What Is Anti-Racism? A Beginner’s Guide to Becoming an Ally

At ARCC, we believe that understanding anti-racism is the first step towards creating a truly equitable world. While its presence is increasingly felt in modern society, anti-racism can sometimes feel complex or misunderstood. This guide aims to clarify what anti-racism is, why it’s crucial, and how you can actively become an ally in this vital movement.

Understanding Racism: The Foundation of Anti-Racism

To understand anti-racism, we must first understand what it stands against: racism. Racism is a pervasive, multifaceted, and multidimensional form of oppression. It’s more than just individual prejudice; it’s a system of structuring opportunity and assigning value based on how one looks, which unfairly disadvantages some individuals and communities while unfairly advantaging others.

This system of racism manifests in various forms:

• Individual Racism: Prejudicial behavior or beliefs towards racial groups.
• Institutional Racism: Racial oppression embedded in social institutions and policies, leading to different opportunities for various racial or ethnic groups.
• Cultural Racism: Values, beliefs, and ideas embedded in “common sense” that endorse the superiority of one culture (often white culture) over others.
• Subtle Forms: Racism can also be subtle, disguised, and covert, including “microaggressions”—brief, everyday verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities that communicate hostile or negative racial slights.

Racism creates power imbalances, diminishes social inclusion, and can lead to the undervaluing of rights, recognition, and participation. It can also take differences in physical attributes to determine differences in behavioral or intellectual spheres of human life.

Defining Anti-Racism: More Than Just “Not Being Racist”

Anti-racism, at its core, refers to forms of thought and/or practice that seek to confront, eradicate, and/or ameliorate racism. It’s an active process, demanding effort and action against racial inequality. Simply claiming to oppose racism isn’t enough; anti-racism requires actively “doing” anti-racism.

Key principles of anti-racism include:

• Active Engagement: It goes beyond passive non-racism, requiring individuals and institutions to challenge racism actively.
• Systemic Focus: Anti-racism explicitly focuses on privilege and power relations embedded in social institutions and the social construction of racial categories. It challenges the notion that racism is merely an individual character flaw and instead addresses it as a systemic issue.
• Inclusive Scope: While initially concerned with issues affecting Black people, anti-racism now encompasses oppression towards cultural and ethnic groups, language, and religion, not just race.
• Goal of Equal Outcomes: Anti-racism recognizes that a uniform approach in the face of existing inequality only reinforces those inequalities. The focus must be on achieving equal outcomes, not just uniformity of treatment.
• Global and Diverse: Anti-racism is a worldwide phenomenon with diverse social processes and historical roots, drawing on ideas like human equality and cultural relativism from around the world.

Becoming an Ally: Practical Strategies for Anti-Racist Action

Becoming an ally means translating your opposition to racism into meaningful action. Here are practical strategies you can adopt:

1. Cultivate Self-Reflexivity and Education:
   • Understand Your Social Location: Critically examine your own place and role within dominant systems of power and privilege. This includes acknowledging your values and histories.
   • Learn the History of Racism: Educate yourself on the historical roots of racism, its definitions, manifestations within institutions, and its impacts.
   • Challenge Your Own Biases: Acknowledge that all white people, for example, may share in racist culture at some level, and that exploring one’s own whiteness and associated advantages is essential.
2. Practice Bystander Anti-Racism:
   • Speak Up: As a bystander (someone not directly involved as a target or perpetrator), actively intervene against interpersonal or systemic racism. This can range from confrontation to supporting the target or formally reporting the incident.
   • Effective Communication: Aim to communicate disapproval or discomfort without inducing defensiveness in the perpetrator. This can involve:
     • Asking questions like, “Why do you say that?”.
     • Targeting the offender’s egalitarian self-image: “I’m surprised to hear you say that, because I have always thought of you as someone who is very open-minded”.
     • Expressing your personal emotional reactions: “It makes me uncomfortable to hear that”.
     • Taking a respectful, rather than self-righteous, approach.
   • Understand Context: The most appropriate action will depend on the situation. For example, very explicit, “visceral” forms of racism might require more confrontational tactics.
   • Recognize the Benefits: Bystander action can provide satisfaction to the responder, educate the perpetrator, and, importantly, establish social norms that constrain racist behavior and influence attitudes in the long term.
3. Advocate for Social Justice and Systemic Change:
   • Support Inclusive Policies: Advocate for policies that tackle discrimination, promote equal opportunity, and resist explicitly racist practices.
   • Increase Visibility: Work to increase the visibility of minorities in media and other public spaces.
   • Hire and Train Diverse Staff: Support the hiring, training, and recruitment of people of color in organizations, especially those serving diverse racial groups.
4. Promote Empowerment and Alternative Approaches:
   • Center Lived Experiences: Prioritize the experiences of service users, validating their life experiences, belief systems, and strengths.
   • Use Inclusive Language: Adopt language that avoids stigmatization, labels, and judgments, focusing instead on people’s strengths. This includes using interpreters and translated documents where necessary.
   • Support Holistic Healing: In contexts like mental health, promote alternative and holistic healing strategies that respect diverse worldviews, moving beyond purely biomedical approaches.
5. Build Alliances:
   • Collaborate: Establish and develop community alliances, collaborations, and partnerships with other oppressed groups.
   • Strengthen Communities: Support ethno-specific projects and services that are managed by people from within the racialized communities they serve.

The Ongoing Journey of Anti-Racism

Anti-racism is not a straightforward “good versus evil” narrative. It is a complex and sometimes contradictory struggle, taking place within and against existing social norms and forces. It requires continuous commitment, as societies face ongoing challenges, such as the naturalization of ethnic differences and cultural exclusion.

By committing to these principles and actively engaging in the strategies outlined, you can play a crucial role in dismantling systems of oppression and fostering a society where all individuals can thrive. Let’s work together to create a more just and equitable world.

Photo by Zoe VandeWater on Unsplash