Reading & Books

"Racial identity is a lifelong process that begins in childhood and must be resolved by every person who is born in or immigrates to the United States. What matters in the development of a person’s racial identity is how he or she interprets the messages received about different racial groups (e.g., what his or her family teaches, denies, avoids, or confronts about race). How the issues are addressed in his or her family, community, and peer group will determine when one begins the process of developing a racial identity. Just as one’s knowledge and sophistication about his or her gender matures, depending on the individual’s willingness to learn and grow, one’s racial identity also matures from an externally defined identity to an internally and personally meaningful identity. It is currently unclear what specific events or experiences move a person to work toward racial identity development. A person’s values, experiences and personal resolve seem to be relevant factors."

The Influence of Race and Racial Identity in Psychotherapy, Robert T. Carter

"My experience in Europe taught me that white Americans do not need to look to other cultures for our own sense of identity. The history of oppression and expansionism perpetrated by European nations is only part of our past—a reality, but not our only heritage as white Americans. We have a rich and diverse history just waiting to be discovered. And when we push back far enough in our cultural history we come to a place of common connection, where people of all races are brothers and sisters on the same planet. "

White Americans in a Multicultural Society: Rethinking Our Role,
Chapter 10 of The Diversity Factor,
edited by Elsie Y. Cross & Margaret Blackburn White

"In 1951 they were forty-eight and thirty-eight respectively; they were both successful businessmen and their relationship had already lasted for twenty-four years. So this year,1951,we made up our minds we were running away to Miami and we were never coming back. But I couldn’t tell my mother we weren’t coming back. I knew she would get hysterical. And Josh couldn’t tell his family he wasn’t coming back. So that’s why we were running away. Andy decided to give his business to his mother, the income serving to support her until her death. After that he didn’t care about it. Josh had a small disability payment each month and couldn’t have cared what happened to his business. He told no one he was leaving, neither employees nor relatives. As far as he was concerned, when he left for his vacation to Miami, he was finished with Pennsylvania, and anyone who wanted it could take the business. To this day he hasn’t the faintest idea what happened to it and doesn’t care."

Man To Man: Gay Couples in America, Dr. Charles Silverstein

"If you are a poor or working –class family, you quickly learn of your limits and possibilities, and you adjust your expectations accordingly. You see the kinds of jobs men in your community have, the kind of educational opportunities you have available, and the kind of money you can expect to make. Hope fades early, replaced by lowered goals, lowered self-worth, broken hearts, and anger. If you are gay or bi-sexual your limits become clear as you come out and begin to understand what is off-limits to you unless you seriously compromise your identity. Adjusted or lowered expectations occur at different times for different people. They occur later for Jewish men who are white than for Jewish men of color. They happen later for middle-class men of color than for men of color from poor or working-class backgrounds. Race, ethnicity and class influence when and how we meet the limits on our lives. One of the privileges of being in a social group with more power than another is that we can raise our children with more education, more material resources, and more hope for the future. Unfortunately, we often justify these differences in power and privilege by blaming those less privileged and instilling fear about the less privileged into our youth."

Men’s Work, Paul Kivel

"Were our state a pure democracy there would still be excluded from our deliberations women who, to prevent deprivation of morals and ambiguity of issues, should not mix promiscuously in gatherings of men."

Thomas Jefferson

A Time Line

1865: The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery (78 years after the signing of the Constitution)

1868: The Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship upon all persons born or naturalized within the United States and stipulates “equal protection under the law”

1870: The Fifteenth Amendment grants to Black men the right to vote

1920: The Nineteenth Amendment (132 years after the signing of the Constitution) grants to women the right to vote.

1964: The Twenty-Forth Amendment abolishes the poll tax, or payment of tax, as a prerequisite to the right to vote (thereby abolishing wealth/property as a criterion of eligibility for the right to vote; 1964!)

"…our emerging, tortuous, constitutional inclusion…"

Technical Difficulties, June Jordan

"The model minority assertion holds up the success of a few to obscure the reality that most Asians in the United States are poor and struggling. It also conceals the suffering endured by those who “made it.” In reality “making it” is often the result of years of hardship and strife, in low-paying, labor-intensive, and exploitative jobs and through generations of shared family sacrifice. Because racism against Asians is not publicly acknowledged and addressed, there is no context, language, or framework within which to place our experiences."

Thinking about Asian Oppression and Liberation, Chang Imm Tan,
Skin Deep: Women Writing on Color, Culture and Identity, Edited by Elena

White Friends

After a while
You don’t want to explain anymore
You stop telling
Stop being patient
Close your eyes, hold your heart
And run like hell.

They call you narrow then
They want to know why you
No longer want to teach
Them to love you,
No longer want to hold
Their one hand,
As they punch you
With the other
No longer want to wipe
The spit from your face
Turn the check
Be invincible
Be like granite
And smile
In the stinging
Onslaught
Which they call
Their innocent ignorance.

--Jennifer L. Vest,
from Testimony: Young African-Americans on Self-Discovery and Black Identity
Natasha Tarpley, Editor 1995

I have come to you tonight as an equal,
as a comrade, as a black woman
walking down a corridor of tears,
looking neither to the left or the right,
pulling my history with bruised
heels,
beckoning to the allusion of america
daring you to look me in the eyes to
see these faces, the exploitation of a
people because of skin pigmentation;
I have come to you tonight because no people
have been asked to be modern day people
with the history of slavery, and still
we walk, and still we talk, and
still we plan, and still we hope and
still we sing;
I come to you because the world needs to be
saved for the future generations who must
return the earth to peace, who will not
be startled by a man’s/woman’s skin color;
I come to you because the world needs sanity
now.

Excerpts from the poem, Reflections After the June 12th March for Disarmament
homegirls & handgrenades, Sonia Sanchez 1984

“Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.”

- Anonymous