Abstract
In a time of heightened bigotry and racialized violence, it is critical for social workers to engage in anti-racism practice. What leads White individuals to embrace this framework is less explored in scholarship. This paper presents data from an exploratory narrative inquiry with 10 White helping professionals in the Northeastern US who adopted an overtly anti-racism approach in their work. Narrative is a “cultural tool” through which individuals make sense of themselves and circumstances within context (Dauite et al., 2015: 48). Narrative inquiry involves uncovering the stories embedded within the overt stories told. With focus on pivotal childhood experiences, the themes taken up in this paper include the influence of family of origin values about race, exposure to racial difference, and experiences leading to the adoption of anti-racism tenets. The themes emerged as participants reflected on the self-discovery of racialization; initial exposure to racial inequity; and the impetus for them to become active in efforts to counter White supremacy. The paper aims to add to research on the engagement of White individuals in anti-racism efforts, an essential task for US social work as a predominantly White profession.
In a time of increased overt racial bigotry and social division, there is urgency for social workers to engage in anti-racism practice (Bussey, 2019; Potok, 2017; Wallis, 2016). Using a critical race lens and following the guidelines from Creswell and Poth (2018: 132) the purpose of this narrative study was to uncover the stories of White helping professionals who actively engage in anti-racist work (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012). 1 This research was premised on the assumption that race is a social construction, acknowledging “the historical construction of racial categories, the shifting meaning of race, and the crucial role of politics and ideology in shaping conceptions of race” (Hill Collins, 2000: 20). While race is socially constructed, there are common experiences of individuals based on how they present in a racialized society. For example, White individuals experience the common benefit of racial privilege, intrinsically linked in the US to inequitable social outcomes (Alexander, 2012; Bangs and Davis, 2015; Billings, 2016; Leonardo, 2004). As “no standpoint is neutral” (Hill Collins, 2000: 33) and since racial oppression is relational, only through addressing potential beneficiaries is consequential change achievable (Jemal, 2016).
As a helping profession with a long history of social activism, social work ethically binds its members to eradicating oppression (Abramovitz, 1998; National Association of Social Workers, 1996), comprising a group most accountable to enact anti-racism (SE Moore et al., 2016). Building on the concept of White ignorance (or the unintentional or subconscious perpetuation of racial bias (Mills, 2017) and how it plays out in social service provision, this study sought the stories of White helping professionals in the US who identify as anti-racist. This study intentionally did not limit participation to social workers as this study was exploratory and there was value to culling multidisciplinary experiences, identifying common themes across a broader catchment of helping professions. The rationale for the study was that such narratives might inform strategies to dismantle White supremacist ideology (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012). The central research questions were how the participants first noticed and understood race/racism in their life; what pivotal experiences led them to overtly fight racial oppression in their professional capacity; and, in what ways was this decision supported or challenged by the people in their life. There were many benefits to addressing this query using qualitative research methods. Discussing sensitive topics such as White supremacy and racism are better addressed through qualitative data collection methods. And, since little is known about this topic, there was value to focusing on a few, select cases that illustrate theoretical importance. The overarching goal was to gain a thick description of this phenomenon from which to build foundational knowledge. Last, assuming multiple realities necessitated an approach that facilitated rich and nuanced data collection (Creswell and Poth, 2018).
Prior literature
Three veins of scholarship spoke to this study: qualitative inquiries that delve into how White ignorance and colorblindness manifest or present in White people’s narratives and relationships; qualitative investigations of White anti-racism; and, personal memoirs of White individuals who work to interrupt the perpetuation of White supremacy. Research in the first group, revealed how exposure to information about White privilege and racism results in an increase in sense of responsibility by Whites to address racism (Heinze and Decandia, 2011; Matias et al., 2014), while uncovering the many factors that complicate White individuals’ willingness to challenge racism (Boatright-Horowitz et al., 2012; Branscombe et al., 2007; Case, 2012; Feagin and O’Brien, 2003; Hays et al., 2008; Liu, 2017; Stewart et al., 2012). There is measurable apprehension by Whites based on the perceived costs to Whites of confronting White privilege (Hastie and Rimmington, 2014; Kernahan and Davis, 2007; Pinterits et al., 2009), and when this dominant mindset or White sense of identity is threatened, individuals may react with increased racism (Branscombe et al., 2007).
