Like many of you, this week we at WEIRD SISTER have found it difficult to think about much else besides the non-indictment of Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, and the many protests that erupted in response. So, we’re devoting this week’s Rah! Rah! Roundup to links to resources for anti-racist feminists and allies. As a white feminist, I’m compiling these resources in the spirit of the anti-racist philosophy that it is the job of white people, not people of color, to educate white people about racism. Please feel free to share additional resources in the comments!
Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (book by bell hooks)
A great place to start. In her usual highly accessible, conceptually complex prose, hooks organizes her chapters around specific topics (e.g., “Feminist Class Struggle,” “Women at Work,” “Ending Violence”) that usually take up intersectional issues in feminism. The book is available as a free PDF here, and from South End Press here. (For the record, it is the opinion of the WEIRD SISTER editors that bell hooks deserves your money!) There’s another e-option, too: the book was originally published in 2000, but the Kindle edition from Routledge was just released in October 2014.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (book by Audre Lorde)
Many of the essays from the transformative Sister Outsider speak to the need to use difference–and the feelings of guilt, fear, and anger linked to difference–in order to fight racism and sexism through activist work and in our everyday lives. When we read Sister Outsider for a feminist book club that included several WEIRD SISTER contributors, many of us felt dismayed by the fact that we had never been assigned to read it in our undergraduate English and creative writing MFA programs. Let’s make sure this book gets shared and taught and talked about for a very long time. You can start with these excerpts available online:
“Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” | “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism” | “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” | “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” | “Poetry is Not a Luxury”
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa, eds.)
The entire text of this groundbreaking multigenre feminist anthology, first published in 1981 and now out of print, is available online here.
From White Racist to White Anti-Racist (essay by Tema Okun, opens as PDF)
Cori Mattli’s essay “You Become an Anti-Racist Feminist” introduced me to anti-racist trainer Tema Okun’s “ladder of empowerment,” pictured below and part of the article linked above, which aims “to help white people understand our identity as white people within a racist system which assumes our superiority while at the same time challenging that assumption and replacing it with a positive anti-racist identity.”
What is Anti-Racism and How Does it Relate to Feminism? (video by Jarrah Hodge)
A brief primer on the basic philosophy behind anti-racist feminism: “Just as we ask men who want to be feminist allies to examine their male privilege, so too white women feminists need to look at their white privilege and the ways we continue to benefit from and perpetuate racial inequality.”
The Feminist Wire’s Forum on Race, Racism, and Anti-Racism within Feminism (online forum)
It’s kind of hard to navigate this great forum on The Feminist Wire site because there’s no table of contents, but you can start with the editors’ introduction and this roundup of the forum by the For the Birds collective.
Ten Things to Remember: Anti-Racist Strategies for White Student Radicals by Chris Dixon
This list of lessons learned, aimed at white student radicals but applicable to a range of white allies, offers a complex take on many ways of “helping” that might not be helpful at all. For example, #3 begins: “We absolutely should not be ‘getting’ people of color to join ‘our’ organizations. This is not just superficial; it’s tokenistic, insulting, and counterproductive. Yet this is the band-aid that white activists are often quick to apply when accused of racist organizing.”
“Unconscious Racism Happens” (handout, saves as .doc)
A simple, helpful list of reminders about what counts as racism, including inaction. Examples include: “When we expect our non-white friends and allies to educate us about white privilege and racism,” “When we’re so scared of screwing up that we don’t even try – whether that’s pronouncing people’s names or naming a problem as it’s happening in our communities.”
Lessons on Being an Ally (lesson plan for high school teachers)
This lesson plan packet uses the story of Juliette Hampton Morgan, a white ally during the civil rights movement, to teach high school students how to be allies across many axes of difference.
Not the Master’s Tools: A glossary of terms used in anti-racist feminism (online glossary)
This list is aimed at undergraduates, but useful for anyone starting to learn about anti-racist feminism.
Want more? Share your resources in the comments below, and check out this list of links: Anti-Racist Resources on White Female privilege
