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The Hard Part
The Hard Part
As White Folks, the first couple months of anti-racist work are driven by urgency and passion. We read voraciously, attend all the learning opportunities and events we can, donate fervently, and talk about it with anyone who will listen. The first couple months, we bring to this work an energy that is powerful, but can be hard to sustain. As you wrap up your first couple months of this work, you may begin to feel a bit of what some have coined "Allyship Fatigue."
If you are a marathoner, a three mile run is nothing to you. If you just picked up running last week, 3 miles leaves you sweaty and out of breath, maybe even exhausted. But to become a better runner, you have to be willing to build up your stamina. You have to be willing to go home, ice your sore muscles, complain to your new runner friends about your exhaustion (but not your marathoner friend, because they’ll be like, you think three miles is bad...), get a good night’s sleep, and keep on running regularly.
You don’t stop running. You don’t get frustrated that you’re not a marathoner yet. You don’t tell people you have “new runner fatigue.” You build up stamina and you expect that will take work and will be tiring.
White folks don’t have allyship fatigue, we have a lack of stamina. We have to be ready to do lots of work, build our stamina, and get back out there. So, this week's work is about creating a plan that will allow us to sustain this work over a lifetime, not just in a sprint.
Anti-Racism Is a Lifestyle Choice
Anti-Racism Is a Lifestyle Choice
Anti-Racism is a choice we make every day, just as health is a choice we make every day. A person could be in tip top shape all the time and choose to suddenly smoke three packs of cigarettes in one day. No matter how healthy this person has been every other day, that’s still an unhealthy choice. No level of health makes that choice healthier and the intention to be healthy the rest of the time does not negate the impact of the cigarettes. However, every healthy choice a person make has a positive impact on their body, even if we begin today after a lifetime of unhealthy choices.
White folks have been making, at best, choices that were complicit in racist systems most of their lives. When we decide to start making anti-racist choices, we can impact White supremacy, but when don't choose to do so, our choices still have a negative impact. We have to choose to take anti-racist action every single day.
When we have a health problem, the first line of defense is usually lifestyle changes. This might include developing new habits, adjusting activities, changing diet, and taking care of mental health and stress. We must treat White supremacy like the ill it is and begin with lifestyle changes.
Illustrations by Alex Petrowsky
Do the Work! Reflecting on Sustainability
Do the Work! Reflecting on Sustainability
In a journal or in conversation with another White person doing this work, ask yourself:
What does anti-racist work look like in your daily life right now?
What are you finding hard about sustaining anti-racist work?
Developing New Habits
Developing New Habits
Throughout the White Folks Workbook we have done a lot of work on developing new mindsets, attitudes, and habits of mind. We have learned to recognize privilege, process emotions, conceive of action through leverage points, own problematic behaviors, adjust our values and culture, and freedom dream. This was largely recognition work with the potential to lead us to action.
In "Developing a Liberatory Consciousness," Barbara J. Love explains a framework for solidifying those attitudes and mindsets. She suggests that, because we have all internalized systems of oppression through our socialization within these oppressive systems, we must take conscious steps to retrain our minds to resist this socialization. In the graphic below, I break down the parts of a Liberatory Consciousness we must develop.
Likely, as you've done more anti-racist work, you have found yourself developing at least some of the parts of this consciousness. Many of us have developed awareness during the beginning of our anti-racist work. We can sometimes struggle to recognize more subtle situations, but we are growing our ability to see injustice when it occurs.
White folks get particularly stuck in analysis. We can become caught up in analysis in two ways: we rush it due to our sense of urgency or we stay there too long, fearful of making the wrong choice. When we feel we have seen injustice, we sometimes get trapped in our desire to take action without truly theorizing about the ways this action might look. In our newly developed awareness, we may feel righteous and indignant, causing us to fail to consider the source of the issue and how to get to its root most effectively. We can also get stuck overanalyzing and finding ourselves paralyzed by the variety of possibilities. Sometimes, the fear of making the wrong choice leaves us making no choice at all, causing us to be complicit.