More specifically, sociological explorations of the prevalence of the colorblind perspective held by Whites in the US demonstrated the implications of such leanings (Donnelly et al., 2005; Feagin and O’Brien, 2003; Gallagher, 2003). These analyses reflected how colorblindness operates as an ahistorical perspective—the sociopolitical history of slavery and subsequent race-based exclusion of Blacks in the US is omitted and replaced by a strong sense of individual opportunity within a fair, meritocratic society (Bonilla-Silva, 2017). This serves to diffuse any cognitive dissonance in the minds of Whites in the appropriation of Black culture or in reconciling why inequalities exist so starkly across racial lines (Gallagher, 2003). Additional qualitative studies discerned themes from interview content, such as evidence of assumed Whiteness by White individuals (Harman, 2010; Ryan and Moras, 2017); coping strategies for dealing with racism as White parents of multiracial children (Harman, 2010); the essence of the “shifting nature of white racial attitudes and understanding” as it relates to White racial apathy and culpable ignorance (Forman and Lewis, 2006: 175); and, the “performativity of whiteness in everyday interactions” as the means by which Whiteness is defined and negotiated (Jeyasingham, 2012: 681–683). In particular, many narrative studies appeared in the field of education (Myers, 2008) exploring the experiences of race and racism by Black and White educators and helping professionals (Bell, 2003).
The second group of related scholarship reflected on White people who confront racism but not specifically within their professional identity (Omi and Winant, 2009: 124–125). Sociological studies of White anti-racism suggest that for White people to adopt an anti-racist perspective they must experience racism and oppression via a relational lens. Scholars point to the role of transformative love in cross-racial relationships (Johnson et al., 2000), where for Whites the experience of racism shifts from empathic to autopathic—or racism becomes personal (O’Brien, 2009). With access to counter-hegemonic knowledge and by moving beyond empathy toward a co-constructed perspective, Whites are more likely to view the harms of racism as personal (DiAngelo, 2011; Feagin and O’Brien, 2003; Iyer et al., 2003; Perry and Shotwell, 2009). As O’Brien (2009) points out, however, interracial relationships may be necessary but are insufficient in moving White individuals toward antiracism. Dismantling racism requires a power shift and potential loss of entitlement (Hays et al., 2008). Further, Hughey (2012: 193) unearthed similar “meaning-making” in White identity formation in seemingly opposite political frameworks (White supremacist and White anti-racist groups), pointing to the pervasive racialized ideals of “Hegemonic Whiteness.”
Personal accounts of work by Whites against racial oppression make up the third scholarly vein. Unlike the aforementioned qualitative approaches, these represent an autobiographical, autoethnographic space. In Deep Denial, Billings (2016) illuminated his journey—being raised a White man in a racist, Southern community during the Civil Rights era to working to dismantle racism—juxtaposing his personal stories with historical analysis. In her philosophical query of how to exist as a White person in a racist society, Vice (2011: 340) outlined the moral obligation of Whites to process shame through humility and silence. Despite this scholarship, there lacks robust research exploring the narratives of White helping professionals who overtly leverage an anti-racist approach in their professional work with a focus on understanding what brought them into this orientation. This study aims to fill this gap.
Methods
Using a narrative inquiry as scaffolding, this post-constructivist analysis explores the experiences that impacted the development of the participants’ racial critical consciousness as evident in the retelling of their stories. The origins of personal narrative in the US can be traced back through Black authorship via “slave narratives,” providing a segregated White audience insight into the experience of enslavement and race-based violence (Morrison and Denard, 2008). Bell (2003) suggests that when studying racism, a means for unearthing power relations is through the analysis of stories by both Whites and people of color. Interiority refers to the “inner enemy” or “psychic struggle” that comes through in authentic narratives (Karr, 2015: 91). Interiority surfaces within the messiness and tensions present when White people attempt to work through the racist ideology into which they were socialized.
