Hello reader

The usual WACANupdate features can all be found below.

This following is editorial space with up to 600 words of WACAN-specific news, updates, announcements and matters of interest.

Once each year white anti-racist activists and allies gather. Each year the circle expands, and the program becomes a little more focused. This year we're working on relationships, networking, and strategic thinking.

Here's what we're doing.

DAY ONE (Wednesday, April 18) Meet with other white anti-racists and people of color involved or interested in organizing for racial justice. Popular education workshop with a focus on structured storytelling and different racial justice organizing strategies based on: 1) regions of the U.S.; 2) intergenerational differences; and 3) sector organizing (e.g. faith-based, electoral, direct action, etc.) Bring a 1-page description of your organization (50 copies).

DAY TWO (Saturday, April 21) This day will focus on what it will take to build an anti-racist movement among white people, which includes exploring building a national network, and accountability. Day Two will have three primary sections: 1) to determine what it would take to build an anti-racist movement among white people; 2) to identify principles and best practices for working in accountable alliances with people of color; 3) and to define an initial vision for the role a national network infrastructure could play in building local capacity and the ability to speak with a collective national voice.

Good stuff, huh?

In between Day One and Day Two, you can attend the White Privilege Conference.

That's even better!

Hope to see you there.

Summit information page
Summit flyer

Thanks for voting, those who have.

Some people have reservations. In part, this stems from the competitive structure we have installed. After all, our society is way too competitive already, and this hyper-competitiveness is a quality of whiteness.

Another concern is that the Hall of R & C foregrounds white resistance and, in doing so, may distort the greater efforts and sacrifices of people of color.

A third and, for this editorial, final concern is that the trappings of the Hall of R & C are inappropriate.

The Hall of R & C is a long term project modeled after any number of annual awards in selected areas of human achievement. The awards focus attention on the recipients. The attention becomes relatively widespread and in the "here and now." Past recipients continue to receive recognition, and their lives and accomplishments are documented.

Without a selection process, it is not possible to develop the interest and focus on a small number of candidates. Viewed another way, if everyone got in the first year, 1) it would not hold any meaning, and 2) we could not do the follow up work of documenting the stories of each inductee.

Some selection process is needed. We have turned it over to WACAN members. The nominations were open to all members (though they are now closed because time expired). Voting remains open to all members.

We're not asking you to vote on the "best" anti-racists. Just help us select a good group for this year. Next year, help us select another group. That's all.

Foregrounding examples of white resistance is important, even necessary, to the anti-racist development of white people. But as we move ahead, the Hall of R & C will remain aware, and will incorporate into its public activity, the awareness that people of color have paid a much greater price in the struggle against white supremacy.

As to our conduct, we intend nothing but respect, and will conduct our affairs accordingly.

A white father of two black children reflects on life in LaCrosse, WI. Cecil Bindle, 88, reminisces about his work as a white man in the Monterey, CA, NAACP for 55 years.

Two white police chiefs run into multiracial difficulties. A retired, presumably white, Calgary cop claims anti-white racism drove him from his new job as police chief for the Tsuu T'ina Nation. In Hempstead, TX, the presumably white police chief is suspended after allegations of racism.

Grosse Pointe, outside Detroit, has been a sundown town for a long time. Looks like it still is. On the road, Native American athletes experience racism. Skinhead did killing to gain status. Hate crimes and denial in Orange County, CA. In Hollywood, anti-racists drown out Minuteman parade. Meanwhile, in Halifax, NS, the Governor-General delivers a speech about racism.

At Seton Hall, a white male hip hop fan suggests dropping the N-word. 'Gangsta' party at University of Arizona not funny. Clemson slowly recovers from its own faux pas. At Georgetown, a student is forced to choose between being the "angry black woman" or tacitly approving racially insensitive remarks by her silence. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison a student speaks out on a grievous case of racial injustice in Louisiana. A black professor has ended his hunger strike, satisfied he had brought public attention to "issues of equity, diversity and justice at MIT." Two professors of African American studies discuss teaching about racism. Professor Robert Jenson spoke at Colorado University-Boulder, saying we need to name systems of oppression. Shakti Butler's film, Making Whiteness Visible, is getting play on campus. See the College of St. Catherine, MN and the University of St. Thomas, also in MN.

The University of Leeds has released a new online toolkit designed by the Institutional Racism in Higher Education Toolkit Project.

A new study suggests racial profiling by New York City police. A conservative columnist strikes back with a counter-explanation.

Senator Obama has unleashed a blizzard of commentary on race and politics. One recent entry is by Patricia J. Williams.

White people are clueless on race, Nat Irvin claims. Not only that, they are jealous of black achievement, says Chris Stevenson. And Jasmyne A. Cannick talks about "The White Man Who Didn't Know February Is Black History Month."

Gary Younge makes the argument that a white history month can be used to teach anti-racist history.

Tulsa, OK, underwent an somewhat uneventful process of school integration. Thirty-six years earlier, it seemed a different city when white people rampaged, unleashing wholesale murder on the black community.

A Rock River Times (IL) article looks at the history of patriarchal whiteness. Political Affairs Magazine reprints a 50-year old statement by American communists regarding racism and working class unity.

Recent history makes you wonder, too. How one white police officer damaged countless lives.

blogher discusses "a white rapper moment." Jason Tanz, author of Other People's Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop and White America, discusses his work.

Is CNN helping matters in its shift toward race conscious programming?

Is that is where it all began? See this crime report from the (remote) region of Shetland in the United Kingdom. Pay particular attention to the town the thief is from.