12 Things White People Can Do Now Because of Ferguson

  News & Politics  

 

Janeewoods.com / By Janee Woods

12 Things White People Can Do Now Because of Ferguson

 

In the wake of Michael Brown's murder, there's been silence from the majority of my nonactivist, nonacademic white friends.

August 18, 2014  |  

 

 

This article first appeared on What Matters with Janee Woods.

As we all know by now, Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was gunned down by the police while walking to his grandmother’s house in the middle of the afternoon. For the past few days my Facebook newsfeed has been full of stories about the incidents unfolding in Ferguson, Missouri.

But then I realized something.

For the first couple of days, almost all of the status updates expressing anger and grief about yet another extrajudicial killing of an unarmed black boy, the news articles about the militarized police altercations with community members and the horrifying pictures of his dead body on the city concrete were posted by people of color. Outpourings of rage and demands for justice were voiced by black people, Latinos, Asian Americans, Arab American Muslims. But posts by white people were few at first and those that I saw were posted mostly by my white activist or academic friends who are committed to putting themselves on the frontlines of any conversation about racial or economic injustice in America.

And almost nothing, silence practically, from the majority of my nonactivist, nonacademic white friends—those same people who gleefully jumped on the bandwagon to dump buckets of ice over their heads to raise money for ALS and who wrote heartfelt messages about reaching out to loved ones suffering from depression following the suicide of Robin Williams, may he rest in peace. But an unarmed black teenager walking down the street in broad daylight gets harassed and murdered by a white police officer and those same people seem to have nothing urgent to say about pervasive, systemic, deadly racism in America?
Why? The simplest explanation is because Facebook is, well, Facebook. It’s not the New York Times or a town hall meeting or the current events class at your high school. It’s the internet playground for sharing cat videos, cheeky status updates about the joys and tribulations of living with toddlers, and humble bragging about your fabulous European vacation. Some people don’t think Facebook is the forum for serious conversations. Okay, that’s fine if you fall into that category and your wall is nothing but rainbows and happy talk about how much you love your life.

However, I think the explanation is more complex and mirrors the silence of many people that I witness in real life. A lot of white people aren’t speaking out publicly against the killing of Michael Brown because they don’t see a space for themselves to engage meaningfully in the conversation so that they can move to action against racism. It’s not so much that they have nothing to say but rather they don’t see an opportunity being opened up for them to say something or to do something that matters. Or they might not be sure what to say or how to do it. They might have a hard time seeing a role for themselves in the fight against racism because they aren’t racist, they don’t feel that racism affects them or their loved ones personally, they worry that talking about race and differences between cultures might make things worse, or they think they rarely see overt racism at play in their everyday lives. And, sometimes, they are afraid. There’s a real fear of saying the wrong thing even if the intention is pure, of being alienated socially and economically from other white people for standing in solidarity with black people, or of putting one’s self in harm’s way, whether the harm be physical or psychological.  I’m not saying those aren’t valid fears but I am challenging white people to consider carefully whether failing to speak out or act because of those fears is justified when white silence and inaction mean the oppression and death of black people.

Let’s talk about an active role for white people in the fight against racism because racism burdens all of us and is destroying our communities. And, quite frankly, because white people have a role in undoing racism because white people created and, for the most part, currently maintain (whether they want to or not) the racist system that benefits white people to the detriment of people of color. My white friends who’ve spoken out harshly against the murder of Michael Brown end with a similar refrain: What can I do that will matter in the fight against racism?

White people who are sick and tired of racism should work hard to become white allies.

In the aftermath of the murder of Michael Brown, may he rest in power, here are some ways for white people to become white allies who are engaged thoughtfully and critically in examining the situation in Ferguson and standing on the side of justice and equity. This list is a good place to start your fight to dismantle racial inequity and shine a light on the oppressive structures that lead to yet another extrajudicial killing of a black person.

