Hello and welcome to this week's edition of Rebecca's Sunday morning book club Show podcast. this week’s topic is teaching race to whites. now, when I say whites, I mean white people, as In US white people, as in the group of people that includes myself. I am a white person. I think it is very important for white people to talk to other white people about whiteness and white supremacy, and anti-black racism, and the formation of race, and the history of race in America. I might even say it is our duty as people who benefit from the various privileges of whiteness to attempt in our daily lives to better understand how these privileges manifest socially, and how we as individuals and as members of a collective racial group materially benefit from our white privilege.

there are four books that I will be sharing with you that address the issue of whiteness, and attempt to situate it in a conversation with white people that may be constructive and mutually beneficial. ultimately, I think it is important to disturb white people's sense of complacency with white supremacy, and if you've ever tried to do this you know how incredibly easy it is to disturb a white person by talking about their own race. we white people do not like to be identified as racialized subjects, we are used to race as something that happens to the other and not to us. however, by living in a white supremacist Society we are not only always constructing the race of others, we are constantly constructing our own whiteness and our position in that whiteness. I challenge you, dear listeners, to think about how you construct race in your daily lives and how you personally work to, as the scholar and Sage George yancy says, “put whiteness in crisis.”

this week I will be talking about a book edited by George Yancy and Maria Del Guadalupe Davidson called “exploring race in predominantly white classrooms.” this book was lent to me by my friend Amy De Lorenzo, who is an American Sign Language professor at Columbus State Community College, and a powerful and much-loved member of the queer community in Columbus ohio. we will also hear excerpts from George lipsitz’s book “the possessive investment in whiteness: how white people profit from Identity politics.” George Lipsitz is a professor of black studies and sociology at the University of California in Santa Barbara. I took a class with him in the early noughts on the history of jazz. Robin diangelo’s book “White fragility: why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism” and Ijeoma Oluo’s book “so you want to talk about race” will round out today's discussion with practical and tactical suggestions of how to bring up the topic of race and whiteness with our fellow whites in order to participate in more authentic relationships, hold each other accountable for our racist Behavior, and begin the work of undermining white supremacy.

exploring race in predominantly white classrooms is a collection of essay by Scholars of color about their struggle not only making space for themselves in Academia but also trying to recenter classroom space away from the hegemony of whiteness and to include more diversity of experience and knowledge making.the experiences shared by the scholars open doors of understanding for white readers and Educators to viscerally empathize with people often constructed as Outsiders and Interlopers in white supremacist institutions.

Yancey Characterizes the institution of the University as one that is inherently alienating for black Scholars as the predominance of white bodies marks the territory for whiteness. yancy states that whites are “embedded within the history of white racism” and only after they become aware of their race and their white privilege can whites begin to feel a sense of dispossession: that they are not fully present nor fully autonomous, but rather that their lives are indeed shaped by race and shaped by their white privilege. this dispossession and courage is cultural humility puts whiteness in crisis and allows white people to take advantage of their vulnerability to develop empathy. P 13

George Lipschitz is highly influential book the possessive investment in whiteness is a powerful critical look at how race is an economic Force in addition to a socially constructed Force. there are so many points of this book that I made notes in and underlined and stuck Post-it notes on that I can't even begin to communicate how good this book is, but I highly recommend that you read the entire thing! it is so eye opening!

wage of whiteness (A term w e b Dubois created ...wage of whiteness is privilege that white workers received instead of the higher economic wages they would have earned had they joined with all other workers in an interracial class light Alliance)

the war on drugs and mass incarceration the pushback of social welfare policy used by neoconservatives in the Reagan and Bush Administrations Reagan Era tax reforms that encouraged Capital flight in the industrialization tax increment financing zones that move tax bases out of poor neighborhoods and redistribute the wealth for gentrification projects

Civil rights legislation that was structured to be ineffective and largely unenforceable that contributed to racial zoning and real estate discrimination such as redlining steering and blockbusting

notes that “the appreciated value of owner-occupied homes constitutes the single greatest source of wealth for white Americans” likewise in attempting to determine a economic wage of whiteness lipschutz also looks at the economic downturn and how the dispossession of black communities in particular has served to bankrupt Black America.

P 103 Home ownership is truly the Crux for the possessive investment in whiteness Lipsitz writes “home ownership produces about $60,000 more wealth for whites than it does for blacks. overall it is worth $94,426 in net Financial assets and $136,173 in net worth to be white.”

because whiteness has a material value and is manifested as property whiteness is also protected by US law and the Constitution

page 46” failure to enforce civil rights laws Banning discrimination in housing education and hiring along with efforts to undermine affirmative action and other remedies designed to advance the cause of social justice, renders racism structural and institutional rather than private and personal.” in this way the outcome of the Civil Rights era and the Neo conservative white supremacist backlash of the Reagan Era has more formally cemented racism in a legal apparatus now devoid of race.

