There are hundreds of perspectives and principles within anti-racist work. All are valid and useful, and different approaches emphasize different principles. We encourage you to explore them and how they are complimentary and how they differ. Our perspective focuses on these principles as the conceptual foundation of our approach. Click each heading to learn more.
Fundamental Principles
HEALING
All people need healing from racism. For white people, our immigrant ancestors went through a process in which they gave up our ancestral cultures for access to the economic and social advancement only accessible by white people. Because all people need culture, becoming white was universally dehumanizing. This legacy continues to harm us, and all white folks need healing.
The bargain our ancestors made to become white has resulted in endemic depression, isolation, loneliness, addiction, and lack of meaning in white communities. The creation of race is a deep and complex historical process, but one that necessitates universal healing. Reclaiming our ancestral cultures and reversing whiteness is key to our recovery for white folks. This is how we reclaim our humanity and heal our families and communities.
HARMFUL TO ALL
Racism has given white people a systemic advantage through historical resource transfer, enforced through violence. This process continues in many forms. While it has given us varying degrees of economic, social, and political power at the expense of BIPOC communities, it has also been harmful to white people.
White people of the 99% have played the dehumanizing role of being enforcers and complicit bystanders of a brutally repressive system. This has harmed us deeply while working to benefit the 1%, to whom racism brilliantly serves through its extraordinary profitability.
A fundamental principle of anti-racist work is that this system has divided us from our culture, our fellow humans- both fellow white people and people of color, and our very nature as human beings.
While dismantling racism will require us to give up our various advantages, ultimately, this pales compared to what we, as white people, will gain from ending this vicious system. It’s time we, as white people, rebel against systemic racism: we have so much to achieve, and in many ways, our salvation and universal liberation are on the other side of this journey.
ALL WHITE PEOPLE
White people of all classes, genders, sexual orientations, ages, geographic regions, and political persuasions uphold racism. Even the most progressive, educated, spiritual, religious, kind, and well-intended white people have racism embedded within us. This includes those with friends, children, partners, and spouses who are people of color. All white people uphold racism by default because it systemically socializes us all.
A fundamental principle of this work is that if we do not intend to create and perpetuate harm, we must be anti-racist. We must be actively anti-racist.
BEING ANTI-RACIST
Another fundamental principle is that being anti-racist requires active lifelong learning and engagement.
One of the most critical methods of self-preservation the system of white supremacy uses is convincing white people that we understand racism. In truth, most of us actually have a very superficial understanding of the deep, complex, and highly nuanced system that impacts virtually all parts of life.
This is why being anti-racist requires us to understand that we don’t understand. Through lifelong learning about the thousands of ways that racism harms people of color, ourselves, and society, we can become effective allies and contribute to both systemic, and our own, healing.
UNCONSCIOUSLY EMBEDDED IN US
One analogy we use to explain how white supremacy operates within us universally and unconsciously is a computer operating system.
We have all inherited the operating system of white supremacy; it is the same operating system our parents, grandparents, great grandparents all ran. The mainstream media and most dominant institutions of society run this software. It is so ubiquitous, that we don’t even realize we are running this operating system because it’s all we have ever known, and we aren’t even aware there are alternatives. It runs commands in the background that we are unaware of, and it is malware. The operating system of white supremacy is like a virus- constantly working to both evade detection and re-install itself, and it is incredibly destructive.
We are no more individually responsible for the operating systems of our computers and phones than we are for systemic racism. But, we all use and benefit from this system that creates incredible harm. Thus we all have a deep obligation to help remove the virus and help write a new socially just operating system. Uninstalling the virus and creating new software is anti-racism.
WE UPHOLD RACISM WITHOUT KNOWING
One of the ways the virus of white supremacy is so successful is that most of us don’t even know we have it. Because we are unaware of its existence, we are also unaware of how destructive it is to us as its hosts and the resulting systemic harm and interpersonal pain we inflict without our knowledge or consent. And because we have no idea we create damage, we do not work to take responsibility or change the programming that causes us to inflict harm and pain. If we truly understood the harm we allow and the pain we inflict, virtually all white people would be anti-racist. The incredible sophistication of the virus of white supremacy can not be overstated.
THE ROLES OF WHITE FOLKS IN RACIAL JUSTICE
The roles of white folks in social justice are to educate and organize other white people for anti-racist social justice and support the leadership of BIPOC racial justice organizations. Learn more.
Core Values
Our approach is anchored in the following four core values to guide our methodology. We emphasize these as foundational values as we strive to maintain the integrity of the work and maximize effective change.
Systems Analysis
Racism is a manufactured system that allocates power and resources by race, and is embedded within all socio-economic systems. Healing White People focuses on the systemic nature of racism, with an emphasis on systemic analysis and solutions, as the most effective approach to dismantling and healing the damage caused by racism within both socio-economic systems and people.
RESOUCES
Accountability
A fundamental principle of social justice is that the most impacted communities must lead solutions because they best understand their problems and the answers to them. To be effective, we must follow the experienced leadership and be accountable to the BIPOC organizations leading racial justice work.
RESOUCES
Take Action: Self-Guided Accountability Plan in DIY Tools
Take Action: Support BIPOC organizations
The purpose of anti-racist work is to dismantle systemic racism and thus to change society at large. Anti-racist action requires us to develop and use many tools, the most important of which is working with others to build collective power and turn that into movements that change society. One of the most common traps white folks fall into is engaging with anti-racism as an individual exercise for self-development; however, the purpose is collective liberation.
RESOUCES
Compassion
Our work is grounded in compassion and empathy to counteract the harmful and dehumanizing nature of racism against all people. One result is that our culture encourages us to treat people with different perspectives as disposable. By being critical of systems but empathetic with their victims, we are healing white culture and are most effective. We commit to remaining compassionately engaged in the long-term work that healing ourselves and all white people require.
RESOURCES
Go to Next Learning Destination
Social Transformation