Narrative inquiry involves uncovering the stories embedded within the overt stories told or the “small stories” that express a moment in time (Daiute, 2011; K’Meyer and Crothers, 2007). The subjective perspective of the speaker is valued (Charmaz, 1999) and the narrative framework accounts for “the uniqueness of individual life and experience” in context (Hoshmand, 2005: 183), or the cultural, historical, and social dynamics surrounding the individual (Griffiths and Macleod, 2008; K’Meyer and Crothers, 2007). By considering the self as “in process…unfolding, developing, and becoming…and never a static final product” there is value to hearing in-depth accounts of an individuals’ life span (Charmaz, 1999: 366–367). In addition to the co-creation of knowledge between the researcher and the narrator, in narrative inquiry the researcher plays a pivotal role in deciding which content is highlighted and which is removed (K’Meyer and Crothers, 2007). This effort requires “critical reflexivity and sense of humility” by the researcher (Hoshmand, 2005: 184).
Recruitment and sampling
This research was approved by the institutional review board (IRB) of a large university in the Northeastern United States. Initial recruitment using purposeful sampling, or the intentional identification of individuals best positioned to bring light to the phenomenon in question, occurred via email outreach. This study sought individuals who actively challenge racism, as demonstrated through their professional advocacy and/or public dissemination of knowledge via education/training/publication. Participants were identified through public-facing profiles indicating a commitment to anti-racism work in their professional capacity. Initial recruitment via email aligned with professional culture norms. Given the purpose of the study, and how it aligned with the participants’ demonstrated racial justice commitment, participants came to the interviews with enthusiasm about the research. The author recruited additional participants via snowball sampling. Given the goal was thick description, this recruitment and sampling strategy yielded meaningful results (Creswell and Poth, 2018).
Participants
As standpoint and intersectional theory point out, an individual’s identity is formed within a matrix of domination, wherein certain attributes bring with them power and other attributes prompt experiences of oppression (Hill Collins, 2000). While eligibility for participation was based on one common aspect of the participants’ identities—White racial identity—it is important to note that gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, and additional—perhaps less apparent—characteristics of the participants influenced and shaped their narratives. The range and variance between participants based on nonracial aspects of their identities are notable and worth further exploration in future queries. Table 1 outlines the demographics of the ten participants all of whom identified as White, non-Latinx.
Participant demographics.
Data collection
All participants completed semi-structured interviews with the author—six were in-person and four were completed over the phone. Each interview lasted between 45 minutes and 2 hours. Nine of the ten interviews were recorded and transcribed, the tenth was completed with concurrent documentation given the participant requested not to be recorded. The author anonymized the transcripts and uploaded them into Atlas.ti for coding assistance. The author identifies as a White, cisgender female licensed clinical social worker who aims to practice according to anti-racism tenets. The similarity in racial identity (Whiteness), professional identity (helping professions), and practice framework (anti-racism) between the participants and the author created some initial potential common ground and language. The author used social work engagement and active listening skills to enhance rapport given that a single interview would be the primary point of contact and the content necessitated vulnerable reflection on the part of the participant. Part of the reflexive process involved locating ways in which this appearance of commonality enhanced participant engagement. It also provided a window into the personal biases and assumptions of the author and the participants. Through interview memoing, the author teased out such tensions and created accountability to the data.
Data analysis
Following Kim’s (2016: 196–198) approach to narrative analysis, the author looked for both themes across narratives, or threads of connection between participant recollections, as well as areas of divergence or diversity in experience. Critical to this was an appreciation of intersectional identity and how differences in axes of identity create variance in personal experience even within a group sharing a common trait (racial identity) (Hill Collins and Bilge, 2016). This paper looks more closely at themes that arose in the participants’ recollections of childhood experiences (through high school age) related to their growing awareness of race and racism and that played a role in them embracing anti-racism as a professional framework. This time frame emerged from the data as important, as when asked about formidable experiences becoming cognizant of racism and race, all participants recalled pivotal moments in childhood.
