Being a white man at the Refounding Conference of the
National Alliance Against Racism and Oppression (November 22-24, 2019 in
Chicago) was most interesting and challenging.
I am not used to being in a setting where many people may believe that I
am “irrelevant” or that my motives may be oppressive because I am white and
male.
More than a few times mentioning
my involvement in Organizing White Men for Collective Liberation (OWMCL) brought doubtful looks and responses such as: “You’ve a really tough
road ahead of you” (often with the implication that the listener wouldn’t
believe my relevance, until s/he saw a LOT more visible results). Never did I hear, “we’d like to work with
you”, though one woman wanted us, when we get better organized, to meet with
one of her groups as “white men”.
Issues of racism, class, gender and other areas of oppression
were significantly discussed by many Women of Color (and some men) in workshops and
presentations. It was very clear that
Women of Color see the necessity of coalition building with other Communities
of Color. They spoke often of
the interconnectedness of issues. One
young Latinx women spoke passionately of how oft times others tried to state that their issues
were in conflict with Native Americans.
She noted major efforts Latinx people had made to support Native
Americans. Chicago Area Palestinian
Americans were significant in various weekend events.
White men were spoken about indirectly in the
presentations. The focus was largely on
police violence and how killing and hurting People of Color was endemic
nationally. Several mothers of men who
had been incarcerated for lengthy terms or killed, despite having done nothing
wrong, spoke passionately of their efforts to seek justice. A Trans man talked of how the Pulse killing
in Orlando had been distorted in the media, further hurting People of
Color. There was significant talk also
of how Trans people were not taken seriously by the police in Jacksonville. During an investigation of the murder of one
Black Trans woman, investigators purposely only referred to the woman by her
birth name which naturally her friends and acquaintances didn’t know her by.
One on one people were incredibly generous and kind and
supportive. There was a lot of
interest in sharing stories and learning from each other.
It was hard for me to listen to a young Palestinian woman
talk of how a two-state solution was simply morally wrong and unacceptable,
because Israel is a country that is 100% Palestinian land.
I am emotionally wedded to the realization that a majority of my family
are Israeli Jews, and that Israel, despite its horrific treatment of
Palestinians deserves to exist, as a state. I, also, would welcome a
single, democratic Palestinian state with a substantial Jewish minority.
There was none of the common “white politeness” where we
ignore the struggles of others, and avoid blame. Particularly strong was the condemnation of
the imperialism of the United States, wreaking havoc both externally around the
world, and internally upon People of Color and working class people in general.
It was good that the Conference focused upon the issues,
rather than upon Donald Trump and others individuals. The importance of coalition building was
stressed by Chicago and National leader Frank Chapman and others. They spoke of the importance of accepting
our small differences, and focusing upon the core issues.
I took various clear messages from this incredible experience (as white man). We have a lot of catching up
to do if we want to meaningfully be a part of ending racism (and classism and
sexism) in the United States. We need
to work on our own internal issues.
More importantly perhaps, we need to both build a movement successfully reaching
other white men and do a lot more supporting others. This has never been
done before. We need to get visibly
active in supporting the important work done by so many others in our local
communities.
We need to listen a
lot! We need to do our best to
overcome the bad things that we’ve done. Over time we need to become clearly visible through our good work supporting Communities of Color and women. We need to use our privilege to help end it.
None of what I speak of can be done without serious
thought and action. We need to listen
to a lot of anger and recognize that it is justified. We need to prioritize our work on these
issues instead of where our priorities are now People of Color and Queer Folk (for example)
are dying, being incarcerated and harassed all the time, while we remain
largely complacent in our comfortable privileged worlds. We will make mistakes. We need to be vulnerable. We need to work through our hearts seriously to build a new movement. We need to
confront and support each other. We
need to finally become accountable to others.
-----------------------------------
Comments
Post a Comment