Failures of the Anti-Racism Book Club (or as I call them 'Yt Guilt Circle Jerks')

Exhaustion floods me when I see anti-racist white people - still using microaggressions, still mistreating black people and treating us like we're less than human, less than or other, treating black women like mammies or aggressors when they are victims, still supporting oppressors, still gentrifying. At this point, just tear down the BLM poster from the Crown Heights or Bedstuy brownstone and please just go back to regular diet Tina Fey-style racism of the early 2Ks. It was more honest this way.

Over the past few weeks there's been this subtle discourse arising out of the Israel-Palestinian debate about the efficacy of the anti-racism book clubs. It's something that has crept up in my consciousness over the past few months in thinking about some of the experiences I've had as a black woman over the course of the past couple of years. In the span of 10 years, I'd watched has white students had idly walked past demonstrations chanting for equal rights on college campuses after what seemed to be yet another racially motivated incident by a white student or yet another the killing of an unarmed black person. After 10 years of marching, protesting sign-making, it would seem that the world had finally been ready to listen after watching a black man get his neck stepped on for 8 minutes and 45 seconds by white police officer. And from there came a barrage of black squares, all lives matter or 'I don't understand but I'm listening' tweets and perhaps the most popular, a spring of anti-racism book clubs.

I don't discount the effort of white "allies" to try to learn more about the systemic oppression that continues to benefit white people and people aligned to whiteness. But I think something critical and perhaps hardly tangible was missed in the discourse. For many white people, the space of the anti-racism book club became a sort of virtue signaling. In order to showcase that you weren't racist, despite not marching in protests or correcting problematic relatives, white people all across America flocked to libraries and Barnes and Nobles across the nation to gather with other white people to talk about racism...In these spaces, many people could begin to unpack conversations that they'd never had with any of the black people they interact with on a daily basis and began to examine the privilege they'd held in society. And while I'm sure many of these conversations led to shocking discoveries as to what the black experience in America really was, I think the impact of them may not have even gotten to the core issue.

I've met many men who can spew off bell hooks quotes or Kendrick Lamar lyrics to only be perpetuating racist and misogynistic behaviors in real-time. In real time, we're watching many of the people who joined said anti-racism book clubs, perpetuate a wave of Islamophobia, actively block the liberation of an oppressed people, and or fail to see the very real connection to what has been happenings to Palestinians for decades and what's been happening to black people for centuries. And so it makes me wonder with the exposure and access to the knowledge and insight, how is it that educated people are still perpetuating these behaviors and upholding systems of oppression?

I thought about this topic for a while and thinking of some of my personal experiences, it dawned on me that for some people reading about black experiences or black trauma, was nothing more than just intellectual exercise. Information about the black experience just became another vehicle for white people to benefit from the consumption of black culture, even if it was black oppression. I will say this until my black face becomes blue, consumption of black culture does not equate to anti-racism nor does it mean you are "doing the work" to check your privilege. Listening to India Ari, Kendrick, Beyonce other artists who talk candidly about their black experiences, eating African or Caribbean food, twerking at House of Yes, and watching Spike Lee or the Chapelle Show does not equate to caring about black people. After George Floyd died, I appreciated the way that people had begun to support black-owned businesses and enterprises. While I recognized the positive net benefit for the black community, I feared that for the white community and other allies, they'd equate being able to divert from traditional avenues of enjoyment to now include enjoying black things, to doing the work to assist and uplift black people.

White people from the beginning of time have consumed black culture. Hardened racists of the past were happy to listen to Elvis's, undoubtedly influenced by black musicians, or eat soul food cooked by black people. White people in America's appetites for the consumption of blackness even extended to the consuming of black expressions of pain for entertainment as a longstanding tradition - from public lynching's to consuming personal expressions of black pain in media, blogs, and even books. Many white Americans throughout history and even today were happy to engage in the parts of blackness that brought them some sort of benefit. And I think the anti-racism book club, is not exempt from this phenomena. Bringing a social connective force to many groups, the anti-racism book club created a place where white people could feel purposeful and connected in an otherwise debilitating and isolating pandemic. It was also a space that could help them relieve their feelings of white guilt towards ignoring the unfavorable aspects of the black experience for years while benefiting from the many gifts of white privilege. Furthermore in the post 2013 Great Awokening, as I've coined it, the internet had brought a wealth of information , including a chronicle of bad and problematic behavior to the forefront. At any given moment, old tweets, blackface photos, and otherwise racially charged receipts could be dug up at any moment, stoking a collective fear of being seen as racist or problematic . And so the anti-racism book club gave to many white people a badge of virtue, to which they could signal that they'd done the work to enlighten themselves and shed their internalized racism in mostly white spaces. However, for many people, the work started and ended there.

While I love some of the books that boomed out of this time, White Fragility, being one of my favorites, many of these too often served as instruction guides on what could be deemed as racist or as what to do to not be perceived as racist. And unfortunately, being able to be undetected or not publicly perceived as racist is also not being anti-racist. Because true anti-racism springs from a fundamental empathy for people of color. When people of color speak out about their experiences, it requires stepping into their shoes, with the full knowledge of the institutional violence and systemic oppression and imagining these experiences from our eyes. It requires a commitment to check your privileges in all interactions with people of color, knowing when you are weaponizing power and privilege in order to evade accountability or to silence, discredit, or demonize, dehumanize people of color. It is a commitment to humanize and empathize with people of color, particularly when we face injustice . It means not weaponizing empathy, white tears / Karen behavior , to escape accountability when you are the ones perpetuating harm against. It means refraining from giving into racist stereotypes, checking problematic behaviors within your community and within yourself. And overall, it is a commitment and a responsibility to those of color to continue to strive to treat them equitably and ensure through your power that the world feels more safe for POCs.

Anti-racism is an enormous undertaking, one that can not be simply accomplished within an 8-week book club. Many people simply do not care enough to do all that. Anti-racism is a lifelong commitment that requires continual, intentional effort, self-reflection, and empathy for people of color. And while most people may think that they have it, often times we especially as people of color, myself as a black woman can tell when they don't. We know that there are people who simply do not empathize with us, because we don't look like them or the people that they were taught were worthy of care and empathy. That lack of empathy is at the core of the dehumanization that fuels racism, xenophobia, sexism and all systems of oppression. Once the social benefit of being able to quote what you learned in a book club exhausts, do you commit to a lifetime of empathy for those who've faced a systemic lackthereof? Are you prepared to continually check your privelege and evaluate your actions from the lens of power and privelege? Do you do your part to uplift and support every person of color that crosses your path? These are the responsibilities of anti-racism. And if you commit yourself to the continual practice of anti-racism, then you will have the lens through which you'll be able to recognize , abuse of power and privilege, everywhere, starting within yourself and the tools to combat it in the wider world.

This undertaking is not just a call to action for white people, it's a call for all of us, to approach each other, particularly those from oppressed or marginalized communities, with a radical empathy so that we can establish equitable relationships which form the basis of equitable societies. All the book or podcast quotes you can tout will equate to meaningless virtue-signaling if this isn't the work you've committed to doing in all spaces of your life. The world will continue to be an unsafe place for people of color, women, LGBTQ folks if we don't commit to practicing basic human empathy in real life relationships with people from marginalized communities.