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Regarding NYT: A fundamental thing some people don’t understand is that research suggests engaging in “anti-racist” behavior actually serves as a “moral credential” for some whites to engage in racism with a clean conscience. We see this among individuals *and* institutions..
This is why it’s misleading and dangerous to tell folks that they’re *either* racist or anti-racist. In fact, many whites feel comfortable being racist in some contexts precisely *because* they think they‘re “anti-racist” in others. But y’all ain’t ready for that conversation..
People like easy slogans and simple stories so the either/or framing of being racist or anti-racist ultimately caters to white comfort. In reality, many white people and institutions are enacting racism and “anti-racism” simultaneously.. literally both sides — at the same time.
The other major issue is what we may call the Racism Blind Spot. That is, it can be difficult for many whites to recognize when they’re enacting racism because they lack the positionality and awareness to accurately assess the power dynamics and implications of their own behavior
This is what Charles Mills means by “epistemological ignorance”. Most whites are not positioned or socialized to understand themselves, their society or history in terms of racialized power relations. This is also why accountability to Black people and people of color matters..
But you can’t really have accountability to Black folks and people of color unless there is a major shift in the power structure. That’s why resistance, protest, organizing and social transformation are all pre-requisites to meaningful anti-racist change at the individual level.
So when white people ask “what can we do to become anti-racist??” the real answer is “White supremacy needs to be dismantled, which means power must be taken from you and shared equitably.” Without this collective shift, there is literally nothing you can do.
But back to the NYT — “both siderism” really is a feature of white supremacy at every level of analysis. Anti-racist articles functionally serve to allow white editors to publish racist articles with a clean conscience because this is how these people they live their lives.
“My friend is black so I can say nigger” or “I slept with a black guy once so I’m woke” is the kind of hypocrisy and bad faith that pervades the white racial frame in everyday life behind closed doors, as Leslie Picca and @JoeFeagin illustrated in their book “Two Faced Racism”..
