Photo: Pat Sullivan/AP

The Tee Pee Motel units line up along Highway 59 outside Wharton, Texas.

This is the last day of our parallel practice for people of color and white folk.

For people of color:
What is your greatest hope for relationship between you and white people?
What might you fear from or about white people?
What don’t you trust about white people?
What triggers you? Where does this come from?

How might you be untrustworthy? Where does this come from?
Where have you given up?

What needs to heal between your people and white people?
What might be your role in this healing?
Are you willing to accept this role?
What support might you need?

For white people:
Many years ago I was vacationing with my father in Barbados. We went to the movies one night in the capital, Bridgetown. It was a huge theater, probably holding well over 1000 people. I noticed before the movie started that we appeared to be the only white people. The movie was In the Heat of the Night, a hard-hitting movie about white racism. It was a well-done—and ugly–movie. White people are mostly evil or complicit in their disengagement. Like many places outside of the U.S., movie going is less of a passive affair, and much more participatory. There were lots of angry shouts coming out of the audience
by the end of the movie. It was an “interesting” experience–being white in this environment. By the end of the movie, I found myself shrinking in my chair and wanting to disappear. I myself was quite disturbed and angry at the white people in the movie. But this was my earliest experiences of actually feeling really white.

Absolutely nothing happened. There was no negative energy directed by anyone
towards me or my father. But the audience left the movie clearly stirred up. I myself felt enraged at the white people in the movie, so I imagined many of black movie-goers might be as well. And I was white, like the perpetrators in the movie, and there was nothing I could do about it. I felt incredibly vulnerable walking out into the street in the tight mass of people leaving the theatre. It was as if my white skin were lit up super bright and advertising, “White man! White man!”

For just one second I think I may have possibly have had a little glimpse of what it’s like to have a minority skin color in a society with a 400-year history of racial hatred and violence.

practice variation for today
Repeatedly, throughout all of your experiences today, ask yourself the question:
“How do I imagine my experience would be different if I were a person of color?”

possible variation:
Think of a person of color whom you know fairly well. As you go through this day, imagine you are this person, and imagine what your life might look and feel like through their eyes and heart.

Put in place whatever reminders you need to make sure you remember to do this–many times today.

Of course, we can never know for sure what the experience of another human being really feels like to them… but this is a provocative opportunity to continue exploring the white privilege.

Adapted from the practices of Robert Gass and Akaya Winwood.

Photo: Gerald Herbert/AP

A protestor is removed on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

The first set of practices have been an overview of racism.

For the next week our paths diverge.

People of color will explore internalized oppression and racial healing. During this same time, white people will study white identity, privilege and entitlement.

After working in parallel, we will return to shared practices.

Please do read both parts of each practice, so that we can track what each other is studying.

For people of color:
What is your greatest hope for relationship between you and other people of color?
What might you fear from or about other people of color?
What don’t you trust about other people of color?
What triggers you? Where does this come from?

How might you be untrustworthy?
How do you imagine you might trigger other people of color? Where does this come from?

What needs to heal between your people and other people of color?
What might be your role in this healing?
Are you willing to accept this role?
What support might you need?

For white people:

“One of the many advantages whites enjoy in America is a relative freedom from the draining obligation of racial inversion. Whites do not have to spend precious time fashioning an identity out of simply being white. They do not have to self-consciously imbue whiteness with an ideology, look to whiteness for some special essence, or divide up into factions and wrestle over what it means to be white…This, of course, is yet another blessing of history and of power, of never having lived in the midst of an overwhelming enemy race.”
Shelby Steele, author, academic, expert on race relations and multiculturalism

Let’s take one more day tracking privilege and entitlement.

Throughout the day, be aware of each and every example of white privilege in which you in some way may be benefiting.

Be aware of each and every behavior–in yourself and others–that might be seen as an example of white entitlement.

Take another day with this practice variation.
Make sure be to tracking your energy and emotional reactions to what you’re observing.
There can be a tendency to slip into self-judgment, heaviness or guilt.
To be clear–guilt doesn’t help anybody.
Guilt is disempowering and demotivating.
We sometimes get a perverse feeling of satisfaction from guilt.
As if somehow feeling guilty makes amends for something we did wrong.
First of all, you didn’t do anything wrong.
We inherited this system.
We were socialized, even brainwashed into a system of racism.
We’re engaged in a process of awakening and liberating.
Guilt no more!

We want to see clearly, so that we can make new choices.
As with all our self-reflection practices, cultivate an attitude of curiosity.
A desire to learn.
A desire for freedom.

“The trouble around difference is really about privilege & power-the existence of privilege & the lopsided distribution of power that keeps it going. The trouble is rooted in a legacy that we all inherited, and while we’re here it belongs to us. It isn’t our fault. It wasn’t caused by something we did or didn’t do. But now that it’s ours, it’s up to us to decide how we’re going to deal with it before we collectively pass it along to the generations that will follow ours.”
Allen G. Johnson, writer & sociologist, author of “Privilege, Power, and Difference.”

