The Risk of Capitalizing on Racism as a White Anti-Racist Practitioner
I am part of a recent phenomenon: the swelling numbers of white anti-racist "practitioners”. It's an imperfect label, but I like how it suggests the minute-by-minute practice of staying awake to both the obvious and the obfuscating racist structures of our culture.
Some of us have official DEI roles in agencies, offices, schools. Some work to shift organizational culture and policy. Others coach individuals or groups. I offer a combination (it’s all laid out here).
In the months following George Floyd's murder, the number of white antiracist practitioners spiked. I understand this in two ways: first, an unprecedented number of individuals, organizations, and government agencies suddenly clamored to hire someone to guide them through their own racial awakening and reckoning. Second, as is inevitable in our culture, any new uprising of interest becomes something to capitalize on. This created a whole new industry of anti-racist white professionals. And it created a whole a pile of dilemmas for me. Here are a few:
Our capitalist culture is predicated on the racist organization and positioning of bodies. As Ruth Wilson Gilmore says, “Capitalism requires inequality. Racism enshrines it.” When I earn money from my anti-racism work, I’m both upholding capitalism and tearing down racist structures…which feels like a fool’s game.
White-identified people as a whole already have more inroads and fewer obstacles to accumulating wealth than marginalized people. I risk amplifying that disparity in a really ironic way by participating in this industry where white practitioners profit off of the history, pain, lived experience of people of color in this country.
Like most white people, I have neither been educated to understand what life is like for marginalized people, nor conditioned to deeply feel the impact of that reality. Yet an important part of anti-racist work is uplifting these lived experiences. I need to figure out how to do this without deceiving myself, or others, about what I do know and don’t know.
So why do I persevere? Two reasons: one is simply because too many people are unjustly suffering and dying. The second is because I’ve figured out how to work within these dilemmas so I am contributing to more good than harm, to more transformation than trauma. I don’t expect the dilemmas to go away; part of my moment-by-moment practice is accepting the continual evaluation of how I can cause less harm while causing most impact. Here are a few things I do, at this particular moment:
I prioritize engagements with the greatest transformative impact, not the greatest monetary remuneration. This is both an anti-racist commitment and an anti-capitalist action.
My workshops in whiteness awareness and anti-oppression capacity building contribute to the shifting of our culture from a foundation of white supremacist values to a one based on relationality, shared humanity, and collective well-being.
I donate 15% of my earnings to local BIPOC-led grassroots organizations.
I keep the focus on us: how white people have been conditioned by a racist system, how we unknowingly (& occasionally consciously) perpetuate this system, and how we can take responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in.
The list goes on, and I want it to grow. Reach out if you have suggestions, questions or want to hear more.
Feb. 2023 Back to Blog Home
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