On White people in anti-racist spaces (and getting paid for it): A statement
When I decided to write Good White Racist? I was aware that as a white woman, my presence in anti-racist spaces would be met with some suspicion. With good reason, people of color might distrust my intentions and my ability to do this work well. After all, white people need to learn from the BIPOC community; we need to submit to their leadership in these areas, and white people in anti-racist spaces take up space that should be filled with voices of color. Similarly, white people in these spaces are very good at calling each other out — with good reason — and offer accountability to be sure that my goal is not to center myself and my whiteness. And of course, the good white racists everywhere use the usual justifications: talking about racism only perpetuates it, or that I obviously hate white people, or that I should stop wanting to be Black.
Alrighty then.
Sure enough, I’ve gotten all of these responses (plus death threats on Twitter and family members who have disowned me) and I wanted to take a moment to write my official response to these critiques, because in many cases they are good and valid. The accusations leveraged by the good white racists in the room are exactly the reason I wrote the book in the first place. The death threats just confirm that Houston, we have a problem, and as for the family members, well, what can I say? Familial dysfunction is a thing. Nothing much to be done about that.
Within these questions is also another valid and very important inquiry: what’s my stance on being a white woman who gets paid to do anti-racism work? This, too, is a valid question and one I want to answer here, because it deserves a layered and nuanced response. So here goes:
ON BEING WHITE AND ANTI-RACIST
As a white person, my racial awakening was a slow process, but the bulk of it was a process of considering Blackness, or Otherness, or difference. In other words, I thought a lot about injustice, oppression, and the effects of racism on black and brown bodies. My racial awakening at first was never about considering whiteness. That didn’t happen until I got to seminary and started reading Black theology, and then one day I heard Ruby Sales speak on an episode of On Being and my entire world view changed. In that episode, she said something to the effect of, “We have a Black liberating theology, but what I want to know is where is the white liberating theology?”
After I recovered from the radical generosity of this statement — and let me tell you, that took a while, and about 14 more listens — I started wondering about this white liberating theology, too. What would it look like, I wondered, if white people could be liberated from our identity of white pseudo-supremacy?
I came to a startling realization: I had no idea.
Me not having a clue is not the surprising part, here. Trust me when I tell you that’s my usual state of being. What surprised and intrigued me was the idea that collectively as white people, we simply don’t know how or what or who to be in the world without this construct of pseudo-supremacy. It’s such a foreign idea that none of us are even thinking about it.
And we need to be thinking about it.
I realized that until we began to imagine a new way to be — until we really engaged our own creative genesis to develop a different way of being in the world — racism will always plague our country and our world. White people have experienced a failure of imagination regarding our own being, and that’s why even good people cling to pseudo-supremacy — we don’t know what to be without it, and trying to imagine it feels like self-annihilation (as Andre Henry once posted on social media).
For me, this is the faith walk. This is the part where I throw my hands up in surrender and say, “I dunno, God, but I trust I will be shown the way.” I’m not saying I know what the answer is. I’m saying that we need more white people — smarter ones than me — to be asking the question. This is the work of our hands — to release our grasp on the false construct of white supremacy, and open our hands to receive a better way of being. This is existential work, and as such, we are the only ones who can do it. The BIPOC community can lead us, guide us, teach us. But ultimately, the labor is ours, and so is the responsibility.
Thinking about who we are going to be — other than perpetrators of racist systems (even when we don’t want to be) and pseudo-supremacists (even when we think we’re not) — is our primary work as white people. It’s our job to do this labor of imagination because racism is our sickness, our soul disfigurement. Our healing is our responsibility. Our redemption, our own work to do in the world. We have relied on people of color to do this work for us for far too long, and after a few marches and some changes in the law here and there, we sit back and think everything is fine.
Everything is not fine.
Our self-satisfaction, our color-blindness, our paternalistic tone-policing of people of color, and our blatant anti-blackness continues to harm the BIPOC community. Just because you’ve never called the police on someone living life while Black doesn’t mean our collective skin-kin doesn’t have a problem that needs to be dealt with, and it’s our job to deal with it.