Practice for today:
Throughout the day, be aware of each and every example of white privilege in which you in some way may be benefiting.

Be aware of each and every behavior–in yourself and others–that might be seen as an example of white entitlement.

Adapted from the practices of Robert Gass and Akaya Winwood.

The first set of practices have been an overview of racism.

For the next week our paths diverge.

People of color will explore internalized oppression and racial healing. During this same time, white people will study white identity, privilege and entitlement.

After working in parallel, we will return to shared practices.

Please do read both parts of each practice, so that we can track what each other is studying.

For people of color:
What do you love about your people?
What triggers you about your people?
What do you never want to see, hear or experience again?
What might you ask of your white allies in service of ending racism?
What might you ask of other people of color?
What are you willing to offer?

For white people:
Throughout the day, be aware of each and every example of white privilege in which you in some way may be benefiting.

Paul Kivel talks about the concept of entitlement in relation to white privilege:

“Having benefits and being part of the culture of power very often encourages
a person to develop a sense of entitlement to special treatment…a sense that
one is entitled to certain goods or services more than others are…A sense of
entitlement is also visible when people don’t acknowledge the humanity and
worth of the people who serve them.”

He lists the following behaviors that may be indicators of white entitlement: (people of color, of course, may engage in these same behaviors)

* Cutting in line in front of others because they think their needs have a priority.
* Drivers cutting in front of other cars because they are in a hurry.
* Saying to a receptionist: “Don’t put me on hold.”
* Walking by or ignoring people like receptionists or maintenance staff.
* Not noticing and appreciating the large numbers of people who spend time taking care of their needs.
* Feeling O.K. about paying support workers less than a living wage.
* Becoming impatient when they don’t receive the prompt service or attention they feel entitled to.
* Expecting that their need for acknowledgment and service is more important than others in the room.
* Taking up more time and attention than their fair share in conversations, in meetings and in public events.

today’s practice variation:
in addition to the ongoing practice of:

Throughout the day, be aware of each and every example of white privilege in which you in some way may be benefiting.

also add today:
Be aware of each and every behavior–in yourself and others–that might be seen as an example of white entitlement .

Adapted from the practices of Robert Gass and Akaya Winwood.

Photo: Viktor Drachev/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A member of the opposition organization ‘Young Front’, looks through the bars of a police vehicle after being detained in Baranovichi, southwest of Minsk, Belarus.

The first set of practices have been an overview of racism.

For the next week our paths diverge.

People of color will explore internalized oppression and racial healing. During this same time, white people will study white identity, privilege and entitlement.

After working in parallel, we will return to shared practices.

Please do read both parts of each practice, so that we can track what each other is studying.

For people of color:
Imagine living in a world without racism. Take a few moments, and really allow yourself to imagine this… You are the architect of this world - make it as your heart desires it to be…

What are your first 4-5 images? Sit with these images, slowly and simply allow this vision to unfold…

How would you be changed?
How would you move in your body?
What would you do for your living?
How might you spend your free time?
What would or could you think about that you can’t think about now?
How might your relationships with yourself, your family, your communities be different from how they are now?

What current choices do you have that can move you and your people toward a world without racial oppression?
What would you need in order to make that choice?

For white people:
Throughout the day, be aware of each and every example of white privilege in which you in some way may be benefiting.

Same practice for today.
Keep fine-tuning your radar to make visible white privilege.

As with many of our practices, we have old habits that we are trying to change. In doing so, it’s important to make conscious possible benefits that we were receiving (or at least we believed we were receiving) from our old ways of being.

For example, when we worked on Have to/Choose to, we explored some of the attractions to the “victim” perspective: we get to feel right, we get sympathy, we get off the hook, we don’t have to take responsibility, etc.

There are some rather obvious reasons why we might not want to be “unpacking” our white privilege.

But it’s important to understand that there are also costs to white privilege.

“This pattern, this “system” that the white man created…has done the American white man more harm than an invading army would do to him.”
Malcolm X

“White people are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.”
James Baldwin

Paul Kivel lists some of these costs: (with a few additions of my own)
Loss of family history and connection to tribe
Being unconsciously dominated at the base of your being by racism
Shock when racial divisions become clear
No close relations with people of color
Fear of people of color/Feeling suspicious with strangers
Inability to handle situations that involve people of color
Fear like you are walking on eggshells”
Loss of understanding of shared interests and potential political
alliances with communities of color
Loss of spiritual connection and unity with much of humanity.

