White Awake combats white supremacy by focusing on educational resources and spiritual practices designed to support the engagement of people who’ve been socially categorized as “white” in the creation of a just and sustainable society.
Many of these sources are not from traditional news media outlets. This is intentional, as those outlets often times only feature the most heard voices. In an effort to unlearn systemic racism and understand how we ourselves are complicit, we have chosen a variety of forms of content on top of traditional news articles, including blog posts, scholarly articles, fiction books, movies. All materials have been organized thematically and chronologically.
This toolkit offers advice, activities and further reading suggestions for educators who want to unpack the concept of whiteness and white privilege with themselves and with students.
This is “an interactive investigation into how Americans who identify as white, or partially white, understand and experience their race.”
From The Root.
What is White Privilege?
Since white people in America hold most of the political, institutional, and economic power, they receive advantages that nonwhite groups do not. These benefits and advantages, of varying degrees, are known as white privilege. For many white people, this can be hard to hear, understand, or accept - but it is true. If you are white in America, you have benefited from the color of your skin. White people can possess other marginalized parts of their identity, but their race is not one of these. Being white does not mean you haven’t experienced hardships or oppression. Being white does mean you have not faced hardships or oppression based on the color of your skin. We need to be honest about the ways white people have benefited from racism so we can work toward an equitable, fair and just society. Whiteness - Talking About Race - National Museum of African American History and Culture
What is White Supremacy?
The idea (ideology) that white people and the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions of white people are superior to BIPOC communities and people and their ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions. While most people associate white supremacy with extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis, white supremacy is ever present in our institutional and cultural assumptions that assign value, morality, goodness, and humanity to the white group while casting Black, Indigenous, and People of Color as worthless (worth less), immoral, bad, and inhuman and "undeserving." Drawing from critical race theory, the term "white supremacy" also refers to a political or socio-economic system where white people enjoy structural advantage and rights that other racial and ethnic groups do not, both at a collective and an individual level. Dismantling Racism Works
Courageous conversation with Daniel Hill, author of White Awake, and Jeffrey Marcus