How White People Can Restore and Revitalize Our Anti-Racism in the New Year

Community, knowledge, purpose, and rituals will help lighten the weight of whiteness

Image by Vlada Karpovich via Pexels

Every new year many of us scramble to decide on which new year's resolution we'll land on. Some of us will commit to a new habit like learning a new language; others will choose to lose weight, and the rest will struggle to decide on one.

Whichever resolution we make in 2022, it'll take motivation, commitment, and struggle to maintain it, especially regarding anti-racism. If there's one thing we can learn from the pseudo-white racial awakening of 2020, it's that anti-racism is not for the faint of heart. Anti-racism requires individuals to embody it holistically: body, soul, and mind.

The majority of white people fell off the anti-racist boat because we didn't have a solid reason to keep us in the work. Having a solid understanding of why anti-racism is important is crucial to sustaining oneself in the work. If we don't have a solid why then we can't show up ethically; if we can't show up ethically, then we show up problematically, and if we show up problematically, we inherently sustain oppressive systems (like white supremacy) and threaten liberation.

Though this piece will not explore why white people should do anti-racist work, here are some ways white people can revamp and revitalize our anti-racism work.

For more on this piece please visit medium.com/@joeypierre