When we do move onto the step of action, we sometimes fail to remember that action can be direct or indirect. As Barbara J. Love writes, "Sometimes it means taking individual initiative to follow a course of action. Sometimes it means encouraging others to take action. Sometimes it means organizing and supporting other people to feel empowered to take the action the situation requires. And sometimes, locating the resources that empower another person to act with agency is required. In still other cases, reminding others that they are right for the task, and that they know enough and are powerful enough to take on the challenge of seeing that the task is completed will be the action that is required." When we think of action, we often think of ourselves as the actors, but Love reminds us that this is not always the course of action required by the situation. White folks must have the bravery to recognize when the action must be our individual responsibility, and the humility to recognize when it must not.
Finally, in the accountability and allyship step, we must remember two important parts. First, we must remember that sharing across perspectives is the only way we all grow and build together. However, we must also remember to assess whether the situation requires us to share or to listen. We must remember that sometimes our experience is irrelevant. We must remember to absorb other perspectives when they are offered, but never to request them of people from marginalized groups, as this increases (and even exploits) their emotional labor for our benefit.
Do the Work! Developing New Habits
Do the Work! Developing New Habits
In a journal or in conversation with another White person doing this work, ask yourself:
What new habits of mind have you noticed you’ve developed? What have you learned in this workbook or elsewhere that has changed how you see the world?
Where do you get stuck in the process of liberatory consciousness? What existing mindsets get in your way?
Adjusting Your Activities
Adjusting Your Activities
Throughout this workbook, we have talked a lot about action, but it is vital for us to remember something Dr. Key Hallmon, creator of The Village Market (promoting Black-owned businesses) tweeted, “Yes, all hands on deck but remember the true power of community is that every hand doesn’t have to do the same thing. We simply have to work towards a shared outcome. Engage in the area you are most talented, where you are most gifted. We need your passion there.” Tiffany Jewell, in This Book is Anti-Racist, refers to these talents as our "superpowers.
Consider the way we address a situation where a pedestrian has been struck by a car. Someone quick on their feet calls for an ambulance. Someone caring sits with the pedestrian to keep them calm. Someone with medical expertise might check the pedestrian. Someone organized gets information from both parties. It takes all these people to help the situation in different ways. Anti-racist work also requires that we tap into our best qualities and abilities to find our most useful role in this work.
There are places for all kinds of people in this work. For instance, we might think about personality traits. Someone who has a confrontational personality might be great at addressing local politicians in town hall meetings, while someone who has a gentle demeanor might provide a nurturing environment for folks to discuss their feelings about the work. Even our talents, whether professional or recreational, might serve this work. A person with great handwriting might be the perfect creator of signs for protests, while a person who works in website design might be best suited for redesigning an organization's website to get a larger audience to the cause.
Do the Work! Finding Your Role
Do the Work! Finding Your Role
In a journal or in conversation with another White person doing this work:
Take a few minutes to consider and list what you bring to the revolution. This might be big personality traits, professional connections, or personal talents.
How might some of these become your superpowers in this work?
How can you use this superpower daily?
Changing Your Diet
Changing Your Diet
Many of us have been on a crash diet of anti-racist reading and learning. We are consuming this information at rates that are simply not sustainable. We must consider the ways we can fortify our media and learning diet, balance it, and make it sustainable for the long term.
Some of the ways this might look:
Widen your news sources to include BIPOC sources, alternative sources, and non-American sources.
Read the modern-day experts, but also research the Civil Rights scholars they quote.
Make sure your social media feeds do not go back to normal over time. Follow social justice educators and influencers who cover issues of injustice and oppression all the time.
Remind yourself to consume Black art that depicts joy, love, life, resistance, and success, not just suffering. Consume this work as the work of incredible human artists, and not just as voyeurism.
Do not let your learning end with learning from White folks. On the main page of the White Folks Workbook, I list lots of BIPOC educators from whom you should learn next!
Find both groups of White folks to learn and discuss with, as well as immersing yourself in groups where you do this work with BIPOC folks (being mindful, of course, of the way you take up space in these groups).
Don't just read all the books to have all the knowledge. Turn these new understandings into action. After each book you read, list the actions you want to take based on that learning, and then take those actions!
Consider how you learn best. If deadlines and schedules and checklists help you learn, use those. If having the social element of a study group makes you a more successful learner, find those people. If connecting your learning to your work makes you more motivated, focus your work that way.
