“Racism Check-ins” at Climate Week
Sustaining All Life/United to End Racism (SAL/UER) had a big presence at Climate Week 2019. We led almost forty events and were a large, diverse delegation. Most days we held three events along with listening projects, support groups, and more. Every night we all came together for dinner and a debrief.
We are all committed to ending racism, and many of our events were on that theme. However, our undischarged racism showed regularly and was one of our biggest difficulties in working together.
Barbara Love (International Liberation Reference Person for African Heritage People) led us each night in a “racism check-in” at which she asked how racism had showed itself during our interactions that day. First several white delegates would stand up and talk about how their racism had manifested itself. Then People of the Global Majority (PGM) delegates would stand and talk about the racism they had experienced that hadn’t been mentioned or would talk from their perspective about the interaction a white person had reported on. We would all have a session afterward. It was definitely a highlight of our working together, and we vowed to repeat it in the future.
This year, 2020, SAL/UER came together for Climate Week online. Most of our leaders were PGM, and most of the organizers were white people. Because we had built our delegation preparing for COP26, an international event in Glasgow, Scotland (as opposed to an event in New York City, USA), we had a large African and Latin American delegation as well as many PGM from elsewhere in the world. Many of us had never met each other before.
Racism was a huge issue, and we discharged about it at every all-delegation meeting in preparation for the Climate Week. Janet Kabue (one of the delegation leaders and the Area Reference Person for Nairobi, Kenya) gave an excellent talk on the racism commonly experienced by Africans. [See the article “About Racism,” by Janet Kabue, in the January 2021 issue of Present Time.]
Once Climate Week started and we began our daily presentations, we again had debriefings daily. (We actually had two, because just one meeting wouldn’t work with people being in different time zones around the world.) And every day we did the racism check-ins. What follows are some of the white people’s reports.
D—: I dominate interactions when I feel urgent, which is often. I think what I have to say is more important than what others have to say. I interrupt, I talk too much, I talk over people. Even if I notice what I am doing, I can hardly hold back.
R—: When there is something that needs to be done, I too often assume that the PGM whose responsibility it is hasn’t remembered it or thought of it. I assume that I need to take action to ensure it gets done. I am often wrong. Too often I behave in ways that show my insulting mistrust of the PGM.
S—: I published a workshop report on the lists that left out the contribution of an African leader, and another that said that an African leader lived in a different country than she does.
I stand back when racism is happening and don’t say anything.
I don’t make close enough relationships, quickly enough, with PGM leaders to be an effective ally.
D—: I get excited when I meet and work with PGM because of the years of separation that have made such interactions difficult or impossible. My excitement “takes up space” in our interactions. I talk more, ask more questions (“quiz-versations,” as Barbara Love has called them), and am more animated in my expressions.
B—: At one of the SAL/UER events and during the planning sessions for it, I was concerned about some difficulties a PGM was having. Thinking I was being helpful and thoughtful, I rushed in, attempting to make things right for her. Only afterward, as we were talking about racism, did I realise I was acting in a way that I can’t stand [tolerate] when men do it—they act as though I am not able to help myself. It was confusing. (And it helped me better understand how men might be feeling when they do that to me.)
G—: I stay quiet and don’t speak up.
I took credit for something that rightfully belonged to a PGM. In one of the daily debriefs, someone reported back from the support group she had led. I was in that support group along with a Moroccan RCer. The support group leader reported her delight that this RCer from Morocco had looked at me and said, “Ahh, there is my teacher!” At the debrief I stayed quiet and took the credit for this, when in fact it was an Iraqi woman of the Global Majority who had been his teacher. Global Majority leaders in our delegation had attended the session to help us navigate the complexities of interpreting. I was tired that day and feeling overwhelmed by all we were being asked to do in regard to the interpreting, particularly the slowing down of everything we said. I kept saying that all this attention to slowing down and interpreting would not be good for our session. What’s worse, I even defended my racism by saying that my people (non-RC Jews attending the session) would expect quick conversation and not be patient with time taken for interpreting. The PGM leader remained thoughtful and generous with me throughout, and I am sorry she had to do that up against my racism. I was communicating that paying attention to my difficulties with slowing down was more important than getting things right for the people who would need interpretation.
T—: Before Climate Week I’d been prepared for racism to be an issue. Diane had emphasised it would be, because we white volunteers were going to be led by PGM.
The leader of one of the teams I was in is a brilliant leader, and I found myself behaving badly in ways I wouldn’t have with other leaders—clienting unawarely, showing irritation, acting impatient, and sending an e-mail without waiting for the leader’s agreement. I was also feeling annoyed by the amazing efficiency of the leader.
S—: One team I was part of was led by a PGM. I noticed I was more self-conscious and hesitant than usual. I held back and did not share my thinking, in a situation in which it could have been useful. I justified this to myself by saying I did not want to risk undermining the person, but I think it came from fear, and it was unsupportive of me.
F—: I seem to have spent my whole life trying to compensate for the damage my class and my nation have done to the world. I am generous in a patterned way and over-helpful, which I think comes across as patronising and distances me from PGM.
C—: I see that I am pleasantly surprised at how “civilized” other places are, how similar everyone is to me, and so on. (This relates to being part of the British Empire.)
I noticed I was having tremendous difficulty giving a PGM leader proper attention. And I have no idea how to navigate disagreeing with a PGM leader without undermining them.
I noticed other white people dramatising racism toward a PGM leader but did not interrupt it. This seemed to be due to a “witness recording” from my school days, a cowardly keeping quiet. On another occasion I noticed another white person being critical and did manage to interrupt it—and had a good re-evaluation that they were behaving as I had on another occasion. I also noticed my internalised oppression making me feel competitive with the other white person.
I didn’t recognise a PGM with whom I had spent quite a bit of time.
When I notice I have been acting out of racism, I am so restimulated that I feel a big pull to get all the attention on me and to get the PGM to forgive or reassure me.
I suggested that a PGM with whom I’m working should point out if I’m being racist so that I can relax, knowing they’ll take responsibility!
Shoreline, Washington, USA
(Present Time 202, January 2021)