1. Learn about the racialized history of Ferguson and how it reflects the racialized history of America.  

Michael Brown’s murder is not a social anomaly or statistical outlier. It is the direct product of deadly tensions born from decades of housing discrimination, white flight, intergenerational poverty and racial profiling. The militarized police response to peaceful assembly by the people mirrors what happened in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement.

2. Reject the “He Was a Good Kid” narrative and lift up the “Black Lives Matter” narrative.

Michael Brown was a good kid, by accounts of those who knew him during his short life. But that’s not why his death is tragic. His death isn’t tragic because he was a sweet kid on his way to college next week. His death is tragic because he was a human being and his life mattered. The Good Kid narrative might provoke some sympathy but what it really does is support the lie that as a rule black people, black men in particular, have a norm of violence or criminal behavior. The Good Kid narrative says that this kid didn’t deserve to die because his goodness was the exception to the rule. This is wrong. This kid didn’t deserve to die because he was a human being and black lives matter.

3. Use words that speak the truth about the disempowerment, oppression, disinvestment and racism that are rampant in our communities. 

Be mindful, political and socially aware with your language. Notice how the mainstream news outlets are using words like riot and looting to describe the uprising in Ferguson.  What’s happening is not a riot. The people are protesting and engaging in a justified rebellion. They have a righteous anger and are revolting against the police who have terrorized them for years.

4. Understand the modern forms of race oppression and slavery and how they are intertwined with policing, the courts and the prison industrial complex. 

We don’t enslave black people on the plantation cotton fields anymore. Now we lock them up in for profit prisons at disproportionate rates and for longer sentences for the same crimes than white people. And when they are released, they are second class citizens stripped of voting rights and denied access to housing, employment and education.  Mass incarceration is The New Jim Crow.

5. Examine the interplay between poverty and racial equity.

The twin pillar of racism is economic injustice but do not use class issues to trump race issues and avoid the racism conversation. While racism and class oppression are tangled together in this country, the fact remains that the number one predictor of prosperity and access to opportunity is race.

6. Diversify your media.

Be intentional about looking for and paying close attention to diverse voices of color on the tv, on the internet and on the radio to help shape your awareness, understanding and thinking about political, economic and social issues. Check out Colorlines, The Root or This Week in Blackness to get started.

7.Adhere to the philosophy of nonviolence as you resist racism and oppression. 

Dr. Martin Luther King advocated for nonviolent conflict reconciliation as the primary strategy of the Civil Rights Movement and the charge of His Final Marching Orders.  East Point Peace Academy offers online resources and in person training on nonviolence that is accessible to all people regardless of ability to pay.

8. Find support from fellow white allies.

Challenge and encourage each other to dig deeper, even when it hurts and especially when you feel confused and angry and sad and hopeless, so that you can be more authentic in your shared journey with people of color to uphold and protect principles of antiracism and equity in our society.  Go to workshops like Training for Change’s Whites Confronting Racism or European Dissent by The People’s Institute.  Attend The White Privilege Conference or the Facing Race conference. Some organizations offer scholarships or reduced fees to help people attend if funding is an issue.

9. If you are a person of faith, look to your scriptures or holy texts for guidance.

Seek out faith based organizations like Sojourners and follow faith leaders that incorporate social justice into their ministry. Ask your clergy person to address antiracism in their sermons and teachings. If you are not a person of faith, learn how the world’s religions view social justice issues so that when you have opportunity to invite people of faith to also become white allies, you can talk with them meaningfully about why being a white ally is supported by their spiritual beliefs.

10. Don’t be afraid to be unpopular.

Let’s be realistic. If you start calling out all the racism you witness (and it will be a lot once you know what you’re looking at) some people might not want to hang out with you as much. That’s a risk you’ll need to accept. But think about it like this: staying silent when you witness oppression is the same as supporting oppression. So you can be the popular person who stands with the oppressor or you can be the (maybe) unpopular person who stands for equality and dignity for all people. Which person would you prefer to be? And honestly, if some people don’t want to hang out with you anymore once you show yourself as a white ally then why would you even want to be friends with them anyway? They’re probably racists.

