The Avondhu

‘WHAT WHITE PEOPLE CAN DO NEXT: FROM ALLYSHIP TO COALITION’

BY EMMA DABIRI

Emma Dabiri is an Irish-Nigerian academic, activist, broadcaster and teaching fellow in the Africa Department at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) and a Visual Sociology PhD researcher at Goldsmiths.

In her latest book, ‘What White People can do Next’, she draws on the past along with envisioning futures to challenge us all to create lasting change!

In less than 200 hundred pages, she goes beyond the current discourse within and surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement or the BLM hashtag online, by digging into why people were racialized as black in the first place and how these categories have always existed to create division, travelling way back into colonial times.

Looking into this history of colonisation, she interrogates whiteness and urges us to do the same. What is whiteness? Why do I think

that? Who wants me to think this? Once we can recognise the fictionality of race, we can start to unlearn it, dismantle it in society and unite in solidarity.

Likewise, she criticizes ‘allyship’ for working as a saviourist’s charity act and because a white person can still believe they are superior and hold biases towards BIPOC (Black and Indigenous People of Colour) whilst being an ally. That doesn’t mean white people shouldn’t be involved in the fight to end racism, she powerfully makes the case for coalition as the next step towards radial justice.

This book encases lessons for everyone to learn, but also questions and prompts to reflect on, urging us to look internally. Too often, we see racism portrayed in the media as a violent victim-perpetrator situation but we all need to understand that though we may not call ourselves ‘racist’... we live in a society that birthed racism and upholds it. We’ve been taught injustices and now, we need to collectively unlearn them!

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2021-09-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://avondhu.pressreader.com/article/281925956157021

The Avondhu (Ireland)