One week ago, I had the privilege of attending the Undoing Racism training with the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB), offered in partnership with the Haymarket People's Fund.

This training offered me a "Matrix" moment (Keanu Reeves-style) of really seeing the depth of what we're up against in the fight for a country free from the grasp of White supremacist oppression, which harms ALL people in different ways.

I've been exploring ways that White supremacy has been built into me as a White American. 
http://tinyurl.com/ortljoa http://tinyurl.com/pkm8xxf

But what the Undoing Racism training offered me was a deeper look at our history and institutions and how they were created and nurtured with the purpose of establishing and maintaining White supremacy.

One of the most powerful ideas I walked away with was about gatekeeping (using one's own privilege to control who has access to certain resources). I had only heard the term "gatekeeping" used as a negative thing. PISAB taught me that gatekeeping is NOT an inherently oppressive act. It all depends on HOW the gatekeeper does the gatekeeping.

The harmful gatekeeping is when a person of privilege goes into a community that is not theirs and acts as gatekeeper to resources heading inside the community (ie "If I like your program, I will bring money/resources from the local higher ed institution in order to fund it." OR worse, "I thought up a program that will solve a problem in your community.").

But a conscious gatekeeper can flip this dynamic. If I have privilege and I am purporting to serve in a community, I can use my privilege to keep the gate for resources heading OUT of the community I purport to work for. (ie asking outsiders who have ideas or proposals for the community: "Who are you? What are you seeking? Who stands to gain from your involvement here?")

The core resources are already in the community. They don't need to be brought in. The danger is that the culture of extraction can come in under the guise of offering resources when in fact, they are a force for extraction.

I recommend this training 1000% for all people who wish for a better America. Just don't come expecting an easy time.

I don't think I should buy that shirt. I made my own.

Before I continue, I should tell you that I am a White, liberal, American male with class privilege. I was raised in an academically-oriented environment by parents who taught me about racism and the American struggle to overcome it. I was a devoted member of an ecumenical youth group that introduced me to anti-racist, feminist, anti-war, gender-equality, and anti-homophobia analysis. I was an eager member of "A World of Difference," which was a diversity-awareness group of mostly White high schoolers who visited our local middle school to teach the mostly White younger students about tolerance and respect for diversity. I went to Wesleyan University, which had strong liberal and radical student populations, where I learned about my own privilege and the ways I personally participate in and contribute to oppression. I became an inner-city middle school educator and taught in and out of schools for 10 years with the goal of helping to create a more just society.

My wife is from Peru and we have two biracial daughters. 

My phone contact list and my Facebook profile are proof of how many brown-skinned people are among my friends and acquaintances. I have lots of Black friends!!!!

I LOVE the Daily Show, I HATE Fox News!!!

I speak Spanish and have many relationships with people in Spanish. 

I took West African dance in college and it really taught me how to move!!!

I have traveled to countries like India, Bangladesh, and even lived for 2 months with a host family in Guatemala. 

I have been through so many eye-opening experiences that have shown me, time and time again, that racism is an idiotic waste of time, energy, and human potential. I have devoted myself to facing racism head-on and learning how to overcome it. 

And I am NOT over racism. Racism lives, breathes, and manifests itself from inside me every day. 

On her blog, "Black Girl Dangerous," Mia McKenzie reminds me that as a person with White privilege, there is no such thing as me "being" a White ally. It is not an achievement that I can attain and then receive a medal. Allyship is a never-ending practice of education, action, and reflection. 

As a White liberal in the 21st century, I have learned to see everyday racism in American society. Jon Stewart's wildly popular bit on Ferguson practically made me shout "THANK YOU!" I know racism is real. I've always been taught that racism is terrible. I've seen the police brutality videos and read a lot of books and been in close relationships with people who are subjected to direct racism on a daily basis and I have devoted myself to becoming a fully-conscious White person. 

But I'm not over racism. Not by a long shot. 

It started coming out clearly when I was young. At the same time that I was in a leader of the "World of Difference" diversity education group, I remember sitting in our school cafeteria, looking over at the one table with most of the Black students, and saying “Why are the Black kids always sitting together?” I said this without irony, because I didn't notice that all of the White kids were sitting together. Our whole school was set up as the “White table,” and yet I couldn't see Whiteness. All I could see were the few Black kids, sticking together, and I had absolutely no idea why. I am deeply ashamed to say that I even joked about it sometimes, referring to the “Black, Loud, and Proud table” in conversation with my fellow White friends. I feel terrible about this, but that doesn't erase it from my history.

And I wish I could tell you that my relationship with my racism is just history. But it's not...it's today, it's right now. It's every day. Every day for me is shot through with a thousand moments in which I choose to either breathe life into my own racism or allow it to wither. It's happening now, as I type these words. Way down in the gut, it's there, as usual, grunting, slobbering, pleading for breath, for food, for life, and much more often than I'd like to admit, I give my racism the sustenance it wants. It takes shape, forms into hard angles, muscles contracting as it rears up, chuckling, stronger and inflating by the second, seeking a way out, a hole out of which to discharge itself.  

My racism is alive right now, as I type these words, which, I am aware, add up to a kind of begging, a desperate attempt to buy myself into some kind of anti-racist salvation.

My racism comes out when I read an article by a Black writer and I find myself recoiling from the writer's "anger."

My racism comes out when I am relieved to see that the people walking behind me on the street are White, not Black.

My racism comes out when I realize that the four students I have labeled "difficult" in one of my classes are the only four Black students in the class.

When I see a name that "sounds Black" and I internally roll my eyes.    

When I feel like I am being silenced because I am White. 

When I feel like I have the potential to "save" people (especially people of color).

When I read a list of common racist behaviors and begin scrambling to defend myself.

No, I'm not over racism. Instead, I'm trying to learn how to be with racism. 

Ta-Nehisi Coates performs a devastating dissection of White, liberal racism in his op-ed for the New York Times, "The Good, Racist People." He reminds me that my liberal beliefs do not excuse me from racism. In fact, my liberalism may be a distraction from dealing with racism, since it can encourage me to claim that I am an "ally" (via distractions like the t-shirt for sale in the video above) and then consider myself "done with racism."

As a White person learning how to practice being an ally to people of color, I begin by publicly embracing the racism that lives inside me. Contrary to what my deep-seated fears tell me, I don't believe there's much risk by doing this. Since people of color are subjected to racism all the time in America, I think most of them wouldn't be surprised to learn that a White person like me has racism inside. The only surprise will be me owning it. 

As usual, James Baldwin talks American Whiteness better than anyone else. "You cannot live 30 years with something in your closet, which you know is there, and pretend it is not there, without something terrible happening to you. If I know that any one of you has murdered your brother, your mother, and the corpse is in this room and under the table, and I know it, and you know it, and you know I know it, and we cannot talk about it, it takes no time at all before we cannot talk about anything. Before absolute silence descends." --debate with Malcolm X, September 5, 1963

--Abe Lateiner