Its Not Our Fault But We Have A Responsibility: White Folks Finding Their Role in Social Justice

Facilitation Guide
Slide #
1

Notes
Welcome. I am Justin Zagorski and I used the pronouns he, him, and his. I currently work in Housing as a
Residence Life Coordinator. I am honored that I have been given this opportunity to talk with you all today
and Im looking forward to where the conversation takes us. This presentation has been constructed around
this years theme in a way that I believe can help White folks better understand white privilege and engage
in social justice, by helping folks move past guilt and through opportunities. I dont want anyone to think
that I am an expert on the matter, as my background is not as a historian. I was actually a mountain guide
on Denali; however, I think that after a good amount of reading and reflection I now have something
valuable to offer you.
So where are we headed? My hope is that you will leave today:
With a deeper understanding of White Privilege. This will be an opportunity to delve deeper into the way
we understand our own identities, White privilege, and the emotions tied to our experiences. Talking about
oppression and privilege can be difficult and challenging, especially for those with privileged identities, and
honestly it doesnt always lead to clear answers. My goal is to help us sit in the discomfort, as I believe that
is where my greatest learning has come from.
Further aware of your role in contributing to social justice. If we can all accept that White privilege exists,
then I believe this session and our dialogue will go to a more meaningful place. We are definitely going to
discuss how White privilege has come to exist, but I hope the conversation can begin assuming that it does
indeed exist. Then, we can focus more of our attention on what we can do to challenge a historically
constructed system of racism and white privilege.
And with tools for continually serving as agents of change.. I will be giving you the presentations and
workshops I have put together for your use in engaging more folks in social justice. I know that we are all
busy and starting from scratch is never easy, so I plan to give you what I have created and then you can use
what is most helpful to you. We need to facilitate more conversations about White privilege with students,
staff and faculty. I am going to talk about the construction of White privilege throughout history in order to
help us all better understand our present and imagine our future. It will be by no means a complete history
lesson. Rather, I am offering pieces of history that help to explain oppression and White privilege as it exists
today.
I am going to begin this session with a brief discussion about Lady Liberty, because I think that it is indicative
of what I hope the session will offer you. Who can tell me what they remember being taught about the
Statue of Liberty in school? What does this monument stand for?
*** allow 1-3 people to respond.
The statue is a marvelous work of art that over 4 million people visit each year, most of who marvel at the
statues ability to welcome masses of immigrants to American and symbolize Americas earned
independence. But there is actually a deeper, often covered up reason, for the resurrection of the statue.
Many of you have probably come to know this. Many articles, the scholarly work of people like Dr. Joy
Degruy, and the film Hidden Colors, have shown, that if constructed with the original design, the statue
would actually be described as a constant reminder of the abolition of slavery and serve as praise to the
African Americans who helped make it a reality.
However, in order for anyone to see this proof, they would need to be in a helicopter. Then, they would
need to fly really, really close in order to see the broken shackles that lay at Lady Libertys feet. Then
people would need to visit a museum in New York to see Bartholdis original designs,
where Lady Liberty is holding her broken shackles. There are many opinions about what the statue signifies
and reasons why the original design was not the final design, and I do not know for a fact which is right. But
what if this original design had become the Lady Liberty. What if the 305 feet tall monument constantly
reminded White folks to acknowledge our mistakes while celebrating the heroism and resilience of black
people?
People down here, will never see the deep significance of the statue that rests way up here.

This is our responsibility. To know the history of our nation, to understand its implications, and spread
awareness of what we have learned.
So I begin this brief critique of history with Columbus. After all, he discovered America. Seriously it was
Columbus who I once learned had led my ancestors to the great unknown land of the West, where America
was born, and the place I have come to call my home. However, we all know that White men, including
Columbus, destroyed the homes of others in that process.
Specifically today we are in what used to be Ohlone land. Of course, I have come to know it as Oakland, but
to some it is still their homeland. I dont know if that makes me any better of person knowing that. I think
that acknowledging it helpful, but we still massacred their people.
The high estimate of the Native American population before 1942 was approximately 112 million, as it had
been for thousands of years. Ill notes that there are conservative estimates of around 8 million and
everywhere in between.
On the other hand, Europeans, or White folks, started with approximately the one Christopher Columbus.
Well to be fair, there were 86 other people on the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina. So well say 87.
What is much less disputed is that the Native American population decreased by 95% since 1942 and many
have estimated that this happened rather quickly. The US Census says that 1.2% of the U.S. population is
Native American, the total U.S. population is 318 millions, which puts the total of native people at 3,826,
284. White folks have went the other direction. There are currently 245,519,933 white people. That means
that there is now 1 native person for every 64 white people.

