How to Be an Anti-Racist Leader
Confronting and Healing Amidst Whiteness and White Supremacy.
“Trauma decontextualized in a person looks like personality. Trauma decontextualized in a family looks like family traits. Trauma in a people looks like culture [bodies of culture].” — Resmaa Menakem
“If you truly loved yourself, you could never hurt another.” — Sharon Salzberg
This post was co-written by Virginia Bauman and Allison Schultz.
Confused or fumbling around the topic of whiteness, and how it relates to your life and leadership? You’re not alone. While it’s at times awkward, know that imperfect forward momentum is the challenge. It’s a topic we must pursue if we are to confront our own whiteness and do our part to create systemic change. Our offerings below are geared towards white folks who are wondering where to start in the path to becoming Anti-racist and confronting whiteness.
You may be wondering: what’s on the other side of all of this exploration? What am I missing? What does liberation look like?
In order to show up in solidarity to confront a system of oppression like white supremacy, we must understand how we work towards liberation for all. To do this, we must look at how white supremacy formed and how it uses whiteness. The work of our own liberation must be pursued alongside solidarity for others’ liberation. This is a perfect example of work that is our own, but that can’t be done alone.
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to find out what is your work to do as you explore these themes. Where does bias play a role in your life? How have you benefited from your whiteness? How does trauma live in you and your ancestors, and how does that relate to power and oppression in your life? How does all of that show up in your treatment of others, how you approach inclusion and belonging in your family, community, and organizations? What is the work for you to do to become an effective anti-racist?
Below are some resources on whiteness and white supremacy. If you are white, chances are you weren’t taught this material. And because your racial identity is an agent identity your survival doesn’t demand an understanding of whiteness in our society, but your liberation does. This is a good primer to understand how whiteness is the water in which we swim.
What is White Supremacy Culture? What is it, and how does it show up? Where is it alive in the communities, families, and organizations you interact with and inhabit? This is a fantastic, clear, and shocking primer on White Supremacy Culture was put together by Tema Okun for the Dismantling Racism project.
As you read through this document, notice how these values have been at play in organizations or cultures you’ve experienced or have been a part of creating. What is another way?
What are the implicit biases at play in your operating worldview? We all have them, and the trick is to become aware of them and where they show up in our lives. Once we spot them, we can choose to act or react differently in certain situations. The Harvard Implicit Bias Test is insightful and revealing.
Where are you on the anti-racist journey? From Woke to Work: The Anti-Racist Journey, with host Kamala Avila-Salmon is a podcast series that looks at the arc of the anti-racist journey. Kamala talks about what it means to go from a self-proclaimed ally to an effective anti-racist.
How does trauma/Trauma play a part in your relationship to oppression? Learn about the intergenerational trauma in your family and lineage. What have your people experienced? What have you experienced? This helps you understand the trauma you carry and how that might show up in somatic responses to/of oppression. For further reading on this topic, check out the potent book My Grandmother’s Hands, by Resmaa Menakem.
What healing needs to take place in dominant groups to end the cycles of violence in communities? Whiteawake.org has a piece called “Healing the Dominant Group, Breaking the Cycle of Violence” which is an essay on the culture of conquest and the culture of domination that has impacted indigenous peoples over the course of history.
If you’re part of a dominant identity group, how can you do your work of breaking cycles with co-operative support from others also in that group?
Where did your ancestors come from? How does understanding these historic roots facilitate your understanding of including and belonging today? In his essay called “Roots Deeper than Whiteness” author David Dean writes that remembering who we are is good for the well-being of all.
Increase your view of history from the other perspectives. Many books exist currently exploring history in a more fleshed-out way than what is oft-repeated or ingrained in memory from our academic coursework.
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is one such book that provides insight into the issues we’re seeing in our current times.
Another insightful lens is Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, by Barbara Ehrenreich, which details how collective joy ceremonies used to be a part of nearly every human culture in some form, only to be curtailed as the centralized militarization of nations took hold and were often used as a reason to colonize and wipe out cultures. This text has a unique lens of looking at history through the lens of something that we’ve all lost in its old forms and provides a deeper understanding of many behaviors we still see cropping up in society now.
How can you address the root causes of systemic racism in fundraising, internal operations, and community leadership? What are the policies that keep racial disparities in place and unchallenged? What can be done to work towards racial equity in foundations? This piece on Paying Attention to White Culture and Privilege: A Missing Link to Advancing Racial Equity touches on these issues and provides insights for organizational change.
Continue your self-education. Whiteawake.org has a list of resources that serve as a syllabus for many issues noted in this post, and more.
The topic of whiteness and how it relates to your life and leadership takes radical self-inquiry, re-education, and unpacking on a personal level. Each insight is a golden nugget towards systemic change, and our imperfect forward momentum is the challenge and the collective reward.
