What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition

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Capitalism controls every aspect of our lives, and as the author points out while providing historical context, the invention of 'race as social construct' came about to "justify the exploitation of one group of people for the material benefit of another". It’s common to see microagressions in the spotlight, but is also necessary to see the bigger picture. Class is often downplayed when discussing race despite being an important factor. White people even though they don’t experience racism, often have diminished life opportunities, which the author claims it serves a possibility to build coalition. Many of the ways of dividing people is by making them fight and making them feel one is a threat to the wellbeing of the other, and unless you’re a wealthy white cisgender heterosexual male (see how many unless) you’re bound to be a part of one or more 'marginalized' group(s), and it should be in your interest to liberate yourself from that. The word privilege is widely used, but the author proposes to use power instead, since most of the people talking about privilege don’t have it, because of their class struggles. The idea is not that privilege doesn’t exist, but if we want people to unite as equals, constantly pointing out a privilege narrative does little good since it continues to perpetrate the idea that we are inherently different. The book in question is, of course, What White People Can Do Next, which has become a smash hit since it first launched in April. After a year fraught with the reality of racism, it had felt to me like despite the abundant “discourse” about racism, there was still very little to actually be hopeful about in terms of real change. Dabiri’s book provides a tonic: a palette cleanser to the neo-liberal approach of dismantling racism we’ve grown accustomed to.

The unwavering fact that race is a myth shakes me to my core. Although intellectually I know that race is human-made, it still sincerely affects me. So much of my life has revolved around contemplating who (or what) I am. My mixed identity is complex, and anxious ruminations over where I fit in took a lot out of me, which was energy that could have been used elsewhere. Energy that was conserved by white, Irish friends who never had to consider their racial identity.

Poorly thought-through social commentary on the race front. A mishmash of personal opinion and popular “wokeness” that is a front for socialism aka. Untested communism aka. Benevolent totalitarian dictatorship Another big problem is the mixed messages. On the one hand, ‘silence is violence’, but then on the other hand, it’s ‘you can never understand this, so you shouldn't be in this conversation’. In the past, there wasn’t this demanding of obsequious language from people. No matter what you do, it's not the right thing. I despair at the demands of allyship that exists today, like the online pile ons. It often never gets past this very gladiatorial accusatory space online. The real work of coalition building never happens, because it's just grounded in this toxic language and the bigger picture is obscured. It doesn't feel very strategic, it feels more like interpersonal grievances being expressed and settled." Do you see the rise of nationalism a threat to coalition and dismantling racism?

Capitalism has colonized the most intimate quarters of human experience." Capitalism evolved into a competitive, highly individualistic system, and that defines the way we interact with each other, the environment and it motivates the way activism is being made. Interpersonal privilege over equality. Irish writer and actor among the rising stars of 2019". Irish Central. 11 January 2019 . Retrieved 29 April 2019. I found the first half of this book to read very academic and formal, enough that I considered setting it aside, but I’m glad I didn’t. I don’t think the tone shifted in the second half as much as I just found the content itself more engaging. And finally, recognise this shit is killing you - ‘whiteness’ as a system is destructive for everyone Emma, explain why you say race is ‘a powerful, seductive and enduring myth created to cause division’ and ‘we’re all the products of centuries of conditioning’? a b Ganatra, Shilpa (27 April 2019). "Emma Dabiri: 'I wouldn't want my children to experience what I did in Ireland' ". Irish Times . Retrieved 29 April 2019.Yes. I rate this. I’m just gonna write a mini-essay here lol if u want to read it but in short I thought this was good. I think the genre of instructing white people on how to act and behave when it comes to racism is short-sighted and needs to go and hopefully this book can start this conversation. I can’t stress enough how much impact this book’s had on me, I’ll definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning more on how race has shaped our lives and what to do to change it. What interests me is thinking about the ways in which a vast array of oppressions or forms of disadvantage might have a common origin.’ Vital and empowering What White People Can Do Nextteaches each of us how to be agents of change in the fight against racism and the establishment of a more just and equitable world. In this affecting and inspiring collection of essays, Emma Dabiri draws on both academic discipline and lived experience to probe the ways many of us are complacent and complicit—and can therefore combat—white supremacy. She outlines the actions we must take, including:

Dabiri has appeared on the television programmes Have I Got News For You, Portrait Artist of the Year. [12] and Question Time. Many of the cherished categories of the intersectional mantra—originally starting with race, class, gender, now including sexuality, nation, religion, age, and disability—are the products of modernist colonial agendas and regimes of epistemic violence, operative through a Western/Euro-American formation through which the notion of discrete identity has emerged.’ Our online conversations today are being informed by this neoliberal, deeply competitive and individualistic energy. This is amplified by ‘ platform capitalism’ [the digital economic ecosystems that make money by enabling third parties to profit] through which people build their brands and activist identities. We live in a different historical moment and we should be alert to those tensions, yet we don’t seem to be.” In the book, you describe social media as a “poison chalice” and a space that “gamifies division”. What do you see as the problems with nominally “progressive” online discourses about race?This is clearly in the mold of 2020’s antiracist books, but Dabiri wouldn’t thank you for considering her under the same umbrella. She doesn’t like the concept of allyship because it reinforces unhelpful roles: people of colour as victims and white people as the ones with power who can come and save the day. Frankly, there’s a huge gap in terms of what comes next. While we need to identify what to do, it’s important not to fixate on an endpoint or a final destination; such thinking is part of the problem. Rather we have to understand our lives as a dynamic flowing of positions. "