So we accept that around 100 million native people have died since Europe found its way to the Americas.
However, if I assume that todays current population is just 5% of Native population before 1942, then that
means that the Native population was at 400, 803, 245. That is 80 million more people than the current U.S.
population.
Needless to say, this was a genocide of Native Americans. Lets first look at the definition of genocide
according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948). Genocide
is "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial
or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members
of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and]
forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Keep this definition in mind, because it is
unfortunately a reoccurring them.
As many of you are aware, disease was a leading factor in this genocide. Now maybe disease was not White
peoples fault, but they had a responsibility to respect Native Americans once they noticed an epidemic
unfolding, instead of using smallpox to their advantage.
It definitely was not only disease though. Countless massacres occurred, some probably even deadlier than
the massacre at wounded knee.
This is why Native people were often in fear of Europeans. Fear compelled tribes to agree to trade their land
to Europeans through the use of treaties. The tribe withdrew to a reservation and in return the federal
government promised to provide supplies, food, and often an annuity. Those promises were rarely, if ever,
kept. I remember first learning about this from a presentation in Seattle entitled, What About All Those
Promises. This is what they were talking about.
Furthermore Native people were forced to assimilate and were shipped off to Native American Boarding
Schools. Richard Pratt helped to build the first of 150 boarding schools and he is now famous for saying, Kill
the Indian, Save the Man.
Many doctors performed sterilization procedures on Native women, mostly without asking or when it was
not a necessary procedure. From 1973 to 1976, the government has admitted that this happened 3,046
times.
Then the Indian Removal Act led to the infamous Trail of Tears. Needless to say, this touches upon each
component of a genocide.

10

11

12

13
14

15

16

17

During that time we have manifest destiny. The idea that led to the America we live in today. You all likely
know what manifest destiny is: It was a God-given right for European Americans to expand all the way to
the Pacific Ocean. And it is that philosophy that attacked the lives and cultures of Native people throughout
South and North America.
The background photo is a painting by John Gast, entitled American Progress. You can see a bright,
heavenly women leading European Americans from the right. With her progression, the darkness fades as
she ushers in new light. As she advances, she suspends telephone cable. She holds excess wire on her arm
and a schoolbook in her right hand. If you would like to unpack this image and look further into the
revealing symbolism, follow the link at the bottom of the image.
Now that White men had taken the land, it was now available to be sold to European immigrants. I
remember learning quite a bit about this map in high school but I dont really recall learning a lot about how
European nations became the owners of this land in the first place.
In 1862, native land was given to white folks through the homestead act. Then lands continued to be sold.
This flyers talks about land sold throughout 1911. In California specifically, the government was selling
Hoopa land, which is just north of Humboldt State.
Today, we still nationally recognize and teach children about Columbuss heroism. And even though a
growing number of places are recognizing it as Indigenous Peoples Day, including Berkeley here in the Bay
Area, I still get day off because it is Columbus Day. San Francisco and New York also still have annual
parades for Columbus Day.
More significantly, people come together each year to celebrate Thanksgiving, by re-enacting a
misrepresented version of a union between Europe and Indigenous People of the Americas. It makes it
seem like the map on the previous page, came to be through mutually beneficial and fair agreements.
However, a large number of other people choose to instead remember the genocide felt by their people on
the fourth Thursday of November. Its known as the National Day of Mourning and it began in 1970. The
United American Indians of New England support the events not as a day to dwell on the holidays bloody
history, but to bring more awareness to the problems facing Native Americans today.
This is not our fault but we have a responsibility.
Chattel Slavery. Slaves were treated as human chattel to be traded, sold, used, and ranked not among
beings, but among things, as an article of property to the owner or possessor. Due to racial differences, it
was forever more easy to distinguish a master and slave. The color of our skin was how we decided who was
human and who was chattel.
Families separated from one another and would often never see each other again. Black men were beaten
for merely looking at White women, let a lone for many other reasons. Black women were raped by White
men and none of those women ever saw justice. White men were not reprimanded for those acts.
Furthermore, Africans were stripped from their culture, either from Africa or the Americas. It actually seems
that a good amount of Africans were already in the Americas. A great documentary that explains this
cultural genocide is Hidden Colors. Its only thirty bucks and well worth the money.
People often say slavery ended hundreds of years ago. However, right after slaves became free after the
civil war they were looking for work. This is where Sharecropping came from. Most slaves had nowhere to
go, so they agreed to return to work for their former masters. But, since newly freed slaves had no money,
they bought seed, tools, mules, and supplies on credit. Now, they were back into slavery through debt
servitude. Every year debt would increase due to high interest rates and would often span generations. If
black people attempted to escape this unfair treatment, they were often jailed or fined.
This brings us to the Black Codes and the Convict Lease System. Black codes, which were created right after
Black Americans became free due to the civil war, served as a way to convict them of crimes. Then, because
prisons were expensive, convicts were leased to plantation and business owners using labor contracts.
White men got cheap labor, all while convicts were starved, beaten and treated like slaves. Its estimated
that one quarter of all black convicts died while under lease. If you tried to quit your job, among many other
crimes reserved for black folks, you went to prison. Now, in addition to being seeing as in human, a
disproportionate amount of black folks were seen as criminals as well.
The convict leasing system faded away around 1928 but that gave rise to Chain Gangs. Chains were wrapped
around the ankles of prisoners, shackling five together while they worked, ate, and slept. For over 30 years,

