Today, we are going to be talking about whitelash. What is whitelash? According to Jemar Tisby, it is like a social version of Newton’s Third Law: for every antiracist action there will be an equal (or disproportionate) and opposite reaction. Historical examples: after the civil war freed slaves, Jim Crow laws oppressed these newly freed Americans by subjecting them to racist laws. After the Civil Rights Movement, mass incarceration was used to “restore law and order”. After the first Black President in the United States, policies to attack and defund Critical Race Theory, Diversity Equity and Inclusion Programs, and antiracism and anti-oppression education became mainstream. And curiously, each example of whitelash twisted scripture to encourage white Christian institutions to justify the use of power to harm people of color and others who pushed for justice and equality.
Our multiethnic team of Christian antiracism educators and friends talk about the phenomenon of whitelash today as part of our series discussing Jemar Tisby’s book The Spirit of Justice: True Stores of Faith, Race and Resistance. A link to purchase this book is provided in the show notes for this episode.
Let’s go now and listen to this conversation.
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