Trustworthiness and credibility
To enhance credibility, the author listened to and transcribed all interview content engaging with the data on multiple occasions. The participants were asked to recall chronologically how they came to understand race (internally and in society) and take an anti-racism stance in their professional identity, so bracketing data by life stage aided in organization. As themes emerged, the author leveraged peer debriefing and faculty advisor input for additional feedback and to make visible potential blind spots in analysis.
Findings
As an exploratory study, the three themes taken up in this paper are influence of family of origin through transmission of values on understanding race; exposure to racial difference; and, pivotal moments leading to the adoption of anti-racism. While the themes are descriptive in nature, given the complexity and nuance of human behavior, the first two are best understood and presented on continuums (Jones and Harris, 2016). This challenges the “either/or,” dichotomous thinking that is rooted in White supremacist cultural norms reducing concepts and experiences to binaries (e.g. good or bad, insider or outsider) (Jones and Okun, 2001).
Theme 1: Influence of family of origin
Participants in this study all grew up in racially segregated, insulated, predominantly White communities, making contact or relationship across racial groups a result of agency, chance, or unique circumstance. When recalling childhood experiences, some mentions of family were descriptive and demographic—noting the region from which parents/grandparents were from and their socioeconomic class. Several participants connected their elders’ experience of immigration or discrimination to their perspective on race/racism: My grandparents came from Italy … so all the racism there ‘cause … well, as long as you’re not Black, right? … So just a lot of racism.—Sue
2
(female-identified social worker and public university professor in her late-60s) [My parents] did the best they could with what they knew … My grandparents escaped anti-Semitism in Europe and came to America. My parents … [were taught] everybody hates us, you gotta work twice as hard, and we’re the enemy according to them.—Rebecca (female and lesbian-identified middle school educator in her early-30s)
Discussions of race
Central to all contemplations was the presence or absence of discussions about race in the home. This took three forms: silence, or the dismissal of the impact of race; a colorblind approach to race, that skin color (a proxy to race) has no bearing on experience; and a civil rights-based approach to discussing race.
Silence
In many participant households growing up, race and racism were not openly discussed. As per Kurt (male and gay-identified school social worker in early-40s), “conversations [about race] … would not come up—never come up in my family.” Similarly, for Rebecca: There were two … groups … actually mentioned … around class and around religion … There was ‘the rich’ and there was ‘the poor.’ There were ‘the Jews’ and there were ‘the Gentiles.’ … We talked about … oppression and being victims and … everybody hating us … because we were Jews … there wasn’t mention of any similarities … [or] parallels that could be drawn between other oppressed groups. Everyone in my family would have said racism is wrong but nobody talked about it. It took root in my head and I talked about it.—Kurt One day my father came home and said, “we’re moving.” Why were we moving: my parents were walking in the street and 3 Black men, or Black teenagers—I don’t remember which—had not moved out of the way … and my father said, “I won’t walk in the street for anyone.” … I mean it was clear people were running … I remember feeling it was wrong. But not having any space, not having any place to talk.—Jill (female and lesbian-identified community organizer in her early 70s).
Colorblindness
In some families, race was couched within a post-racial, colorblind framework (that skin color or race is inconsequential in personal experience or outcome), only acknowledging racism in relation to extreme acts of bigotry or violence. Rebecca recalled “conversations at the dinner table … that people are all the same on the inside and it kind of left out the second half of the sentence—but that’s not always how they’re treated … [an] aversive racism mindset … ’we have moved beyond this, race is no longer relevant’.” Similarly, Kurt’s parents had adopted his sister from Korea at age three. He spoke about how his parents saw her inclusion into their family as erasing any racial or ethnic difference she may have from the rest of the family. Relatedly, Kurt’s aunt and uncle who I was closest to adopted a half-Black and half- Puerto Rican little boy … and that kind of created a lot of waves on the block because it was all White … but even that didn’t open the conversation [about race] … systemic oppression in the world and consequences … they weren’t able to make that jump—only isolated incidences of racism that are wrong.
