Here is my list of 7 things that should be done by white people who see the minefield and are hesitant to enter cross-race dialogue....
Write a love letter to a white anti-racist who inspires you. So simple, so elegant, something I have never done. This is a beautiful reminder of the need to not only believe in justice and the value of community, but to act on those beliefs, to allow them to be evident in day-to-day practice....
This race/class privilege allows me to go about my days in relative ignorance of what others’ experience and how it shapes their moods, interactions, and attitudes about our city....
Headed toward the theater, I was prepared to be moved, angry, and judgmental of the perpetrator of the crime at the center of the film. What I was not prepared for was the realization that a particular stereotype I’ve held of black people’s lives would be revealed....
The spiritual basis for healing and transformation is a core need for justice movements. I am glad that I’m still associated with practices aligned with this orientation. And yet, it’s also essential that white people invested in spirituality have a racial justice orientation....
There has been no shortage of words spoken and printed on the primary subjects of this piece. I offer my voice now to highlight some of the important messages I received....
What I have since realized is that saying “vanilla” is the same as “plain” is like saying that being white has no flavor, that it is plain and has no associated culture via generalizable assumptions, tendencies, or beliefs....
I tire of the sound bites and the irrationality so regularly displayed in the national media and via endless internet chatter. It seems that the stories that arrive and disappear with relatively little fanfare somehow touch something in me....
Two particularly insightful clips from Stephen’s “The Word” segment are really useful. Their penetrating and hilarious treatment of relatively recent events prompted me to build a workshop around them for some high school students last year....
An examination of the contributing factors of one public official's use of an image depicting Obama's head on a chimpanzee's body and her subsequent hollow apology....