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White people: I don’t want you to understand me better. I want you to understand yourselves.

—Ijeoma Oluo

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This is an invitation for us white people to understand ourselves.

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My intention is for this website to serve as a resource for us white folk toward an ever-increasing awareness and understanding of who and what we collectively and historically are; that is, what whiteness is and what whiteness means—how whiteness has shaped us and continues to shape us, how whiteness functions within us and around us—inspiring and motivating us to move shoulder to shoulder with BIPOC sisters and brothers toward the dismantling of white cis hetero capitalist patriarchy in America and beyond.

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A note to BIPOC readers

A trigger warning: much of the content on this site is potentially activating. If/as you explore, please practice self-care as you know best.

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A note to white readers

This is an invitation for us white folk to practice dialectical self-care; that is, to practice self-care as necessary, while also tracking when we may be engaging in the surreptitious strategies of white fragility; e.g., feeling numb apropos of what we discover here, perhaps an urge to check out or leave; distancing and positioning ourselves as “already getting it” or “that’s not me”; or simply collapsing into hopelessness and despair. Such impulses are understandable human reactions in the face of evil—and this is whiteness doing what whiteness does best: erecting obstacles to the requisite witnessing, processing, and accounting for the enduring legacy of the brutality of whiteness in America and worldwide, thus thwarting joining with BIPOC folk in the work toward real collective systemic change. If like me you are here because you value truth, we can resource together in order to stay with our experience, and thus stay in this process of rehumanization. (Some of the resources on this page can help, including this one.)

The zen folks say what you practice is what you have. The more we white folk can practice bringing into consciousness—and enhancing our capacity to tolerate in our very nervous systems—our unconscious collective guilt, shame, silence, violence, confusion, self-loathing, rage and fear, so that we no longer keep blowing it through or otherwise projecting it onto people of color and other white folks, the sooner we can move toward reclaiming the humanity we relinquished, without even realizing we were giving it up, in order to become white.

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Note: I have no financial or other vested interest in any of the entities listed or linked on this site. Some articles may require a subscription to access; I apologize in advance for any frustration such paywalls may cause.

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