Indigenous White Wisdom: What Anti-racism Allies say are Best Practices

(part 3 of an occasional series)

Mr. Bartholomew Jojo Simpson contemplates best practices for anti-racism allies

Good Advice: telling people your opinion about what they need to do about their challenges

Great Advice: helping people access the wisdom they already have about their challenges

I am on a team of people who have travel the country giving workshops to provide guidance to anti-racism allies (primarily white) who want to become more effective in addressing statements that are racist, racially problematic, or racism-denying. These workshops are part of a project called the Ally Conversation Toolkit (ACT); the project aims to reduce the portion of white Americans who deny racism’s existence from its current level of 55% to 45% by 2025.

As discussed in the previous article in this occasional series, one segment at the start of the workshops is something we cheekily call Indigenous White Wisdom. In this segment, one of the questions we typically ask is: What are the conversational strategies that tend to be effective and ineffective when talking to racists and racism minimizers? (Within ACT, people who make statements that are racist, racially problematic, or racism-denying are called racism skeptics). In the previous article in this occasional series, I discussed some of the most common mistakes — what one might call…