11. Be proactive in your own community.

As a white ally, you are not limited to being reactionary and only rising up to stand on the side of justice when black people are being subjected to violence very visibly and publicly. Moments of crisis do not need to be the catalyst because taking action against systemic racism is always appropriate because systemic racism permeates nearly every institution and community in this country. Some ideas for action: organize a community conversation about the state of police-community relations* in your neighborhood, support leaders of color by donating your time or money to their campaigns or causes, ask the local library to host a showing and discussion group about the documentary RACE: The Power of an Illusion, attend workshops to learn how to transform conflict into opportunity for dialogue. Gather together diverse white allies that represent the diversity of backgrounds in your community. Antiracism is not a liberals only cause. Antiracism is a movement for all people, whether they be conservative, progressive, rich, poor, urban or rural.

12.Don’t give up.

We’re 400 years into this racist system and it’s going to take a long, long, long time to dismantle these atrocities. The antiracism movement is a struggle for generations, not simply the hot button issue of the moment. Transformation of a broken system doesn’t happen quickly or easily. You may not see or feel the positive impact of your white allyship in the next month, the next year, the next decade or even your lifetime. But don’t ever stop. Being a white ally matters because your thoughts, deeds and actions will be part of what turns the tide someday. Change starts with the individual.

This is a list of just 12 ways to be an ally. There are many more ways and I invite you to consider what else you can do to become a strong and loyal white ally. People of color, black people especially, cannot and should not shoulder the burden for dismantling the racist, white supremacist system that devalues and criminalizes black life without the all in support, blood, sweat and tears of white people. If you are not already a white ally, now is the time to become one.
People are literally dying.

Black people are dying and it’s not your personal fault that black people are dying because you’re white but if you don’t make a purposeful choice to become a white ally and actively work to dismantle the racist system running America for the benefit of white people then it becomes your shame because you are white and black lives matter. And if you live your whole life and then die without making a purposeful choice to become a white ally then American racism becomes your legacy.

The choice is yours.

*Disclosure: I work at this organization but the views expressed in this piece are my own and not necessarily those of the organization.

Janee Woods is a former attorney who is working for a nonprofit focused on supporting community engagement, strengthening democracy and fostering racial equity. Follow her on Twitter @janeepwoods.

The Politics of Fat: We Have to Keep Struggling to Liberate Ourselves from Self-Hatred

  News & Politics 

 

AlterNet / By Allison McCarthy

The Politics of Fat: We Have to Keep Struggling to Liberate Ourselves from Self-Hatred

“We claimed the agency, we granted ourselves the authority. But we never stopped worrying about how our asses looked in our jeans.”

April 4, 2012  |  

Last weekend when "Mad Men" aired its second episode of the season, viewers blanched to see character Betty Draper, a frustrated housewife with no personal or professional outlet, sink into a spiral of weight gain, self-loathing and emotional overeating, begging her doctor for diet pills. While today's viewers may find Betty's plight simplistic or pat, the idea that body image and weight were interrelated with feminism was revolutionary for its time.

In fact, it changed the way activists looked at their bodies and politics. Even as this intersection between food, body image and politics has been debated, critiqued and absorbed, how far have we come?

Psychologist Susie Orbach’s debut book Fat Is a Feminist Issue celebrates 34 years of providing theoretical and practical musings on the relationship between women and fat. The book is equal parts self-help advice, psychology journal, gender studies, and fat-acceptance theory. As feminist and fat acceptance movements evolved from second-wave protests to contemporary digital activism, Fat Is a Feminist Issue connected the dots between two parallel causes for human rights while championing the individual’s right to be healthy and happy at every size. Orbach’s pioneer insistence that feminists needed to talk about body image and compulsive eating, while fat activists had to acknowledge issues of gender and difference, united two notorious social-activist movements that made progress possible across a dual spectrum of civil rights.

