Page 23 - RACE HEALER Mag Volume 1 final draft

“This work is critically important not only

because it’s the right thing to do, but be-

cause it’s strategic. In order to win trans-

formative change in this country, we have

to win over a percentage of white folks.

The right has counted on white racial sol-

idarity in order to maintain their power, to

maintain this economic system to benefit a

handful of very rich, mostly white men. In

this particular moment, it feels especially

clear the ways in which white men are be-

ing organized and radicalized. The loud-

est and most influential white men talking

about race and gender are not on our side.

If there’s no countervailing political home,

and no organizing interventions, white

men are going to continue to be organized

to the far right, and we know that that has

already had, and will continue to have, di-
Photo by Phil Cofman

sastrous and deadly consequences.”

Another facilitator, Abraham Lateiner, spoke of a tension to be understood and sustained: white men “are being called on to ‘lead with

support’ in multiracial, multi-gender spaces. At the same time, we’re actually being calling upon to be bolder, to take up more space, to

learn to speak more confidently in spaces dominated by white men.”

We will make mistakes but we have to trust ourselves and stay on the course. Erin encouraged us to “be as accountable to a politic as

you are to people. Do your work from a black, queer feminist lens. Relationships in this work are really critical; we can sometimes get

stuck in waiting for permission from people, and that can inhibit action that we already know we need to do.”

Get to know the author
Greg Horwitch is an organizer with Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ NYC) and Call To
Organize White Men against Patriarchy and White Supremacy
Are you a white man doing feminist or anti-racist organizing or education? Feel drawn to
this work and would like to get involved? Join our next Call to Organize White Men against
Patriarchy and White Supremacy Email: againstsexismandracism@gmail.com