Racism Is Not about Individual Flaws
Dvora Slavin recently led a workshop in Maine (USA) on ending white racism.
She reminded us that there are no “good guys” or “bad guys.” Racism is not about individual flaws but about a systemic flaw. She asked, “What if every time a human committed some oppressive deed, instead of blaming the individual the newspapers said, ‘Society fails again’?”
We couldn’t avoid having racism installed on us—we grew up in a racist, oppressive society. We are good, and we come from good people.
Deepening the connections among us as white people is a direct blow to racism. We have been trained to abandon each other when we act in racist ways. We get to interrupt the racism and figure out how to give each other a hand [some help]. If we don’t do this, we’ll be leaving it to People of the Global Majority to handle our racist behaviors.
Co-Counseling is about human connections. We did mini-sessions in which we told our partner, “You want me,” and varied which of the words we emphasized. Then we pointed to different people around the room and said, “I want you.” There was voluminous discharge.
We all want our minds to be free of racist damage. We don’t want our hearts to be closed off to anyone.
Barbara Love (the International Liberation Reference Person for African Heritage People) has encouraged us to tell our life stories as white people. Our early defeats, isolation, and discouragement can be viewed and discharged through the lens of our whiteness.
We looked at our lineage, what is precious in it, and what we want to preserve and pass on to future generations. We faced that we may never know important things about our people—and how not knowing them has set us up to appropriate other people’s cultures and lands, assimilate, and go for [pursue] upward mobility.
We need to prioritize our relationships with People of the Global Majority. These relationships were stolen from us. It is our birthright to have each other. And if we are lucky, our friends of the Global Majority will tell us when we act out oppressor material [distress]. Then our job is to apologize and commit to cleaning it up. And we need each other as white people to do that work.
Maine is the whitest state in the United States. This is often viewed as “bad.” There is an attitude that being white is wrong and that Maine is insignificant. Dvora has made it her life work to build a united force of white people, and she suggested that Maine could be on the cutting edge of that force.
White RCers in Maine have been finding our way to each other—across many divisions, over many years—as we’ve worked to end white racism. As our connections grow stronger, we will be stronger allies to People of the Global Majority, particularly Native people.
Falmouth, Maine, USA
Reprinted from the e-mail discussion
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