by Jeff Hitchcock

Last Thursday Mai’a at guerilla mama medicine blogged that anti-racism is a white supremacist movement “because the big names/experts/the ones who make the money and prestige of it. are majority white.” She cites Tim Wise, Peggy McIntosh and Paul Kivel as examples. I hear similar expressions from people of color who I consider close anti-racist allies and friends. Her words are troubling, partly because they hold truth, and partly because they obscure.

It seems impossible to sort it all out. Typically white people ignore people of color but listen to another white person. Men do that with men, too. Privilege grants access and promotes success. White people benefit from the very thing we work against. To be fair, Mai’a notes that people of color have directed white people to work with our own people. Stokley Carmichael, Malcolm X and Bayard Rustin all put forth this call around 1964.

But I do not know a single credible white anti-racist activist who claims to “lead” anti-racism, including the people Mai’a cites by name. It’s a multiracial enterprise. White anti-racists owe a heavy debt to people of color who have been mentors, guides, and yes, critics of our work. And most will tell you that.

Fact is, “anti-racism” is hardly a household word in the United States. Many people have heard of Tim Wise. But millions have not. All the money and all the prestige granted to all the anti-racist activists in the country, both white and of color, over the course of a year will likely not equal that given to a single leading sports or movie star. And whiteness studies is practically a joke among many white anti-racist activists who see it as a detached corps of academics diddling with their privilege. The academy has practically disposed of it by now anyway.

There are many streams to anti-racism, Mai’a acknowledges. One she did not name is the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, an organization and anti-racist collective led by people of color which over the course of nearly 30 years has single-handedly trained a few hundred thousand people and introduced more white people to anti-racism than the collective body of white anti-racists and whiteness studies scholars combined.

Personally, as a white practitioner of anti-racism I do not claim to be anything more than that, a white person working with other white people to educate about racism and agitate for racial justice. Often this means collaborating with people of color and following their leadership.

That part of the mainstream that showers prestige and money on anti-racist activists favors white ones. We know in a white supremacist culture, that’s what happens. In the smaller, more concentrated community of white anti-racist activists who wish to be part of a larger multiracial anti-racist movement, that’s as much an obstacle as it is a benefit.

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New census reveals Native American reservation lands used to benefit non-native producers. Obama’s cabinet sets record for diversity. New poll shows optimism on race relations still high, but tempered, following Obama’s election. City of Hampton, VA, commissions multiracial sculpture for 400th anniversary.

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“Asian-American bias in college admissions?: Part 1 – An improper comparison,” by Jenn. reappropriate.com, October 14, 2009.

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