what does anti-racist parenting/action look like?

Well, I'm thinking a lot these days about what anti-racist action looks like - for me, anyways. I'm actually having a hard time separating acting against racism from anti-racist parenting. I think it's all one and the same. I say that now while my son is still a toddler. That may change as issues associated with race come into play when he's older. At that point, there will, I'm sure be very specific parenting "techniques" that I will have to explore and employ.

I tend to think about things broadly. I see so many connections between things that sometimes it's hard to focus on something specific. So right now, anti-racist parenting has, for me, been about about the following:

- educating myself about racism, white privilege, and white supremacy

- challenging my own thought patterns and prejudices

- evaluating and altering my son's environment to make it inclusive of diverse people and messages (activities we do and books we read, mostly)

- writing and talking about my experiences & what I learn, esp. with white people with the intent of checking my thinking and nudging people to put anti-racist action to the forefront of their lives

- connecting with like-minded people to again, check my thinking, learn more, and continue feeling energized and inspired to do the work

- taking several larger scale initiatives (e.g. letters to the editor & continuing my membership to support a local independent community radio station, which airs excellent public affairs programs as well as shows by and about communities of color)

The part that I hope to improve upon is challenging racist speech and prejudices in my environment. I still find myself, most of the time, having difficulty doing this. I have challenged some stereotypes I've heard people say, but these interjections have been far and few between. I think I just need more practice.

What does anti-racist action look like for you, anti-racist parents, if you could generalize about some things you focus on?

letter to the editor challenging racism - w/ an update!

Update: Below is a copy of a letter to the editor I sent out on March 20, 2007. The magazine's tagline, by the way, is "women and children changing the world." This month's World Pulse update featured the following note from the editor:

Editor's Note: Our March 20 Spotlight edition ran a Reuters article entitled "Hungary's Radical Youths Take to the Streets." Astute comments from one of our readers, Tereza Topferova, led us to further investigate the article, as it seemed to glorify the efforts of the "radical youths" in question. We are currently reaching out to our contacts on the ground to gain a better understanding of the situation. In the meantime, we encourage you to explore what the following sources have to say about this radical group:

Country Report on Human Rights Practices - Hungary, 2006 (U.S. Department of State)

Far Right Tries to Take Control of the Revolt (The Times Online)

Original letter I sent to the editor:

Dear World Pulse editors:

As a former editorial volunteer, I am of course your publication's fan. I do enjoy receiving your e-mail spotlights as well. However, I found one of the news items included in your latest (March 20th, 2007) update, greatly disturbing, its message at odds with World Pulse's mission, which according to your website, is to broadcast the "wellspring of positive solutions. . . essential for solving today's cyclical global problems" while "advancing journalism, reframing global debates, magnifying movements, inspiring investment, and motivating action."

The news item I am referring to vaguely alludes to a movement. However, what kind of a movement, I had to research for myself. And what I learned about this movement and its underlying philosophy, after several hours of internet research, troubles me immensely, and brings me to the conclusion that such movements must not be magnified in any way or sanctioned by publications such as yours, because of their hateful, racist undertones.

The news article in question featured in your latest update, which is usually meant to inspire and highlight positive happenings around the world, was a Reuters story entitled "Hungary: Hungary's Radical Youths Take to the Streets".

At a quick glance, it would seem that the combination of the words radical, youth, and streets, would seem to point to a report on a demonstration staged by social justice oriented anti-globalization activists. I could see how this assumption could be made by your magazine's editors, too in a hurry to investigate the story further. However, in your spotlight underneath the article link, you did include a quote from the news report that raised a flag for me and hopefully for many other of your readers. I doubt, though, that most of them had the full knowledge of the issue at hand or the time to research it further. So, I have compiled some information that I hope exposes the "radicals" in this story the way they need to be exposed in the media. It is important that you circulate this information, because I strongly feel that
your publication's editorial credibility has suffered by your inclusion of this article.

The quote you published as a tease for the story is as follows: 

Soft-spoken, well-educated and armed with a laptop, 29-year-old Gabor Vona leads a radical right-wing group of young Hungarians usually at the forefront of anti-government protests that began late last year.

The words "right-wing" raised a flag for me, because I thought it strange that World Pulse would endorse an action by a group subscribing to radical, right-wing ideas.

After setting the scene by, in my opinion, vaguely and cursorily establishing the conflict between the current Socialist-led government of Hungary and its opponents, the article continues with a description of Vona, which should have been a clue for World Pulse editors: "'Vona, who has a history degree, admires the Hungarian regime which briefly regained lands lost in World War One by allying itself with Nazi Germany. He also considers the Roma minority a source of crime, though he denies being racist."