18

19

20
21

African-American prisoners in the chain gangs were worked at gunpoint. Around 1950, Chain Gangs were
abolished in every state, but this was 100 years after the civil war, and even though we are so often
reminded that 1865 when slavery ended.
As Black Codes came to a close, more severe and problematic laws were enacted. Jim Crow Laws. The
separate, but equal living conditions. As you all likely know, conditions were never equal. Black people
were killed for fighting white people, for disputing contracts with white employers and black men, even
boys, were killed for looking the wrong way at white women. This was a very public process among White
Americans. White folks often gathered in their Sunday best to watch lynchings. There were celebrations and
excitement as if people were just coming together for a Sunday picnic. Actually, that is exactly what they
were doing. Some historians suggest that picnic refers to pick a nig, and even though the phrase seems
to originate earlier in France, the term picnic seems to describe exactly what was happening for hundreds
of years. In Lynch Law in America, Ida B. Wells-Barnett writes, The nineteenth century lynching mob cuts
off ears, toes, and fingers, strips off flesh and distributes portions of the body as souvenirs among the
crowd Coal oil is poured over the body and the victim is roasted to death. The mayor gave the school
children a holiday and the railroads ran excursion trains so that people might see a human being burned to
death.
This was not that long ago. Sure 1918 was almost 100 years ago but there are still people alive who were
born before then. If your family has been in this country for 4 generations like mine has, your great
grandparents could been there.
The implications of this horrific past are furter asserted in Dr. Joy Degruys book, Post Traumatic Slave
Syndrome, where she posits that black Americans are plagued by a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
in addition to a necessity to overcome present day systemic racism.
This is not our fault but we have a responsibility.
Moving forward, Ill talk briefly about Chinese immigration. In the 1800s, most Chinese laborers who came
to the United States did so in order to send money back to China to support their families. At the same time,
they also had to repay loans to the Chinese merchants who paid their passage to America. These financial
pressures left them little choice but to work for whatever wages they could. Non-Chinese laborers (mostly
White) often required much higher wages to support their wives and children in the United States, and also
generally had a stronger political standing to bargain for higher wages. Therefore many white folks in the
United States came to resent the Chinese laborers, who might squeeze them out of their jobs.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/chinese-immigration
This led to the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which prohibited all Chinese labors from immigrating to the
US. This was the first major restriction on immigration and it was to be in effect for 10 years. Then, just 6
years later, Congress took exclusion even further and passed the Scott Act, which made it impossible to
reenter the United States after only a visit to China, even for long-term legal residents. In 1892, Congress
voted to renew exclusion for ten years in the Geary Act.