Part of that work absolutely includes learning from and submitting to people of color. Unfortunately, so many white people are not willing to do that, because we dismiss BIPOC voices as merely angry, singular people who obviously can’t show gratitude for how far we’ve all come as a society. Learning from these voices makes us hella uncomfortable, and if there’s one thing we white people like, it’s to be comfortable. And good. That’s what makes it so hard for us to acknowledge our participation in racist systems. In those cases, I hope to be an initiatory voice into this work, a leader who points the way down a path that leads to voices like Austin Channing Brown, Layla Saad, Rachel Cargle, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Ta Nehisi Coats, Zora Neale Hurston, Renita Weems, just to name a few.
Another critique I’ve heard from many white people in anti-racist spaces is that the book is Racism 101; they say it oversimplifies a complicated problem. While I don’t think the book is simple at all, I do agree it’s just a drop in the racist bucket our country is hauling around. Certainly, there is more work to do and there are more words to say about the topic. Every chapter in the book could have been a book in and of itself. But America is still in kindergarten when it comes to our own inherent racism. This book is intended for those who are just awakening to their own pseudo-supremacy. Unfortunately, that’s still a huge audience.
There are also many white folk who are a little further down the line in their own racial awakening, who are ready to dive deeper into this work and to begin showing up in the world as an anti-racist. To be clear — most anti-racism work white people do will occur around their kitchen tables and at holiday parties when racist uncle Joe comes for a visit. I wanted to provide a lexicon for these people to draw from, to help them formulate the arguments they’ll use at Thanksgiving dinner and arm them with knowledge of the entangled system of racism in which we all swim. I knew this was needed because of the responses I received from many white people to things I’ve posted on my blog or social media over the years. Which brings me to the next, very important point: What’s my stance on getting paid to do anti-racism work as a white woman?
ON WHITE PEOPLE GETTING PAID TO DO ANTI-RACISM WORK
Should white people really profit financially from repairing the damage done by white people to people of color that quite literally decimated the BIPOC community financially for generations?
It’s a really good question, and one I don’t take lightly. It’s answer, however, is not simple — it is layered and complex, but I’ll try to explain it here in full.
First and foremost I vocally and publicly support a national reparations program. This is one of the most important things white people can do, because the more support a reparations program gets from the public, the more likely it will actually happen. That said, I personally donate to organizations and individuals of color — when possible I do so anonymously. I buy from and promote black owned businesses. And when I am in a position of influence I hire or recommend people of color.
The balance, however, comes in how much I talk about that work — because it’s not about my goodness or white savior-hood. Centering my good (though not enormous) deeds would be — well, gross. So honestly, this will probably be all I will say about my own financial contributions for a good while.
Additionally, I’ve mostly done this work (through my blog and social media, both publicly and privately) for free for years, only recently being compensated for the work when my publisher requested, and then accepted, a book proposal based on my blog. When I preach, I always try to work in racial justice, and I have not yet once been paid to preach. I one time received a stipend of $50 for sitting on a panel about racism — and I paid my own airfare to get to the event. In this and many other ways, the work costs me more than it makes me, because promoting the work takes time away from other work that I do (I make my money mostly from coaching and consulting with small businesses — and have lost clients because I am so publicly vocal about my beliefs).
I say all that not for kudos and definitely not for sympathy, but to clarify that while I happily donate and / or profit share, these payments will unfortunately not make much of a difference — except on the tiniest scale in the lives of the people and / or organizations who receive them. In other words, the work is not necessarily as lucrative as one might think (at least, it hasn’t yet been for me). That’s why I work hard to be vocal about programs that address large scale systemic issues while pointing my own personal dollars to organizations and businesses that promote racial uplift as much as and whenever possible. Meanwhile, if anti-racism work ever becomes a full-time gig for me — the way I support myself — a reassessment of both my transparency and my financial donations may, indeed, be in order. To date, however, that’s not happened.
I wanted to address these issues because they are important, and deserve answers. But also, talking about these specific issues centers me and takes away from the more important work: dismantling white pseudo-supremacy and its racist systems. That’s why this will most likely be the only thing I say about it, unless something changes pretty drastically.
Should you have more questions about it, please feel free to hit me up on social media or email me at kerry@kerryconnelly.com.
