racism. I sometimes feel I have more clarity than POC because I can be impartial about race as a white person, and particularly, as a white progressive.
☐ I consider whiteness to be “race neutral” rather than heavily “race affirmative.” As a feminist, I ask WOC to leave race out of the conversation (as well as others to stop mentioning ability, sexuality and more) so we can focus on solely issues of being a woman. I do not believe that race, and specifically my whiteness, informs or influences my experience of womanhood.
☐ Being told I should listen to or learn from POC in discussions about race causes my bristling, defensiveness, attack or departure from the dialogue. I have not examined those reactions further and do not like them to be mentioned.
☐ I do not apologize to POC for racist things I say or do. I may take ownership of my action and acknowledge it was racist, but I will not say, “I’m sorry.” I have not examined the underlying reasons for my discomfort doing that.
☐ If a POC says another progressive has done something that I think might diminish perception of that progressive as non-racist, in my response, I first lead with the defense of the white progressive rather than a sympathetic response to the person who says they were harmed.
☐ The greatest harm that happens in cross-racial discussions is a well-intentioned white person unfairly being called racist.
☐ I will not directly respond to a POC who discusses racism in a way that does not affirm my individual goodness, but I will join collective pushback against that person once another person begins.
☐ I leverage social acceptance as a means of silencing uncomfortable conversations about racism that do not wholly and explicitly exonerate me from any association with racism. If I am a POC, and particularly a non-Black POC, I reap social reward/inclusion by asserting the innocence of any white progressive in my presence before discussing racism as an issue with other whites.
☐ I lean heavily on those POC who benefit from or prioritize the social currency of white acceptance to push back against other POC who discuss racism and do not clearly exonerate white progressives and acknowledge their individual goodness and non-racism.
☐ I privately support POC who speak out against white progressive racism (e.g., via personal outreach, DMs, etc.) but do not do so in open or public threads/spaces.
☐ I do not allow or engage in angry conversations about race in my presence and will actively try to make the conversation nice and/or productive or I leave. If anger is expressed at all, it should be productive. At the same time, when I am wronged, I feel and express anger and consider it valid. I do not see or explore the potential conflict in these two sentiments.
☐ I resist or refute the premise of privilege vocally and firmly and can and do share clear, individual examples of when I objectively have experienced hardship. I do not consider or accept privilege as a relative experience.
☐ I prioritize comfort and the perception of my niceness as the highest possible outcomes of engagement. I do not allow others to mention that I am prioritizing comfort or my being considered nice at the expense of others who are suffering.
☐ I am essentially distrustful of claims of racism if an individual white person in my environment is mentioned, although I am very comfortable acknowledging general institutional and systemic racism, as well as racism by non-progressive whites.
☐ I “flatten” specific mentions of racism with more generalizing “all” statements that create equivalence between white and non-white people (“All Lives Matter”) and/or clearly mark me as an exception (“Not all white people _____”).
☐ I speak of racism using the terms “they” and “them” because it addresses other people’s actions, not my own.
☐ I am the primary arbiter of whether or not my words and actions are racist, not those who experience my words and actions. And I am not racist.
This checklist reflects common themes and responses that have consistently stopped dialogue and action around race and racism in my women’s groups since 2016, almost always using the same lexicon (hence the Bingo cards).
I have seen a handful of white women in these groups transition out of this progressive mindset into a post-progressive, “red pill” mindset. They perceive the new reality first. For some, it was Philando Castile’s murder. For others, it was their own inability to speak against horrific conversations at their family tables. For a few more, it has been seeing immigrant children of color caged, deprived and abused. I then watch them start to delicately push back when sentiments seen in this checklist begin to derail action and understanding. When addressing the pain and victimization of many others keeps getting shifted back to affirming the goodness of the unaffected few. And I’ve seen, to the one, how many of them are blocked by friends, reported on Facebook and thrown in “FB jail,” uninvited from the party. I have read the notes saying that WOC are their only remaining friends and advocates. The cost is enormous. I get it.
I watch all of this now with enormous empathy. I used to think that racial dialogue-resistant white liberals, and certainly white progressives, saw how all of this worked and actively ignored or subconsciously denied it. I have learned in these three years that they sincerely have never seen the world I live in. That, to them, this is the worst America has ever been because it is the first time they are seeing the entirety of it (thanks to social media democratizing the narrative and smart phones visualizing it). I was taught these truths as a small child so I could safely leave the house. I imagine how hard it would be to learn that much of what you know, love and believe to be true is, in fact, a dangerous lie.
And I have stopped believing it is my role to work with white progressives so we can survive 2020 and thrive beyond that. I know now that white post-progressives have to confront white progressives and shake them beyond self-affirmation. They will not listen to me in the same way, and my efforts are required helping my own survive and thrive in this culture.
Recently, a white female friend mentioned that she is making her book group include books by authors of color. I asked her instead to have them read and discuss whiteness. Make that conversation okay. Make it happen. Let it be uncomfortable. “Waking Up White” by Debby Irving keeps coming up in my groups. She is going to read it. And we are going to talk. Well, she is going to talk, and I am going to listen. Because I need to understand all of this so I can help marginalized communities rise. And so I can stay engaged in a dialogue that is exhausting and ever-looping and mission-critical and still, I believe, the gateway to changing the world.