When I first had my eyes and heart opened to the persistence and power of racism, one of my first feeling reactions was a profound sense of loss–that I had somehow become cut off not just from the struggles for racial justice, but from the beauty and hearts and spirit of so many of my brothers and sisters. I was moved by an overwhelming desire to find wholeness–for myself, as well as for all of us. While compassion and a desire to address injustice are good motivators, it’s also good for us white people to understand how our own
salvation is bound up in the cause of racial healing and racial justice.

“If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time…But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
Lila Watson, Australian aboriginal educator and activist

So with renewed appreciation of why this practice is important: Throughout the day, be aware of each and every example of white privilege in which you in some way may be benefiting.

Adapted from the practices of Robert Gass and Akaya Winwood.

Photo: Danish Ismail/REUTERS

A Kashmiri woman attends a women’s meet at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Complex on the banks of the Dal Lake in Srinagar.

The first set of practices have been an overview of racism.

For the next week our paths diverge.

People of color will explore internalized oppression and racial healing. During this same time, white people will study white identity, privilege and entitlement.

After working in parallel, we will return to shared practices.

Please do read both parts of each practice, so that we can track what each other is studying.

For people of color:

Regarding your relationship to racism, choose something in you that needs forgiveness or healing. What is it? Why this particular thing? Feel the impact that it has had on your life… what if you could heal from it and let it go…

Sit with the possibility that you can truly heal from whatever this is, that forgiveness is completely possible… What emotions or thoughts arise as you contemplate this possibility? Allow for whatever emerges - again without censure or judgment…

Now imagine being completely healed and/or forgiven… Imagine that all is well, that there is no penance to make, imagine that you are peaceful and at ease…

What would get freed up if you were to let this burden down?

Fully allow yourself to imagine being free of the wounds of racism (can you do it?)

How might you spend your days?

What would you do with any freedom that may come from this healing?

For white people:

To prepare for today’s practice variation, take 10 minutes and review your life history.

As you review each stage of your life and the major developments, name for yourself how white privilege may have played a role in the opportunities you had.

“But without your better-than-average public school education, that scholarship — and the college education — might have gone to someone else. And what about that interest-free loan from the First National Bank of Mom and Dad when you were struggling, not to mention the car they “sold” you for next to nothing? And did you factor in the real estate agent who steered you to that desirable neighborhood you now live in?

These are some of the benefits of white privilege — the unearned, unjustified advantages not automatically afforded to people of color in this country and generally taken for granted by those of us who are classified as “white.” It is the reality that contrasts with the sincere fiction of the American myth of meritocracy, which says that everything we have must have been earned.

But white privilege is also about what we white people don’t get: the multiple May-I-help-you’s when we enter high-end shops, always being asked for ID when we use our credit cards, the hassle of being pulled over by police officers for “driving while black.” It can be as simple as knowing that history books, greeting cards, even Band-Aids will include our skin color, or as complex as not having to worry that no matter what we do — positive or negative — it will not be a reflection of our entire race. No one ever says, “Isn’t it great how that white person won the Pulitzer Prize this year” or “Look at that white mass murderer.”
from “Understanding White privilege: Creating Pathways to Authentic Relationships Across Race” by Frances Kendall

White privilege is a challenging perspective for us white folks to own. The structure of white supremacy is our reality. It’s supported by the beliefs and collective myths of our culture
White privilege seems “normal.”

“A white person is taught to believe that all she or he does, good and ill, all that we achieve, is to be accounted for in terms of our individuality. It is intolerable to realize that we may get a job or a nice house, or a helpful response at school or in hospitals, because of our skin color, not because of the unique, achieving individual we must believe ourselves to be.”
Richard Dyer, English academic and gay activist

So actually do this exercise now.
Take 10 minutes.
Look at and reflect on each stage of your life, beginning with the circumstances into which you were born…
Look at your early childhood.
And your elementary school years.
Take period by period of your life.
Noticing all the ways in which being white in a culture of white supremacy may have afforded you privileges:
“privilege: conditions of early life we take for granted”
(Frances Kendall)
“privilege: unearned power conferred systematically”
(Peggy McIntosh)

– Take some reflection time for this exercise–

Continue reading this after your reflection time:
Having had these privileges doesn’t mean that you (or your parents) may not also have worked hard for what you achieved. But the lens of white privilege puts your individual life in a social and political context. It makes visible something that is hard to see when you’re receiving the benefits of a system. And it makes the subject of racism very personal to you and your life.

Practice variation for today:

Throughout the day, be aware of each and every example of white privilege in which you in some way may be benefiting.

White privilege doesn’t only exist in your past.
In a white-dominated society, there are benefits every day.
So today, put on your glasses of white privilege.
Noticed each and every example.

e.g.
I spoke to a funder who looks like me.
I shopped in an expensive store without the salesperson wondering why I was in there.
I spoke up in a room full of white people without having to wonder about how my race might impact how I am being perceived.

Adapted from the practices of Robert Gass and Akaya Winwood.

