Normally, almost all my books come from the public library. That’s how I stumbled upon this book. But it was so good that I bought a copy for myself, and I’m recommending it left and right!
Really. If you’re a white person (like me), you should read White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo.
It is important. So important. This has been one of the most important reads of my life. While it’s about racism, I found the ideas helpful to understand all conversations about bigotry, whether discussing transphobia or people responding to me pointing out antisemitism against me.
Being perfectly honest, I checked this book out because I wanted to understand “other” white people. Because clearly I’m “one of the good ones,” someone who has been trying to learn about racism and be a good ally for years.
Oh ho, this book was all about me. Yes, it also helped me understand my interactions with other people (especially now that I’m less likely to stay silent), but there was so much going on inside myself that I never recognized. Why I was silent most of the times when close friends said explicitly racist things, why I didn’t challenge hard-to-explain-to-the-unconverted racist statements and actions, why my heart literally races at top speed when I read these books about racism. My anxiety is literally triggered by these conversations.
The biggest take-away that I remind myself very frequently now: no matter how uncomfortable taking about racism is or what it costs me in friendships, that will never be as big a cost as racism costs to people of color. Prioritizing my comfort is being complicit, and it is a mark of privilege for me to say “this makes me anxious, so I won’t do it.” An anxious person of color gets no such reprieve.
Obviously, I’m not perfect. I have a ton of work to do. But I’m doing it, and it gets easier the more I speak to others, as I figure out how to put these very complicated concepts into words. I’ve lost a few friends, some my choice and some theirs. I don’t need people in my life who say such horrible things and dehumanize people of color, especially when they have reacted so poorly when the problematic nature of their statement is pointed out (as kindly as I can, but really, does dehumanization require kindness?). Those are not middos (character traits) I want to cultivate in myself, and you are often the sum of the people you spend the most time with.
As Jews, we exist in a liminal state between whiteness and Other. Most American Jews are white, whether or not they want to admit it. We benefit from white privilege all the time, while we also struggle with antisemitism all the time. One foot in, one foot out. I particularly see this myself as someone who wears a headscarf for religious reasons. Here in NY, people know that’s a Jewish thing but I also fear Islamaphobia, especially when I visit my family back down South where orthodox Jews are uncommon.
We’re not the only people balancing on that razor’s edge, but we’re a very large group who are. Jewish tradition speaks strongly of social justice, and the Torah itself tells us at least 36 times (there’s debate whether there’s more) to care for the “stranger” because we were strangers too. A few thousand years and that hasn’t really changed. I’m disturbed by the anti-stranger sentiment within the Orthodox community, and I think it’s absolutely against the Torah. Anti-racism work is religious work for me, what I’ve been commanded to do. I just didn’t see the full extend of the work before because I had been blinded by the White Supremacy soup I’ve been surrounded by since birth. Personally, I know I’ve been surrounded a bit more by that soup than the others in my Jewish community because I converted as an adult. Perhaps I experience antisemitism and Otherness differently than they do because I grew up without personal exposure to bigotry. I chose to join a group who faces bigotry, which is not a choice many white people make (not saying they should, it’s ok to be a white Christian). I had a taste of it growing up in an atheist family in the Bible Belt, but it’s nothing like having armed guards in my house of worship. Granted, I used to fear my children’s school one day being shot up (as Jewish institutions have been), but now it seems all schools face that issue 🤷
Given that it’s such an important book, I’m happy to report it’s pretty affordable as new books go, under $11 as of when I bought it and today (a month later).
Further reading: To continue the work started in this book, I highly recommend the free workbook Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad. It’s set up as a 28 day journaling process, but you can do it in a shorter or longer time frame if that works better for you. I have found it incredibly useful.
Right now, I’m also reading Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey. It’s excellent.
I’m continuing my anti-racist education, continuing to work through the workbook, planning to join an anti-racism course that’ll be offered in the spring, and working my own way through the Black Lives Matter syllabus. I’m doing a Charlotte Mason #MotherCulture challenge this year, and like last year, have mapped out a reading list for myself for 2019, with different books in different categories. I added anti-racism work as a category for this year to teach myself parts of American history I was not taught and more about the experiences of other marginalized groups in America, particularly the black community. I also added a memoir category, and about half of the books I’ve mapped out (what actually happens may be pretty different, as 2018 was) are activists or other change-makers.
What are you doing to challenge yourself to be a good ally to groups different from your own?
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