Civil right-based
At the other end of the spectrum were families in which racial differences were raised in relation to the need for social equality and civil rights, and participants were exposed to information about cultures other than their own. Travis (male-identified anti-racism educator and playwright in his early 40s) referred to his parents as “Kennedy people,” or people in support of civil rights efforts. Joe (male-identified high school educator in his late 20s) described his parents as self-congratulatory, Northeastern, White, NPR-listening Liberals who knew there was racism … however never thought of themselves as complicit in that racism … [They were] susceptible to believing kind of neo-liberal arguments about culture … [and] victim-blaming narratives … [but] were keen to acknowledge … the victimization of Black people throughout history. She would get in trouble for crossing race lines … Her mother [Sharla’s grandmother] told her that whoever you played with on Sunday was really the mark of your character. And so this little Black girl who was her friend she couldn’t go down and play with on Sunday. And my mother always raised me on questions about the rules … This was a pre-occupation of hers throughout her life about trying to understand what the rules were … As I grew older and started to see social stratification, I went to my mother for answers and she was as flummoxed as I was in terms of how to deal with it.
Transmission of values
A second, predominant influence of the participants’ families of origin involved transmission of values. These presented on a continuum, ranging from overt bigotry (or fear of the “other”), to having interpersonal relationships across different racial identities, to teaching social justice values and role-modeling social activism.
Overt bigotry
Several participants intimated moments in their upbringing in which bigotry was overtly communicated through racist statements and language. My father [would say], ‘we should throw Blacks’—but he didn’t say ‘Black’ he said the n-word … ’in the furnace with the Jews’ … and every time we did anything wrong … ’we are going to give you back to the Indians.’—Sue My dad had some pretty negative ideas about, about Black people … negative stereotypes … that Black people are scary, that they’re not nice.—Abby (female-identified private practice psychologist in her late 40s) We lived in downtown [large Midwestern city], the minute we sold our house to a Black family … we left and went to the ‘White flight’ suburbs.—Sue
Interpersonal relationships across differences
Several participants highlighted their family’s professional, social, and familial connections (via cross-racial adoptions) with people of color. For example, Marjory recalled that her stepfather’s business partner was a Black man, Jill spoke about her father’s business manager being “the first Black person that I connected with who … was seen as a part of the family,” and Joe recounted that his mother dated a Jamaican man. Joe also described how his parents set up a playdate with a boy from his school who was Black. Joe spoke about asking his mother “if it was a deliberate … [racial] exposure move on their part.” These relationships reflect examples of cross-racial interpersonal connections during the participants’ formative years. They communicated to the participants some degree of racial inclusion on the micro level.
Social justice and activism
In contrast to overt bigotry and race-based fear, in some participant families, values of social justice and activism were expressed. This stemmed from faith-based service orientation (such as Travis’ father’s “liberation theology” Catholicism), participation in labor organizing, and parental involvement in civil rights activism. [My mother demonstrated] ‘Civil Rights White’ consciousness … that became her way of negotiating race … She gave a speech in high school … for racial equality and there was a guest there, a Black man, and him affirming her voice was a big impression on her and made her quite different [from her siblings].—Travis
Theme 2: Exposure to difference
As mentioned above, all participants reported growing up in predominantly White neighborhoods and most attended racially segregated, predominantly White schools. Exposure to racial difference ranged from complete racial insulation, to some exposure to cultural differences (i.e., phenotypic difference and/or cultural representations outside of Whiteness), to occurrences that revealed a difference in experience based on race, including maltreatment. Some participants had experiences in more than one of these categories.
Racial insulation
Some participants highlighted how racial insulation and separation stemmed from race-based residential segregation, overtly naming hypersegregation or the stark compositional differences between their home communities and neighboring communities of color. As Marjory noted, “it was an incorporated village which meant that it was legally segregated: that Black people were not allowed to move in. And yet the town next to us was … a predominantly Black town.”
