HOW TO SHOW UP

SURJ gets a lot of questions about how white people can best show up for racial justice - in other words how can we help white people personally show up for racial justice (see The 3 Expressions of Racism on the Racism 101 page). This "How to Show Up" page is designed to offer links to advice and perspectives that we hope are helpful. Take a look.

Opportunities for White People in the Fight for Racial Justice
This website has been developed to support white people to think about how to take action and how to reflect on the ways in which we show up when we take action - are we an "actor," an "ally," or an "accomplice."

Showing Up:
Attitudes and Behavior

Baltimore Racial Justice Action offers 29 Stupid Things White People Do and What We Can Do Instead. As long as we remember that when we do stupid things, that doesn't make us inherently stupid ... just someone who does stupid things.

Cody Charles offers 10 Common Things Well-Intentioned White Allies Do That Are Actually Counterproductive. From Everyday Feminism.

Emma Gray and Jessica Samakow offer 11 Things White People Need to Realize About Race in Black Voices at The Huffington Post.

Sian Ferguson offers Calling In: A Quick Guide on When and How. From Everyday Feminism.

Maisha Z. Johnson offers 3 Things to Consider When Choosing Between Calling Someone Out or Calling Them In and 6 Signs Your Call-Out Isn't Actually About Accountability. From Everyday Feminism.

Jennifer Loubriel offers 4 Ways White People Can Process Their Emotions Without Bringing the White Tears. From Everyday Feminism.

Will Dominie names 4 Ways White Privilege Shows Up in Social Justice Movements. From the Catalyst Project.

Sam Dylan Finch offers 9 Phrases Allies Can Say When Called Out Instead of Getting Defensive. From Everyday Feminism.

The Catalyst Project offers 15 Ways to Strengthen Anti-Racist Practice.

White Fragility

Robin DiAngelo has written thoughtfully about white fragility. You can read the longer, more academic version
or the shorter, more popular version.
The "PSA" at right uses satire to explain it.

DiAngelo also comes at the concept of white fragility through her article 11 Ways White America
Avoids Taking Responsibility for its Racism.

Stephanie Jo Kent writes about how white people can avoid microvalidating each other by drawing from the work by Robin DiAngelo.

Microaggressions

This short video explains microaggressions.

This article from Ello's World also speaks to
Micro-aggressions, unpacking privilege,
and the knee jerk response.

Taking Action

The American Friends Service Committee has published this list of Do's and Don'ts for Bystander Intervention.

Raising Race Conscious Children has published 100 Race-Conscious Things
You Can Say to Your Child to
Advance Racial Justice.

Anne Braden on Mutual Interest and Lessons for Today.docx
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This is the transcript of the SURJ call looking at lessons from white southern civil rights leader Anne Braden's work making connections between the struggle against racism and the work for women's liberation.

And ...

Amanda Blackhorse offers conversation with 6 prominent Indigenous people answering a question about how they prefer to be named - Do you prefer 'Native American' or 'American Indian'?

Jarune Uwujaren offers The Difference Between Cultural Exchange and Cultural Appropriation. From Everyday Feminism.

Jon Greenberg has published A Curriculum for White Americans to Educate Themselves on Race and Racism - from Ferguson to Charleston.

SURJ has published a Guide for Talking to White People in the Moment of Trump. And Greg Elliott has written about 10 Ways White Supremacy Wounds White People: A Tale of Mutuality on the SURJ website.

The Poverty and Race Research Action Council offers Implicit Bias: A Forum, which looks at implicit bias and how we need to understand it as a precondition to structural change.

Self-Defense Starter Kit ...

Rana Abdelhamid and Maryam Aziz offer the Self Defense Starter Kit for those looking for functional maneuvers to use in real-life instances of discriminatory abuse. The two women have put together the instructional video series, using their black belt-level martial arts education to guide viewers through eight simulations of possible violent encounters and corresponding self-defense techniques. Video titles include, "How to Twist Out of a Wrist Grab," "How to Stop a Grab to the Hijab" and "How to Use Your Voice in Self Defense." See videos below.

Tribute

Finally, we want to pay tribute to Dr. King and his list of 16 Suggestions for African-Americans Riding Newly-Integrated Buses (1956), from which we draw inspiration as we create this website and this list of resources for white people about how to show up for racial justice.