On Whiteness

Dr. Victoria Farris is a disrupter, a truth teller, and a justice seeker, and through her 12+ years of a experience as a higher education professional, she has developed framework for effective allyship that outlines an action-based guide for disrupting racism on individual, group, and organizational levels. Victoria shares with us both her personal experience and growth as well as the product of her research, explaining how white people can disrupt and dismantle systemic racism.

Definitions of Race with Sources: Courtesy of Jen Fry, jenfrytalks.com

• Race: A socially constructed system to classify humans based off of phenotypical characteristics, like skin color, hair texture, and bone texture. Source: Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education (Multicultural Education Series)
• Racism: Racism is a system in which one race maintains supremacy over another race through a set of attitudes, behaviors, social structures, and institutional power. Source: Barbara Love, 1994. Understanding Internalized Oppression    
• Whiteness: The academic term used to capture the all-encompassing dimensions of White privilege, dominance, and assumed superiority in society. These dimensions include: ideological, institutional, social, cultural, historical, political, and interpersonal. Source: Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education (Multicultural Education Series)
• Anti-Racism: Anti-racism is the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably. Source: NAC International Perspective: Women and Global Solidarity

Recommended resources for further learning: 

Books:

• I’m Still Here by Austin Channing Brown
• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
• Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad
• How to be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
• The Very Good Gospel by Lisa Sharon Harper
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Tears We Cannot Stop by Michael Eric Dyson
• Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
• Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper
• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Renni Eddo-Lodge

Websites/Articles:

• Jen Fry’s Resource Page
• Austin Channing Brown’s The Next Question Show
• Unpacking White Feminism by Rachel Cargle
• Seeing White Podcast by Scene On Radio
• 1619 Podcast by NYT
• CodeSwitch by NPR
• Intersectionality Matters Podcast
• The Secret Lives of Black Women Podcast

To learn more about Victoria’s work, to join her book club, or to sign up for a workshop, please visit her on Instagram, Twitter, her website, or text DISRUPT to 55-444 that will sign you up for Victoria’s updates.