Vona leads a party called Jobbik, the article states. The Reuters article does a piss-poor job, I'd say, of explaining the platform of this organization. So, here is what I found out about Jobbik:

According to wikipedia, The Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom) is a radical right-wing political party in Hungary, led by Gábor Vona.

It was launched as a circle of friends of right-wing students at ELTE university in November 1999, under the name Jobboldali Ifjúsági Közösség ("Right-wing Youth Community"), in short, Jobbik. It spread over several other universities in the country and became a political movement. Its short name, Jobbik, is not only an acronym but a word on its own, meaning "the better one" (i.e., out of a closed set) as the word for "better" (and "right") is simply jobb in Hungarian.

And guess who endorses the group's activities? None other than the U.S.-based white supremacist organization National Alliance.

Roger Boyes of Times Online describes Jobbik as an extremist grouping, which allies itself with the Hungarian Justice and Life party (MIEP), whose leader István Csurka "is one of the most sinister figures in the nationalist undergrowth of Central Europe. His anti-Semitic rhetoric, denouncing Jews for their collaboration with communists and their role in global finance, is familiar territory. But Mr Csurka takes prejudice to crazy heights: 178 Hungarian estate agencies, he claimed, are in Jewish hands in a secret attempt to buy up the country."

These two groups are apparently "using the anti-government rallies to break free and carve out their own identity."

The U.S. Department of State website states that “In April [of 2006] during elections for the National Assembly, candidates of the nationalistic, far right-wing Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIEP-Jobbik) espoused xenophobic and anti-Semitic slogans. The party has not been represented in the assembly since 2002.”

Please take better care to research the news items you endorse. Your readership deserves at least that much.

Thank you,
Tereza Topferova

As a follow up, I would like to share a letter I received from the managing editor of World Pulse. In a nutshell, they invited me to become a volunteer regional curator, a person who helps advise their editorial team on the magazine content.

Dearest Tereza,

I apologize that it has taken us so long to respond to your astute letter. Our organization is just this week shifting from a 7-person team to a 15-person team, and we were all in retreat mode last week, figuring out how best to working together as we move forward. Please know that your comments are being taken very seriously and we are preparing a fulller section on the issue for our upcoming newsletter, taking your thoughts into consideration. It is of course of the utmost importance to us that we package and prevent events as responsibly as possible for our audience.

As we go through the process of expanding as an organization, our editorial team will also be expanding to include a volunteer team of regional curators -- people who listen and help advise our team on which voices to highlight across the editorial content for both World Pulse Media (our for-profit media enterprise) and World Pulse Voices (our nonprofit, which houses an online networking tool designed to facilitate social change). The scope of our project is huge and our asipirations high, as you have undoubtely surmised. Nonetheless we remain very seriously dedicated to our overarching mission of empowering the "women and children transforming our world." In order to be sucessfull, will be asking for a great deal of help from savvy, committed individuals such as yourself.

Our global voices director, Ramya, who will be establishing and fostering relations with this group of regional curators, is eager to contact you if you are interested in working together with our group in any way. Just say the word. And if this does not sound like something you are interested in, please know that you have an open invitation to contribute comments, ideas, contacts and stories at any time.

Again, many thanks for your careful reading and for honoring our mission enough to instigate a discussion.

Warmest regards,

Maria Jett
Managing Editor
World Pulse Media

how could I have missed this podcast episode?

I just finally listened to an excellent Addicted to Race podcast episode, which features white bloggers and anti-racist activists vegankid and Rachel. This episode is a must for any white person hoping to begin challenging racism and white supremacy personally or publicly.

Vegankid, for example, discussed the various spheres of influence in which we work when wanting to affect change. First, change happens within us (of course, internal work continues as we move out into larger circles), then in our circle of friends and family, next the community, the country, and the world. This was helpful to hear, because as vegankid said, many people fear taking any action at all since they feel they'd have to jump right into the public sphere. Not so. There are so many small steps we can take. And we don't all have to drop everything and become completely and solely dedicated to racial justice. As Rachel said, if every white person just did some introspection, and coupled it with learning about race and racism, the world would be so much better off!

The other part of the discussion I found interesting was about white guilt. White guilt is such a widespread phenomenon, and is in a way indication of awareness of white privilege and white supremacy. But it can be a paralyzing emotion. As vegankid pointed out, guilt diminishes when we take action. I can say I'm experiencing that right now, though I am just beginning to discuss race and racism out in the open. What I do feel very strongly is fear, pretty much any time I post or initiate discussion on these topics. Though this fear is real, it is crucial to act inspite of it, I feel. I will probably say and do stupid stuff, but I can only do so much learning in isolation. And it's only fair that I take up some of this responsibility instead of leaving it to others or hoping racism will go away if I don't think about it.

quiet on the set.... action!

