The other night at our report back about the White Privilege Conference, we talked a lot about action. At the same time, people rallied at a city council meeting to denounce the murder of 18 year old Alan Blueford by an Oakland Police Officer. This is the landscape from which the following thoughts I’d like to share came from.
Part of our discussion was about action. How does the White Privilege Conference frame action? Does action = consciousness raising or is consciousness raising the first step? If consciousness raising is just the first step, where are the other steps and why aren’t we talking about them more? Why were there only 2 workshops out of over a 100 on direct action? If we really want to change structures that uphold white supremacy, is consciousness raising (as action) enough?
What is clear is that we all desperately want to participate in transforming the institutions and systems that are “exquisitely designed to produce exactly what they are producing”. For example, the education system is benefiting who it was designed to benefit, and excluding exactly who it was designed to exclude. It is not a broken system that needs to be fixed. It needs to be tossed/ replaced/ completely transformed.
What is not clear is how to be attentive to our white privilege as we work for that transformation. On one hand there is privilege in assuming that it is our right and duty to fix what is wrong and it’s just a matter of making a strategy. This line of thinking can follow from identifying problems as not-that-big in the first place, because you aren’t experiencing them first hand. It also smacks of the white (wo)man’s burden (blog post on that forthcoming) and invisibilizes the agency of communities of color. In order to not do that, many a self-proclaimed “white ally” will resolve to work for consciousness raising among their own community as their action. This is important work that has been requested by communities of color for years.
On the other hand, I think engaging in planning, strategy and taking action – when it is led by the people who are most impacted by the problem – is crucial. Thinking that we can do nothing more than consciousness raising implies that we can all afford to wait for the long process of consciousness raising which also comes from the considerable privilege of not being directly impacted by a problem.
I’m not poo pooing consciousness raising at all. I’m a Freire-head committed to Popular Education and the long process of conscientization as my day job. But even Freire named that his ideas about action (in the context of praxis) get diluted. He asks, if we are not engaged in struggle to subvert neo-liberal capitalism, what are we doing?
I don’t really care how many people have a raised consciousness about how often cops kill kids in Oakland. None of that consciousness raising is changing anything. The young people of color I work with at Heal the Streets are engaged in developing strategic action to transform the OPD through participatory ACTION research. As a white woman, my role with them is something I interrogate and work to be continually accountable for. To me, accountability means ensuring that the the strategies they came up with with are implemented and taken seriously. Some of these strategies involve consciousness raising – but most are concrete changes which will take action to create.
My hope is that at future gatherings like the White Privilege Conference, and at future dialogues with the White Noise Collective – we can refocus our energy on taking strategic action that creates material change in the physical world, not just our consciousnesses.
well said. i agree that these conversations can be paralyzing and that action vs consciousness-raising is a perpetual tug-of-war. i do think both are possible! and i worry whenever there is either one without the other – i have seen both action without introspection and learning and introspection without action to be harmful.
Estoy de acuerdo Levana. Has me thinking about the long process we are in to have representation in some of these great gatherings/conferences, that all over the place we’ve claimed space to make them relevant to our needs and diversity but that there is still so much work to do. We can’t wait for conference organizers to incorporate space for Direct Action. If they want to work for transformation of culture and systems they should yes, and we should propose it..This then becomes so much work for organizers on the ground, to have to constantly remind, encourage, demand that relevant and useful power building and action is prioritized. Some organizations and event planning teams honor folks from community to consult on content and action for conferences, I’ve seen tremendous results from this! I also wonder about the stigmatization of “direct action”; successfully painted as “radical” and only to cause disruption, not productive (so what?), and activity of younger, rebellious, and uncivilized (check definiton for that) activists. I hear you refering to any “Action” and that theory and conciousness raising without it is a dis-service. I am moved by the PAR examples you use with your work with Heal the Streets and imagine more of the food systems healers and transformers to activate on those levels (like you all did with Youth in Focus). We are working through some of the various strategies for Action within Rooted in Community. Balancing creative Resistance actions with beauty, and actions to build resilience, generate healing and nourishment for our people and earth. Big actions coming up in Iowa late July. We move as One dear Levana. Deep bow to you for your work. Keep writing please!