Problematic White Identities and a Search for Racial Justice

Blauner (1995, Racism and Antiracism in World Perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage), Winant (1998, Ethnic and Racial Studies 24(4): 755–766) and Bonnett (1997, New Communities 22(1): 97–110) all express concern over the construction of racism as a white-only phenomenon and the corresponding degree to which whiteness is essentialized as a negative identity. This paper explores how white antiracism activists mediate between a static construction of white racism and a more contextual understanding of racism and possibilities for white activism. While whiteness is clearly hegemonic in the larger social world, within movements for racial justice, whiteness is often seen as suspect. Given this, white antiracism activists spend a fair amount of their activist hours negotiating a problematic identity. This paper explores the mechanisms by which such an identity is negotiated. I conclude that while white activism is complicated by a definition of racism that tends to essentialize whiteness, the activists have found ways to empower themselves and to conceptualize their relationship to racism and antiracism activism in a less rigid way. All of this contributes to our understanding of the complexity of white identity and efforts to demonstrate how it is an identity that, like other identities, is always in formation.     

On the Front Lines: The Voices and Experiences of Racialized Child Welfare Workers in Toronto,Canada

Drawing on focus group data highlighting the perceptions and experiences of racialized child protection workers in the Greater Toronto Area, this article explores the ways in which race operates in the Ontario child welfare system. Most study participants experienced the agencies in which they worked as White-normed environments characterized by systemic racial discrimination in promotion and advancement as well as ongoing instances of racial microaggression—common, everyday practices that denigrate people of color. Several participants spoke of having to contend with White-normed and middle-class-oriented policies, tools, and practices that often prevented them from meeting the unique needs of racialized service users. The article concludes with participants' recommendations for creating a more equitable child welfare system.     

Case work treatment of adult patients of a psychiatric clinic 1

Social work instructors need to understand racism and promote racial justice to help social work students become skillful at addressing racism in practice and policy. Reflective practices, such as journal writing, can help instructors explore the impact of their racial socialization and identity on their teaching and guide their professional development in this area. This article presents a shared journaling project between peers within a social work doctoral program. Participants used this medium to increase their self-awareness and promote racial dialogue within a relational context. Relational-cultural theory is used as a lens for understanding how the relationships between journaling partners deepened over time and facilitated antiracist practice. Implications for social work practice, education, and research are discussed.     

来自魔界的呐喊——试析《哈利·波特》的批判现实主义精神

《哈利.波特》系列小说是一部关心穷苦者和被压迫者命运的反全球化的宣言书。它以巫术思维为武器,以消除贫困、压迫、剥削、不平等为鲜明旗帜,反对全球化背景下的现代文明,向往神秘的原始思维、前基督教文明的世界。系列小说深刻地揭示现实世界里践踏人权的卑劣行径,同时严厉地批判了种族隔离、种族歧视、奴隶制度等丑恶现象。     

White people's activism in US- based social movements for racial justice

There is a long history of small groups of white activists engaging in social movements for racial justice led by Black Indigenous and People of Color in the United States. Yet organized white antiracism has received much less study than white racism. From forging antiracist identities to crafting racial justice organizing strategies, white people's involvement in BIPOC-led liberation struggles has proven both promising and problematic. This article explores what scholars know about white people's involvement in US- based racial justice efforts in order to pose central questions and quandaries for future study. It focuses on white antiracist activism in the United States beginning in the Civil Rights era. During the late 20th century, US-based racial justice campaigns became fragmented across diverse networks and issue areas making it harder to locate groups of white people collectively aligning with a visible and unified social movement for racial justice. This appears to be shifting. Racial logics and racist regimes have proven themselves eminently flexible, and investigating how white people have tried to join social movements for racial justice illuminates important areas for future study.     

Redefining antiracism: Learning from activists to sharpen academic language

People have fought against racism for as long as it has existed and yet it persists in diverse and materially impactful ways. The primary challenge to eradicating racism is likely the power of white privilege. This paper argues that another important obstacle to progress has been the lack of a clear definition of antiracism that movement activists and scholars can collaboratively use to ensure that antiracist scholarship and efforts meet the full measure of the term's intention. While academia has struggled to converge on a definition, “lay race theorists” and movement activists—Black women in particular, have been participating in discourse online and through other venues where consensus appears to be developing around a definition. This article attempts to summarize activist discourse in defining antiracism as “the commitment to eradicate racism in all its forms” and individual antiracism as “the commitment to eradicate racism in all its forms, by (1) building an understanding of racism and (2) taking action to eliminate racism “within oneself, in other people, in institutions, and through actions outside of institutions,” noting that “antiracism is an ongoing practice and commitment that must be accountable to antiracist Black people, Indigenous people, and other People of Color and consider intersectional systems of oppression.” While research on the public conversation benefits from its easy access and limited additional burdens on movement activists, future research should test these definitions with movement activists to ensure that definitions and metrics are as relevant to the antiracist movement as possible.     

Social Work with Rural Peoples (3rd ed.), Ken Collier,Vancouver, BC: New Star Books, 2006, Paper

This qualitative study explored how White parents who identify as antiracist apply antiracism principles to parenting their White children. Participants discussed how they attempt to incorporate antiracism values into their parenting, their children’s racial awareness, and the impact of race and racism on their children. Our findings indicate significant inconsistencies between antiracist values and parenting practices. The main difference between antiracist White parents and nonantiracist-identified White parents was awareness. Although antiracist White parents overall conveyed an awareness of racism as a system of unearned privileges, there was minimal modeling of antiracist action.     

Antiracism apps: framing understandings and approaches to antiracism education and intervention

Mobile apps for antiracism have become valuable pedagogical and activist tools for their real-time and mapping capabilities, their portability and intimate bodily presence, which enables a reaction exactly when an act of racism occurs. In this article, five mobile apps aimed at producing antiracism education or intervention outcomes from the United Kingdom, Australia and France are the focus of an interrogation of the ways in which racism and antiracism are framed and the strengths and weaknesses of these initiatives for countering dominant forms of everyday racism. We identify a number of different approaches to racism and antiracism in our inquiry, which lead to particular sets of aims, features and uses: the app as a tool for capturing, reporting and responding to racist acts; as a way of reinforcing a wider sense of community identity and solidarity; to demonstrate racism, especially Islamophobia, and make its forms visible, and as a means for challenging racism through raising awareness and encouraging bystanders to oppose it. We argue that while these apps are well disposed to exposing and manifesting isolated incidents of racism in everyday life, we question their potential for transformative societal outcomes beyond the level of unilateral action in the context of events experienced as unique incidents.     

Social Studies Needs (New) White People: The Case for Including Allies in the Curriculum

In this conceptual article we consider the pedagogical possibilities and pitfalls of incorporating White ally figures in history and social studies curricula. Drawing on the burgeoning scholarship on race and the social studies and literature on alternative racial orientations, such as allies, antiracists, and abolitionists, we contend that educators can use White-ally pedagogy to offer White students, in particular, examples of an antiracist White racial identity. We close with guidelines to provide social studies educators and teacher educators with a starting point for effectively introducing White allies into the social studies.