Where whiteness meets race
The Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere -- yes it's real -- tackles the notion of white privilege and white people's responsibility to challenge racism, but can it help move people beyond race?
The Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere was fired up at its conference in downtown Los Angeles last month.
"Reject the Hate in '08" was their rally cry at the UCLA Downtown Labor Center near MacArthur Park.
"White privilege," one speaker said, "is the enemy of equality."
"We have to maintain our activism," warned another, "and not let whiteness overtake us."
The crowd -- mostly young and white, with a hippie vibe -- applauded as the small corps of self-described "anti-racist whites" tried to introduce them to their hidden racist ways. The peasant skirts, political T-shirts and revolutionary cries made me feel like I'd wandered back in time, into a radical chic salon.
But I clapped too, because it was nice to hear white people talk publicly, bluntly, about race. And not pretend to be colorblind.
Welcome to the Brave New World. But don't judge this article by the opening excerpt. I've resisted the temptation to print extensive excerpts, because none of them could represent the article sufficiently; this piece goes all over the place, like an amusement park ride. Just when you think it you know where it's going, it jerks you in another direction. By the time you're finished, you feel like the author; you are grateful to give it a rest. It's not a long article, but it IS interesting, for it shows us how we got here, and where we might be going.
Oh Brave New World, with such people in it!
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