The second wave of U.S. mainstream feminism appeared well underway when Fat Is a Feminist Issue came to prominence. At a time when feminist rallies and actions organized predominantly around the Equal Rights Amendment and changes in the workplace – as well as the emergence of fat-acceptance protests without a framework for understanding gender – Orbach wanted to explore the private lives of female compulsive eaters. For a fat woman operating in the public sphere, life “centered on food, what she can and cannot eat, what she will or will not eat, what she has or has not eaten and when she will or will not eat next… The obsession with food carries with it an enormous amount of self-disgust, loathing and shame.”

In 1970, the Boston Women’s Health Collective published a 35-cent booklet that morphed into the classic tome, Our Bodies, Ourselves. Eight years later, Fat Is a Feminist Issue showcased Orbach’s clinical, activist and often personal work battling fat oppression.

Within a few years of Orbach’s debut release making the rounds in book clubs and classrooms, the feminist backlash of the 1980s became all too apparent. Critics claimed that feminism’s modest (read: staggering) social and political gains were more than satisfactory. They wanted the general public to embrace post-feminist gender equality. Mostly, the naysayers got their way. Gone were the days of Orbach’s group consciousness-raising sessions, where community members shared stories of fat shaming, body dysmorphia and eating disorders — a public space that exposed a common hatred of fat and frequently female bodies while fumbling on the path to liberation. But where the groups left off, popular literature became the outreach to disseminate the gains of activists.

One of the author’s shortcomings in 1974 was the narrowness of her topic’s scope, particularly when it came to issues of race, genders other than cis women, sexual orientation, and disability. In the preface, Orbach noted that the groups of women she worked with were composed entirely of North American and European white women; similarly, discussions on queer fat bodies, trans* fat bodies, and disabled fat bodies (outside the purview of eating disorders) are not referenced in the text. However, as both feminist and fat-positive movements took their message to the Internet, conversations among various social justice-minded communities continue to expand.  

Several prominent feminist bloggers focus extensively on body acceptance, but their work often goes beyond the singular relationship of gender and fat. Writer and activist Tasha Fierce is a frequent contributor to Bitch and Jezebel and creator of the blog Sex and the Fat Girl, where Fierce documents her experiences as a self-described “fat, queer woman of color.” She is particularly passionate when addressing the intersectionality of fat bodies.

“Our approach to building fat community needs to be a comprehensive and all-inclusive one,” says Fierce. “White cisgender feminists who are fat need to recognize that there are different levels of oppression — not everyone who is fat is only facing discrimination because of their weight.” She pointed to a recent call-to-action by the organization NOLOSE which argues that people of color are too often portrayed as the impoverished, tragic face of a heavily politicized and trending obesity epidemic. Social justice organizers in both the fat-acceptance and feminist communities are responsible for facilitating inclusiveness within their ranks, she says. Fierce shared her insights for creating that environment. “When there are fat activist gatherings, the organizers need to make sure the venues and materials are accessible to those who use differing methods of communication — these are just basics to start with.”

Fierce is hardly the only feminist-minded writer who insists on an intersectional approach to feminism and fat positivity. Late last fall, Hanne Blank released an expanded edition of Big Big Love, Revised: A Sex and Relationships Guide for People of Size (and Those Who Love Them). Blank read Fat Is a Feminist Issue as a college undergraduate. Her vision for mitigating privilege is deceptively simple and profound. “Shutting up and listening with humility and openness to what other people have to say about their experiences and their needs would be a great start,” says Blank. “Then work on creating coalition politics.” There’s also the work of renowned womanists Renee Martin, Monica Roberts and Tami Winfrey Harris, who recently posted on the harsh criticism hurled at the overweight, middle-aged Downton Abbey star Brendan Coyle’s appearance in a love scene.

