What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition

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Both grew up in Dublin in the 1990s, a decade up until which emigration still exceeded immigration, and Ireland remained a largely white, culturally homogenous society. Dabiri’s Irish childhood is rooted in Rialto, and Chu grew up in Firhouse and Celbridge. Vital and empowering What White People Can Do Next teaches 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: Yes, predating t’internet, when 'I’ll fax you' was grunted down a phone with a cord attached to it; when Glastonbury was still accessible by casually going under or over a flimsy fence; when gatecrashing a Foo Fightersaftershow party was easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy and tapping Dave Grohl on the shoulder was... oh sorry I like to ramble. 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.

Here, in conversation with Chu, both women discuss the roots of racism and why now is the time to move from allyship – the practice of supporting the cause of marginalised or mistreated groups to which you do not belong – to coalition: working together to achieve a common goal. Ich bin so froh, dass ich das Buch angefragt und auch bekommen hatte. Vor allem, dass ich es nicht ewig in meiner Kindle App habe liegen lassen, sondern es auch gleich gelesen habe. I want to hold programs and politicians, outrageously overpriced secondary education institutions (who have increased costs more than 500% of average inflation in every other industry) accountable rather than simply voting for property, sales and income tax increases to overfund failing programs With decades long histories of failure despite spending that outpaces inflation.

This was a refreshing and necessary book to read. Refreshing because so much of the discourse on race is driven by the USA’s cultural hegemony – whereas this book is rooted firmly in Ireland and the UK. While it does cover some of the US experience, it isn’t exclusively focussed there.

After an onslaught of widespread uncertainty and brutal instability, we all need a guiding map to help us move forward together. What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition, Emma Dabiri’s second book, pioneers urgent new roads to social change and new forms of dialogue. Her book demands we look for a 'coalition of common goals' and focus on a mass movement that’ll make a just future for all of us. She believes change will only happen if we:

Emma Dabiri: And vast swathes of people – I might even go so far to dare say the majority of people, perhaps – are not on board. 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? The current moment is very historical but where’s the programme, the consistent set of demands characterising and unifying this current moment? We seem to have replaced doing anything with saying something, in a space where the word ‘conversation’ has achieved an obscenely inflated importance as a substitute for action.

The chapter headings are a great précis of the internal steps white people need to take – what do you need to realise about your behaviour? – but stops a little short of concrete actions. Una Mullally: What about how discourse around colonialism can be leveraged to incorporate anti-racist movements in Ireland?

Christmas Gifts

a b Dabiri, Emma (27 April 2019). "I'm Irish but not white. Why is that still a problem 100 years after the Easter Rising?". Irish Times . Retrieved 29 April 2019. is a thought-provoking look at white allyship and racial coalition that confronts whiteness (supremacy, denial, guilt and saviourism) by telling white people to accept that colonisation, imperialism and racism is at the root of their current privilege. 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. Dabiri’s book, an evolution of that resource she initially shared, offers insightful, practical and thought-provoking guidance that moves discourse away from the often entrenched and passive performance of allyship and towards the ushering in of a new era of coalition-building, something that has been stymied in the past by racist, colonialist and capitalist forces. Brinkhurst-Cuff, Charlie (23 April 2019). "Don't Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri review – groundbreaking". The Guardian.

In the spirit of We Should All Be Feminists and How to Be an Antiracist, a poignant and sensible guide to questioning the meaning of whiteness and creating an antiracist world from the acclaimed historian and author of Twisted. Dabiri lives in London, where she is completing her PhD in visual sociology at Goldsmiths while also teaching at SOAS and continuing her broadcast work. [10] [11] She is married and has two children. [5]Emma Dabiri: It's very interesting for me because this is an area that I've been involved in for years and years. It's really interesting to see something that at one stage to talk about was incredibly taboo and very fringe, actually, to become increasingly mainstream and then completely turbo-charged by the events of 2020. I've seen a phenomenal change occur. It wasn't until the elite passed laws that segregated poorer white people from slaves – by weaponising whiteness and attaching it to superiority and privilege – that racism was birthed in a bid to settle white on white tension. This was an intelligent, thought-provoking and educating essay. It looks at what white people need to actually do to create change in relation to racial justice. Hazel Chu: But there are certain things that need discussion. Perfect example: [the publication of] the white paper for Direct Provision. That requires discussion. Instead what happened was rhetoric being pushed on one, then the defence being pushed on the other side. Then what happens is, you don't have a middle conversation. You don't actually look at what needs to be done. I think in society, we're all about compromise on some things. We're all trying to reach some kind of "medium". I get the feeling it's become more and more [about] extremes rather than middle of the road. Das Buch ist so wichtig. Und wirklich gut zu lesen, es ist verständlich und es gibt einen mit Zitaten aus anderen Werken, mit Fußnoten, einfach die Möglichkeit noch tiefer in das Thema und die verschiedenen Sichtweisen einzutauchen, so viele Quellen, die man auch noch lesen kann.