To go along with my last posting, I would like to start a discussion here about the involvement of white anti-racists in actions taking place in the public sphere. (Hopefully more people will join our blog community soon.) It would be great to hear on this blog from anyone already involved in actions challening systemic racism. It would even be great to begin collecting stories about the actions of other white anti-racist activists. Though I myself am still stuck in the self-education and discussion phase, I want to be a parent who models civic engagement and anti-racist action to my child. Hearing other people's stories and experiences as activists is always inspiring and helpful. Please share any experiences or thoughts you have on this topic.

more about the history of race in the U.S.

The quotes below are from a resource on race and racism that I found today. It's a website accompanying the 2003 PBS documentary Race: The Power of Illusion. I haven't seen it, but the website has some good stuff on it such as historical information and a discussion on the role of race in science research and medicine.

The most concrete action that any one individual can take is to educate themselves about the ways that race and racism work and to see things in terms of social relations rather than discrete individual acts. Every racial group is always linked to every other racial group. So when you talk about something like white privilege, you have to understand it's a system of inequality that relates groups together. That's a very important part of how institutional racism works: it perpetuates inequality in a way that most people who gain the advantage don't realize. People need to understand these relationships and recognize that if we do the same thing we've always done, we're perpetuating inequality.

- John Cheng, Assistant Professor at George Mason University, where he teaches American history, Asian American studies, and cultural studies.

There needs to be collective action. As an individual you may have to take the SAT even if you are convinced it's racially biased. At the same time, you can take action with others who are likeminded to lobby the University of California to get rid of it, like it is currently happening, or lobby the ETS to change the way they pre-test the questions. You have to do it in the larger public sphere.

- Dalton Conley, Director of the Center for Advanced Social Science Research (CASSR) and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at New York University.

Whiteness: my inheritance

Since this blog is a space for us white people to discuss our pursuit of anti-racist parenting, I want to talk about what whiteness means. As I sit here, I'm just beginning this journey, thinking about the work I must do internally first. Acting against racism and white supremacy is an imperative, but I can't help but feel "underprepared" to take action. (Yes, discussion is my first and feeble attempt at action and I don't want to stop there.)

A part of that little procrastinator voice inside my head is just my own insecurity, part feeling overwhelmed with the largeness of the issue, part white privilege which allows me to sit on the sidelines, but a part of it is definitely ignorance. I know so little about the history of this country, and thus the history of Whiteness and White Supremacy. Reading about these topics is important, because this information contextualizes the anti-racist work ahead of me. It will help me perceive the systemic nature of racism and help me understand my collusion with the types of privilege and oppression benefiting me. All this awareness must not paralyze me. The challenge is to take all this information and use it to help dismantle the system of White Supremacy, though that process may take generations. We can start with our inner selves, but as Barbara Flagg, professor of law at Washington University and expert on Constitutional Law and Critical Race Theory writes, "Action [must] be directed at systemic social oppression. Individual and/or local action is not adequate to challenge either the material or the ideological reality of White supremacy.".This makes sense, but what can one do on such a scale that it will make a difference? These thoughts are a bit premature for me. Raising my own awareness and that of those around me is the first step.

I was not born or raised in this country. I came here as a teenager from Europe, the Czech Republic to be specific. It has taken me years to begin to understand this society. I live here now, and though I want to sometimes say these problems are not my problems; I am not from here, I do have to take ownership of the things I'm inheriting and benefiting from in this society as a white person and in relationship to the rest of the world as an American (and as a person originally socialized in Europe, the cradle of racism). This anti-racist work, after all, does extend beyond national boundaries.

On this blog, I would like to share what I learn about Whiteness and White Supremacy.

In this posting, I will just share this definition of White Supremacy by the Chicana activist and writer Elizabeth Martinez:

"White Supremacy is an historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations, and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent, for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power, and privilege."

And a little bit of history as written by Martinez:

"The first European settlers called themselves English, Irish, German, French, Dutch, etc. -- not white. Over half of those who came in the early colonial period were servants. By 1760 the population reached about two million, of whom 400,000 were enslaved Africans. An elite of planters developed in the southern colonies. In Virginia, for example, 50 rich white families held the reins of power but were vastly outnumbered by non-whites. In the Carolinas, 25,000 whites faced 40,000 Black slaves and 60,000 indigenous peoples in the area. Class lines hardened as the distinction between rich and poor became sharper. The problem of control loomed large and fear of revolt from below grew.