22

23

Both of these photos are from the San Francisco magazine, the Wasp. Their weekly cartoons were in
addition to the angry mobs that gathered around the city and chanted that the Chinese must go.
The Scott Act remained in effect until 1924 when the Immigration Act was passed. The Immigration Act of
1924 provided the foundational quotas for immigration. The act did not allow immigration from large
majority of Asia, which was called the Asiatic Barred Zone. The green area on the map. Chinese
immigrants were now allowed in America, but only if they werent from that zone and only within specific
quotas.
The allowed amount of Chinese immigrants was only 100 per year, based on the standard of allowing each
group to gain two percent of its current population in America. This obviously worked out best for White
Folks.
This act was not repealed until 1943 with the Magnuson Act, which was most likely a result of America
seeking allyship with China during the 2nd world war. The Asiatic Barred Zone was not lifted until 1952 with
the Immigration and Nationality Act. However, an annual quota of only 2,000 Asian Pacific immigrants still
remained in effect until 1965.

24

Although World War II is covered in most school curricula, the story of American citizens who were stripped
of their civil liberties here, on American soil, during that war is often omitted. After the attack on Pearl
Harbor, the government imposed strict curfews on Japanese Americans and raided their homes for anything
that showed special connection to their former homeland. Over 110,000 Japanese American people were
kept in 10 remote camps for 3 years. Roosevelts administration reasoned that the relocation camps were
for their safety, but since this happened right after the attack on pearl harbor, it was more likely a way to
produce greater comfort for White Americans.
Many families sold their homes, their businesses, and most of their assets. They could not be certain their
homes and livelihoods would still be there upon their return. Because of the mad rush to sell, properties
and inventories were often sold at a fraction of their true value. And who do you think bought them?
Question: Say that you survived the Japanese Internment Camps. It was 3 years in a remote camp that was
surrounded by barbed wire and watch towers. You likely no longer have a home, a car, a business, and may
even need to find your family you were separated from. How much money would you accept as an apology?

25

26
27

28

29

Some of you may know this. The government offered $20,000 to survivors.
When I learned about these policies in schools, I let them fade from my memory while assuming that the
great majority of American people were surely not in support of removing American Citizens from their
homes and placing them in prison camps. But anti-Japanese sentiment was rampant. Even Dr. Suess
nurtured racism amongst American people. In the cartoon you see Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo. Their
features are grotesquely exaggerated, making them look foreign and therefore un-American. It seems that
Dr. Suess was trying to hit a nerve. It compelled people to be patriotic, because these sneering villains were
trying to take away national integrity.
Here are photos of what Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo look like. Now to be fair, Dr. Suess drew up an apology
after many people confronted him for perpetuating racism. That apology is called Horton Hears a Who. It
is a heart-warming childrens story that promotes inclusivity and also an apology.
It is not our fault but we have a responsibility. Where has all of this historically constructed white privilege
and racism led us today?
A White man picked up a black girl, flipped her over backwards, slammed her on the ground, threw her
against a wall, and then mounted her. Immediately White people justified this violence because the girl hit
the white man first. The truth is that the student simply refused to pay better attention to the teacher
because they were sad about circumstances that matter far more to them than what was being taught in
the class room. Nobody asked her though. Instead, the teacher called the police. Then, the White male
police officer saw the girl as being rebellious and treated her like a criminal, when no crime was committed.
She merely refused to put down her cellphone. This is the issue, people are still treated as less than, criminal
like, and in human just because of the color of their skin. Conversely, white folks are given the benefit of the
doubt. White folks have perfectly logical explanations for what occurred, and most of them have nothing to
do with racism.
People of Color, unlike White people, are still seen as inherently dangerous and are treated as such. Police
brutality against People of Color is not about racist cops, it is about the white dominance that has been
maintained in this country since 1492. This prejudice is the same thing that causes White folks to cross to
the other side of the road when a Person of Color is walking towards them, even if crossing the road takes
White person further away from they were going. It is the internalized distrust of People of Color that spans
generations, the same hatred I heard around the dinner table as I grew up. It is this racism that has been
taught and perpetuated for generations that is the reason why so many people of color have been
murdered and why there are so many people on this screen that I didnt realize had been killed.
Because many white folks think of people of color as being dangerous and criminal, people of color are
more likely to be found guilty for committing crimes. The ACLU reports that black people are 3.7 times more
likely than white people to be held accountable for using marijuana even though the usage rates are
comparable. Now states are turning toward legalization, which address the racial inequity in accountability,
but I often wonder who will turn the most profit from legalizing marijuana and if people of color will
retroactively be released from prison if it become federally legal. Crack and cocaine have always had

