If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the tormentor.
Bishop Desmond Tutu
White People’s Work
White people must actively serve, and not passively observe, the struggle of black and brown people to overturn the system of White supremacy culture. Ours is truly the lion’s share of the work necessary to lessen and mitigate White harm inflicted on people of color.
“I raise up my voice — not so I can shout. but so those without a voice can be heard.”
According to black and brown community organizers, White people must undertake the following to serve their communities in dismantling supremacy culture:
hear and listen to the black and brown voices all around us
acknowledge and understand the truth of their experiences
amplify voices of people of color and stop those who would silence them
respect and follow the authority and expertise of black and brown leaders
challenge the supremacy narrative, its systems, and its behaviors whenever we can
Most importantly, White people must commit to doing the difficult personal work, “internal and educational and relational” (Lace Watkins, 2020, from the Blackout Tuesday article listed below). Simply put, White people have inherited and internalized the supremacy narrative right along with people of color; we’re the other side of it. Even if we’re not openly bigoted or prejudiced, we still have inside our psyches all the same supremacy training; it manifests in us as unconscious or passive racism instead.
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I am a donor to the human rights and racial justice organization Equal Justice Initiative. EJI’s founder and Executive Director is Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy and one of this year’s MacArthur Foundation fellows…