Exposure to cultural differences
Despite being racially insulated in their home communities, participants mentioned the discovery of phenotypic differences across racial groups and exposure to cultural representations of Black people or people of color. This theme was prominent in Joe’s narrative. In early elementary, he recalled noticing “differences in skin tone and hair texture and wondering about them.” Marjory spoke about having “lots of relationships with the Black kids—the few that there were [at her school] … It wasn’t real relationship, but this kind of superficial, informal relationship.”
Exposure to reductionist cultural representations of people of color resulted in some participant appropriation of fashion, music, and style, reflecting the harmful dynamics that underlie White cooptation (Hughey, 2012). Scholars set forth how cultural appropriation is an outgrowth of colorblindness and premised on a reduction of race to “racialized cultural symbols” (Rodriquez, 2006: 646). This makes adoption of cultural attributes of people of color (such as fashion, art, language, and music) appear harmless, when in fact it is an exertion of White “racial power” (Rodriquez, 2006: 663). Marjory described being drawn to “Black culture.” “It’s always been … appealing to me … I didn’t understand my privilege … that it was a privilege to move in and out of other circles.” Similarly, Joe spoke about understanding his own race and culture in relation to the race of the hip hop music artists he listened to in high school. I must’ve listened to Jay Z and Puff Daddy … [and] their language is different … so much of this is different from my experience so what does that mean? … I went through a phase where I effectively wanted to be Black … .that’s obviously quite reductive of me … I tried to dreadlock my hair.
Exposure to difference in race and experience
Some participants noted visceral revelations of race-based experiential differences and prejudice leading to contemplation of self. Joe shared a story of being in middle school and his father attempting to offer perspective on Joe’s relative privilege by leaving “a copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X on my bed … I was a little overwhelmed by what I was reading … I wasn’t ready to feel that level of White guilt yet.” Later in life, Joe engaged in deeper self-exploration after being exposed to racial inequity. He landed with the belief that every White person grows up and notices that outcomes in our society aren’t equal and that those unequal outcomes are patterned on race. And they have to figure out an answer for why that is in their heads … I was taught so much—everyone’s equal, we’re all colorblind … but then you keep on seeing unequal outcomes and you’re like, why is that?
Theme 3: Experiences leading to change
Participants connected pivotal moments in childhood to why they turned toward anti-racism in adulthood and incorporated the framework into their professional careers. Such moments included exposure to bigotry in family of origin, silence about race in the home, exposure to historic information enhancing an understanding of racial inequity, witnessing experiences of racial inequity (such as poverty, violence, and silence), familial religious and civic values, and personal experiences of discrimination. Most participants harkened early memories in which they experienced internal dissonance in relation to injustices and inequality.
Exposure to bigotry
Sue explicitly named being raised around racism and hatred as the reason why she thinks she was so motivated to work against it. If I wasn’t … abused in that way but the hate, growing up to hate … maybe I wouldn’t’ve been open … so open and hungry to find. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know anything different.
Silence about race
As introduced earlier, for a few participants the failure to discuss race and racism in the home prompted them to seek out spaces to do so. Abby recalled learning about a violent incident in her community in which “White teenagers … beat up a Black teenager … and I remember being very upset by that … [because] it was a racially-based attack … I didn’t talk to anybody about it and … I think I wrote about it … in my journal.”
Historic information
In addition, exposure to historic information or structural analyses sparked interest for some participants, opening the door to deliberating: who am I in relation to this inequity? Kurt described that such information “made me examine my role in society … what people who look like me have done and what that meant for me.” For Travis, learning about Medgar Evers struck a chord “‘cause it was then that his killer was up for a retrial when he was an old man.” As per Joe, “hip hop kind of opened my eyes to … [a] narrative from the other side … [to] structural explanations of inequality.”
Exposure to experiences of inequity
Exposure to stark differences in experience (such as growing up with fear for personal safety or observing poverty based on race) resonated with participants. Joe spoke about a school busing program in which Black students were brought to his suburban school. “I remember one of the boys telling us about … how he carried a razor blade with him to … keep safe, and I was like … ‘that’s never occurred to me to do.’ And I wondered about that.” For Kurt, religious volunteer work brought him into contact with a community of migrant laborers and more broadly with people of color living in poverty. On a service day … [a] house clean up, the owner of the house was female, African-American … [I] talked with her for a while and she spoke about racism, her experience … It was the first time I had these conversations with an adult … The level of poverty that she talked about was far beyond anything I experienced … [it] was jarring.
