Welcome!

In this module, we look at what we are calling the “dukkha of whiteness” through a few different lenses:

• the costs of racism to white people

• the tensions and contradictions for white people in anti-racist work

• stages of insight/awakening in white awareness

Dukkha is only the first of the Noble Truths! In the last part of this module we start to turn towards the Fourth Sight in the Buddha’s life story by means of learning about the long history of white anti-racism, with an invitation to draw on the inspiration of strength of ancestors who choose to be white in a different way. This is an important turning point in our course, and we begin to learn more about effective (and ineffective) solidarity, and find the exemplars we can connect to.

1) The costs of racism to white people

est. 20-30 min

Racism hurts white people too, in all kinds of ways. These two short documents explore this. This has a US focus although connects to colonialism. Please consider what you relate to and what is specific to your experience of the cost of racism/oppression. These are jumping off points.

• Checklist in “The Costs of Racism to White People” by Paul Kivel (p. 2-4)

• The Costs of Oppression to People from Privileged Groups (2 page summary of longer article) by Diane J. Goodman.

2) The dukkha of whiteness

est. 30 min

• “Contradictions for white people in racial justice work.” Spend some time looking at this diagram. Are any of these paradoxes relevant to you? Are there other tensions you experience not on this map?

Below are two selected excerpts from a US documentary series called “Whiteness” by Malik Isasis with Alexandra Gekas, a seminarian and Zen practitioner. She is coming to terms with her white identity though a serious of reflections and interviews of leading white anti-racist activists. This is just one person and has a US focus. Please consider what you relate to and what is specific to your experience of dukkha as it relates to whiteness. This is to spark reflection, it is not dogma!

• “Not wanting to be white” : From Chapter 5 watch only from the 00 min mark to the 13 min mark (13 min total) – LINK here - (In case you are unfamiliar with Rachel Dolezal who is mentioned, link here.) The full documentary series is in the additional resources.

3) Stages of insight in white awakening and positive white (non)identity

Please spend 10 min glancing over a few different maps of theorized stages of white awakening or white identity development.

• Some maps of the evolution of white identity / self-understanding from Tema Okun (the ladder diagram) and from John and Joy Hoffman, and Janet Helms (represented as stages).

  Optionally, if you connect with this kind of frame, you will find more detailed descriptions of each stage in longer articles here and here, but it’s ok to just look at these visual aides intuitively and reflect on your own experience.

Question for reflection: Where are you in your journey with regards to these maps? Would you draw a different map for yourself?

4) The Fourth Sight and re-imagining how to be white:

Spend 20 min or more if you can/wish connecting with ancestors or living examples of lineages of white anti-racist activism.

With great reverence and respect to Black, Asian and Indigenous leaders in resistance first and foremost, allow yourself to also get to know the white ancestors and elders in the struggle, now and through history. Look at their faces, look into their eyes, imagine for a moment their lives, and the world that they imagined.

A great number of these profiles have been written and assembled by Lynn Burnett for his wonderful White Antiracist Ancestry Project.

Note: people are complex and these movements of resistance are not monolithic – some white abolitionists held problematic views about race, some chose violent forms of resistance. We can acknowledge what we might view as faults, limitations and shadows, and appreciate what they none the less have to offer to our exploration and reflection now. This list is quite random, just a starting point! (Send us more names if you have any).

US

Charles Sumner / Levi and Catherine Coffin / Charles Turner Torrey / Lydia Maria Child / Elizabeth Rous Comstock / George Hussey Earle Sr. / Calvin Fairbank / Bartholomew Fussell / Matilda Joslyn Gage / William Lloyd Garrison / Lewis Tappan / Joan Trumpauer Mulholland / Anne Braden part 1 and part 2 (short clip here) / Chris Crass / Unknown White Clergyman / John Brown / Thomas Garret / Viola Liuzzo / Jonathan Daniels / Stanley Levison / SNCC/GROW / James Reeb / William Lewis Moore / Joan Browning / George Hrbek / Heather Heyer / Myles Horton and the Highlander Folk School

See also: List of White Anti-Racist Women from the White Noise Collective

Europe (including UK)

Beilby Porteus / Hannah More / Elizabeth Heyrick / Granville Sharp / Dietrich Bonhoeffer / Jean Charles Houzeau / Abolitionism in the United Kingdom / Rock Against Racism (UK) / English Disco Lovers / William Cowper / William Wilberforce / Jean Genet

South Africa

The Black Sash Movement

Optionally, you can listen to a full interview of Lynn by Upayadhi (40 min).