Do the Work! Plan Your Learning Diet
Do the Work! Plan Your Learning Diet
In a journal or in conversation with another White person doing this work, ask yourself:
What will your anti-racist diet look like beyond this workbook? Consider choosing another course from the White Folks Workbook main page to follow when you've finished this!
What do you need to remain accountable to this learning?
Taking Care of Your Mental Health
Taking Care of Your Mental Health
Social justice work is emotionally trying, and for many White folks, we are new to this work. As I explained above, this work is a marathon, not a sprint. Therefore, it is important to build up stamina in healthy ways that allow us to continue to be useful to this work.
Here are some things that might help:
Learn to process White emotions and make a habit of doing so.
Use a journal as a place to empty the noise in your head.
Practice mindfulness and other stress-relieving strategies to help reduce anxiety.
Use physical activity to free your body of tension from anger.
Take breaks from news, social media, and consuming heavy texts. Make this a structured break, so you get back to the work and don't fall back into complicity.
Make time for joy among the many emotions you may be feeling.
Connect with others; social justice work is not meant to be done in solitude. It is dependent on collectivism and community. Make sure you have yours!
Do the Work! Take Care of Your Mental Health
Do the Work! Take Care of Your Mental Health
In a journal or in conversation with another White person doing this work:
Make plans to maintain your mental health. Ask yourself:
What steps will you take for yourself?
What communities can you connect with?
Moving Forward in Anti-Racist Work
Moving Forward in Anti-Racist Work
As White folks, it is important to do anti-racist work in a way that is both true and challenging to who we are. We must be sure to tap into our deepest selves in order to find the best ways to sustain this work in the lives we already live. We also must allow this work to disrupt who we thought we were and constantly grow from those discoveries.
Therefore, sustaining anti-racist work requires two major parts:
Create a sustainable plan for yourself. Be thoughtful about how this work will fit into your every day life in a way that will allow you to do it forever. Bayard Rustin said, "Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it." For White folks, this means making sure the work is changing who you are, but also that it is not consuming you such that you give up on it. Consider the lifestyle changes you need to make to continue to dismantle White supremacy without depleting all your energy.
Continue learning and doing the work, even when it seems like things have calmed down. This work sees peaks and valleys that follow news cycles. Maintain the same energy during quiet news weeks and weeks with few protests as you do when another story breaks. Remember that it is our White privilege that allows us to choose not to fight when it doesn't feel urgent. Make sure you are not choosing comfort over action. As Jason Reynolds stated, "We have to be more loyal to our futures than our feelings."
Do the Work! Anti-Racist Lifestyle Plan
Do the Work! Anti-Racist Lifestyle Plan
In a journal or in conversation with another White person doing this work:
Create a sustainable plan for your future, long-term anti-racist work. Ask yourself:
What new habits do you want to maintain?
What actions will become part of your daily life?
What will your learning diet look like?
How will you maintain your mental health while building stamina?
How will you hold yourself accountable to this plan?
Additional Resources for the Week
Additional Resources for the Week
The following are good supplements to the work you did above, if you are looking to dig deeper into this topic.
"Developing a Liberatory Consciousness" by Barbara J. Love
"How to Reject Allyship Fatigue and Keep Doing the Work of Anti-Racism" by Christal Yuen
Showing Up for Racial Justice (Organization for White folks against White supremacy) - find your local chapter to join!
Where to Learn Next
Where to Learn Next
Rachel Cargle's The Great Unlearn (and her free #dothework 30-Day Course)
Britt Hawthorne's Platform for Anti-Bias, Anti-Racist Education
Nova Reid's Anti-Racism and Diversity Matters
Layla F. Saad's Good Ancestor Academy
Abolitionist Teaching Network (For educators, students, and families)
Myisha T's Check Your Privilege
The Boukman Academy Pan-African Online School
Interested in Doing More of This Work?
Interested in Doing More of This Work?
The activities and materials on this page were created for the Anti-Racism Every Day White Allyship Discussion Group and were completed together in a virtual discussion. All are welcome to join us to continue this work and benefit from the power of collective reflection and discussion.
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