Even for bloggers who haven’t read Susie Orbach, her text’s influence is undeniable. Consider Arwyn Daemyir, who blogs at Raising My Boychick. Her 2009 post on the futility of dieting is particularly memorable. Daemyir’s mother was a subscriber to Radiance: The Magazine for Large Women and later provided her daughter with a personal subscription. Although Daemyir has not read Fat Is a Feminist Issue, her mother owned a copy. “I have a tag on my blog by the same title,” she says, noting the phrase’s influence. Yet Daemyir felt more influenced by titles that followed Orbach’s published work, including Marilyn Wann’s Fat! So? and Bonnie Bernell’s Bountiful Women, as well as the too-short-lived Hues magazine. Without Orbach’s contributions to the feminist and fat-acceptance movements, perhaps none of these works would have drawn in audiences from both sides of the proverbial aisle.

Orbach’s radical call for open dialogue on body image and eating disorders remains an essential text for generations of activists who struggle with understanding and accepting fat bodies. But the work is far from complete.

Within the movements, the same impossible questions cycle and recycle. In “Tiny Revolutions,” advice columnist Cheryl Strayed (writing as “Dear Sugar”) responded to a middle-aged woman experiencing bouts of insecurity at the thought of exposing her loose-skinned, not-skinny body to a new lover. Sugar poses a question that Orbach likely asked of her own clients in group sessions: “What’s on the other side of the tiny gigantic revolution in which I move from loathing to loving my own skin?”But was anyone shocked when Sugar pointed to a profound failure of the feminist movement to flip the script on body-hatred? Thirty-four years after Orbach sounded the alarm, there is still no collective feminist vision of the other side. “We claimed the agency, we granted ourselves the authority, we gathered the accolades,” Sugar writes. “But we never stopped worrying about how our asses looked in our jeans.”

Orbach can point to a number of changes in the treatment of fat women and diet culture after the publication of Fat Is a Feminist Issue. Eating disorders are not the hidden phenomenon of decades past. As an author, she may have been able to take some credit after Cosmopolitan ceased running a diet-tips column after the book’s release, but most of the mainstream magazines marketed to women, including Cosmo, would be hard-pressed to name more than a dozen instances of plus-sized bodies making front cover. Even in times of Internet connection and the subsequent fluidity of personal identity, fat bodies are policed and polarized into extremes. Feminism and fat-acceptance movements need Orbach and other feminist, fat-positive writers to establish correlations between body image and body acceptance. The revolution may still be possible, but it will require the collaborative vision of multiple communities to achieve.

Bernie Sanders Warns That Senate Vote To Repeal Citizens United Is A Pivotal Moment

 

Bernie Sanders Warns That Senate Vote To Repeal Citizens United Is A Pivotal Moment 

By: Jason Easley more from Jason Easley

 

Sunday, September, 7th, 2014, 12:59 pm

 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is warning the American people that country is facing a pivotal moment in history tomorrow as the Senate will vote on an amendment to repeal Citizens United.

Sanders is sounding the alarm bells that the country is facing a pivotal moment,

One day before the U.S. Senate votes on a constitutional amendment to restore limits on big money in politics, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called the drive to undo Supreme Court decisions that gutted campaign finance laws “the major issue of our time” and said Monday’s showdown vote is “a pivotal moment in American history.”

“Billionaires buying elections is not what our Constitution stands for,” said Sanders. He is a cosponsor of the amendment to reverse Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and later court rulings that let millionaires and billionaires spend virtually unlimited and unregulated sums to sway elections.

“The major issue of our time is whether the United States of America retains its democratic foundation or whether we devolve into an oligarchic form of society where a handful of billionaires are able to control our political process by spending hundreds of millions of dollars to elect candidates who represent their interests,” Sanders said.

The constitutional amendment will be obstructed by Koch funded Republicans who will do anything, including drumming up a fake IRS scandal, to keep the billionaire dollars flowing into their campaign coffers. Tomorrow’s debate is significant because the issue of Citizens United and the right-wing billionaires who are trying to buy our government are going to take center stage.

You will see Republicans like Mitch McConnell stand up and defend the Koch brothers’ attempts to buy the government as “free speech.” The rationale behind McConnell’s argument is that the people who have the most money have the right to the most “speech.” The problem is that free speech isn’t a commodity to be bought and sold. Money has nothing to do with the basic right to speech. 