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37
38

39

40
41

disproportionate prison sentence rates and is one of the issues of racism and class with the war on drugs.
This disparity is now at 18 to 1. Since getting into office, Obama addressed this issue with the Fair
Sentencing Act, which is actually why it is 18 to 1. It was 100 to 1 before then.
Furthermore, countless studies have shown that a White male with a criminal record is more likely to get a
job over a man of color with a clean record. This is because a criminal record would not dismiss the rest of
my value as a person. My white privilege is the ability to make a mistake and move on.
However, White folks dont talk about this problem. We look for any way to justify the dissonance we feel
towards the racist power structure our people have created. Im okay with the flag being about heritage. I
just think that its representation of hate overrules its significance to heritage.
This nation-wide debate about that flag came after a white man shot 9 people of color in a church, and you
all know that it was not an isolated event. The numbers are staggering. The red dots are indicators of recent
school shootings. There have been at least 153 school shootings since 2013 an average of nearly one a
week. Recent studies reveal that most school shooters are White males, with 90 percent being male and 63
percent White. The problem gets even worse than the numbers show.
This photo says, If I were Arab, the shooting would be terrorism. If I were Black, Id be a Thug. But Im
White, so its mental illness. Instead of addressing the culture that fosters the masculinity and white
dominance that leads to most mass shootings, White people immediately talk about mental illness. Just like
hundreds of years ago, White men are held less accountable to their crimes than people of color.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, we have made it to a place where 784 hate groups still exist
in America. California is leading the pack with 57 groups. One of which is a racist skinhead group called the
Golden Gate Solidarity. That group gathers in Oakland. Now, as problematic as these hate groups are, I do
not want to focus on them. I instead want to focus on the largest hate group that has no name.
This is Stormfront. They are the voice of the new, embattled White minority. Now, it may be easy to not
take a website seriously when the logo in the top left corner reads White Pride, World Wide. But I think
this does pose a serious concern.
The group of followers is huge at 3.5 million visits in the last 90 days and 36,000 just last night. This means
that there are around 13 million visits in a year. There were almost 180 thousand pages views yesterday.
There are over 65 million page views a year. And there is plenty to talk about.
If I type in Oakland, there are over 50 pages of posts.
These white folks are talked about in Michael Kimmels book, Angry White Men. The anger is real,
meaning White men experience it deeply. The issue is that it is not true, in that it doesnt provide an
accurate description of the situation. The enemies of White men is not really women and men of color, the
enemy is an ideology of white masculinity that we have inherited from our fathers and their fathers before
them. The problem is that White men think that women and people of color are the enemies. The premise
of the book focuses on the term aggrieved entitlement. White men feel as if they are losing opportunities as
equality increases, because they have learned to feel entitled to what they once had. They want to restore
what they once had. Its not aspirational; its nostalgic. Poor people and people of color by contract feel
entitled to what they should have, what others in fact do have. Angry White men feel entitled to restrict
equality; people of color want to expand it.
A very relevant example of this is Trump and his followers. With aggrieved entitlement in mind, what exactly
does Trump mean when he says Lets Make America Great Again? At what point does he indeed think
that America was greater? I know we have our problems and room to grow, but what year could we really
return to and find less racism, oppression and genocide? Maybe 1491, I dont know.
This is not our fault but we have a responsibility. The responsibility is to further see how this historically
created racism and white privilege is impacting our campuses.
We may not see signs that say Whites only anymore but racism still exists. The difference is that racism has
become come more subtle but not any less significant. This brings us to microaggressions, which as many of
you know, are frequent comments and behaviors that are a product of racial prejudice. Microaggressions
are often perpetuated at the subconscious level by otherwise well-meaning and caring individuals.
Nonetheless, microaggressions further create hostile and unwelcoming environments, which is not what we
want for each other or our students. I too am Harvard has done some great work to address
microaggressions and my understanding is that many other schools have followed suit.

