OAR Racial Justice + Liberation Cohort Participant Testimonial
“All my life, I was told that racism is caused by terrible people called racists. The label “racist” is so toxic that, among white people, simply raising the issue invites censure. However, as all protesters know, silence = complicity. By identifying racism as systemic, current scholarship on racism offers a way forward. This approach recognizes that racism is so pervasively systemic that it is in the very air we breathe. Scholar Ibram X. Kendi shows us that racist images, racist ideas, and racist messages “are constantly being rained on your head.” How can we not get wet? This scholarship has the power to give us a common understanding of the specific cultural force, racial prejudice plus power, that is racism. With a common understanding, we can see that we are in this together, that we are both infected and affected.”
– OAR Racial Justice + Liberation Cohort Participant Testimonial