There will be a parade of Republicans on the Senate floor who will march to the microphone and in tones of dire panic tell the American people that your liberty is at stake if the Koch brothers aren’t allowed to spend millions of dollars trying to buy the government. Republicans will be able to stop the constitutional amendment, but they are going to be forced to go on the record with a position on subject that they don’t want to talk about.

Monday’s vote is important because it is the next step in the movement to overturn Citizens United. The important thing to remember is that this is a movement. The easiest way to rid the country of Citizens United is to wait for a conservative vacancy on the Supreme Court, and tip the court more moderate direction with a liberal appointment.

Until that time comes, the foundation of our freedom will continue to be under assault from billionaires’ interests, and it will be up to leaders like Sen. Bernie Sanders to mobilize the regular Americans to defend the rights of all.

Are We Wringing the Creativity Out of Kids?

HOW WE WILL LEARN

Are We Wringing the Creativity Out of Kids?

Annie Murphy Paul | May 4, 2012 | 42 Comments

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Do you think you’re creative?”

Ask this question of a group of second-graders, and about 95 percent of them will answer “Yes.” Three years later, when the kids are in fifth grade, that proportion will drop to 50 percent—and by the time they’re seniors in high school, it’s down to 5 percent.

Author Jonah Lehrer recently discussed the implications of these sobering statistics for education in his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. In a talk and question-and-answer session he participated in at the Commonwealth Club in Palo Alto, California, last month, Lehrer talked about why children lose their playful sense of creativity as they get older, and how we can help them hang on to it.

Lehrer began by quoting Picasso: “Every child is born an artist. The problems begin once we start to grow up.” Actually, Lehrer noted, the problems begin in a very specific time frame: the years covering third, fourth, and fifth grade. It’s during this period, he says, that many kids “conclude that they are not creative, and this is in large part because they start to realize that that their drawing is not quite as pretty as they would like, that they can put the brush in the wrong place, that their short stories don’t live up to their expectations—so they become self-conscious and self-aware, and then they shut themselves down.” Parents and teachers must intervene during this crucial window to ensure that children’s creativity doesn’t wither.

“Right now we are grooming our kids to think in a very particular way, which assumes that the right way to be thinking is to be attentive, to stare straight ahead.”

One such intervention: “We have to expand our notion of what productivity means,” said Lehrer. “Right now we are grooming our kids to think in a very particular way, which assumes that the right way to be thinking is to be attentive, to stare straight ahead—which is why we diagnose 20 percent of kids in many classrooms as having attention deficit disorders, when the research is actually more complicated.”

People with such conditions are actually more likely to become “eminent creative achievers” once they’re out in the real world, Lehrer noted. He cited research by Jordan Grafman of the University of Toronto, showing that distractibility can be an asset as long as it’s combined with a moderately high IQ. “When you’re distractible, you’re always grabbing at seemingly irrelevant ideas and combining them with other ideas. Most of those ideas won’t pan out, which is why being smart helps, because that means you can get rid of those ideas quickly,” he said. “But every once in a while, that new mash-up is going to be useful, is going to lead you somewhere interesting.”

Parents’ and teachers’ task, he said, is to help kids learn how to “productively daydream.”

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Lehrer’s second proposal: Teach children how to have “grit,” the perseverance and determination that’s required to create something new. He referenced the research on grit conducted by University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth, who professes the maxim “Choose easy, work hard.”

Lehrer elaborated: “What she means by that is that’s important to give kids a menu of possibilities pretty early on, a menu of things they might fall in love with—maybe it’s painting, maybe it’s drawing, maybe it’s writing, maybe it’s computer science—just a bunch of passions that they could discover. [You want them to] find these things that don’t feel like work, activities that just feel like fun. And then you have to remind them—‘OK, so you’ve found something you love, the goal you want to strive for. Now you have to work hard. Now you have to put in your thousands of hours of practice. Now you have to be willing to persevere through failure and frustrations.’”

With these key interventions, Lehrer suggested, children’s vital spirit of creativity can be kept alive.