"There had been slave revolts from the beginning but elite whites feared even more that discontented whites -- servants, tenant farmers, the urban poor, the property-less, soldiers and sailors -- would join Black slaves to overthrow the existing order. . .

". . . Their solution: divide and control. Certain privileges were given to white indentured servants. They were allowed to join militias, carry guns, acquire land, and have other legal rights not allowed to slaves. With these privileges they were legally declared white on the basis of skin color and continental origin. That made them 'superior' to Blacks (and Indians). Thus whiteness was born as a racist concept to prevent lower-class whites from joining people of color, especially Blacks, against their class enemies. The concept of whiteness became a source of unity and strength for the vastly outnumbered Euroamericans -- as in South Africa, another settler nation. Today, unity across color lines remains the biggest threat in the eyes of a white ruling class.

". . .In the mid-1800s, new historical developments served to strengthen the concept of whiteness and insitutionalize White Supremacy. The doctrine of Manifest Destiny, born at a time of aggressive western expansion, said that the United States was destined by God to take over other peoples and lands. The term was first used in 1845 by the editor of a popular journal, who affirmed 'the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole continent which providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government.'

". . . Manifest Destiny is a profoundly racist concept. For example, a major force of opposition to gobbling up Mexico at the time came from politicians saying 'the degraded Mexican-Spanish' were unfit to become part of the United States; they were 'a wretched people . . . mongrels.' In a similar way, some influential whites who opposed slavery in those years said Blacks should be removed from U.S. soil, to avoid 'contamination' by an inferior people (source of all this information is the book _Manifest Destiny_ by Anders Stephanson, Hill & Wang, 1995)

". . . The doctrine of Manifest Destiny facilitated the geographic extension and economic development of the United States while confirming racist policies and practices. It established White Supremacy more firmly than ever as central to the U.S. definition of itself. The arrogance of asserting that God gave white people (primarily men) the right to dominate everything around them still haunts our society and sustains its racist oppression."

So, how where do I stand in relation to this history? I live in the Pacific Northwest, an area where not so long ago Europeans settled, committing unspeakable violence against the Native peoples of the Northwest. Those that came before me on the Oregon Trail paved the way for me to live on this plundered land rather comfortably and effortlessly. And what a beautiful corner of the world this is! I think about the violence that occurred here often and it is so painful. I not only think about he violence done against the people here, but also against the earth. The magnificent forests that were here once, the streams that are now buried or polluted with industrial waste ... all of that rips my heart apart.

I want to close this post with something that I remembered unexpectedly. It surprises me how I get from point A to point C or X or Z sometimes. Here is a quote from a man whose book I read and whom I saw speak once, Martin Prechtel, a man who lived in Guatemala amongst the Mayans as a shaman:

"Our ancestors weren’t necessarily very smart. In many cases, they are the ones who left us this mess. Some of them were great, but others had huge prejudices. If these ancestors are given their due, then you don’t have to live out their prejudices in your own life. But if you don’t give the ancestors something, if you simply say, 'I’m descended from these people, but they don’t affect me very much; I’m a unique individual,' then you’re cursed to spend your life either fighting your ancestors, or else riding the wave they started. You’ll have to do that long before you can be yourself and pursue what you believe is worth pursuing.

"The Mayan way of dealing with this is to give the ancestors a place to live. You actually build houses for them — called 'sleeping houses' — and put your ancestors in there. The houses are small, because the ancestors don’t take up any space, but they do need a designated place, just like anything else. Then you feed your ancestors with words and eloquence. We all have old, forgotten languages that our languages are descended from, and many of these languages are a great deal more ornate. But even with our current language, we still have the capacity to create strange, mysterious, poetic gifts to feed the ancestors, so that we won’t become depressed by their ghosts devouring our everyday lives.

"If we can get past the prejudices of the last ten thousand years’ worth of ancestors, then we can find our way back to our indigenous souls and culture, where we are always at home and welcome.

". . . People’s longing for each other and for the terrain of home is so enormous that, if you do not weep to express it, you’re poisoning the future with violence. If that longing is not expressed as a loud, beautiful wail, a song, or a piece of art that’s given as a gift to the spirits, then it will turn into violence against other beings — and, more importantly, against the earth itself, because you will have no understanding of home. But if you are able to feed the other world with your grief, then you can live where your dead are buried, and they will become a part of the landscape in a way."

And so perhaps even weeping and recognizing the pain of our inheritance is a form of action that in a spiritual way may help undo the violence our people have committed.