42

43

44
45

46

47
48
49

50

51

Another huge issue that impacts college campuses is cultural appropriation. I have found this definition to
be useful because it acknowledges a power dynamic, where members of a dominant culture take elements
from a culture of people who have been systematically oppressed by that dominant group.
Halloween was 10 days ago, so culturally appropriated costumes are a relevant example. Unfortunately I do
not need to comb the archives to find examples on college campuses.
Just before Halloween, a UCLA fraternity put on a Kanye West themed party, Blackface and all. Its not just
students, a high school teacher dressed up as Kanye West and here is the president of the University of
Louisville and some students dressed up as Mexicans.
There has been some great initiative on-campus to help combat this appropriation. However, there are still
many white people opposed, who often chock it up to excessive political correctness. After Virginia Tech
students launched an educational initiative about appropriation, another student group, the Young
Americans for Freedom, held a funeral for Halloween. Many students came to their side in support of less
policing of costumes.
How many of you are familiar with the Harlem Shake? Or the appropriated version?
Lets talk about cultural appropriation within the music. Elvis Presley was labeled as the King of Rock N
Roll by Rolling Stone magazine.
The problem is that much of Elviss inspiration, dance moves, and song lyrics came from Chuck Berry. A
white artist was able to utilize the same type of music to gain fame and fortune while black artists were
overlooked.
This happened with Paul Whiteman who was known as the King of Jazz.
It occurred again with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, who claim to be the creators of Jazz right on their
album cover but Jazz was already occurring among African American and Creole America people in New
Orleans. Lets look at more present day examples.
Justin Timberlake was named the King of Pop.
Then there was Eminem who was named the King of Hip Hop. The thing with cultural appropriation is that
often times, people do not intentionally use other cultures to gain fame, money or acceptance. I read
through quotes by each of these artists and all of them acknowledged that their music is no different than
what many other People of Color have been offering for years. However, the negative impact that this
appropriation has on communities of color still exists regardless of their acknowledgement.
Take for instance, Eminems record sales. They were three times that of the next leading Hip Hop artist in
2010. This is where we see the legacy of white privilege.
Another dynamic that is still relevant today is assimilation. Just like throughout history, this is when
marginalized groups are encouraged or forced to surrender their identities, beliefs, values, and adopt or
conform to the values and beliefs of the dominate culture.
Lets take professional dress for example. Even in our field of Higher Education, who must you dress like in
order to be successful?
This is not our fault but we have a responsibility. So, what can white folks do from this position of privilege?
The first, and I would argue the most important responsibility we have, is to do self-work. As we learn about
ourselves we will be better able to learn about others. I think self-work is the life-force of social justice. We
need to do this work in times of solitude and when interacting with our peers. This can mean reflecting
upon privileged and oppressed identities, learning about how we view the world, and continually
discovering how we are able to maintain a resilient commitment to social justice.
Ingrain reflection within our practice. We can all learn so much from our own experiences. Think about how
you were raised, what you learned as a kid, and What messages stuck with you.
After you leave meetings, think about who did most of the talking? What were their identities? Did you talk
over others? Did anybody appear triggered or uncomfortable during the meeting?
Bring social justice into your work with students. How do your identities impact how you relate to students?
How do perceptions of your identities effect your ability to teach students? Do your teaching methods or
advising styles support all students effectively?
Setting aside merely 5 minutes a day for reflection can teach us a lot.
The second suggestion I have is to commit to small changes over time. Nobody masters social justice
overnight. Ive been learning about White privilege and social justice for 3 years and I still find myself

