Let me be clear.
For white supremacy to end and for multiracial democracy to triumph, white folks will have to learn to listen to Black and Brown peoples, trust that they know their lives better than we do, and follow their lead in the movement for collective liberation.
I have said this for all of the thirty-plus years I have been engaged in the struggle, and it’s the first thing I say whenever asked, as I often am, “what should white people do to engage in true solidarity?” As one can tell from dozens of other think pieces on this platform, and from many a social media commentary since the murder of George Floyd, it’s an idea that appears to be pretty central to most all notions of legitimate white anti-racism. And that’s a good thing.
But something is troubling about the way aspiring allies occasionally push this concept. Telling other white people to listen to Black people is essential. And amplifying their voices on social media and elsewhere is even better. But then refusing to share your own insights or learnings with other white folks for fear this will “re-center whiteness” or your white voice, though it may appear radical, or at least appropriately self-effacing, is not as helpful as it might sound.
Refusing to speak in your own voice to friends, family, associates, and other white folks is nonsensical from a strategic perspective, and fundamentally inconsistent with some of the other things we say within the movement.
So, for instance, we often hear it said — understandably so — that “it’s not Black folks’ job to teach white people about racism.” But how does this jibe with the demand that we should steer white people to Black wisdom while muting our voices? While such muting is definitely helpful at the rally, or the organizing meeting, it is illogical in those other moments, when we’re trying to bring new people in and build the base of resistance. It amounts to saying, Black people shouldn’t have to be our teachers, but then again, we should only learn from Black people, thereby making them our teachers.
Additionally, the way some folks push the notion of listening to Black people seems like an invitation, however unintended, for whites to sidestep our agency and obligations. If I provide a reading list of books written by Black authors and tell my circle to read them or to support Black businesses — both of which we should absolutely do — but refuse to discuss whiteness with that circle, and what it means to me, to them, to us, I am relinquishing my need to engage further. It amounts to a well-intended and racially-curated version of Google, which ultimately results in People of Color doing all the work.
Granted, if my friends buy those books or products from Black creators and business owners, the latter will at least get paid for their labor, but the underlying dynamic remains: we are asking Black folks to fix white people. Their words will fix us. Their music will fix us. Their food, clothing, artwork (or for that matter, auto supply store) will redeem us and elevate our ally quotient. We don’t have to learn how to speak to other whites. We’ll let Ijeoma Oluo do it. Please don’t misunderstand: everyone should buy her book, support her work, and that of all the other brilliant minds on the reading list. But we have labor to perform as well.
That work is about deep connection and conversations with other white people. Those are the folks who leaders in the Black Power Movement were telling white activists to speak to over fifty years ago. They were not suggesting we go back to our homes and workplaces and tell everyone to just listen to Angela Davis or Fred Hampton. And why not? Because, however much white folks should have been listening to those and other Black voices, Black activists were aware they wouldn’t do it. And saying “listen to Black people” wouldn’t have changed that. These words are not magic. They are not modern versions of “abracadabra” or “Rumplestiltskin.”
Frankly, the call to listen to Black people — especially as both the principal means to an antiracist end, and an end in itself — underestimates how deeply embedded white supremacy is. If white folks were willing to do that already, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Telling them to do so now as if this were the key to breaking their denial is like telling a depressed person to “just cheer up” or a person with anxiety to relax.
If we’re going to reach the white people in our lives, or just large numbers of whites generally, it will not suffice to tell them to listen to Black truth. We will need to explain why we see what Black people see and how we came to believe them. Because there is a story there, and it matters.
We had experiences that allowed us to hear and to see. And others who haven’t had those experiences need to hear about them. Those stories and personal narratives open white people up to thinking about our racialized lives and the need to believe what Black and Brown folks are telling us. Using our voice with other white folks smooths the path for them to begin listening to People of Color with new ears.
And no, that’s not about catering to white feelings or trying to make white people comfortable with Black truth. Whites do not automatically respond well to white anti-racists either, as the hate mail folder in my e-mail browser attests and as the saved recordings of death threats made against my family and me do as well. But it does confront whites with the reality of non-unanimity, meaning, the idea that there are white people who see the world differently than they, and indeed, see it the way folks of color do.
This recognition can be jarring. For some, it provokes an angry backlash, while for others, it can be the first crack in the foundation of their worldview. They already know Black folks see the world differently, and they don’t care. But confronted by dissension from other whites, they can be forced to ask why? Why does this white person — my friend, my relative, my colleague — think this way? White supremacy operates based on implied consent. By offering clear anti-racist narratives, not merely from Black people but from our own white lives, we rattle that consent.
White people in your life know you. They have a relationship with you. They might listen to you, and precisely because it’s you. Don’t squander the opportunity this presents in the name of performative self-deprecation.
After all, withholding our opinions and stories from the white folks we’re trying to reach while insisting they learn solely from the insights of Black people, is placing a bet on the ultimate longshot. It means we are staking everything on the capacity of those whites to receive truth from the very people whose truth they were taught to ignore.
Simply put, I don’t have enough faith in white Americans to place that bet. But I do believe they might listen to those of us with whom they have relationship and connection. I do believe that if we discuss the experiences in our lives that allowed us to see Black truth, we can begin the process of prying open their eyes.
I’ve written before about experiences I had that were central to my anti-racist consciousness: from the Black authority figures I was exposed to in a mostly-black pre-school to the mentors I had in New Orleans as an organizer. So too, I’ve discussed how seeing six out of ten whites in Louisiana vote for modern Nazi, David Duke, in the 1990 U.S. Senate race there, clarified for me the work I had to do — the work we have to do.
And I would bet that for most any white person on the side of racial justice, you have similar stories. These are the stories only we can share because they are ours. These are the stories that can move our people because they come from the heart, not a critical theory class.
There are also very specific narratives that we as white folks are in a position to share — namely, narratives about how white supremacy has damaged us, even as it has provided immense advantages. We must clarify how white supremacy has contributed to economic inequity, the lack of support systems needed by millions of us as well (like decent health care and other safety nets), and how it contributes to resource depletion that endangers the entire planet.
The late great critical legal scholar Derrick Bell demonstrated that only when there has been interest convergence between the needs of Black peoples and the larger white society, has any progress towards racial equity occurred. To think that moral suasion or righteous indignation will now do the trick when it never has before is to give white folks too much credit and white supremacy too little.
But, importantly, it is not Black folks’ job to explain to white people the interest that those white people have in creating justice. It is our job to call in our people. It is our job to explain why Black liberation liberates us all. Black folks and other people of color are busy trying to defend their lives and build a new society. That is work enough for them to do.
For us, it is time to practice some of the self-help we have so long preached to others.
I’m an antiracism educator/author. I Facebook & tweet @timjacobwise, podcast at Speak Out With Tim Wise & post bonus content at patreon.com/speakoutwithtimwise
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Previously Published on Medium
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Image: Dan Gaken, Flickr