Religious, charitable norms, and civic engagement. Growing up being role-modeled community service and fighting for equality (either in the home or by surrounding social movements) planted seeds of activism. Anne (female-identified social worker and anti-racism trainer in her 60s) recalled being impacted by exposure to “Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign … this place of acceptance and love in the Black Baptist church scene … in many ways it made sense to me.” Similarly, Marjory spoke about engaging in Civil Rights and Vietnam war activism as a young person. In addition, Sharla stated, “my mother had a very strong sense of justice and I certainly picked that up.”
Personal experiences of discrimination
Last, personal experiences of maltreatment enhanced participant empathy around inequity. My youngest sister was profoundly brain damaged … I had classmates who shunned my family … because of this … My parents refused to institutionalize [her]. So, I think I always grew up with a sensitivity to people who were outcast … there’s still a huge leap between outcast and justice and racism.—Anne [My adopted sister from Korea] could not get a date to the prom—all the kids were White—even if she’s pretty and smart and wonderful, no one asked her … she asked three different White boys, and everyone said no.—Kurt
Discussion
The exploration of themes rising up from the narratives of White people engaged in anti-racist work demonstrates the entrenchment of socialization into White supremacist ideals that individuals in the US face. These slices of personal history are not intended to be comprehensive nor decisive. Instead they are glimpses into the interior space of White people actively fighting to deconstruct racism. They reflect the “inner enemy” or “psychic struggle” (Karr, 2015: 91) involved in undoing racism fraught with messiness and tension. These stories within stories underscore how race-based residential and educational segregation is an impediment to White people challenging institutional racism, as racial insulation and isolation serve to obfuscate injustice (Bonilla-Silva, 2017; Feagin and O’Brien, 2003; Matias et al., 2014). Second, these narratives speak to how parental and familial influence is foundational but not infallible. These participants demonstrated curiosity and critical thinking early on in life, some with eagerness to better understand the historic context within which the US developed. Interrogating history often helps to illuminate the structural scaffolding of social inequity and is a pathway to critical consciousness raising (Jemal, 2016; Wallis, 2016). By examining these themes within continuums, this enquiry contests the moral binary in White supremacist culture of right or wrong (Jones and Okun, 2001). In its place, a both/and, gray space is created wherein lies the potential for personal transformation and social agitation (McLeod, 1998). Indeed, “agitation is a necessary evil to tell of the ills of the suffering” (DuBois, 1910).
Future research
As this paper reflects exploratory findings, next steps include delving deeper into themes within the data. Important in this examination is the continued consideration of the impact of intersectionality. For example, what influence might the participants’ experiences of marginalization based on nonracial aspects of their identity (such as gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic class) have had on their engagement in anti-racism efforts? In addition, what role, if any, did proximity to people of color via interpersonal and intimate relationships play on the formation of their anti-racism framework? Further, did racially biased dynamics manifest within these relationships? The richness of the participants’ stories covering many decades of their lives provides immense opportunity for analysis and discovery. As stated at the outset of this paper, an overarching aim is to engage White-identified individuals in anti-racism efforts. It’s a critical time: the racial inequity is palpable in all sectors of US society, preventable violence is normative, and lives are being shortened by the hand of systemic oppression (Alexander, 2012; Bangs and Davis, 2015; Billings, 2016; Leonardo, 2004). Structural change requires individuals with racial privilege to participate in the deconstruction of White supremacy. Such transformation demands multi-prong, multilevel coordinated efforts. Raising awareness, particularly with individuals who benefit from the status quo (and are thus culpable for and accountable to the accompanying suffering), is one piece in an intricate puzzle. Hearing the narratives of such individuals engaged in anti-racism offers a window to a path toward liberation.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