52

53

54

tripping over my words, regretting some of my actions and realizing I still have so much to learn. Do not let
the size of the problem overwhelm you. Commit to small changes.
Before I left Seattle, I saw a quote painted on the wall a high school that said, Faith is taking the first step,
even when you do not see the whole staircase. Just focus on the first step and believe that it will lead to
the next one.
It can be as simple as finishing the following statement: In regards to social justice, I can at least read one
article per day. In regards to social justice, I can at least talk to close friend about this session? Commit to
small changes and your positive influence will grow over time.
The third thing we can do is continually learn. It took me about 23 years of my life to realize that reading is a
helpful way to learn. That is partly because I was not reading the right books. What have you read lately?
Are you reading books that help you better understand social justice? I often find I am too busy to squeeze
an entire book into my schedule, but I find that I can read just one chapter or one article per day. I brought
some books that I have found helpful. Feel free to check them out before you leave.
Aside from books, the internet has provided us with an endless list of resources through the use of social
media. Are you on social media? If not, I suggest you create a twitter or facebook account solely for the
learning opportunities. If you are on social media already and know its value in learning, how often do you
share articles with family or friends? Do you try to help them understand social justice rather than just
telling them that their viewpoints are offensive?
How often do you find yourself discussing social justice with colleagues at work? Do you frequently share
what you have learned about White privilege? If social media is not your thing, try having more 1on1 chats
about social justice with your close friends.
Think about larger opportunities like attending a multicultural institute, the Social Justice Training Institute,
or the White Privilege Conference. The White Privilege Conference was a very helpful experience for me.
Engage others in social justice. Help them better understand White privilege and oppression. Aside from
engaging people in daily conversation, facilitate workshops and training sessions for White folks at your
institution. At HSU, Ive done workshops in Residence Life, through the library and at the Social Justice
Summit. What opportunities do you have? Maybe you can revamp your student staff and/or professional
staff training.
On my website, there are some presentations I hope you can utilize. Each PowerPoint has my script on each
slide, so with some edits, you could probably pick up a PowerPoint and present a workshop relatively easily.
This year I revamped HSUs Social Justice training for student staff with materials and information that I
learned during grad school. The is a large PowerPoint filled with and illustrations. It goes over a bunch of
topics, but if you do not want a whole 4-hour session, you could just talk about 1-hour long segments that
dynamics of oppression, communities of practice and the cycle of socialization, microaggressions,
appropriation, and assimilation, and serving as agents of change.
Other workshops that I have put together are: What is White Privilege? White Folks Roles in Social Justice,
and todays presentation. Take a moment to browse the website and see if you find something useful. Feel
free to contact me with questions.
This is our responsibility. To take what we have learned and help other white folks do the same.
The fifth and final suggestion I have for white folks is to maintain hope and remain resilient. Advocating for
social justice if difficult no matter who you are, although undoubtedly more difficult for People of Color than
it is for White folks. Engaging in social justice seems to go one of two ways: Number one: People will
frequently appreciate the change you bring.
When we engage in social justice, intervene in oppressive situations, help others to learn, or help move our
group toward a stronger value of social justice, we are like a stone thrown into a lake and our ripple may be
just what others have been waiting for. These are the wins that motivate me. These are the wins, no matter
how small, that I believe add up over time and lead to bigger changes. Now I want to talk about the other
ways it could go. Sometimes, our efforts to be the ripple, will push up against traditional ways of doing
things and oppressive norms that are so ingrained that I can feel defeated before I even begin.
These are the times when I feel instead like a stone that was tossed onto a frozen lake. People might resist
my ideas about social justice and even all that I stand for. It can seem like no matter how hard I try, it is
impossible to make an impact. Feeling isolated and alone, I then begin to second guess my commitments to
social justice, my view of what is right and wrong, and even how I have been going about social justice. In

55

56

these times, it can be hard to maintain hope but it might also be when it is needed most. Even though it is
very hard for me to sometimes remember, I find that if I am patient, and resilient, I will find a way to make a
ripple. Even when I was in Anchorage, Alaska, I found that the ice eventually became thin enough to make
an impact.
For the next 5 minutes, I want you to reflect on this question: What is your ripple doing for the world and
how do you remember that when there is relentless opposition?
Our responsibility is to use our privilege to work with others and be a ripple in our communities. The video
illustrates how I maintain hope. Like in the video, I believe that my efforts to foster social justice will inspire
the others to do so in the future. This is what I try to remember when I feel like Im sitting on the frozen
pond with no idea of how to move forward. This is why I celebrate small wins, knowing that my actions can
have an impact that lasts longer than myself. This is how I am able to accept that racism and white privilege
is not my fault, and instead focus my attention on the responsibility and opportunity it has provided me.
Our responsibility is to role model resiliency and continually be the ripple that our communities need us to
be.
Questions?