Internalized Racial Oppression
Transcript: It's a very hard thing for us to bring together people of color and white people and continue that relationship. It's very very difficult. I wish it weren't. Sometimes we speak about having a honeymoon where we are all together and we're all saying how wonderful it is, and we look colorful and it's terrific, but the actual sustaining of that work means that we have to acknowledge the brokenness that we all bring into the room. What the People's Institute often calls the internalized racial oppression. We have generations of feelings and attitudes and beliefs that are so deep within us. I often speak of them as being within our bones because they are so deep and most of them are unexamined. So what happens is that when I come into a group I have all the best intentions of being a really good anti-racist. Being sure I listen to everybody, making sure that people's voices are heard, but it often comes down to my getting deeply involved with something and then forgetting: You should be doing the leading! I'm not the one; We should be doing the decision-making. It has to be a collective effort.
People of color, when they see me acting white, or you know just going off and doing things, fortunately there's some people who will check me on that. But not many because it's very tiring. You know, people check us all the time and that gets exhausting, so we have to learn to internalize those checks. And it's difficult, so in those interracial efforts–whatever they may be, around housing or homelessness or health, they may be around criminal justice, workers, education– when white people find ourselves being the main leaders, stopping in the midst of that and going, “oh my gosh, here I am being out there in the front again.” We are seen very clearly by those of color who are with us, but how do you have those honest conversations? It's a very, very difficult thing to do, and we have to continually renew our relationships and take risks in order to keep those relationships fresh.