Two Years Post-Katrina:
Racism and Criminal Justice in New Orleans
By Jordan Flaherty
August 29, 2007

Two years after the devastation of New Orleans highlighted racism and inequality in the US, the disaster continues. New Orleans’ health care and education systems are still in crisis. Thousands of units of public housing sit empty. Nearly half the city’s population remains displaced. A report released this week by the Institute for Southern Studies reveals that, out of $116 billion in federal Katrina funds allocated, less than 30% has gone towards long-term rebuilding—and half of that 30% remains unspent.

The city’s criminal justice system, already rated among the worst in the nation by human rights organizations pre-Katrina, continues to be in crisis. After the storm, thousands of prisoners were abandoned in Orleans Parish Prison as the water was rising. In the days after Katrina, mainstream media depicted the people of New Orleans as looters and criminals, and a makeshift jail in a bus station was the first city function to re-open, just days after the storm.

For Robert Goodman, an activist for criminal justice reform who was born and raised in the schools and prisons of Louisiana, this demonizing and criminalization of the survivors was no surprise. He tells me that the primary crisis of New Orleans is a discriminatory and corrupt criminal justice system, adding that, “every time a black child is born in Louisiana, there’s already a bed waiting for him at Angola State Prison.”.

On May 9, 2006, Robert Goodman’s brother was killed in an encounter with the New Orleans police. This was another death in a long list of civilian deaths at police hands, a list that also includes three deaths in Orleans Parish Prison this year. Advocates say these deaths have not received proper investigation, and point to larger, systemic problems.

A Broken System

For poor Black kids growing up in New Orleans, the education system functions as a school to prison pipeline. In New Orleans, 95% of the detained youth in 1999 were Black. In 2004, Louisiana spent $96,713 to incarcerate each child in detention, and $4,724 to educate a child in the public schools. “When I went to prison, I was illiterate,” Goodman tells me. “I didn’t even know anything about slavery, about our history.”

New Orleans’ public defense system is in such poor shape that Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Arthur Hunter recently complained that, “indigent defense in New Orleans is unbelievable, unconstitutional, totally lacking the basic professional standards of legal representation, and a mockery of what a criminal justice system should be in a Western civilized nation.”

Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate of any state in the US – if Louisiana were a country, it would have the highest incarceration rate in the world. Orleans Parish Prison, the city jail, was - pre-Katrina - the eighth largest jail in the US. Advocates complain that there is no forum for oversight over the jail or Marlin Gusman, the criminal Sheriff who oversees it. “We’ve suffered under a policy where the city builds a huge jail that is then required to be filled with human beings, or else it’s a waste of money,” states civil rights attorney Mary Howell.

Robert Goodman is fighting to change the system that took away his brother, as part of a grassroots organization called Safe Streets Strong Communities. Safe Streets is struggling not just to reform the entire system, from policing and public defense to prison, but also to reframe the debate around these issues.

Safe Streets began as a coalition of grassroots activists and organizers from a number of organizations who came together post-Katrina to respond to the immediate crisis. “Our first priority was to help those individuals who had been in Orleans Parish Prison prior to Katrina, many of whom were being held illegally for minor, non-violent offenses,” explains co-director Norris Henderson. “In the early days, right after the storm, Safe Streets was basically performing triage for a broken system.”

In the transition from the crisis of Katrina to the long-term catastrophe that the city is still in, Safe Streets focused their energy on building their base, ensuring that people in communities most affected were shaping the priorities and making the decisions of the organization.

The organization has been a vital leader in the struggle for a just recovery for New Orleans. Shortly after Safe Streets began pressuring on the issue, the city’s indigent defense board was completely reconstituted and now includes people that actually care about poor people receiving a fair trial. After they turned their focus to issues around policing, the city approved and funded an office of the independent monitor to oversee the police. In addition, the city council has begun looking at downsizing Orleans Parish Prison, as well as reducing the sheriff’s budget, and tying it to reform and greater accountability – also a part of Safe Street’s strategy.

More importantly, they affected the debate around criminal justice in the city. Within a few months after the storm, instead of talk of more prisons, journalists and politicians were looking at the system, and the roots of the problems. Evidence of widespread police misconduct and people locked up for months without charges began to be reported.

For those that have been victimized by law enforcement violence, organizing and talking about what they have faced has already been transformative. “I can’t imagine where my family would be if it weren’t for Safe Streets,” Goodman tells me. “We would have been pushed to the side. This organizing inspired my mother to live another day.”

Jordan Flaherty is an editor of Left Turn Magazine, a journal of grassroots resistance. His previous articles from New Orleans are online at LEFT TURN To contact Jordan, email: neworleans@leftturn.org.

A version of this story originally appeared in the July/August issue of ColorLines Magazine. See a special online collection of Katrina-related reporting Online at COLORLINES.