Page 74 Paradox in Reagan ideology” we find ourselves saturated with stories extolling American National Glory told by internationalists who seek to export jobs in capital overseas while dismantling the institution offering opportunity and upward Mobility to ordinary citizens in the United States” “ the role of whiteness as a defining symbolic identity that mobilizes gender and sexual elements in the service of obscuring class polarization” whiteness as shield for neoliberal globalization capitalism

No one book can single handedly unravel the complicated, economic relationship between white power and politics and race, but I recommend “the possessive investment in whiteness” by George Lipsitz for developing a deeper understanding in these realities, as well as for an analytical tool to begin dismantling white supremacy.

These books get me so pumped!!!!!!!!!!

You watched in awe at the red white and blue on the 4th of July
while those fireworks were exploding
I was burning that fucker and stringing my Black Flag High
eating the peanuts that the parties had tossed you
from the backseat of your father's new Ford
you believe in the ballot believe in reform
you put Faith in the elephant and jackass
and to you solidarity's a four letter word
we're all Hypocrites but you're a patriot
you thought I was joking when I screamed
kill whitey at the top of my lungs
to the cops in their cars and the men in their suits
and I won't take your hand
and marry the state

white fragility why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism is the kind of book that you give to your mother to read when you want to start a book club with her. this book is written by Robin diangelo who has worked for years as a cultural competency trainer, teaching white people in workplaces how to better respect the people of color they work with or serve, and how to better recognize the subtle microaggression that whites continuously impose on people of color.

white fragility is in its Essence the inability of white people to talk about their complacency and complicity in racist behaviors without completely shutting down and being personally offended. ultimately the goal is for white people to understand that racism is an institutionalized power structure that is harnessed by the violence of the state to oppress and Destroy black lives and the lives of people of color. when one is being called out for racist behaviour it's not that there being called morally reprehensible or that they have made some sort of personal transgression or that there is being a call on their character made, rather when one is being called out for racist Behavior they are being alerted to how they are complicit in the structural Integrity of the institution of racialized State violence. without the continual complicity of whites, white supremacy could not function. the state requires White's to give it authority and legitimacy.

Two important themes in white fragility that I would like to call attention to are the breaking of white solidarity and the concept of racial stress.

P 54 breaking of white solidarity

page 94 race and Trauma

page 103 racial stress results from an interruption to the racially familiar.

to put whiteness in crisis, whites must be able to endure racial stress and to practice and exercise their racial stamina. I am comforted as a white person to know that when I talk about white supremacy and when I am able to identify my own racist thoughts & Behaviors and share that with other white people that I am undermining the invisibility and the silence of whiteness. as long as whiteness is invisible to white people we can pretend that racism is something that only exists in the minds of people of color and that we live in a post-racial society, when in fact the insidiousness of white supremacy is now more rampant, more efficient, more effective at concentrating capital in the hands of wealthy white men;

With the Spectre of trump and white nationalism enjoying is Shameless moment in the Sun, with proto-fascist governments in a number of white Western Nations, and with the most powerful prison system and military industrial complex in the hands of a self about racist who gained power on a platform of ethnic cleansing… there is no time like the present to make whiteness visible and call out racist Behavior.

the last book I would like to share with you today is called so you want to talk about race by Ijeoma oluo. this book reads like having a stirring conversation with a good friend I think so you want to talk about race does a better job of explaining institutionalized white supremacy then the previous book, White fragility, which ironically gets derailed in its analysis of white supremacy because of its focus on white people's inability to talk about white supremacy.

the chapters in this book are topical, and are titled after questions well-meaning white people have probably asked the author 1 million times, such as: why can't I say the n word? why can't I touch your hair? but what if I hate Al Sharpton? is police brutality really about race? the author then addresses these questions with one part humor and one part humility. this book is super approachable, a light read considering the content, and refreshing in its approach to these difficult topics.

for example on page 220, in the chapter I just got called racist what do I do now? we find the following Sage advice,

if you are deciding to finally sit down with that one friend of yours and have that rough discussion about their horseshit racist Behavior ,I highly recommend reading this book as a kind of pep talk you can give yourself to help you stay focused, grounded, and keep your eyes on the prize: dismantling white supremacy and putting whiteness in crisis.

confronting racism is not about personal attacks, it's not even personal at all. racism is a system of Oppression, it is an institution of State violence, it is One Directional, moving from those with power to those without power. by empowering ourselves, we can push back against the directionality of racism, we can undermine the basic foundations of its flawed ideology, and we can dismantle and disengage violent and murderous aspects of the white supremacist state -- disarm and defang the monster that holds all racialized subjects, white brown and black, in its grip. we can regain our personhood our autonomy our freedom, or humanity and our dignity, as we work for equity for all people.

until next week sweet dreams And enjoy the illusion of freedom; next week we will talk about the war in Syria and deconstructing islamophobia.